Exclusive: Act As One Interview

Pop Punk/Thrash outfit Act As One announced their planned break-up in late-July, but after playing their final show in early-September, the band realised they weren't done just yet. Proving that they're resuming right where they left off, the band's next release is already in the works. Read on to catch our interview with the band where they explain it all.

First off, could you state your name and role in Act As One?

Taylor Nagel - Vocals
Shawn Brown - Guitar
Jared McNally - Guitar
Levi King - Bass
Ben Hoffman - Drums

Give us a little background information on the band; how did you guys start off and how was the band name chosen?

Act As One: Shawn wanted to start a Pop Punk band after his previous band broke up. He recorded some songs and put them on a Myspace account as a sort of help wanted ad for other musicians to join in. Jared and Taylor ended up joining the effort, as well as the guys who are now known as a couple of our ex-members. A little social networking goes a long way, right? It's funny you ask about the band name, because its background story is probably as lame as stories get. We were obviously stumped, as most bands are, when it came to picking a band name. Well, Shawn and Jared were doing some heavy texting one day. While Shawn was at work, he found a coffee mug with three fighter jets on it, and an inspirational quote. You know, the kind of quote that is supposed to motivate you to drink more coffee and work harder. It read, Above and beyond, when a group of dedicated individuals come together to act as one, the sky is the limit. Yeah, our name came from a motivational coffee mug. Some more lyrics and a song title were yanked from the same mug. Yes, we still have the coffee mug!

So the question on everyone's mind is, what happened with the break-up? What initially brought on the planned disbandment and how did you end up deciding to stay together?

Act As One: The break-up really came up out of nowhere. We were jamming some new stuff with different people just as side projects and somehow it turned in to the band splitting up. We were thinking, oh let's just chill out on the Act As One thing for a while and have some fun playing other music with new guys. You know that old saying, hindsight is 20/20? After playing what was supposed to be our final show we thought, what the hell are we doing?. It was such a quick process, deciding to break up, being broken up, getting things going again. We're not even sure we really know what was going on in our heads during the months of August through September. It almost seems like people think it was all a big joke, because we have that sort of reputation! As stupid as it seems, we were completely serious!

I also noticed that Levi has replaced Matt on bass, did this also happen during the break-up?

Act As One: We initially stole Matt Feith from his old band. After we decided to call it a day, Matt went back to playing bass for that same band. Strange as it may seem, Levi had just quit playing bass for the band that Matt went back to playing bass for. Matt didn't want to screw over his old friends again, and Levi was a good friend of ours, so everything kind of worked itself out. What can we say, that band just pumps out cool bassists!

Earlier in the year, the band also posted 2 new songs and a Mötley Crüe cover, through Facebook - were these demos for your upcoming release and are they still being used?

Act As One: These are definitely demos for our upcoming release. The Crüe cover won't be on the release. That was just for fun. The three new songs, That's What She Said, The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday, and Forgive And Forget, are all tracks that will be on the new release.

Speaking of, when and what can we expect from the band's next release? Are you guys still signed with Capeside?

Act As One: We aren't sure whether we are going to do a full length or an EP yet. We've got quite a bit of material that we're working with. Capeside released our first full length [No Looking Back] and our EP [Bone To Be Radical], but we are not on contract with them for any further releases. The new material definitely still packs a punch, and rides the line between Thrash and Pop Punk. It's our favorite stuff we've written, and we are very eager for everyone to hear it!

How close to finished was the new material before the break-up? I'm curious to know how much leaving the music unreleased contributed to staying together.

Act As One: We really only had those 3 new songs that were on our Facebook page completed before the break up. There were about 3 other new songs that we had, but we ended up scrapping those down the road, so the unreleased material didn't really contribute to staying together at all. The writing process picked right back up after deciding to keep things going. We threw a little bit of the new music in to our last update video, and we are throwing more of it in to this weeks update video as well.

Since updates have been a little scarce throughout the year, tell us how writing and recording the new songs compared to the band's previous releases.

Act As One: Whenever we write a new song, we record a full demo of it. We usually determine during the recording process whether or not it's going to stay or go. There have been more songs that got trashed during the recording process than there have been that found a place on the new release. The writing process has not changed much at all, but our sound seems to have evolved somewhat. We can honestly say that we're having a lot of fun jamming our new songs at rehearsals. It makes playing the old stuff feel a little weak in a way, but those old tracks definitely have their places. We'll be posting some more video updates soon, as Ben loves to go ham on the video. He does all that stuff for us.

I can think of very few other bands that make such a diverse musical combination, particularly between Pop Punk and Thrash. Aside from the standard Pop Punk bands, what're your biggest influences?

Act As One: If we each had to list a non-Pop Punk band that we listened to a whole bunch, that list would include Slipknot, The Acacia Strain, Meshuggah, and Soilwork. As weird as it sounds, our writing really doesn't take influence from any Pop Punk music at all! A few of us listen to the standard Pop Punk bands, but the guy who's writing most of the music, (Shawn), just jams to Metal albums all the time. Then Taylor plops his vocals in on top of it and suddenly we have a finished song. The contrast between the guitar riffage and Taylor's voice seem to make music that seems unique to us. The thought process behind writing our music just comes down to one thing - does it sound cool to our ears? We write songs for us, that we think would be cool to listen to and play. We think that's where we get a lot of crap for having genre confusion. We don't really care what genre we're classified in, we just want to play music that we like, so that's what we do!

I've always admired the contrast between the band's sense of humour/fun attitude and the seriously talented music. What would you say are your favourite aspects of being in a band?

Act As One: Thanks! Hanging out with each other, hands down. You could probably take whole 'band' thing away and still find us spending all of our time together. Making music together is cool, and playing shows is always awesome, but just having five dudes that you can count on in life trumps everything. We really do act as one.

Now that the band is back on track, what plans do you have for the future?

Act As One: We're just going to take it slow for now. We've booked some shows. We're working on some more out of state weekends/tours in the future. The main thing right now is to get our new members reacquainted with the band, and to finish recording our new release. After that, we'll take it day by day and see where things go! We're just having a lot of fun right now and hope to keep and harness that positive energy for whatever comes our way.

Thanks for your time, is there anything else you'd like to add?

Act As One: Thank YOU! We'd like to add that whoever is on Halo: Reach, and keeps whooping our asses, please stop. Also, if you're reading this and you're thinking about learning to play an instrument, or starting a band, please DO IT! The memories you make will be worth it. We'd like to say thank you to our supportive fans, friends, and families. We'll see ya'll on the road somewhere!

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