Drewsif Stalin (Andrew Reynolds) Ryan McNamara John Puglia Jay Pritsker Danny Zawodny |
Here are the questions I asked them and below are their group responses:
1. What inspired you guys to play music?
Ryan and John actually started their instruments (guitar and drums) only a year or two before the earliest forms of TTA developed. Danny, Drew, and Jay have all been playing music since for a long....long time. We were all big fans of metal when we were younger. We went to shows all the time to see our favorite bands and such, we totally idolized those guys. Playing on stage is every metal head's dream. So for John and to some extent: Ryan, love of metal caused us to start playing in the first place. For those of us who already played, our interest in metal shifted our direction. Basically, we started playing music cause we loved it and we wanted to be able to play it ourselves.
2. How has mucis changed your life?
Music is a great emotional outlet. Playing and listening to it feels good. It is a great stress reliever and very important to all of us in that regard. For Drew, music is basically his whole life. He is a producer as well as a player, so that is a whole other level. It is definitely a huge part of all of us. We all love music in general and hope it stays a big part of our lives.
3. What bands do you guys like to listen to and how have they shaped your music?
There are way too many to list, honestly. You have the obvious ones like: Meshuggah, Tesseract, Periphery, all of the big ones. We draw on a lot of different types of music in our writing. You can hear influence from the big iconic bands like we mentioned before, but we take from music all across the spectrum. There are parts of our songs that have a lot of post-rock influence, djent influence, deathcore/metalcore, and so on. We all like a lot of stuff, so it finds its way into the music (haha).
4. What advice do you guys have for others that want to pursue in music?
Work, work, work, and more work. Nothing will be handed to you and in today's industry people are only going to take notice of you if you give them a reason to and put yourself out there enough. Above all, make music you love and are proud of, never give up because it is not going to be easy.
5. Where did you guys gte the idea for the name of your band?
We have been trying to come up with a good name for the band for a while and were having some trouble settling on one. Drew and Jay are big fans of the YouTube series: Marble Hornets and after writing the song "Turn, Look, Run." based on the Slender Man mythos, they suggested the name “ToTheArk” from one of the channels owned by the Marble Hornets Team. We thought it was a cool name and we definitely liked that it is a little bit different from the names you typically come across in our genre. Pretty much everyone was on board with that name right away, so it was painless (haha).
6. What do you guys want your fans to know about you that they might not know already?
We were all friends long before the formation of TTA. Many people say that you can't have a band with your friends and it does present its own unique set of issues, but we love it. We have not had any real problems resulting from us being friends. We think playing music you love with your best friends is a pretty good deal!
7. What do you guys think when you are on stage?
Jay: Before the show, I tend to get pretty nervous. I always worry about forgetting lyrics, not performing my best, my singing/screaming/growling not sounding as good as I want, or not being energetic enough. When I finally get on stage and Drew starts up the first click track for John, it all goes away. I let myself loose. I act as if I am in the crowd for one of my favorite bands and that is why I am always all over the stage jumping and stomping around.
Ryan: Personally my mind is pretty blank and just focused on the music, so that I am putting on a good show.
John: I am usually a little nervous and just generally excited. Once we start, the whole set is like a crazy adrenaline ride. I actually have a lot of trouble remembering most shows because my brain is so hyped up while we are playing. I don't think about anything except my click track, for the most part. Sometimes I take notice when the crowd is especially lively or something, but it is mostly all about playing.
Drew: It is business time.
Danny: While we are setting up I usually have some butterflies and start worrying about screwing up, unplugging myself, running into Jay, falling over, pretty much every disaster scenario. Right before we start I close my eyes and take a deep breath because I am just trying to focus. Then it is just about the music and how to put on the most fun show for everyone watching.
ToTheArk is a very creative band, in that they all are best friends and are in a band because they love music, so they want people to be in love with music as they are. Such kind people to think of the fans and not themselves :). So like their page, go to their show, and if you do all this then they will love you forever... and ever :)
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