Rick Jimenez - This Is Hell (24/01/2013)
With Soundwave Festival closer than ever, we chat with Rick Jimenez of This Is Hell.
Hey Rick, how are you?
How you doin' man?
I'm great thanks. So for those that don't know, how did This Is Hell form?
It was in 2004, there were actually 5 of us at that time and we were all in other bands on Long Island and they were all either coming to an end or figuring out that not all their members wanted to tour all the time so 5 of us came together from 3 different bands and we realised we were the ones that wanted to tour all the time so we decided to get together, hang out, write a couple of songs, record things and see how we go. We put out a demo and then that summer we did one last tour with each of our respective tour and then when we came back home we decided to go full time with This Is Hell. Since then we've basically been recording music constantly and touring constantly and always writing new music.
Did you imagine that almost 10 years on you'd still be going?
I hoped. I mean I knew early on that this is what I wanted to do, just play music and tour but at the same time the band was very rooted into traditional hardcore. I was just about to turn 24 at the time and of course I had the thought that I'd love to do this forever but does a hardcore band really have a 10 year lifespan in 2004? But we've evolved. We've played all different types of shows and tours, we've put out genre-crossing records and everything and it's awesome knowing that almost 10 years later we're still doing it. We just put out a new EP and we're working on a 5th record. Right now we're at the second show of a 2 month world tour and that's just part 1 of what we have planned for the year so as I said we hoped we would last but it's not like we were like “hey, this band we just started, we'll definitely be around in 10 years,” to be honest we thought it'd be great if we could last 10 weeks.
You mentioned a world tour, you must be pretty excited to be coming back for Soundwave?
We're psyched! We're psyched for so many reasons. We haven't been to Australia in about 2 years I think, December of 2010 was the last time we were there so that's over 2 years and the fact we're playing Soundwave again which is just the raddest time in the world you can have if you're in a band and then the lineup this year is just completely absurd. You have Metallica, my favourite band of all time. Slayer, one of my favourite bands ever and Anthrax in the same boat. It's crazy!
Sounds like a real dream come true to be playing again.
Totally! I can say that without any sarcasm or anything. To be able to play these 5 shows is just crazy and to be on the same bill as Metallica is just ridiculous! (laughing) It's just so ridiculous that I don't even believe it sometimes. It's just amazing. We've done so many things with this band that have been insane, that I can't believe, I mean it's just me playing my silly little guitar and it's given us so many great opportunities. It's nuts.
Yeah absolutely, you definitely wouldn't have thought back in 2004 you'd one day be touring alongside arguably the biggest metal band of all time.
Yeah, yeah definitely not! (laughs) In 2004 if someone would have said “How's about you go to Australia and play 5 shows with Metallica in a couple of years” I would have just said “are you fucking kidding me?” It truly is just a dream come true, it's crazy.
I bet! Speaking of Australia, are you into any Australian bands?
I think a lot of the Australian bands I know or like aren't together anymore. Well obviously there is Parkway Drive. We met them in about 2006 on I believe their second US tour and they'd jumped on a bunch of shows with us, Comeback Kid and It Dies Today and we had no idea who they were until the guys from Comeback Kid told us they were Parkway Drive from Australia so later on we meet them and they just seemed like surfer dudes from Australia but they get up onstage and play and they just killed it! I just couldn't believe it. They were so good and so tight it was great and it was so funny because they just came across like surfer, skate punk kids and they performed this crushing metal and we just couldn't work out what was going on! (laughs) They were the nicest, most polite dudes in the world. So in a live situation they were the first Aussie band we were exposed to. We ended up meeting 50 Lions through them. There was also a band called Phantoms who aren't together anymore but I thought they were just so, so cool. They had this great mix of classic hardcore and great metal and I was so bummed when they broke up. Our bassist (Pieter Vandenberg) and drummer (Mike Sciulara) are good friends with The Amity Affliction which is cool. We know the guys from Deez Nuts too and they are great dudes. It was like you were saying, back in 2004 I would never have thought we'd have friends in bands from Australia. We go over there and we see them, they come over here and we see them. Stuff like that is crazy. It's really cool.
Yeah you mentioned Amity who are also playing Soundwave.
Yeah, that's totally cool.
You guys are about to release a new EP, what was the recording process like for that?
It was actually awesome. We recorded with Zeus who's worked with Shadow's Fall and Hatebreed a lot and the list goes on and on and we just wanted to work with him like crazy so we reached out to him that we'd like to do a record with him and he ended up coming to one of our shows so we caught up afterwards and he said that he'd love to work with us so we booked some time with him and went up to Nick from Toxic Holocaust's studio in Connecticut and he came down and mixed the whole thing. For us it was a quick and easy process, it was all done in about 3 days and was really stress free, a lot of fun and in the end it's hands down the best recording we've ever had. We just did a couple of takes of each song and it worked well. The stress free environment is hard to find but it was a lot of fun too and when we got the mixes back we were amazed we'd done it in 3 days because it was almost like we'd just messed around for a few days and made this record. This was all done just before Christmas and then a month later we put on a song on the internet and pre-orders up and now it's about to come out. We're so psyched. We're playing some songs from it on this current tour and there'll definitely be some new songs on the Soundwave run too.
You mentioned before that you are writing for your new album, will you be working with Zeus when you record that?
We hope so. We didn't set a schedule but because he's got some stuff to do this year we are trying to work it out where we will both have free time at the same time but we're pretty set that we make sure we do this record with him because we just had such a great time. I mean that was just a 3 day process but for the full-length we'll set aside 2 weeks which is gonna be awesome. He knows the direction we wanna go so it's gonna be great if it all plans out so we can record the next record with him.
Sounds good. When you are writing the music and lyrics who writes them and what influences them?
What usually happens is I just sit and play guitar, play some riffs and essentially structure a song although with modern technology I could potentially demo out a whole song on my computer. So what happens is I will write the music and then the lyrics and demo everything and then we work on the song as a band and then from there we'll make changes as far as rearranging the song or adding or subtracting parts or riffs or changing how a riff is played etc. Basically that's how we've done it for a while and that's how we'll do this record. What is really cool with this current lineup is everyone is throwing in their stamp on the song, there is a little bit of everybody on each song which makes it more fun for everyone, even me. I mean it's much better than me going “I wrote this song and that's it!” It's much more fun this way coz the other guys always have ideas that I didn't think of that make the songs so much better. It's through their eyes which makes it truly a whole band making an album.
Yeah, you definitely have to work together on something like that.
I've never been good coming into a practise space with nothing and everyone just going “ok, now let's write songs” which is what a lot of bands do but then a lot of bands don't at the same time. Sometimes it's good to have a foundation and then everybody work off that.
Speaking of your songs, do you have a favourite one to play live?
I actually just got this question recently and it's hard to say because it changes for whatever reason. Sometimes a song that we play live all the time will out of nowhere become my favourite song to play live even though we've been playing it for say 3 years straight but then other times we play a song for the first time in ages or for the first time and that becomes my favourite because it's almost like a newer song. Right now my favourite is probably The Enforcer from the new EP, in fact yesterday was the first time we ever played it live and it's so much fun to play. Black Mass from our last album is another favourite because we hadn't started playing it until very recently so it's like a new song for us to play even though it's been out for over a year now.
We'll make this the last question – what is the best and worst thing about being in This Is Hell?
The worst thing is that you can't plan life because you're on the road for 3 months then you're home for a month and then you're on the road again so it's hard to plan around that especially because we're not a band that generates a ton of money so we're always worrying about money. Paying bills is difficult. Basically anything based around money is hard to prepare for. You don't have a regular life but on the other hand, not having that regular life is probably the best part at the same time. I look at most people and they have their 9 to 5 jobs, if I had to sit in an office 9 to 5 for 5 days a week I'd go insane. When I have obligations to the band I'm always excited to be a part of it. Like when we have to travel for 2 months and I play my guitar for half hour each night that is the best obligation in the world. Yes it's a low paying job but it's my passion in life and not many people can say their job is their passion and to be able to say that is the greatest thing about my life. I love that I'm not stuck in the 9 to 5 sort of life. It sounds like being in a band is your perfect job.
It is but a lot of outsiders don't understand the negative parts about it, I mean it's not for everybody. As I said about the worrying about money, some people can't handle that and I'm not knocking anyone but certain people are cut out for certain things. For me I'll handle having to worry about money because I get to fuck around with my guitar every night so that trade off is worth it for me as opposed to if I couldn't handle it I'd have to give up all the fun in my life and actually work. As you said, it is perfect for me, so I'm glad I've found something that is perfect for me and made it work.
Absolutely. Well we'll wrap it up there, thanks very much for your time.
Sure, no problem. Thank you.
Matt Barton
Hey Rick, how are you?
How you doin' man?
I'm great thanks. So for those that don't know, how did This Is Hell form?
It was in 2004, there were actually 5 of us at that time and we were all in other bands on Long Island and they were all either coming to an end or figuring out that not all their members wanted to tour all the time so 5 of us came together from 3 different bands and we realised we were the ones that wanted to tour all the time so we decided to get together, hang out, write a couple of songs, record things and see how we go. We put out a demo and then that summer we did one last tour with each of our respective tour and then when we came back home we decided to go full time with This Is Hell. Since then we've basically been recording music constantly and touring constantly and always writing new music.
Did you imagine that almost 10 years on you'd still be going?
I hoped. I mean I knew early on that this is what I wanted to do, just play music and tour but at the same time the band was very rooted into traditional hardcore. I was just about to turn 24 at the time and of course I had the thought that I'd love to do this forever but does a hardcore band really have a 10 year lifespan in 2004? But we've evolved. We've played all different types of shows and tours, we've put out genre-crossing records and everything and it's awesome knowing that almost 10 years later we're still doing it. We just put out a new EP and we're working on a 5th record. Right now we're at the second show of a 2 month world tour and that's just part 1 of what we have planned for the year so as I said we hoped we would last but it's not like we were like “hey, this band we just started, we'll definitely be around in 10 years,” to be honest we thought it'd be great if we could last 10 weeks.
You mentioned a world tour, you must be pretty excited to be coming back for Soundwave?
We're psyched! We're psyched for so many reasons. We haven't been to Australia in about 2 years I think, December of 2010 was the last time we were there so that's over 2 years and the fact we're playing Soundwave again which is just the raddest time in the world you can have if you're in a band and then the lineup this year is just completely absurd. You have Metallica, my favourite band of all time. Slayer, one of my favourite bands ever and Anthrax in the same boat. It's crazy!
Sounds like a real dream come true to be playing again.
Totally! I can say that without any sarcasm or anything. To be able to play these 5 shows is just crazy and to be on the same bill as Metallica is just ridiculous! (laughing) It's just so ridiculous that I don't even believe it sometimes. It's just amazing. We've done so many things with this band that have been insane, that I can't believe, I mean it's just me playing my silly little guitar and it's given us so many great opportunities. It's nuts.
Yeah absolutely, you definitely wouldn't have thought back in 2004 you'd one day be touring alongside arguably the biggest metal band of all time.
Yeah, yeah definitely not! (laughs) In 2004 if someone would have said “How's about you go to Australia and play 5 shows with Metallica in a couple of years” I would have just said “are you fucking kidding me?” It truly is just a dream come true, it's crazy.
I bet! Speaking of Australia, are you into any Australian bands?
I think a lot of the Australian bands I know or like aren't together anymore. Well obviously there is Parkway Drive. We met them in about 2006 on I believe their second US tour and they'd jumped on a bunch of shows with us, Comeback Kid and It Dies Today and we had no idea who they were until the guys from Comeback Kid told us they were Parkway Drive from Australia so later on we meet them and they just seemed like surfer dudes from Australia but they get up onstage and play and they just killed it! I just couldn't believe it. They were so good and so tight it was great and it was so funny because they just came across like surfer, skate punk kids and they performed this crushing metal and we just couldn't work out what was going on! (laughs) They were the nicest, most polite dudes in the world. So in a live situation they were the first Aussie band we were exposed to. We ended up meeting 50 Lions through them. There was also a band called Phantoms who aren't together anymore but I thought they were just so, so cool. They had this great mix of classic hardcore and great metal and I was so bummed when they broke up. Our bassist (Pieter Vandenberg) and drummer (Mike Sciulara) are good friends with The Amity Affliction which is cool. We know the guys from Deez Nuts too and they are great dudes. It was like you were saying, back in 2004 I would never have thought we'd have friends in bands from Australia. We go over there and we see them, they come over here and we see them. Stuff like that is crazy. It's really cool.
Yeah you mentioned Amity who are also playing Soundwave.
Yeah, that's totally cool.
You guys are about to release a new EP, what was the recording process like for that?
It was actually awesome. We recorded with Zeus who's worked with Shadow's Fall and Hatebreed a lot and the list goes on and on and we just wanted to work with him like crazy so we reached out to him that we'd like to do a record with him and he ended up coming to one of our shows so we caught up afterwards and he said that he'd love to work with us so we booked some time with him and went up to Nick from Toxic Holocaust's studio in Connecticut and he came down and mixed the whole thing. For us it was a quick and easy process, it was all done in about 3 days and was really stress free, a lot of fun and in the end it's hands down the best recording we've ever had. We just did a couple of takes of each song and it worked well. The stress free environment is hard to find but it was a lot of fun too and when we got the mixes back we were amazed we'd done it in 3 days because it was almost like we'd just messed around for a few days and made this record. This was all done just before Christmas and then a month later we put on a song on the internet and pre-orders up and now it's about to come out. We're so psyched. We're playing some songs from it on this current tour and there'll definitely be some new songs on the Soundwave run too.
You mentioned before that you are writing for your new album, will you be working with Zeus when you record that?
We hope so. We didn't set a schedule but because he's got some stuff to do this year we are trying to work it out where we will both have free time at the same time but we're pretty set that we make sure we do this record with him because we just had such a great time. I mean that was just a 3 day process but for the full-length we'll set aside 2 weeks which is gonna be awesome. He knows the direction we wanna go so it's gonna be great if it all plans out so we can record the next record with him.
Sounds good. When you are writing the music and lyrics who writes them and what influences them?
What usually happens is I just sit and play guitar, play some riffs and essentially structure a song although with modern technology I could potentially demo out a whole song on my computer. So what happens is I will write the music and then the lyrics and demo everything and then we work on the song as a band and then from there we'll make changes as far as rearranging the song or adding or subtracting parts or riffs or changing how a riff is played etc. Basically that's how we've done it for a while and that's how we'll do this record. What is really cool with this current lineup is everyone is throwing in their stamp on the song, there is a little bit of everybody on each song which makes it more fun for everyone, even me. I mean it's much better than me going “I wrote this song and that's it!” It's much more fun this way coz the other guys always have ideas that I didn't think of that make the songs so much better. It's through their eyes which makes it truly a whole band making an album.
Yeah, you definitely have to work together on something like that.
I've never been good coming into a practise space with nothing and everyone just going “ok, now let's write songs” which is what a lot of bands do but then a lot of bands don't at the same time. Sometimes it's good to have a foundation and then everybody work off that.
Speaking of your songs, do you have a favourite one to play live?
I actually just got this question recently and it's hard to say because it changes for whatever reason. Sometimes a song that we play live all the time will out of nowhere become my favourite song to play live even though we've been playing it for say 3 years straight but then other times we play a song for the first time in ages or for the first time and that becomes my favourite because it's almost like a newer song. Right now my favourite is probably The Enforcer from the new EP, in fact yesterday was the first time we ever played it live and it's so much fun to play. Black Mass from our last album is another favourite because we hadn't started playing it until very recently so it's like a new song for us to play even though it's been out for over a year now.
We'll make this the last question – what is the best and worst thing about being in This Is Hell?
The worst thing is that you can't plan life because you're on the road for 3 months then you're home for a month and then you're on the road again so it's hard to plan around that especially because we're not a band that generates a ton of money so we're always worrying about money. Paying bills is difficult. Basically anything based around money is hard to prepare for. You don't have a regular life but on the other hand, not having that regular life is probably the best part at the same time. I look at most people and they have their 9 to 5 jobs, if I had to sit in an office 9 to 5 for 5 days a week I'd go insane. When I have obligations to the band I'm always excited to be a part of it. Like when we have to travel for 2 months and I play my guitar for half hour each night that is the best obligation in the world. Yes it's a low paying job but it's my passion in life and not many people can say their job is their passion and to be able to say that is the greatest thing about my life. I love that I'm not stuck in the 9 to 5 sort of life. It sounds like being in a band is your perfect job.
It is but a lot of outsiders don't understand the negative parts about it, I mean it's not for everybody. As I said about the worrying about money, some people can't handle that and I'm not knocking anyone but certain people are cut out for certain things. For me I'll handle having to worry about money because I get to fuck around with my guitar every night so that trade off is worth it for me as opposed to if I couldn't handle it I'd have to give up all the fun in my life and actually work. As you said, it is perfect for me, so I'm glad I've found something that is perfect for me and made it work.
Absolutely. Well we'll wrap it up there, thanks very much for your time.
Sure, no problem. Thank you.
Matt Barton