INTERVIEW - Senses Fail by
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review of Senses Fail live at the Apollo!
It’s just a couple of hours before Senses Fail take to the stage amongst acts including Anti-Flag, Taking Back Sunday, Alexisonfire and Underoath as part of the Taste of Chaos tour which is taking place in venues across the UK throughout November. Like the Alexisonfire interview which happened moments before, this meeting with Mike Glita, of New Jersey five-piece Senses Fail, takes place in a similarly grim room. A thoroughly polite guy, I’m learning that members of ‘Screamo’ bands aren’t half as scary as their music would have you believe…
EM: Obviously, Entertainment Manchester is based in Manchester. What are your favourite Manchester bands?
Mike: I couldn’t tell you who is from Manchester. I know bands from England…I like Muse a lot. I like some of the Lostprophets stuff (to any Welsh readers, most Americans do not know that Wales isn’t in England) Biffy Clyro….they’re from Scotland…(at this point, both EM and EM’s little brother express delight in a shared love of the mighty Biffy) What bands are from Manchester?
EM: Oasis…
Mike: Oh. I guess I like their first album.
EM: For readers of the website who might not have heard of Senses Fail, can you describe your sound in three words?
Mike: Loud….Intricate, a little bit……arse-kicking!
EM: How were the other dates on the tour, Birmingham and Glasgow?
Mike: Well, essentially it’s the whole world. As far as the UK goes, it’s been cool. Glasgow was really fun last night, Birmingham was cool. We like Manchester too…
EM: Good! How have the past two years been since releasing your first album?
Mike: Yeah, it’s been pretty busy!
EM: You’ve come from being an underground band to selling thousands of records; do you miss the old scene?
Mike: I mean, we’ve really stayed true to the roots that we started with but there’s definitely been an evolution. We have a new guitarist so that’s brought something new. Our roots definitely come through from the first record into the second…
EM: Your lead singer brought the band together through posting an ad on the internet, what do you think of this as a medium for spreading music?
Mike: The internet’s good for bands that are just starting out now. It’s been great. You can be a band in the UK and have fans in the US, even if you have never been there. You can get to them. People always ask about CD sales, but if you only have one good song on an album…Things travel a lot quicker, if you’re a band that doesn’t have albums people can still find out about you. Any kind of music and any kind of band needs support.
EM: The Apollo is a middle-sized venue; do you prefer smaller venues as opposed to larger ones?
Mike: For us, the Apollo is a big venue. To me, it’s fun playing all kinds of shows. Something like this is good because you have enough room on stage to not feel cramped and the kids aren’t so far away from you that you can’t connect with them. Playing an arena is sweet, but when you’re thirty feet away from the fans you can’t connect. Something around the 1000 or 2000 capacity is big but not super-big. You can still see the band; you’re not all the way up at the back in the seats.
EM: Is the touring lifestyle really so crazy?
Mike: I guess it’s the band that makes it what it is. When you’re just starting out, you party a lot. But at this point…all the bands hang out, do our thing, play our shows. After a while of course you get tired. People are like “you only play for half an hour or an hour a day”, but after three months straight your body starts to get tired from beating itself up.
EM: You’re touring almost constantly until December 21st, are you going home for Christmas?
Mike: Yeah, we get two weeks off for Christmas and then we’ll be doing something after that but we’re not sure yet…
…Watch this space!
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