“It was all very natural actually, we whipped the band
members around a bit and it all just flowed out in a cohesive way,” gleams Cody
Bonnette, lead singer and guitarist with Louisiana’s lean, mean and starkly
honest As Cities Burn, on the creation of one of this years most cohesive and
ambitious pieces of alternative rock to date.
“We wanted to conjure something that would inspire us and inspire people
in general. The first album was very
spiritual, it was very self taught having been brought up in the church. ‘Come Now Sleep’ is about growing up and
saying lets apply all the elements to real life and to us as human beings, it’s
a conversation with God where we’re saying ya know God, I don’t understand
these things but I feel like it’s ok because we’re not supposed to understand
everything are we?”
The timing is perfect for Headwarmer to catch up with
Bonnette, he’s riding in the back of his bands tour van somewhere in Pennsylvania,
on their way to the latest in a 5 week tour of emotion fuelled live shows that
set this band uniquely apart from their rapidly expanding pool of peers. Having recently released their second LP
through Tooth & Nail, the aforementioned ‘Come Now Sleep’, he’s able to
describe how his band is venturing into unchartered territory, hoping to make
friends and influence a few more people along the way. “We’re headed somewhere I’m not sure where,
but the tour’s going pretty well so far. We’re in the north east of the
For those who have not yet been exposed to the rich
rewards embedded deep within their music, As Cities Burn debut ‘Son, I loved
you at Your Darkest’ is pure post-hardcore and a wedge of blistering street punk;
loaded with an uncompromising underground feel, lead by an intense vocal and the
sort of trademark striking riffs and choruses that will still nail your scrotum
to the nearest tree. Where Cody has now
assumed vocal responsibility it would seem by default upon the departure of his
brother TJ for this second opus, he brings to the fore a more melodic and
varied range of styles that loses none of his screaming siblings underlying
aggression, the raw-boned rock personalities and churning compositions firmly
intact.
Having started out back in 2002, Cody – now supported
by guitarist Christopher Lott, bassist Colin Kimble and drummer Aaron Lunsford –
acknowledges that the departure of his brother gave them the opportunity to
harness a slightly more immediate rock sound.
“When we were on tour for the first album I could feel us pulling
towards what you hear on ‘Come Now Sleep’, so we needed to figure out how we
were gunna deal with that and create what we were all thinking. So when TJ said he was leaving to get married
it started to become a little clearer that that could be the reason to change
direction. ‘Come Now Sleep’ is just as
intense as our earlier stuff, but in a lighter more varied way.” While it seems they’re more at home with the
broad diversity of the new album and rightly so; it sports a coherence rarely
found in most modern records, Cody takes a moment to consider the influence his
brother had on their conception and persona.
“He brought a lot of life and spirit to the band so it was hard to lose
him. Chris our guitarist reminds me a
lot of TJ, a free spirit in every way.
Whenever you lose a vocalist with that style your music may become more
marketable and we never write intending to be mainstream, but we thought the
band could be more appealing if we weren’t in the hardcore scene, but the
industry in general is so tough these days and TJ has really given the platform
for us to move forward.”
In many ways there are similarities to their work; the
shards of guitar fuelled noise that emanated from their debut has most
definitely carried over, while Cody’s larynx still undergoes all manner of
raw-throated torture in songs like ‘The Hoard’, ‘New Sun’ and ‘Wrong
Body’. But while the modern day scene is
a bottomless well of hardcore and post-hardcore racket-o-rama, As Cities Burn
join the likes of Brand New, Circa Survive and mewithoutYou in adding another
colour to the burgeoning canvas of outstanding US alternative mayhem. “We started off as post-hardcore but we feel
like we wanna do more indie rock if you like, a more modern rock ‘n’ roll
thing, kinda like the bands we’ve been brought up on; At the drive in, Sunny
Day Real Estate, Further Seems Forever, even The Beatles. Can you imagine the great songs John Lennon
would be writing today if he were alive with all this technology at his
fingertips? On the next album we may
have weeded that hardcore out completely because our songs seem to want to get
simpler and simpler and a lot of the time with hardcore, everyone’s trying to
get that complex intricate thing going on. I just wanna make songs that people can feel
and if there’s so much else going on then people actually forget to feel
something for it.”
In such an oversaturated market, any aspiring young
musical collective will have their metal and ingenuity tested to the full and
Cody sums this up nicely, “it’s like a huge pond with too many fish at the
moment. Soon a load will start to die
and it ends up coming full circle; we’ll have the right amount of fish in the
right sized pond. The hope is that there
will be a load that don’t stick it out or put there all in to it, eventually
giving up, leaving space for the rest to roam free.”
By stripping away the over-intellectualisation of some
rock music today, ‘Come Now Sleep’ offers you a far better record than ‘Son, I
Loved you at Your Darkest’ simply by highlighting their strengths, and what
strengths! Pulling on every emotional
chord and allowing the music to unwind over the listener, delivering that
adrenaline rush that hits you right between the eyes as soon as the first riff
kicks in. Despite this Cody and co.
carry that most unenviable of tags, ‘Christian Rock’, it has to be said, with a
crisp, unfussy aplomb and while most will look the other way, Headwarmer urges you
to see the light. “The Christian rock
tag probably hinders us more than anything.
It tends to turn people off but I think if they give it a chance, we’re
not like the generic run of the mill stuff that has cliché lyrics and a lot of
Christian music is pretty bad ‘cos it’s so unoriginal; we wanna make it more
real.”
When the demise of As Cities Burn was prematurely
announced back in June 2006, even the remaining three-some couldn’t have
predicted the response from their fans; an outpouring of support and
acknowledgement that would prove to be pivotal in their fledgling careers. “When TJ left to get married, at first we
said no we’re splitting up and we started to play a farewell tour. We then realised that we shouldn’t throw this
good thing away because one guy has to move on; we realised our work as As
Cities Burn wasn’t done yet.” And the
rock world rejoiced! Long may this story of belief and intrigue continue
because we’re hooked; you should be too.