Jake Bowen - Periphery (19/02/2013)
Returning to Australia for Soundwave 2013 and sidewaves with Crossfaith, we chat with Jake Bowen of Periphery.
Hey, mate. How are you?
Good and you?
I'm great. You must be pretty stoked to be coming down for Soundwave?
Oh yeah, absolutely. We've never been to Australia in the summer so we're excited to come play a festival and in nice weather. Plus, we love coming to Australia. It's our favourite place to go other than the States (laughs)
That's awesome to hear. It's been a few years since you guys were here last.
Yeah, I think the last time was 2011.
You guys are playing a few sideshows with Crossfaith while you're here, have you ever toured with them before?
No. I'm not familiar with them actually but we're looking forward to getting to know them and really keen to play these sideshows too because all the Soundwave shows are sold out this is a great chance for Periphery fans to catch us if they aren't at the festival.
For those that haven't seen you live like me, what can we expect from a Periphery show?
Well we're going to be playing mostly material from our latest record as well as a bunch of tracks that we've never played live before so new and old fans will have something to look forward to but to describe our show, I dunno. We just turn it up really loud and jump around (laughs) and yell in a microphone too, it'll be fun.
I'm actually attending Soundwave as well as your sideshow in Melbourne so it'll be great to see you live.
Thank you. I reckon we play really great shows in Melbourne.
That's great to hear! I actually just listened to Periphery II yesterday and it's a great album, tell us a bit about the influences behind that.
Sure. A lot of electronica and pop choruses and stuff which is not always things we did deliberately it's just what we thought sounded good to us. Basically what you heard is a combination of everything we liked media wise, so not just music that includes movies, video games, things like that as well so you may not be able to hear them all, but they're there.
I heard you guys were writing for the new album, is that correct?
Yeah it's going pretty well. We've got a lot of demoes going.
When can we expect to hear that one out?
We're not sure yet. We're actually making this a concept album so that's make it a little more difficult and challenging than normal.
When you guys are writing, who writes the music and lyrics and what are the major influences behind them?
We all write the music but the lyrics are all done by Spencer (Sotelo) our singer. I actually live with him and when I hear him writing I don't really understand what he's doing (laughs) but I know it turns out pretty cool.
Have you had any crazy moment involving fans?
Yeah I guess we get some that, I think the term you might use is “full on.” (laughs) Some fans say really weird things to us like that they are related to us or whatever but they all mean well, we have a great fan base.
I guess you have to take it as a complement, even if it creeps you out.
(laughs) yeah, we do. I know what they feel like, I've been in that place.
When you were growing up what bands inspired you to get into music?
Dream Theater is definitely the big one. I got a few of their CD's when I first got a CD player and I always knew that if I was ever gonna be in a band I wanted my music to sound like that. They are so progressive, yet technical and beautiful and great songwriting. They are the biggest influence to me for wanting to play guitar and being in a band.
Are there any bands you are loving right now?
Yeah I've always been a huge He Is Legend fan and there's an Aussie band called Twelve Foot Ninja I've been listening to a lot lately. Then there's bands like Karnivool, Nine Inch Nails and Pantera, stuff like that I love too. I know they've been out for a while but I have my go-to things that I listen to and they are all the ones I've been listening to a lot lately.
You mentioned Twelve Foot Ninja and Karnivool which is great, are you into any other Aussie bands?
I haven't really gotten into to many others as much as I've gotten into those. There are some great bands coming out of Australia and I think people need to pay a little bit more attention to those bands because it'd be really cool to have a bigger Australian presence over the world. I listen to a lot of rock, pop and elctronica and there are some great bands from all those genres coming out of Australia.
It's a shame that a lot of great bands struggle to make it big no matter where they are from really.
Yeah it's tough for Australia especially though, I feel, because the major cities most bands play in are so far apart and you can't really oversaturate your market so you can't tour all the times and then the costs and logistics of touring overseas can be a real pain so I don't envy that position. I'm sure it's quite difficult.
Talking about being in a band, what would you say is the best and worst thing about being in Periphery?
The best thing is that I get to play in my favourite band of all time and play with my best friends and see the world and the worst thing is the difficult toll that it takes on your mind and body. There is a lot of stress involved! (laughs) But the pros greatly outweigh the cons.
That's good to hear. I'm just curious, where did the name Periphery come from?
I think Misha (Mansoor, guitars) saw it on a billboard or an advertisement or something and he must have thought it'd make a cool name for a band.
Going back, how did the band actually form?
Well originally it was just Misha and this other guy named Jake Veredika, who was the original singer, and they met each other at a guitar centre in about 2004 and I guess they decided to form a band. He was the singer when I joined the band but not many people are familiar with him because he didn't have too much recorded with us.
Do you find it difficult to believe you've been a band almost 10 years?
Yeah, I mean I've only been in the band since late 2006 but even that feels like a long time. I can't imagine what it's like for Misha being an original, although I consider myself an original member because I was the last person to be added to the complete lineup but Misha has still been doing it a lot longer. It's incredible to look back at how far we've come from where we started.
Which band would you say has been the most fun to tour with?
Good question. We have our friends, like Between The Buried And Me are really good friends of ours. We love watching them live just as much as hanging out with them. We've really travelled the world with them which is something we don't do with every band. Another band we love a lot is Veil of Maya, they are actually on the same label as us. We've toured with them countless times and each time has been a lot of fun. Then there's another band called The Safety Fire, we've toured with them a lot too so they are 3 great bands that we're really good friends with.
Are there many bands on the Soundwave lineup that you've toured with before?
I am a very bad person. I've looked at that tour poster countless times and I just cannot remember any bands, the only one I can remember is Metallica (laughs) I know there are so many great bands on there and I feel like such a tool for not memorising them but I have bad memory (laughs)
(laughs) We'll make this the last question. What do you like to do in your time off?
I like to hang out with my girlfriend because I don't get to see her that much and just sit on the couch and watch TV and eat (laughs) Typical American shit. I write a lot of music for Periphery and my other project and sometimes I play video games when I have time too.
Cool, well we'll wrap it up there. Thanks for talking to us today and we look forward to seeing you down under soon.
Cool, man. Thanks for the interview.
Matt Barton
Hey, mate. How are you?
Good and you?
I'm great. You must be pretty stoked to be coming down for Soundwave?
Oh yeah, absolutely. We've never been to Australia in the summer so we're excited to come play a festival and in nice weather. Plus, we love coming to Australia. It's our favourite place to go other than the States (laughs)
That's awesome to hear. It's been a few years since you guys were here last.
Yeah, I think the last time was 2011.
You guys are playing a few sideshows with Crossfaith while you're here, have you ever toured with them before?
No. I'm not familiar with them actually but we're looking forward to getting to know them and really keen to play these sideshows too because all the Soundwave shows are sold out this is a great chance for Periphery fans to catch us if they aren't at the festival.
For those that haven't seen you live like me, what can we expect from a Periphery show?
Well we're going to be playing mostly material from our latest record as well as a bunch of tracks that we've never played live before so new and old fans will have something to look forward to but to describe our show, I dunno. We just turn it up really loud and jump around (laughs) and yell in a microphone too, it'll be fun.
I'm actually attending Soundwave as well as your sideshow in Melbourne so it'll be great to see you live.
Thank you. I reckon we play really great shows in Melbourne.
That's great to hear! I actually just listened to Periphery II yesterday and it's a great album, tell us a bit about the influences behind that.
Sure. A lot of electronica and pop choruses and stuff which is not always things we did deliberately it's just what we thought sounded good to us. Basically what you heard is a combination of everything we liked media wise, so not just music that includes movies, video games, things like that as well so you may not be able to hear them all, but they're there.
I heard you guys were writing for the new album, is that correct?
Yeah it's going pretty well. We've got a lot of demoes going.
When can we expect to hear that one out?
We're not sure yet. We're actually making this a concept album so that's make it a little more difficult and challenging than normal.
When you guys are writing, who writes the music and lyrics and what are the major influences behind them?
We all write the music but the lyrics are all done by Spencer (Sotelo) our singer. I actually live with him and when I hear him writing I don't really understand what he's doing (laughs) but I know it turns out pretty cool.
Have you had any crazy moment involving fans?
Yeah I guess we get some that, I think the term you might use is “full on.” (laughs) Some fans say really weird things to us like that they are related to us or whatever but they all mean well, we have a great fan base.
I guess you have to take it as a complement, even if it creeps you out.
(laughs) yeah, we do. I know what they feel like, I've been in that place.
When you were growing up what bands inspired you to get into music?
Dream Theater is definitely the big one. I got a few of their CD's when I first got a CD player and I always knew that if I was ever gonna be in a band I wanted my music to sound like that. They are so progressive, yet technical and beautiful and great songwriting. They are the biggest influence to me for wanting to play guitar and being in a band.
Are there any bands you are loving right now?
Yeah I've always been a huge He Is Legend fan and there's an Aussie band called Twelve Foot Ninja I've been listening to a lot lately. Then there's bands like Karnivool, Nine Inch Nails and Pantera, stuff like that I love too. I know they've been out for a while but I have my go-to things that I listen to and they are all the ones I've been listening to a lot lately.
You mentioned Twelve Foot Ninja and Karnivool which is great, are you into any other Aussie bands?
I haven't really gotten into to many others as much as I've gotten into those. There are some great bands coming out of Australia and I think people need to pay a little bit more attention to those bands because it'd be really cool to have a bigger Australian presence over the world. I listen to a lot of rock, pop and elctronica and there are some great bands from all those genres coming out of Australia.
It's a shame that a lot of great bands struggle to make it big no matter where they are from really.
Yeah it's tough for Australia especially though, I feel, because the major cities most bands play in are so far apart and you can't really oversaturate your market so you can't tour all the times and then the costs and logistics of touring overseas can be a real pain so I don't envy that position. I'm sure it's quite difficult.
Talking about being in a band, what would you say is the best and worst thing about being in Periphery?
The best thing is that I get to play in my favourite band of all time and play with my best friends and see the world and the worst thing is the difficult toll that it takes on your mind and body. There is a lot of stress involved! (laughs) But the pros greatly outweigh the cons.
That's good to hear. I'm just curious, where did the name Periphery come from?
I think Misha (Mansoor, guitars) saw it on a billboard or an advertisement or something and he must have thought it'd make a cool name for a band.
Going back, how did the band actually form?
Well originally it was just Misha and this other guy named Jake Veredika, who was the original singer, and they met each other at a guitar centre in about 2004 and I guess they decided to form a band. He was the singer when I joined the band but not many people are familiar with him because he didn't have too much recorded with us.
Do you find it difficult to believe you've been a band almost 10 years?
Yeah, I mean I've only been in the band since late 2006 but even that feels like a long time. I can't imagine what it's like for Misha being an original, although I consider myself an original member because I was the last person to be added to the complete lineup but Misha has still been doing it a lot longer. It's incredible to look back at how far we've come from where we started.
Which band would you say has been the most fun to tour with?
Good question. We have our friends, like Between The Buried And Me are really good friends of ours. We love watching them live just as much as hanging out with them. We've really travelled the world with them which is something we don't do with every band. Another band we love a lot is Veil of Maya, they are actually on the same label as us. We've toured with them countless times and each time has been a lot of fun. Then there's another band called The Safety Fire, we've toured with them a lot too so they are 3 great bands that we're really good friends with.
Are there many bands on the Soundwave lineup that you've toured with before?
I am a very bad person. I've looked at that tour poster countless times and I just cannot remember any bands, the only one I can remember is Metallica (laughs) I know there are so many great bands on there and I feel like such a tool for not memorising them but I have bad memory (laughs)
(laughs) We'll make this the last question. What do you like to do in your time off?
I like to hang out with my girlfriend because I don't get to see her that much and just sit on the couch and watch TV and eat (laughs) Typical American shit. I write a lot of music for Periphery and my other project and sometimes I play video games when I have time too.
Cool, well we'll wrap it up there. Thanks for talking to us today and we look forward to seeing you down under soon.
Cool, man. Thanks for the interview.
Matt Barton