Interview with Eli Degroff (Sinking Steps...Rising Eyes, Roman Ships)

I can vividly remember where I first heard Sinking Steps...Rising Eyes. I can recall walking down the hallway of my high school sometime in early 2012, after I just uploaded a fresh batch of music onto my iPod classic the night before. I scrolled down to their name and opted for their first EP instead of the LP. I clicked the first track, which started out with a ride bell, followed by a fast picked octave chord over blast beating. Honestly, I immediately wrote it off as generic and quickly moved on to another band I wanted to check out.

About a month later I was scrolling through again and came across the name and decided to give it a good honest listen before I just wrote it off. Around the 50 second mark of the first track, I was hooked. This band I had written off on the surface previously now had my full attention. I think I listened to the entire EP a bunch throughout my school day, and walking around town.

A quick google search revealed that they were from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where a lot of my favorite bands hail from. As time would pass, that EP would be solidified in my favorite releases of all time. The emotion in the lyrics, the beautiful guitars, bass, well accompanied drums, keyboards and even a flute solo, continues to make me feel today as if i'm listening for the very first time.

After the EP the band released what is considered by hardcore fans of screamo to be the absolute pinnacle of the genre, an LP called Majestic Blue. A big departure from their previous release, it's a heavily layered album with longer, more elaborate songs, and more experimental additions to the point where it actually set the bar higher for me on what can be included on a screamo/hardcore record.

After a two song EP and a reunion at Initfest in 2011, the band has remained quiet ever since. I've always been insanely curious as to what the bands influences are, and just finding out more about them in general, so I got in contact with Eli DeGroff, and he agreed to this interview. If you've made it this far through my rambling and fanboy-ness, read on!

NJ: I start off each interview having the person talk about their childhoods. What kind of house did you grow up in? Was there a presence of music in your household?

Eli: I grew up in South Dakota, in a good stable home. My dad worked for the state in human services/counseling etc, and rebuilt cars for extra money and my mom was a stay-at-home mom at least until I was in middle school I think, then she worked at the schools to be involved and close to us. I have a twin brother (identical) and one older brother (3 years older).

Pretty religious home, active in the church etc, my mom played piano at home and at church, and my mom used to play ukulele, and she had an acoustic guitar, but I don't think she really played it or knew how.

NJ: Being from a religious home, was your first exposure to music through the church? Or did your parents have their own records they would play in the house?

Eli: Her dad was a piano player, a good one, he wrote music and played with Lawrence Welk some before he was really big I believe. My parents had a lot of records.. My dad and mom, probably more so my dad, were into music when they were in college, Zeppelin , Bob Dylan, Moody Blues, James Taylor, Janis Joplin, stuff like that. I don't know if heard much of that at home ever. I think by the time I was old enough to have memories, it was mostly christian music.

I really liked music, i had to buy music at the christian music store though. But I didn't really know any better so i got into bands like Stryper, Petra, Rez when I was like 7-10 age range.

In the late 80's there all that super fear of "satanic" music and shit. I remember they had seminars at our church about all this "satanic" stuff in music. Pretty funny in retrospect.
That "stuff you should know" podcast recently did a good episode on that era called the "satanic panic"

NJ :How did you get into “alternative” music (punk, hardcore, etc) from your christian music roots? Recall your first exposure to this, and talk about how you felt when upon discovering it.

Eli: By the time I was 10 - 12 years old, I was getting into radio music or hard rock secular music. Slaughter, Ratt, etc, the good stuff haha. Once I was in high school I was getting really interested in music and finding out there was more out there than what was on the radio, so that was really exciting for me. When I was a freshman/sophomore I got really into Phish and jam stuff and my older brother was really into that stuff and I think I went to some shows with him. It really wasn't my bag exactly but I was into the community/underground part of it.

Then when I was a junior I think, I was working at a grocery store and one of my coworkers was in a grade below me and I knew him and his friends were "punks" and had a band. He would let me borrow his car sometimes for lunch so I could go get food and smoke his cigs, haha, and I would listen to whatever he had in his car, it was stuff like NOFX, Rancid, Pennywise, Bosstones, etc, it blew my mind. I was like "yes this is what I have been looking for". I asked him to give me recommendations on what I should go buy, so I starting buying tons of punk rock albums, and I went to some punk rock shows in Sioux Falls with him and his friends. We lived in Yankton then, (1 hour from Sioux Falls where I live now)

I was all in at that point. I started going to shows and finding out about more bands. It was a little weird cuz most of the music was very anti religious, which bothered me a little because it was still a big part of my identity at that point, but everything else about it made sense to me. I loved it.

NJ: What was the Sioux Falls scene like back when you first started going to shows? The community aspect in jam bands like Phish, Grateful Dead, is kind of similar to hardcore, though maybe not as die hard. Did you find that sense of community going to your first shows?
Also, a separate question, when you first started going to shows and listening to this music that has overtly anti-religious, anti-authority tones, how did your parents react to it all?

Eli: At that point I didn't really know anyone in the Sioux Falls scene, but there were tons of local bands which was really inspiring. There was a really cool bar/venue that was kind of legendary and they did lots of all ages shows, so some really amazing bands played there. I remember lots of flyers of shows that later I wish I would have seen, but i didn't know whose those bands were at that point. My first few shows were bands like Mu330, Suicide Machines, Dillinger 4, FYP, and some basement shows of local hardcore bands. I don't know if I saw that community at the first few shows, but the kids I knew from Yankton that I went with and I saw some of that later, more so in just the "team" aspect. I felt like I was part of something rad.

My parents knew I was getting into a lot of extreme music, punk and hardcore, screamy stuff, at that point they didn't hassle me about what I was listening to. They didn't really ask me about it, I tried not to play stuff at home with swearing and stuff.

I remember one time when I was home from college the first year, and I had a Nobodys CD in my car, and if you know that band, its filthy fast shitty punk. Probably the song about "I wanna fuck your girlfiend " or something was on, my dad was just like "i don't think i wanna listen to that" or something and turned it down. I think it was a mix of trusting me and knowing they didn't have much say in the matter anymore. My dad was always good at knowing when it was time to let me make my own decisions on things.

NJ: So, after you started going to more underground shows, at what point did you start to play an instrument? Or does your first instrument experience pre-date your discovery of the Sioux Falls punk scene?

Eli: Yeah, so I didn't pick up a guitar till I was 18, so my senior year I was at a friends house and he had a guitar. I picked it up and started fooling around with it and it made sense. I saved some money and my parents helped me buy an electric guitar and little practice amp, then I started playing a few hours a day. I was obsessed, figuring out how to play shitty punk songs and stuff...

My first year of college I was still going to lots of shows and playing guitar with friends. I was at a show and a band from small town nearby played. I lived in that town (Mitchell) when I was 5-10 years old. One of the people in the band was my 3rd grade teacher, and so I was talking to them, and later that year, a few of the members were moving for college (they were in high school then) and needed a guitar player, so I was like me me me!!! so I started practicing with them and picked up all their songs in a few practices.

So that was my first band. I knew some people in Sioux Falls, so we played some shows in Sioux Falls, and other surrounding towns, and played my house at college, it ruled. We played for about a year, recorded a cassette tape and then a CD, then broke up.

I met a lot of Sioux Falls kids in hardcore bands through that and at that point I was in college 3 years I think. I was always playing music and failing out of school.

Some kids I knew were starting a new band and I was all about it. This was in the summer and we started practicing in Sioux Falls. I quit school, and moved to Sioux Falls and got a house with a few of them, and that was Sinking Steps...Rising Eyes. We wrote 5 songs that summer/fall and recorded, then went on tour the next summer

NJ: What year would that be that you first started playing guitar?

The first release from Sinking Steps was the 2002 E.P, if I’m correct. I read somewhere else that these songs were written sort of quickly just so you could tour. What were your influences in writing for SS...RE? What bands was everyone into going into this band? Talk about the SS...RE practices and how you all wrote together.

Eli: 1998 I got a guitar

Yeah, we wrote them pretty quick I would say, in a few months I think. For influences... hmmm, I'm sure we were all somewhat influenced by Spirit of Versailles (another Sioux Falls band) Brandon and Brogan and Mary were good friends with those guys. I was pretty into Orchid, Bright Calm Blue, Black Heart Procession, Blood Brothers, Red Scare, and bands like Neil Perry, Jeromes Dream were listened to a lot too by most of I think. I wouldn't say those were influences for me though. I listened to a lot of rock n roll stuff and pop punk type stuff too. I loved the Lillingtons, and Murder City Devils.

Most of the songs on that EP were written guitar first by me. A lot of it on an acoustic I was working at a music store/CD store in Brookings where I was in college, (before I moved ) and I would play acoustic when there was no one in the store, write stuff then bring it to practice. Then josh (drummer) and I would bang it out. But we practiced together, all at once, jamming through parts and bass and keys would play along til they found the parts they wanted. One song in particular was written around a bass line Seth wrote.

Originally it was just Brogan on bass, but while we were writing, he moved back to Dubai. His parents lived over there, but the plan was that he would come back at some point, so our friend Seth jumped in to play bass. Then when we knew Brogan was coming back, we wrote (Brandon wrote) 2nd bass lines for the songs. So Seth played high stuff, kind of like guitar melodies and Brogan played lower more "bass line" bass lines. So Seth had this noodley melodic thing he wrote, so I wrote guitar riffs over it and added a little structure and it turned out really sweet. That was "the deepest hymn" which is song 2 I think on the 2002 EP. At least on the CD version it was. I think we re-arranged the songs for the 7" so we could fit the songs on there.

Brandon and Brogan were in a band together before this but they didn't do much, played a few local shows, and Josh was in a band before this ( my first band used to play with them that's how I knew him before ) it was like a rap-core band, haha but I think this was soo much fun and we felt like we were pretty decent and writing fun music... so it was just such a fucking blast, those first 5-7 songs we wrote were just came together nicely.

NJ: Spirit Of Versailles was a local Sioux Falls band, would you say that band had a pretty huge effect and influence on the scene?

So, after you wrote the EP you hit the road with Sinking Steps, what were some of your first tour experiences like? Was a DIY ethic prominent in your band and important to you when it came to merch, and booking shows?

Eli: Yeah I think spirit had a big impact on the scene. They went on a few tours, and seeing another band do that really encourages/inspires other bands to do it too, showing that it can be done you know? Plus by doing that they brought a lot of bands to town, and a few of them had a house they would do shows at "the 605 house". I saw a lot of cool bands there. It helps give your town/bands some cred when touring. I would say they inspired us to write/record/tour they way we did and I know we had that same impact on bands that came later. We are a small place but we had a lot of bands touring in that indie/hardcore scene in that era, 2000 - 2006 era.

Tour was great. It was all of our first time touring. Josh and I were 22 I think and the rest of the crew was under 21. We were just stoked to be out on the road playing music and meeting people. I spent months going to the computer labs on the local college campus to try and book shows. We went out for a month and I think we played 22 some shows. We didn't know what we were doing and it's amazing it went as well as it did. We were having fun no matter what shows were like.

Yeah, DIY was super important... We booked everything ourselves, I screen printed our first batch of t shirts... for our first tour... I think we had a local shop print them for us. But the artwork was done by one of our vocalists, Aaron Hagen, and a friend of ours worked at a Kinkos and he was a show promoter and musician. He would always help local bands print CD packaging/paper stickers etc.

So we made CDR's and made hand made sleeve CD packaging. We made buttons and stickers too. Had someone print the vinyl stickers of course. We all pitched in and bought a van and a small trailer.

NJ: After you toured a bit with the EP songs, the next release would come out two years later and would be the release everyone is usually exposed to when listening to Sinking Steps, Majestic Blue. It’s a stark contrast between the EP songs. What was song writing like for this LP? Did the jam bands that you enjoyed when you were younger bleed into the song writing style? Talk about your influences and the period between the EP and the LP.

Eli: So much happened between those 2 recordings.

When we got back from that first tour, Brogan and I were homeless haha. We all moved out of our house before we left for tour so when we got back, we slept on some couches for a few weeks, I moved back to Brookings to start school again, and I would come back on weekends to practice. Josh was married and was having a kid, so he was kind of stepping away because he knew he wouldn't have much time, so we needed a drummer. Seth was going to get married and wanted to focus on that part of his life, and we didn't have a place to practice.

So I had moved back to Brookings, Brogan moved in with a bunch of other friends who used to be straight edge and now all were discovering drinking and smoking pot. I smoked pot and did drugs in high school, but really hadn't since. So since Brogan was smoking pot, I did sometimes too. Not a lot but kind of got into it again for awhile.

We tried playing with different local drummers and we found this kid Brandon (2nd Brandon in the band now) He had been in some other local bands, mostly pop punk/american football type stuff. He was much younger than us, I think he was in high school still. He had a much different style which changed things.

We got a practice space at this old building that some other bands we knew had spaces there. A spot opened up and we shared it with another band, so we had this big room that would set the vibe in. Before we had always been in our own basement.

There was a lot of transition going on. I was in Sioux falls all weekend, drinking, smoking pot, then I'd go back to school for the week. I wasn't very focused, getting shitty grades, so I was kind of depressed I would say. We were all getting really into bands like ISIS, Denali, Engine Down. Brogan was getting really into Beatles and Pink Floyd (funny, so cliche for new pot smokers)

So writing was much different. I would write guitar stuff at school, sometimes while smoking so I was writing from a much different place. I would say this time our writing was more collaborative. Brogan, Mary and I were really learning to listen to each other...

So with the new drummer and a more intentional writing style, it wasn't just guitar songs now. We were writing stream of consciousness style music with no parts repeated ever. Just what happens next. It took a long time to write those songs. Brandon (drummer) was always flaky and bailing on practice. By the time we recorded, he was done. But we got him to agree to record with us and play a few shows, then he could be done.

So when we did a short tour on majestic stuff. Josh (old drummer) played it. The core of the band was the same, but it was really a new band. We had all changed/evolved/morphed a lot. The first time was like "best friends/summer/fun" and nobody really drank or anything then. I had a beer once in awhile, but the tour was dry. Just good clean fun.

This time everyone was trying to figure out some life direction, and it was winter and more depressed, moody, drug and alcohol induced. At least Brogan and I were, maybe not Mary so much.

NJ: The vibe of that album really channels a dark and depressing mood. I recall a review where someone said the opening track reminds them of standing on a beach in the winter time. Just an overall gloomy mood. The song writing is stream of consciousness, but are you able to comment on the lyrical aspect of things? Particularly dealing with religious themes. Was Ss...re a Christian band? What were the goals with majestic blue, and going forward from there and how were the different from your EP?

Eli: Brandon wrote all the lyrics on Majestic blue. On the EP, Brandon and Aaron each wrote lyrics.

I think I could speak for Brandon and say the lyrics were sort of like poetry trying to reflect the mood of the music - nothing super personal in the lyrics.

Yeah, the lyrics had sort of a religious or christian theme. When the band started, we would have called ourselves a Christian band, we all had similar religious upbringings and I think most of us still went to church regularly.

It was more of just a reflection of the fact that it was part of our personal identities still. Brandon (vocals) would mention that we were a Christian band when we played the first year or so of our band, and he would say that part of our purpose was God, or whatever and that if anyone wanted to talk about it, we were into that. I think that's sort of what he would say. But as time went on, you mature and get older and you wonder, "what makes a band a Christian band"? I remember being really turned off by some of the bands and the "Christian" hardcore movement. We were just kids that wanted to play music and meet people. It sometimes felt like that label that had on us was sort of a barrier for other people, that is more a symptom of others pre-conceived ideas of what "Christians" are like, but i get it. We tried to distance ourselves some from that label because even when most of the people in the band would have still claimed Christianity, it was like so what? We are just people in a band, and most of happen to claim to be Christians. But didn't have any desire to be some sort of ministry band. I would say by the time we were doing the Majestic thing, we had distanced ourselves from that label pretty well and had no interest in being called a Christian band. Some of the band members were still Christians, but not everyone would have claimed that anymore and we certainly weren't trying to be role models or anything. I think if anything it made me much more conscious of not making too many assumptions about bands regardless of what labels they have. If the music is rad and they people are cool and treat other people well, then who fucking cares? I think there is one person that was in the original SSRE that is still a Christian...

I wouldn't call myself an atheist, but I don't call myself a Christian for sure. My upbringing and faith was mostly all positive and wasn't oppressive in my life. My parents were very supportive of my music interest and they just accepted me. So I would like to say that I believe in most of the loving parts and how to care for people with pretense and humility, etc. I think those are all great things that I still take seriously, but not so much on the fundamentalism bullshit and anti science creationist stuff.

I think I could speak for everyone else and say that our upbringing/faith made us all better people and when it no longer made sense, we were able to evolve past it. which in my opinion is the appropriate way to handle that. I still don't really care for the hyper anti-religious stuff or rhetoric that some bands/people spout. I get it though. I ts usually anger and frustration and they probably had a much more negative experience with God/Christianity/religion than I did. So I'm sympathetic, I just don't think it solves anything.

I don't know if we had any goals with Majestic Blue, but we were way more intentional about things. We would write parts and think about how one instrument can hand off the melody to another and do multi-staged crescendo trading off instruments. We worked hard to link all the songs together so it was sort of like 1 piece.

Brogan was listening to a lot of Pink Floyd Meddle album. I think he had some idea from that or maybe it was Beatles, but he thought we could do an entire song in one note. So i think it is song 4 on majestic, "Shedding Skin" is all in D, we called it "D" song on our set lists and stuff cuz they all had cute pretentious names. But I wrote a few different parts all on D chords, so that whole song is pretty much just different octaves of D with some melody over it. But the guitar is on D chords the whole time and it actually worked pretty cool. That song is heavy. All of SSRE was drop D tuning, so in contrast, the EP was just me trying to write fast riffs, probably more trying to emulate bands we liked. I think we made it our own, but it was less original from a writing perspective.

With majestic stuff, we really just wrote together and Brogan and I would sit and think through parts and how we could weave stuff together. The first and last song on the album is "Procession Part 1" and "Procession Part 2" and its called that because the bass line is the same, you don't notice cuz the rest of the music is different.

We wrote 2 songs after the EP. Really in the transition between EP stuff and majestic. It was after we recorded the 5 song EP but before we toured but we never recorded them until 2011 when we did the Init fest reunion show. We recorded them on a 7 inch, the "two songs" EP.

It was hard to figure out how to play them again. I think I had to watch the Youtube video a lot to figure them out. I also figured out all the bass and recorded that too because Brogan was getting married and hadn't played bass for along time. He is a drummer now. Actually both the songs we recorded were all in parts and we didn't play them together. Josh laid down drums from memory and I put down guitar and bass while Mary put down keys and Brandon laid down vox, Seth put down his bass lines but just recorded them on his computer as a signal file then we plugged it into an emulator.

So we all went in separately and it came out pretty good. I was using an amp I wasn't really used to. It was a Fender Sunn model T reissue which i just got and had always wanted one. It sounded cool, but was so loud. I didn't have enough gain on my signal. That's the only thing I don't like on those recordings. The guitar doesn't have enough sustain and is too up front.

NJ: I recall from another interview where you said the entire band were all really close friends. How has this band shaped your relationships with the members? Are you still close and keep in contact regularly with the others in Sinking Steps?

Yes I would say early on we were all pretty close. Brandon DeJong (vocals) and Brogan Costa (bass) knew each other when I met them and they had been in a band previously (a short lived band). Brogan and Mary were dating when I met them as well, Aaron Hagan who was also on vocals on the first EP, was friends with those 3 as well, (Brogan Mary Brandon) His band also had just broken up (Edict of Milan) and we all really liked that band. Josh and I were more of the new comers to the group. I knew Josh because our previous bands played together a few times. When we started the band, Brogan, Aaron and I lived together and we practiced at our house but the whole band hung out there a lot. We did things together and it was really fun. I had done a lot of drinking in college before this but none of them drank so neither did I, it was kind of nice. We definitely had that "team" mentality with the band early on, it was a blast. All bands have drama as things move along but I am still friends with everyone in the band. Some of them I see more than others of course. I actively hang out with Brandon (vocals,) (not to be confused with Brandon Aegerter who later played drums). I see Brogan around quite a bit, he plays drums in a band with the bass player in my current band Roman Ships. I see Mary out at shows sometimes, she has a little girl about the same age as my daughter (5.5 yrs). Aaron Hagan lives in California and is an active artist. I haven't seen him in a long time, but I keep up with him on the ol' F book. Seth is around too, I bump into him now and again and we talk for a bit and catch up. We certainly formed some deep friendships through that first year or 2 of being a band.

NJ: After majestic blue, you wouldn’t release new music until 2011, a 7 year gap. What was the period after majestic blue like? Did you tour as often as you did on the LP, and how did the band come to its end?

Eli: By the time we released Majestic Blue, the band was not doing very well. Even before we started recording it, as I mentioned before, Brandon Aegerter wanted to be done. He had a hard time getting to practice and such, he liked the music but he didn't have much energy to really be part of a band. He agreed to record the songs we had written and play a few shows. We did play a few shows with him after we recorded, but the release of it jumped around a bit. We had a few people we had been talking to about releasing it but things were falling through.

I was friends with Steven Williams who ran Init records. I had asked him if he was interested in putting it out, I don't recall all the conversations we had but I think he was a little on the fence about it because he liked our music some but typically didn't have much interest in working with Christian bands. Of course at that point I didn't think of us as a Christian band. Some of the members, probably including myself at that point, considered ourselves still Christians individually but certainly had no interest in making that part of the bands purpose. But I got to know Steven and I think he respected what we were making and once we finished the record i got him a copy and he really started to dig it so he agreed to put out Majestic Blue. We then booked a tour with a friend of ours Matt McFarland on drums, actually I think we did a short tour before that with Josh (original drummer) but we did an east coast thing with Matt McFarland, and at that time Brandon (vocals) was out, so we toured with just Erin Toft on vocals. It changed the dynamic for sure. We had never practiced much with Just Erin on vocals so the tour felt a little different. Nothing bad necessarily, but the band dynamic had changed a lot with drums and vocals being a little different. I think I felt less identity with it as I had used to. This was probably 2004-2005 somewhere in there. We weren't going to tour anymore. I think we were going to break up but this kid from Oregon wanted to put it out on vinyl, so we tried to tour once more to support it. Going to the west coast, but it didn't go very well. We had a few shows on the way out, spent some time in Vancouver BC and then had to go home after a show in Portland. Our drummers friend OD'd on oxy and passed away. This was Brandon Aegerter on drums this time, he wrote most of Majestic with us and recorded. So that was all kind of depressing. We played another local show or 2 and at that point everyone was in different directions and it wasn't fun. At that point SSRE was done. The 2011 thing was a reunion for Init fest.

We had 2 songs we had written before our first tour that were more like the first EP stuff, so Steven (init records) wanted us to record those and he would put out a 7". So we practiced some and recorded those 2 songs. We played a basement show locally and then the Initfest at a local venue. Mostly the old 5 song tour EP stuff and then a few majestic songs.

NJ: Another thing I mean to ask early on, was where you settled on the name Sinking Steps...Rising Eyes? Where did the name come from?

Eli: We all tried coming up with names for the band when we started, but nobody agreed on much. Brandon came up with the name and it was a reference to the bible story about Peter walking on the water with Jesus. In the story he was able to walk on the water with Jesus but when he took his eyes off Jesus, he began to sink. I think i remember thinking I liked it but it was kind of long and wordy, but everyone agreed on it and it stuck.

NJ: It seems that that part of your life was very formative for you. What’s going on in your life right now, and what are the current musical projects of the members?

After SSRE I played bass in an american/rock and roll band for a bit and finished college with a math degree. I taught high school for 5 years then got a mechanical engineering degree and have been doing that for 4 years now. I have been married now for 7 years and have a 5 year old girl named Neko. Current bands: Josh (drums in SSRE, EP and wrote part of Majestic) and I have a band called Roman Ships, we started in 2008. We have a record out on Init records. We did some touring earlier on but between work and kids, it gets tough. Josh has kids as well. Brogan (bass in SSRE) has done several projects since SSRE. He stopped playing bass after SSRE and now plays drums. He has a band called Lot Lizard, and they just released a record. It is really good, kind of chill goth/avant-garde or something. I am not sure how to describe it. Roman Ships and Lot Lizard share a bass player. Brogan owns and runs a screen printing shop with his wife. Mary Campbell (keys in SSRE) has been part of several projects since SSRE but I don't believe she is doing any consistent band right now. She plays with a lot of rad people locally when they do 1 or 2 off shows, like a Smiths tribute for example. She got a masters in English I think and she is working with her husband with his coffee roasting company. Brandon DeJong (vocals SSRE) is not in any bands but he likes to play guitar and such at home. Brandon is VP of sorts for a wireless company that buys used cell phones, laptops etc. He gets to travel a lot and he has 2 kids. Aaron Hagan (Vocals in SSRE, first EP only) - he has not done music since he left SSRE. He finished art school and ended up moving to Los Angeles at some point. He is doing really cool collage art and is married. Seth Dekkenga (bass SSRE on EP only) - he plays music for church, like a worship leader. Seth is married and has 2 kids. Erin Toft (vocals on Majestic ) - I don't think Erin is officially in any bands right now. For a number of years she was singing in a really cool bluegrass style band call the Union Grove Pickers. I don't know if they play much anymore. She got an art degree and still draws and paints I believe, she is very good. She has two kids so I think that is keeping her pretty busy these days. I think that is everyone.

NJ: Reflecting back on Sinking Steps, what were your favorite moments and stand outs from your tenure as a band?

Eli: The first year and half were the best. It was kind of magical when I think back. We are all having so much fun. We booked a month long tour that first year and met lots of cool people and just had the most fun. I think it seems like more fun in retrospect, being on the road trying to find shows and repairing your van is kind of stressful, but those aspects don't stick out. Just pure joy.

I think that first tour is always the best because we expected nothing and were having a ball regardless of how the shows were, although we ended up having some great shows. We played a coffee shop in Daytona Beach with Suicide Note and Remembering Never. The Suicide Note guys were super cool and invited us to a show the next day in Gainesville. It was awesome. I can still remember our first few shows as a band. I can feel it, I was exactly where I wanted to be in life and it was an intoxicating emotion.

NJ: Any last words for anyone who’s reading?

Eli: Yeah, it is really cool that people still remember SSRE and are still interested in it. Check out the Roman Ships album on Bandcamp! We have another record to record soon, we move really slow.

Interview With Eric Scobie (Great Reversals, Dropping Bombs Records)

I'll set the scene for you;

The date is May 13th, 2012. I'm at a show at the Hunter Community Center in Clawson, Michigan. My good friends in the greatest band on earth, Sunlight Ascending, are playing, there are some acoustic tunes by Nick Urb, and I'm surrounded by my then bandmates. I'm obsessed with screamo. For the most part, anything that isn't from 1997-2004 that sounds like a dying muppet on vocals with recordings that sounds like it was recorded underwater in a metal trash can, is completely off my radar.

In come Great Reversals.

If my memory serves me correctly, they went on last after Sunlight Ascending. Like all bands that night,  they played on the gymnasium floor, and were the only hardcore band that played that night. Admittedly, my knowledge of straight forward "hardcore" was very limited at the time. I had heard xDeathstarx, xBishopx, Recon, and a few other christian metalcore bands though my friend's brother, but nothing in the realm of what Great Reversals had in store that night. Aaron, the vocalist, spoke in between each song about the meaning of his lyrics, and events in his life that had affected him. The riffs were punchy and heavy, but were not just "ignorant" breakdowns like the bands I had mentioned previously. I was completely blown away by the performance and it made me reconsider what I thought the meaning of hardcore was.

I can't recall if I had spoken to any of the members that night, but over the years, I would go on to see Great Reversals countless times, even seeing them in a different country when I tagged along to Exalt's record release show in Kitchner, Ontario. The core members have been Aaron on vocals, Alex on guitar, and Eric on drums. After I had seen them at the community center, it seemed like I'd see Eric at every show I'd go to. Mainly because he would go on to book a good majority of the shows in the metro-Detroit scene at Genesis Church in their basement. I've always admired how much he actually cared for hardcore, and the effort he puts not only into his band, but the scene as a whole. The time management skills become even more interesting when you factor in that he's a husband, father of four, and a high school teacher. 

When I decided I wanted to start doing interviews on people whose music has had a significant impact on my life, I approached Eric after doing my first one. I finally got around to it and he immediately agreed. He also runs his own blog where I 100% got the idea to do this for myself, which I'll link at the end. Enjoy!

NJ: It must be strange to be on the other side of this inquiry, but talk about your childhood and what kind of house you were raised in? Was there a prominent music or art presence?

ES:I grew up in a really loving family.... My parents got together when they were really young and are still together 40 or so years later. I have a little sister who is awesome... Of course I terrorized her some when we were little, mostly because she was listening to Debbie Gibson or Belinda Carlisle haha.
We lived on the east side of Detroit until I was going into 4th grade, then we moved out to Royal Oak. My dad was a social worker, when I was little my mom babysat and worked at a grocery store.... Eventually she went back to school and got a degree in I.T. which was when our family started movin' on up or whatever. There was all kinds of music around when I was a kid. I grew up going to church every Sunday, and it was a small congregation of maybe 100 or so people, 20-30 of whom were my family members. My aunt was the pianist, my dad and uncle sang in the choir, etc. Every Sunday after church we would go to my grandma's for lunch with everybody.... Aunts, uncles, cousins, the whole squad. My aunt would often jump on the piano after lunch and we'd sing hymns or whatever. To this day we go to my aunts on Christmas Eve and the whole family sings. I didn't think much of it when I was a kid but as an adult its pretty awesome and I'm guessing pretty rare. So beyond church music, I was exposed to all kinds of other stuff. My dad was a huge classic rock guy... Probably his favorite was the J Geils Band, but he saw all the legends, and he would always tell me stories about seeing Zeppelin and watching Jimmy Page play the guitar with the violin bow, when he saw Ozzy bite the head off a bat, and he would rave about Keith Moon being the greatest drummer he'd ever seen, and he loved Neil Young. And oh yeah, I am named after Eric Clapton.... So definitely lots of rock n roll at the center of our household. The first concert my dad ever took me to was lame ass Richard Marx at Chene Park.... I think because it was a free show. A couple years after that him and my uncle took my cousin and I to the Silverdome to see some real shit....The Rolling Stones with Living Color opening.

NJ: How did you go from seeing and hearing those "bigger" bands, to getting into DIY hardcore? Also, how did your parents feel about you getting into this "alternative" lifestyle? Were they supportive at all?

ES: Well, so I was super into hip hop from late elementary school and into middle school, and one day I was at my buddy Dan Till's house and he threw on the cassette of Helmet's "Meantime". I don't know this for a fact but just prior to that I believe, the soundtrack to the movie "Judgement Night" had come out which featured lots of collabs between hip hop and metal groups.... Helmet had a song with House of Pain, who along with Cypress Hill were our faves back then.

Anyway, Dan throws on "Meantime" and I was hooked. I did not really like any guitar based music at that time, but there was something about it.... Maybe the stop/start grooves, I dunno. But from then on I started delving into heavier stuff. Obviously Rage Against the Machine was blowing up around that time, but you also had Biohazard, Dog Eat Dog, etc. Headbangers Ball was awesome back then so I started watching that regularly. I saw the video for Sick of It All's "Step Down" and felt like a whole new world was opening up before my eyes. Back then there was this magazine called Metal Maniacs that you could get everywhere, even like Meijer and shit, so one day I picked up a copy because it had Sick of it All in there. In the back of Metal Maniacs they had this little section called "the zine scene" where they profiled actual fanzines and they had a write up about this zine from NYHC called In Effect. There was an issue that had Sick of It All in it so I stuffed 3 or 4 bucks in an envelope with a little note and ordered my first In Effect.

The dude who did that zine was this guy Chris Wynne and he wrote me back right away and sent me a copy of the zine. We basically became pen pals and he would send me lists of all kinds of shit that I should check out (by the way, Chris still rules and has taken his work digital, everybody should frequent ineffecthardcore.com). So before I knew it I was getting into Civ, Shelter, VOD, all the New York bands. By that time I was hitting up shows for those bigger bands at St. Andrews and The Shelter when they would come through. Also, because I grew up in the church and am a Christian, by my senior year of high school I was following all the Tooth and Nail bands and whatever. So probably summer after my senior year if I remember correctly Strongarm and Overcome came through and played at this church in Livonia. Well Overcome had this roadie with them named Cori Hale who had his zine with him called Heuristic. I chatted a bit with him and picked up a copy of the zine of course. While he was road-dogging for a Christian band, Cori was much more on the vegan, animal rights political tip. So same as with Chris, I started writing him and he would send me lists of stuff to check out. Being that he was from Arizona i was getting brought up to speed on West Coast stuff as he was recommending Unbroken, Groundwork, Absinthe, Nineironspitfire, etc. So by the time I went off to college in Grand Rapids in the Fall of 96 I had totally fallen in love with hardcore. As fate would have it, I got matched up with one of the 2 or 3 hardcore kids on campus as my roommate, so once we met up we started swapping CDs and records and then it was all over. I went to school during the day but at night it was all hardcore all the time. We would drive basically all over the Midwest to catch shows, whether it was a weekend or a Tuesday night. Mind you, gas was like 95 cents a gallon at that point so it didn't really matter haha. As for my parents, they were always super supportive of anything I wanted to do. My dad was a social worker so he thought it was cool that a lot of the stuff I was checking out had a sociopolitical edge, and just as I mentioned before, he was a big fan of rock music, so he was down. There were a couple of years there (probably 98 and 99) where for Michigan Fest my parents would let a shit ton of people stay with us for the fest. I think in 99 we literally had like 35 kids crashing at my parents house. There were even people I didn't even know, just like friends of a friend who needed a place to crash. My parents thought it was awesome. My dad loves to cook and take care of people, so he was up bright and early cooking everyone eggs and oatmeal and shit haha.

NJ: So I want to talk more about the scene in Grand Rapids in particular during that time. Granted I don’t live in Michigan anymore so I can’t say for sure, but I can’t remember a scene really being there. Detain is the only band that really is prominent in the Detroit scene that hails from there. What was it like back then?

ES:I lived in Grand Rapids from 96-02. The scene there was pretty small, and like Detroit, had different pockets. When I first got there freshmen year there was this shiiiiiiitty bar called the Reptile House down on Division Street where some of the bigger hardcore bands would play. Madball, Downset, Orange 9mm, stuff like that. But I never really remember there being any local Grand Rapids bands that opened those shows; there probably were, but Grand Rapids definitely didn't have any heavy, moshy hardcore bands that I was aware of at that time.

Then being west Michigan there was definitely a Christian music scene. So you had the big Tooth and Nail punk bands like MxPx that would play (I don't even remember where), and then eventually this little coffee shop called Skeletones opened up. The one Grand Rapids band I remember playing a lot that was actually decent was this band called Remember When, who were sort of like a cool emo band. Then by probably my junior year I met this guy Yann Kerevel who had this screamy band called With Arms Still Empty. Yann was/is a great guy and he used to book a lot of awesome shit at this little art gallery called the Ten Weston Theatre. The shows at Ten Weston eventually became what I considered to be the most important part of the Grand Rapids scene. Yann's girlfriend M.J. was from Milwaukee so she had lots of connections there, and at that time Milwaukee fucking ruled! So pretty much once a month Yann and M.J. would be booking shows for Forstella Ford, Since By Man, Seven Days of Samsara, Kung Fu Rick, etc. Other memorable shows Yann did were The Assistant, Lack, Examination of The..., Cobra Kai, Buried Inside, Lack, Atom and His Package, etc. Definitely more of the Ebullition/Heartattack vibe in terms of both sound and ethics. Aside from Yann's band With Arms Still Empty, the other local G.R. band that eventually popped up was this more grindy/powerviolence type band called Don Knotts who were pretty cool.

NJ: Whenever I seem to talk about an older band with you or one gets brought up, chances are you booked them somewhere in the past and know a member or two. What got you into booking shows and how did you get started doing that? Did it predate any musical projects?

ES: I got into booking mostly because of the record label that I started with my college roomie Matt, and a few other friends we met in town going to shows, Brian, Jeff, and Mike. So my roommate Matt was from Maryland and he knew a lot of the good Christian hardcore bands from that area (Zao, Sower/Seasons in the Field, Pensive, Pink Daffodils, etc.). When the original incarnation of Zao broke up and Jesse reconstituted the band with Dan, Russ, and Brett, Matt knew those dudes so we got to book a show on what I'm pretty sure was their first little weekend run of shows. That definitely was not just me booking it, it was all 5 of us. We wound up booking Zao I think 3 times, Embodyment, Training for Utopia, and then I think once when I was gone for the summer they did a huge Zao/Spitfire/Stretch Armstrong show. So anyway, from doing those shows I kind of got a handle on what it took so I did a small handful of shows myself from probably 99-02. Undying/Prayer for Cleansing, Creation is Crucifixion, Underoath/Chalice, Hopesfall, Reversal of Man/Combatwoundedveteran, I think it was literally just those 5 shows haha.

I got married and moved back to Detroit in 2002 and stopped booking. I of course kept going to shows but never really started booking again until probably 2010 or so after Static Age and the Metal Frat kind of fizzled out and I saw a need for someone to start putting stuff together for small scale hardcore bands around here.

Oh yeah I think I also booked 7 Angels a couple times in G.R. too .

The flier from Underoath's first tour where Eric booked them

NJ: Running a label and booking shows in the pre-internet days sounds like a completely different world from how it is today. What were some of the hardships of doing that before the digital era?

ES: Well, I don't really think I experienced hardcore in the pre-digital age haha. By 95 or 96 everyone had slow-ass dial up internet so you just emailed people and found out about stuff on message boards or whatever. Far more primitive than social media today, but the basics were there

But beyond that stuff, like I alluded to earlier there was a lot of letter writing. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure the Reversal of Man show I booked I did via writing letters. I used to exchange letters with Greg from Trial, and I always ordered records by just stuffing cash in an envelope. I used to order all the time from this label Positive Face from PA who put out the first Indecision and Shutdown 7 inches (those were the first time I saw clear vinyl and I remember pooping my pants haha), Immigrant Sun Records who was probably my favorite label/distro at the time, SA Mob Records run by EMS from Brother's Keeper as well as ordering all the time from individual bands. Zine culture was also much stronger during that period, so that's where you had to turn to get news and read interviews. My favorite zines were of course Heartattack, as well as Second Nature, Dogprint, Status, Heuristic, Punk Planet, Clamor, I Stand Alone, and so many more I'm sure I am forgetting.

NJ: After college, you moved back to Detroit in 02 and you weren’t booking shows. I understand that you briefly tried out on drums for not only one of my favorite Michigan local bands, but one of my all time favorite bands, Trying Times. Describe your first musical endeavors in between 02 and when you started booking shows again, and how you got into playing the drums.

ES: So yeah in August of 2002 Steph and I got married. I was in Grand Rapids at the time and she was in New Jersey, but we were both from Metro Detroit so we moved back here. We had our first son in 2003, I started teaching, and in 2004 started grad school. So definitely no time to book shows or play in bands, I just went to shows periodically and did a little zine called Holy Shit! Actually my first two issues were done in G.R., I did a third issue in 03 I think, maybe 04'.

As far as playing drums, I gotta re-wind that tape a little haha. So after having been engrossed in hardcore for several years and having so many friends in music, starting to dabble in booking and label stuff, it was only natural that I wanted to learn to play something. So in my infinite wisdom I thought playing guitar or bass would be too hard for me (too precise) so I decided to try drums (you can't miss right?) I bought a shitty Ludwig drum set from a shop in G.R. for i think like 300 bucks and started making racket on it in my dorm room haha. We had loud hours from like 4-6 every day and I would beat the shit out of it. Everybody in my dorm wanted to kill me I'm pretty sure. So yeah anyway, I had zero musical training or ability and thus had no actual idea what I was doing. By around 99 I had been hanging around with Yann enough that he asked me if I wanted to do a band together. I told him I didn't have the first clue, but yes, time to learn by doing. So he has a buddy Anthony who could play bass, and I, surprise surprise asked Aaron if he wanted to try vocals. So we went to work once a week in my basement and started blasting away. Yann and Anthony wanted to do something thrashy like Tear it Up, Aaron and I wanted to do something like Bane or Trial (I know, you're shocked haha). So I guess maybe it sounded kinda like that. We were called Prophet of the Dawn and we played from like 99 or 2000 until 02. We did a 4 or 5 song demo plus three songs for a split with this band Swimming to Pinpoints, who were a year or two older than us and worshiped all things Dischord. It was supposed to be a split 7" but none of us knew how to put out a record, so my friend Ben eventually put the songs out on tape.

So anyway, I met Steve in what I think was 06' when Have Heart, Verse, and Shipwreck played at the 2500 Club. 6 months or a year before that I had jammed a couple times in a screamy project with a couple kids but ultimately decided I couldn't sustain it. However, I ultimately regretted that decision, so not only did I roll into this Have Heart show by myself, but I rolled in with flyers I had made with pictures of myself saying that I wanted to drum for a band (mind you, I still could not drum for shit). As luck had it, Trying Times had set out a stack of CDs they called "the looking for a drummer demo. I saw that and of course plopped my stack of flyers right next to that bad boy. By the end of the show Steve had accosted me and said "Is this you!?!?" to which I replied "Of course haha". So anyway, I took a few weeks to try to learn the songs and eventually went out and jammed with them. Buuuuut, my chops were not nearly strong enough so I got the old thanks but no thanks. However, Steve and I hit it off quite well and once they got a drummer I started seeing them a bunch. We became even tighter friends, and one fateful night a year or so after they had broken up, Steve asked me if I wanted to start jamming with him on something new. Thus Great Rev was born.

NJ: That leads perfectly into my next curiosity. How did Great Reversals form, and how did you go about finding the members? Obviously you and Aaron had Prophet before and you mentioned you and him were all for doing something in vain of Bane and Trial, but were there any other tryouts that didn’t make the cut?

ES: Yeah so as I alluded to, Steve and I had become friends, and one night in what must have been 08', we rolled out to Static Age to see Another Breath, one of the greatest bands of the 00's. It had been about a year since the demise of Trying Times, so Steve was itching to play again, and so on the drive home from that show he just kinda said "Hey, I know you couldn't pull off the Trying Times material, but would you want to try to start something new?" I immediately said yes, and so we set out to do a simple 90's style hardcore band. Our first practice was in January of 09'. Aside from Steve and myself, we had Kyle Callert ("shitty Kyle") jam with us for a couple of months. He helped us write the 1st song on the demo. Steph would always make fun of me when he came over to drive to Steve's for practice because I was 30 years old and he was literally like 17, haha. Anyway, Kyle wound up being grounded half the time, so his tenure in the Rev was cut short. After Kyle left (or maybe even during, can't remember), we had one practice with Rorik from Cloud Rat/Under Anchor. We were stooooked on the idea of jamming with Roar but ultimately he decided the drive all the way from Mt. Pleasant was just gonna be too far. So we just had one practice with him at which we wrote the 2nd song on the demo, and that was it. So after jamming for 5 or 6 months, writing 2 songs and still only having the two of us as members, Steve remembered that he knew this dude Alex from going to shows that had mentioned he could play guitar. So he asked Alex if he would be into it, and Alex was. Right off the bat, Alex said he had a buddy named Sam that would be interested in bass

But, he didn't actually know how to play bass. Seeing that I had not really played drums for almost 10 years, and Steve was not the greatest guitar player, we decided that a lack of skill was not grounds for disqualification so we told Alex sure, bring Sam along. Some time in there as well (I think actually before Alex and Sam joined) we of course realized we needed a vocalist. Steve didn't have a lot of obvious candidates, so I said, "Well hey, my best friend Aaron could probably do it, he sang for my last band." Mind you Aaron had not been in a band for almost a decade either, but again, we decided to go for it. Aaron's tryout is a thing of legendary Rev folklore at this point, so I'm not sure I can tell it as well as Steve probably could, but here we go. We obviously didn't have fully formed songs yet for Aaron to learn and write lyrics to yell over, so Aaron had to go a different route. Aaron is of course a fairly deep and philosophical guy, so he wanted to do something that would demonstrate the types of issues he would want to grapple with, sort of to demonstrate the vibe he would want to go for. Mind you, I had not discussed this much with Aaron so I had very little sense of what to expect here. Anyway, Aaron is a big fan of the TV show "Deadwood", so for his try out, he came prepared to re-enact a scene from the show. I am by no means a TV buff so I was wholly unfamiliar with the show, and given the look on Steve's face neither was he. Steve gazed upon Aaron with a mixture of confusion and amazement. Aaron and I have been best friends pretty much our whole lives and I myself did not quite know what to think. At any rate, we knew it would be a hell of a ride one way or the other so that was that, Aaron was the vocalist.

So yeah, very humble origins. Several of us who barely knew how to play our instruments, 4 out of the 5 of us who had either never been in a serious band or hadn't been one in a long ass time, etc. We learned the 2 songs we already had started on, wrote 3 more, recorded a demo in the Fall of 09' (which was a miserable experience) and played our first show up in Mt. Pleasant Thanksgiving weekend of 09'. So we are pushing 10 years this year. Fucking wild.

NJ: How was the demo recorded and why was it so miserable?

ES: Well, it was miserable almost entirely because of me, haha. First off, my kids were little at that time and were waking up at all hours of the night, so I think I got like 3 hours of sleep the night before. But mostly, as I mentioned earlier, I just hadn't played the drums in a band in a very long time, had not recorded in a very long time. So I was just a total mess trying to lay down the tracks. And we are talking simple hardcore songs, haha. I just kept messing up and had to keep starting over. At one point I remember looking into the control room and seeing Chris who was recording us just with his head in his hands slumped over his computer looking like he wanted to kill himself. Seeing that and knowing how nervous and frustrated I already was kinda hit me like a dagger. One of the other infamous moments of Rev folklore is that Punknews.org reviewed our demo. The review overall was not very positive, but in particular the writer mentioned that "the drums sound like the drummer was physically tired" hahahahahaha which of course was very perceptive because indeed I was exhausted. That, and plus I just generally lacked awareness about my instrument so I hadn't even bought new heads for the recording session. So yeah, just generally hot garbage on my end.

NJ: After the demo, and a split with a local band called They Come In Waves (if my great rev history serves me right) you released the EP To The Ends Of The Earth, which took a break from Aaron’s philosophical and thought-provoking lyrics, into your territory. The opening track talks about raising your oldest son with disabilities, which is no doubt a very personal subject. The last track also encompasses the same themes, but more on the lines of rescuing your son from as you say “this muted shell.” I know when I used to see Great Reversals play those songs while playing shows on that record, you used to talk about your lyrics for that EP. Could you expand on your lyrics and what it’s like to raise a son that is deaf and autistic? How did the idea come to fruition for you to take the helm for writing lyrics for these songs?

ES: Yeah so my biggest motivation for wanting to do the band was to have some sort of outlet to express all the stuff I had on my chest about Elijah. The first 5 years were just so incredibly difficult. From discovering that he had a hearing impairment, to then discovering that he had a cognitive impairment, to discovering that he had autism; it was just a whirlwind of shit that I did not feel prepared to deal with. He was really miserable. If you were driving in the car and you stopped at a red light he would start screaming and thrashing, when you took him to the grocery store or out to eat or to a family birthday party he was often explosive,and it was just impossible to feel like we could live a "normal" life. As a parent you have these dreams for your kids for who they will be, what they will become, and all of that was just shattered. When he was a real little guy he used to love to go for looooong walks, just walk aimlessly. He loved the major roads so he could watch traffic. We would always have to walk past the park at the end of our street where kids would be playing baseball, soccer, basketball, climbing on the monkey bars, and it would just kill me.... I would sob uncontrollably while on a walk with my kid, because I knew that would never be him; it was gut-wrenching. In addition, as a person of faith I was really torn... On the one hand I was praying for some sort of miraculous healing and was frustrated that nothing was happening. On the other hand I had to acknowledge that my faith teaches me that we are all bearers of God's image; fearfully and wonderfully made. So I was wrestling with all that, and I'm still wrestling with all that if I'm being honest. So yeah man, I just needed some outlet to scream at the heavens, to scream at the world, to scream at myself. I used to type song titles into my phone, just of different ideas that I intended to write lyrics around, but assumed I would never be able to do anything with. So when the band started I knew I wanted to use them for something, I just wasn't sure how it would work or if the guys would be into it. Raising a kid with autism isn't exactly right up there with straight edge, veganism, and being stabbed in the back as far as hardcore lyric topics go, so I just didn't know if they'd be willing to go there so to speak. But ultimately they did and it's honestly the greatest gift those 4 guys could ever have given to me and I'm still so grateful that they allowed me to use our dumb little band to channel all that pain.

So anyway, once we decided we were gonna do it, I took those titles I had in my phone, and wrote 8 or 9 sets of lyrics. Aaron then took the ones he felt he could work with and did his thing - made them more poetic, made them flow, etc. As I said, Aaron and I have been best friends for many years so he knew what I was trying to say and he was able to take the incredibly raw emotions I had spilled onto those pages and make something beautiful out of them. And then Steve, Alex, and Sam were able to work with me to create music that was tailored to each set of lyrics, that would capture the vibe of what was being expressed lyrically. I'm not sure if that is our best record, but it will of course always be the one that I will cherish the most.

NJ: I think it’s natural to have a crisis of faith (if a strong phrase like that can be used in this context) over an event like that in your life. Personally, that record holds a special place in my heart just because of the content of it. I don’t think many bands nowadays would get that personal when it comes to songwriting.

You’re pretty open about your faith and even have had the connections to throw some of the best shows I’ve ever been to at Genesis Church in Royal Oak, Michigan. I wasn’t raised religious and can’t see myself ever having kids, so I’m curious as to how your faith and your extensive period in the punk and hardcore subculture has shaped you as a parent. The current political climate can paint a pretty bleak picture for our future, so I’m wondering if you have trouble being optimistic about the future your kids will inherit from today’s times?

ES: It's funny because for most people who grow up in hardcore and punk, anything having to do with Chistianity is anathema, but for me a lot of it goes hand-in-hand. I discovered straight edge through the hardcore scene, but it fits right in with things from my faith that talk about self-control. I discovered vegetarianism and animal rights through hardcore but the Bible talks about being "stewards" of God's creation. I'm pretty sure confining animals in small cages their whole lives only to slaughter them in pursuit of profit would not fit any model of stewardship. Punk and hardcore in general is about not fitting in and standing up for the little guy or those who are oppressed. Jesus was basically a homeless dude who was hanging out with lepers, and eventually got murdered by the government.... What's more punk than that? Haha. Obviously the church and institutionalized religion have caused untold suffering all through history and today is generally associated with oppressing women, LGBT folks, etc, etc. etc. There is plenty of valid and necessary critique/rejection of all that bullshit. But for me, a lot of my faith principles line up squarely with stuff that I learned along the way going to hardcore shows.

In terms of parenting, I guess we just try to emphasize the stuff that we feel is at the heart of our faith: love, compassion, empathy, putting the needs of others before yourself, etc. Having Elijah in our family actually gives our other boys lots of opportunities to live that stuff out and to see that people with different needs are not bad or weird, they shouldn't be shunned, and we have to try to take care of each other. Beyond that, we raise the kids vegetarian, so that's another small way in which the kids know they are different because most of their peers at school eat meat of course. We have conversations about why we don't eat meat, which of course sometimes leads to them having conversations with their peers about it.

Dr. King said that the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice, and I'm trying like hell to hold onto that thought right now. But like you mentioned, we are in bleak times at the moment politically, the bleakest I feel like I've ever seen. There are so many dangerous aspects to the Trump presidency, but I feel like the most dangerous is the assault on reality itself that is being waged every day. Just yesterday we saw Trump try to say he doesn't know anything about Wikileaks, when in the 2016 campaign he praised Wikileaks literally dozens of times. There is fucking video of it, tons of video. But Trump lives in his own reality and he wants us to deny the very things that are right before our eyes and ears. It's totally Orwellian, and as a Civics teacher I have to think about this stuff all day every day. I still feel like we are living though some kind of national nightmare. But I also feel like things changed in the flash of an eye so I know its possible they can flash back. I mean, rewind to 2015; Gay marriage had just been legalized, the economy, while still structurally unequal in many significant ways had basically recovered from the awful recession, and President Obama, for all his blemishes, was basically a super articulate, thoughtful, cool ass black dude in the Oval Office. Not trying to say everything was hunky dory, but as compared to today, shit was moving in the right direction however slowly and incrementally. And then overnight we had basically a white supremacist regime come into power. Obviously those forces have always existed in American history but to have the pendulum swing so rapidly and forcefully is just mind-boggling. While I don't have a ton of faith in the U.S. citizenry as a whole, deep in my core I really want to believe he will be swept out as quickly as he came in. In fact at this point I have to believe it or I will go insane haha. It's funny because I have never considered myself to be a particularly patriotic person, but in the last 3 years as Trump has trampled all over the Constitution and our core principles, I have really found that a lot of my fundamental objections to what he is doing are rooted in an appreciation of basic things like separation of powers, the rule of law, an independent judiciary, etc. It's really made me wanna go to law school.

NJ: I like how you bring up how the critique of organized religion and say it’s valid. For me, I’ve always looked at you as like, the model Christian. Someone who recognizes that we all come from different places and as you said previously in our interview we are all “fearfully and wonderfully made."

An interesting quote I can recall from the Joe Rogan podcast of all places, is when Elon Musk said “I’d rather be optimistic and wrong than be pessimistic and right” and that’s how I feel about the current situation. I’m often left wondering “What can I do to make real change?” Since I live in a county and overall state that is against the current administration. So I have gravitated to the idea that you can start to make a difference in your community and set an example to those around you. That might sound corny reading it back but oh well.

So your vegetarianism bleeds in from your involvement in hardcore, and when I saw Great Rev for the Stalactite record release, I saw some of your children at the show. Have any of your kids shown an interest in playing an instrument or expressed that they like the music you play around them?

Judah plays guitar a little bit, we had him in lessons for a couple years but getting him to practice was becoming quite the battle so we've decided to back off for a while in hopes that he will gravitate back to it on his own terms. Manny plays clarinet in the school band right now and is doing pretty well. Asher asked for a drum set when he was 5 so we got him one for Christmas. We took him to a few lessons but I think he was too young and lacked the attention span to really focus so we pulled him out of lessons as well for now. As for Manny and Judah coming to the record release show, I've been wanting to bring them to a show for a while, they are 10 and 11 so I feel like they are ready to at least dip their toes in a bit, but I've never wanted to bring them to a show with a lot of mosh/crowdkilling/bullshit. So I figured the vibe at our release show would be good, and I think it turned out great. They loved it, and Moynihan got everybody to start chanting "Kids rule" in the middle of our set which was hilarious. But other than the show, they don't like it when I try to play hardcore stuff in the car. Judah will sort of tolerate it, but mostly they wanna listen to Post Malone or Imagine Dragons or whatever crap is on the radio. Obviously, I'm failing as a punk parent at this point haha.

NJ: You brought up that you wanted to bring you children to a show, but not one where there would be potential violent moshing at the show, which I feel like has exploded in the last few years. Would you agree with this? Having been into hardcore for so many years, what are the major differences you spot compared to when you started going to shows? What are your favorite, and least favorite things about the current “scene” today?

ES: Ahhhh I'd say it's mostly the same... I guess I generally gravitate towards bands and people who share my understanding of hardcore, so in terms of the shows I go to and experience it isn't all that different, but clearly some stuff has shifted.

First and foremost, shows tend to be smaller. Not like every show was huge back in the day, but 100-300 people was pretty standard back then, even for bands who weren't that big. Today there is a very small universe of hardcore bands that can bring out that sort of a crowd, at least in a place like Detroit. Secondly, things are much more business-oriented now. Today there seems to be this whole ecosystem of middle management essentially: Booking agents, label reps, press people, etc. Granted, there was some of that back in the 90's, but today even really small bands have stuff like that. Bands that draw 50 kids have an agent and a guarantee. What? This of course has it's pros and cons. On the one hand it's awesome that more people can play in hardcore and punk bands in a sustainable way. Playing in a band beats working in an office any day, right? Buuuuuut, and this is a big but for me, I tend to like to keep my capitalism as far away from my hardcore as possible. Inevitably as money becomes a bigger part of the equation, stuff is gonna get watered down and compromises are gonna be made.

One of my favorite bands With Resistance had a record called "Real Hardcore Kids Have Day Jobs" and that essentially captures my feelings on the matter. I would never want to have my bills being paid be contingent on anything having to do with hardcore. It would kill the fun and the spirit of it for me. Another related aspect to hardcore becoming more professionalized is the phenomenon of the package tour. It seems like in the last 10-15 years you see very few bands touring by themselves or with one other band. It's almost always 3-4 bands with label sponsorships and whatever other goofy shit attached to it like a dumb "____ Across America" tour. Yes, it's cool and convenient to catch 3 or 4 good touring acts on a single night, BUT it doesn't exactly foster the development of a local scene. You have at most 1 or 2 locals playing these shows, which in turn leads to locals not really caring about building a hometown scene of bands, but caring more about getting some hype or blowing up or whatever so that they can impress the right person who will throw them on a package tour. This of course relates to the phenomenon of fest bands, where we now have 8 or 10 big fests around the country annually, and some bands who almost never play in their own city. They just play all the big fests and that's basically it. So they do a record every few years, play 4 or 5 shows a year, and do almost zero locally. Again, I understand that's an efficient approach. Most bang for your buck, play in front of a large number of people, etc. But it just seems counter to my personal sense of what hardcore and punk should be.

The last thing just has to do with content. When I was coming up, lyrics were the most important thing. So many bands had inserts in their records with essays explaining the songs, they would talk about the songs on stage, it was understood that the hardcore scene was meant to be a place focused on ideas and dialogue. That was at the heart of everything. Otherwise how is hardcore different from metal? It would just be a bunch of loud music with cool imagery but very little substance. So it was taken for granted that bands were there to take a stand on things and have something deeper to say. Even if it wasn't about politics or a social issue, there had to be SOMETHING. That sense seems to have been lost overall I would say. Now you have bands with 7 t-shirt designs and only 5 songs on an online demo, haha. Nobody knows the lyrics or is singing along because nobody is saying jack shit because it's not even worth repeating. So what do they do instead? They mosh like a ninja because it's about image. Now of course there was moshing back in the day, but you generally had the majority of the crowd up front singing along because they connected with the band on a deep level, and some people moshing in the back if they just wanted to lose their minds or whatever.

Anyway, I'm sounding like a grumpy as fuck old man here. I should of course emphasize that there are still lots of bands that do not match the description of what I'm offering above, who do have things to address, and who are using their platform to talk about issues, build community, etc. If there wasn't, I would have dropped out by now.

NJ: After To The Ends Of The Earth, you released a split (with one of the greatest bands of all time with some of my favorite people, Sunlight Ascending) an EP, LP, compilation track, then finally, your latest release Stalactite. Having listening to your band for going on ten years, I can see the progress in songwriting. Looking back, how would you say you’ve grown as a musician over the last ten years? (I just realized the demo came out in 2009) and how has the Rev’s songwriting, and practices changed over the years?

In terms of being a musician, I have gotten a lot better and more confident just because of practicing/playing consistently. For the first seven or so years of the band, we practiced once a week basically every single week, pretty much religiously. I have zero time to play my drums outside of band practice or at home, so just getting together every single week has been the key ingredient. The last few years because of member stuff and just getting increasingly busy our regiment has gotten a lot looser, but for years we ran a very tight ship. I always joke that we are not necessarily the best musicians, but we are VERY good at being a band. Whereas a lot of bands I've seen over the years are insanely talented, but they are completely flaky, disorganized, and simply can't get their shit together enough to really make much of an impact. Talent isn't enough; you have to have talent as well as organization/commitment. On the flipside, if you have organization and commitment, even if you can't play your instrument for shit, you'll eventually be okay (exhibit A; Great Reversals).

In terms of song-writing, it's pretty much always been the same. Alex, Steve, or Nik have been the 3 main song writers over the course of the band so they will bring a song to the table, we learn it, mess with, add to it, subtract from it, and then Aaron eventually writes lyrics to fit over top of it. When Steve was in the band it was a little more "jam" oriented, sometimes he would just bring a riff or a few riffs, and we would sort of flesh it out from there. Alex and Nik have almost always brought more complete songs to work on. But basically that's it. We usually make a shitty iPhone practice recording when we get a song to a place where we feel like it's a solid rough draft. I'm not sure about the others but I like to listen to those recordings a lot both to think about where we might improve or revise things but mostly to just get the songs "in my bones" so to speak so I can remember how to play them. From there like I said we may lengthen or shorten parts, maybe smooth out some transitions, etc. It usually takes 3 or 4 practices of messing with a song to feel like we have it where it needs to be. And then like I said usually Aaron will add lyrics after the fact. He typically has a couple sets of lyrics at a time that he is working on so then he just fits those lyrics to the songs based on feel, vibe, length, etc. Obviously for To the Ends I wrote the lyrics in advance so that was a little different as we wrote those songs musically to fit the vibe of the lyrics but generally it has been music first, then lyrics.

For the comp song "Jaws" we wrote that one in the studio and that's the only time we've ever done that. Ryan from Blasphemour Records hit me up like a week or two before we were going to track "Mere Mortals" asking if we wanted to be on this comp he was doing, but he wanted to be an exclusive song. We had 11 ready to go for the LP but felt like all of them were really necessary for the record in terms of flow, track order, etc. so we didn't wanna cut the LP short. So basically we could either write a new one while we were there or take a few months when we were done, write a new song and then go back to a studio to record it as a stand alone. My thinking was that we should just try to write a new one on the spot, because generally after doing a record we take a bit of a break from practicing, Andy has a killer studio but it's 5 hours away so going back there probably wouldn't happen, etc. Anyway, the dudes were nervous because we've never written that way, and I of course was too, but I figured "Fuck it, let's just give it a try".

So after the second night of tracking Andy left, and we just started messing around. Alex started throwing out a few riffs and we just put it together. It all came together pretty smoothly, to everyone's surprise haha. One thing I am particularly proud of on "Stalactite" is there is one guitar part and one drum part I came up with on the spot while we were going through playbacks in the studio that I suggested and that everyone agreed we should add. Like I alluded to before, I'm not a primary song writer for our band so I'm always a little hesitant to suggest ideas, and it's literally taken me almost a full decade to build that confidence, so the fact that those ideas made the cut is a tiny point of pride for me.

NJ: I also think a lot of the passion is gone. I won’t elaborate too deeply on that so I avoid sounding like a grumpy old man hahaha. But everything seems to have shifted from the quality of the content in your music, to the merchandise you have. I think I’m way too young to be the stereotypical “jaded hardcore guy” but that’s how I feel about things currently. I think after almost ten years as a band, you still try and incorporate different elements and haven’t become stale sounding. You’ve even gotten to do some touring weekends here and there. So my next question Is what’s next on the horizon for great reversals? Are there any bucket list things you have for the rev? Any other secret musical projects you have on the side?

Well, 2019 has proven challenging thus far haha. In January Nik and Jimmy departed the band. No hard feelings, they just have other stuff going on. So we are in rebuilding mode at the moment. Just in the last month we got our friend Dylan to take over bass duties which has been awesome and will allow us to function basically. Buuuut, all of our songs are written for 2 guitar players, so we are trying to figure out how to proceed as a 4 piece. Just last night we wrote the skeleton for our first new song in about a year or so. All I can say is that it's different....partially out of necessity, partially out of choice. In terms of bucket list stuff, we've really surpassed all my expectations of what was possible. We've talked about trying to get out West at some point. Obviously Trial, Strain, Unbroken are huge influences for us so that'd be cool just to get to that part of the country. And probably cliche, but Europe. "Stalactite" is the first time we've ever had a European label, so it would probably be possible, and obviously incredible to play a handful of shows over there at some point. Like I said, for now the only objective is just to figure out how to re-imagine the band so we can keep soldiering on.

NJ: Lastly, I have to ask, you’re a father, a husband, still very involved with the Detroit hardcore scene, and you’re also a teacher. I wanted to know if you’ve met any kids or faculty who have had the same musical interests as you? Have you pointed any kids in the right direction, or have any randomly been at your shows?

ES: Not too much honestly. In like my second or third year at Novi one time one of my students came to a show I had booked and I was running door....the look on her face was definitely surprised when she saw me, haha. But it's funny, where I teach now is a pretty upwardly mobile suburb, I often jokingly refer to it as "Pleasantville", so the sort of fire in the belly rebellion of punk and hardcore doesn't appeal to most of my kids. Sometimes I get a student talking about djenty-metal stuff, or maybe a kid really likes Fall Out Boy, so I may make a Racetraitor or Sect reference or whatever, but not much tends to usually stick. I was talking to a trans student a few weeks ago to see if they knew about Against Me!, Hirs, Get Better Records, and while they were definitely interested, they definitely were not familiar. So yeah, not too much.

NJ: Any last parting words for readers? Words of wisdom or what not?

ES: Well, I realize I sounded mad grumpy through some of this, so here are some awesome bands I fully endorse that I think people should check out if they're not familiar: Extricate, Faim, Bury Yourself, Minority Threat, Seizures, Lift, Niboowin, Riot Stares, Hundreds of Au, Out of Body, Annulment, No Man, Ether, Less Art, and Amenra; so much Amenra.

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