Interview & Photos by Madison Boyce
I know you guys just finished a weekend run with Promiser! How was that?
Chris: Amazing! It was fun.
Dan: It was cool! They were really really nice.
Chris: They were really good. Every show was different and cool in its own way.
How do you go about choosing bands to tour with?
Chris: I’ll be honest with you, I kinda just find bands that I like that are around the band popularity and following as us. I will check them out and if I like them I’ll be like, “Hey! Do you guys wanna do the thing?”. I kinda pick based off where we wanna go and what areas we wanna hit!
Dan: Chris will normally tell me to look up a band and I’ll listen to them and like he’ll ask me if I like this band and if I think they will be a good fit or not.
What is the song or band that got you into playing music?
Chris: It wasn't until I was 15/16 years old I heard “The Permanent Rain” by The Dangerous Summer for the first time. I heard it for the first time on Pandora radio and I stopped and I was like, “Hey! What is this? I like this! I need more of it! This is the kind of music I want to write. This is the kind of music I want to play.”
Dan: For me it's probably The Great Escape by Boys Like Girls. I think I was like 14 watching their documentary and they looked like they were having fun and I was like, “Hm I wanna have fun because I’m not really having fun.” So, I started learning how to play the drums and I ventured out.
When did you both start playing music?
Chris: I just turned 12 years old, I got my first guitar for my 12th birthday. I started taking guitar lessons a few months later and I’ve been doing the thing ever since. I started singing when I was 15?16 and I took it seriously around 17/18.
Dan: I started playing music when I was 14. I started on drums and after a year and a half I started playing guitar! Then I started playing bass a year and 2 months ago so I could join Highwind.
What inspired your new song, “2023”?
Chris: So, It was about 3 years ago. It wasn't too long after Adam, the guy who “Afterlife” was written about had passed away. I was hanging out at CJ’s/his brother/the guy who proceed “How've You Been?”. They were having a get together and after hanging out and playing a bunch of Smash Bros, I wanna say CJ was playing a Sword Art Online video game and he was like, “Hey we should watch this!” So, we watched 3 episodes of Sword Art Online and I cried during the 3rd one because it was during a death that was important to me, but not really important to the show. I was still sad about it a week later so I wrote about the death of said character. So, “2023” is literally my telling of episode 3 of Sword Art Online.
It was recently announced that you guys will be opening for Homesafe on November 30th at the Voltage Lounge in Philly. How did that come about?
Chris: So, okay. Long story short, but cool story we were offered a show and that show fell through. The guy who produced, “2023” Pete also books with ACI Entertainment. After the whole show fall through happened he was like, “Hey this show needs an opener, I wanna pitch you guys for it. Would you guys be interested?” We looked at the lineup and we couldn't say no! It's such a stacked bill so we said, “Yeah, let's do it! We haven't done Pennsylvania in a hot minute it’ll be fun.”
Now that you guys have been getting more exposure, do you think this coming year will be something big for you?
Chris: Oh yes, absolutely.
Dan: Yeah we have some plans.
Chris: We have a lot of plans. New music, venturing out more, more shows, and more cool things outside of new music and shows. We have some more stuff in the works. I’m excited!
