By Andrew Bansal
Austin, Texas based classic hard rockers Scorpion Child are set to release their self-titled debut album on June 25th in North America via Nuclear Blast Records. The label might have unleashed a gem here as the band’s music is a modern take on the old-school 70s sound. Through this debut release, the band is certainly proving themselves to be more than a mere 70s revival act, and they are here to achieve more than simply jumping on the bandwagon, so to speak. They completed a North American tour with Clutch and Orange Goblin earlier in the year, and are preparing for yet another massive tour, as they have just been announced as one of the replacements for Behemoth on the Mayhem Festival. Check out my recent interview with bassist Shaun Avants below, check out Scorpion Child at this year’s Mayhem Fest, and visit them online using the links at the bottom.
Firstly, I would like to ask you about the recent US tour that you did with Clutch and Orange Goblin. What was that like?
It was freaking amazing to be thrown on such a tour where 1500-2500 people were filling out the venues every night. It was pretty cool, probably the most regimented tour we’ve ever done, not D.I.Y at all, a lot of people to answer to and schedules to adhere to. The Clutch guys were great, and everybody on that tour was amazing, just so much fun hanging out with them. There are just so many highlights that I could mention (laughs), like Dave Grohl, John Garcia and Nick Oliveri being at our show in LA. It was just amazing for us to be able to do something like that, to really be playing in front of large amounts of people night after night, and travel through the States and Canada for that long. It was definitely a great experience!
Wasn’t this tour like a last-minute thing for you guys, because the original opening band dropped out?
Yeah, Kyng were supposed to be on it but their drummer got into a car accident and broke his collar bone. So we just kind of got brought on last minute.
So, knowing that you got on the touring lineup just a few days before the start of it, a lot of people wouldn’t have been aware of you at all. What response did you get when people saw you perform at these shows?
It was embraced wonderfully! I think the one thing we really had going for us in that aspect was, we kind of had this element of surprise. You expect that the first band on a four-band bill to be the kind of band that you can miss, so the only expectation that we had when we went out, if anything, was just that we wanted to be the band that if you were there to see us, you were telling all your friends who came late about them missing out for not showing up early. I think we also caught a lot of people off-guard too because we had 25 minutes, so we just came out playing. We tried to set the bar every night for the whole show with the energy level. Even after 25 minutes, we were dripping with sweat, really just came at everybody and I think a lot of people really responded to that. We’ve definitely made new fans. When we come back around to the same markets again soon, I can expect a lot of these people to show up again to see us.
Talking of your music, you have that whole 70s hard rock influence going on. The thing is, a lot of bands are doing that these days. What do you feel about that? Is it a good thing to kind of help you along the wave, or is it more like competition?
I don’t think there’s competition at all. The 70s revival thing is a wave that’s happening right now and it’s definitely benefitting us because it’s allowing us to get a foot in the door and to actually have a market to play to, but to us it’s really important to reiterate that while we draw from a lot of 70s classic rock and obscure 70s bands, we don’t want to be a revivalist or throwback band. We don’t want to get pigeonholed into that, and I think the record speaks for itself. We really take something old but we try to push it forward. So instead of just being the revivalist, kind of playing the same kind of stuff and be limited to that, we really try to do something modern and put an progressive stamp on it.
I guess the key to succeeding in this kind of musical style is, to not be too different on purpose and rather just try to do well at what you’re doing.
Yeah, exactly. The thing we draw most from the 70s music is the courage to explore and to try different things in the songwriting. I think that’s really what we take away from the 70s classic sound, the songwriting. It didn’t sound cookie-cutter and it didn’t sound like it was manufactured. There was a lot of emotion, heart and soul in it, an honesty in the music. So the honesty and integrity of that emotion is what we take away from that. I think when we write and put a modern stamp on it, most of the musical influences that we grew up with were based in the 80s and 90s, so that would be new wave, post-rock, hardcore, the Seattle sound. That’s really what influenced us musically, and that was our musical revolution going on. But it seems as of late that rock stations are not even playing rock in their shows anymore. It’s all very visual, pale stuff and it lacks that emotion and heart. So what we take away most from the 70s is the vibe, you know.
Obviously the debut album is coming out on June 25th, but you guys formed in 2006, if I’m not wrong. During this 7-year period what have you gone through and how have you worked your way through?
The vocalist Aryn and I started this around 6 years ago, and at that time we had a different lineup. We just started playing together and learning what kind of sound was coming out of this collaboration. I would say it was definitely a lot more of a throwback, may be a little too saturated with the 70s. It was almost satire when I look back on it (laughs). But we were just learning our sound, and then Aryn and I just decided that we really want to do this for the rest of our lives. We really wanted to take a serious approach towards being able to play music. Some people just weren’t on board with committing to the longevity of that. They couldn’t handle that aspect of it. So the lineup changed and we had to bring on a new lineup. We brought in people that really shared this kind of same vision that Aryn and I had for the next step that we wanted to take. Obviously, we were rooted in that 70s sound but we wanted to do something that was a lot more progressive and had a lot of forward momentum in it. It seemed like we were there all these years and they were just kind of getting wasted where nothing was happening, but in hindsight from the position we are at now, it was necessary for all of that to happen so that we could be in the right mindset and find the right players, and really start forming a team and a family to push this band forward.
You guys are based in Austin, Texas, a city which is very commonly known to be receptive to arts and music. What kind of effect has that had on your band?
When you’re just starting out as a new band, it’s great to be in Austin surrounded by creativity and by people wanting to do things. So you really have an outlet for it. There are plenty of places to play. There is always an opportunity and so many other bands to play with, but we had our eyes on a bigger prize and if we focussed too much on staying in Austin being an Austin band, then that’s all we were ever going to be. We always say that the difference is, you can be an Austin band or you can be a band from Austin. And we just want to be the band from Austin that goes beyond city limits as opposed to being a band that just plays within the city. There’s definitely a lot of competition too and that keeps everybody on their toes, making everybody better players.
And final question I have for you is, there are some older bands that have obviously influenced you, that we can make out from your music. But what are some of the not-so-obvious influences that you cite when you write your music?
Well, it varies from person to person to be honest with you. Our drummer cites Depeche Mode, Duran Duran and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as his main influences for how he plays and his style. Aryn takes his vocal stylings from an array of different bands ranging from punk rock to progressive. I’m a huge Omar Rodriguez-Lopez fan. I think that anything that guy does is amazing, whether it’s his solo stuff, The Mars Volta or At The Drive-In, as far as heroes go for me and musical stylings that influenced me, I really like how he takes the elements of rock and does something different with it. That’s a pattern that I would try to emulate. I know that our guitarist Chris Cowart likes to listen to the old Roadrunner bands like Glassjaw and the post-hardcore stuff. I grew up on soundtracks and country music because of my mom. So, it would be so hard to say which bands influence us but it’s definitely the musical revolutions that were going on. There are just so many little tiny influences and nuances engrained in each one of us while growing up that it’s really hard to define how all those elements make up our creative brains individually.
Links:
ScorpionChild.com
facebook.com/ScorpionChild
twitter.com/ScorpionChild
youtube.com/ScorpionChildmusic