- 2 minutes ago
Nick Hamilton | Barstool Music
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00:00Hey, what's up? This is JT and Matt from Hawthorne Heights, and we're here with Barstool Music.
00:04Thank you guys for coming in today. You're on the Lonely World Tour right now,
00:07celebrating the 20th anniversary of your album, If Only You Were Lonely.
00:11How has it felt getting to play that album in its entirety again?
00:14It's awesome. I mean, celebrating 20 years of anything, anything in your life,
00:2020 years being relevant later on, pretty awesome.
00:24We kind of look at it that way. For the band, it's great to unpack those memories that we've been
00:31storing in a box deep in our brain.
00:35Some good, some bad, but either way, you realize that anything dark, anything bad, you've made it through to the
00:43other side.
00:44So we're just unpacking great memories, and when we first played these, these fans were maybe 16 years old or
00:52something,
00:52so they've grown with it this entire time, you see pure joy to look out and see somebody like hearing
01:01this album start to finish,
01:03the exact sequence that they heard it the first time when they were probably depressed in their bedroom all alone
01:11with tears streaming down their face.
01:12Now those are tears of joy, and they just, you see it hit a lot of people and make that
01:19impact.
01:19And for us, that gives us another 10 years. You know, you feel it. The room is like gratitude.
01:25You just feel everybody wants to be there, and it makes us, on the exhausting nights, really, really want to
01:34be there.
01:35And so many people talk about how they're excited that they got to spend their adult money to come to
01:40a show now,
01:41as opposed to having their parents drag them along and drop them off the block away from the venue and
01:46stuff.
01:46So it's fun to see that.
01:49That's awesome. Were there any songs when you went to go relearn everything that were trickier to figure out this
01:56time around,
01:57where you were like breaking down tracks, or did it all come kind of naturally again?
02:02We did like a 15-year, like a smaller thing, so we kind of all knew the songs a bit.
02:08There's one, there's an acoustic song called December's at the End, and it's always just, the album's heavy, and then
02:17you have this acoustic song.
02:18So how to make that work, and do you put it around other soft songs?
02:23Like figuring out how to make that song work in a rock club is like always a struggle.
02:28So that's pretty much the hard part for me.
02:30But it kind of makes it the cool thing about playing the entire album,
02:34is because we're not just going to throw that song into a standard set and drag the whole set down,
02:42you know what I mean?
02:42So like it's, when it's expected, it's almost you're anticipating dragging the set down, which is cool.
02:50And then, you know, we get to kind of go off for an encore and bring the energy right back
02:57up.
02:57So it's great.
02:58It transitions into a video we have.
03:01So we like use that and the video as like one cohesive thing, and then we come back out.
03:06But that is, you know, that's our job 20 years later is to figure out how to make it an
03:10impact moment when it is a softer song.
03:13So like it's, you know, I guess a lesson in dynamics 20 years in to figure out how is it
03:20going to impact the people in the audience the correct way?
03:25How can I tell a story about what the song is actually about so people can connect a little bit
03:31later on in their life about it?
03:33Because we do like to, we like it to be an overarching like concept of like start to finish.
03:42We want it to feel great.
03:43In your own words, how would you describe the Hawthorne Hides sound?
03:47Man.
03:49I don't know.
03:51Here's the funny thing about our sound.
03:53When we were creating our sound, we had no idea what we were doing or what we sounded like.
03:59So we were just taking stuff that we thought was cool with no, just that.
04:06If it's cool, it makes it.
04:08And our first record is what we thought sounded cool.
04:12And that happened to end up accidentally being our sound.
04:16Yeah.
04:17It wasn't a, it wasn't like an effort.
04:19If we want to sound like this, we just sounded like we sounded.
04:21I would say somewhere between chaos brain and unrelenting cascading emotions.
04:29So just like everything is at a breakneck pace, whether it's starting, stopping, transitioning really quickly, going from, you know,
04:42extremely heaviness to one picked out guitar and a vocal.
04:48So whether that is correct songwriting, we will never say yes or no.
04:55Probably not.
04:56But it is our sound.
04:58But it is who we are.
04:59And that's, you know, one of the things that makes us unique is it's unrelenting in a lot of different
05:06ways.
05:07And that's by design.
05:08For people who may not know, Hawthorne Heights was not the original band name and that you started as A
05:13Day in the Life.
05:13Who decided on the name change and how did you come up with it?
05:17So A Day in the Life, that band was kind of my first real foray into anything emo-ish.
05:26I'd always been in something that trended a bit more pop punk, you know, Blink-182, stuff like that, loving
05:35Blink-182, Green Day.
05:37And then I, you know, started to hear other things like Saves a Day and, you know, Thursday comes out
05:45and stuff like that.
05:46And I'm like, I think that I like this way more than the fun of pop punk.
05:51This feels a little bit more introspective.
05:53So that's where A Day in the Life came from.
05:56It's simply local band stuff named after my favorite Beatles song, which has nothing to do with emo in any
06:02way.
06:02But, you know, that was a band full of other people.
06:07And when you start to kind of realize that you want this to be a bit more serious, you start
06:13to lose members because they don't want to take it as serious.
06:16So eventually, you know, people get serious relationships with their girlfriends or they're starting to graduate college.
06:23Maybe they need to move on from the band.
06:25So eventually it's just me.
06:27And I'm like, wait, I don't have to continue to be called A Day in the Life.
06:31I make the rules here.
06:32So every time somebody would leave the band, I would grab the awesome guy from another band in Dayton, Avengers
06:43style.
06:44Okay, lose a bass player.
06:46This guy was a good bass player in a not incredible band.
06:53Let's steal him.
06:55So you got to kind of do that.
06:57You got to, unfortunately, you got to leapfrog your friends a little bit.
07:03And he kind of brought the name with him.
07:07The name story is insane.
07:09So me and our guitar player, Casey, this is before I was in the band.
07:13We were going to start a pop punk band called Hawthorne Heights.
07:16And I got it because I was driving to college.
07:19I commuted like a loser.
07:21I literally didn't know anybody in college because I was a commuter.
07:23And there was a hotel that might not exist anymore called Hawthorne Inn & Suites.
07:28I would see it.
07:29It didn't have an E.
07:30So me and Casey were going to start a band called Hawthorne Heights.
07:34Casey then joins A Day in the Life.
07:37They're going to change their band name.
07:40Casey changes the band name to Hawthorne Heights.
07:43He steals my name.
07:43I'm not in the band yet.
07:45Then I end up coming in the band and finding out that the band I'm joining was named by me
07:51before I joined it.
07:53Which, it's a good thing this happened like this or I'd have a lawsuit.
07:56Yeah, local band drama.
07:57Yeah.
07:58Hard hitting.
07:59It's a very convoluted, weird situation, but it worked out.
08:02That's awesome.
08:03Also, it means nothing.
08:05But our drummer at the time, he used to go rogue in interviews and say that it was from Nathaniel
08:12Hawthorne, like making us look like scholar.
08:15Yeah, like we're literary folk.
08:17Yeah, and we're like, what are you doing?
08:19Like, we're going to be the Nathaniel Hawthorne band and we're going to have to defend this forever, even though
08:24it just means nothing.
08:25And he was probably just ahead of trends because we could have had a book talk moment.
08:29Yeah, for sure.
08:30If we would have stuck with the Nathaniel Hawthorne thing, but you just blew it.
08:35Now we're hotel talk.
08:37At the time, though, every band was like blood red, sky faded, like these long convoluted names.
08:46You could picture their bad logo in your head by seeing the name.
08:49We wanted to avoid that and try to feel timeless in a way.
08:53If someone's just getting introduced to Hawthorne Heights, which album do you think they should start with?
08:59Man, that's a very good question.
09:02I would probably send them to our first album because it is the one that is the rawest youthful yearning
09:11album with no preconceived notions at all.
09:16You've got five guys sleeping on the floor in Chicago, Illinois, on the grind, trying to just record their hopes
09:26and dreams with no knowledge.
09:30So what you see is literally what you get.
09:35But that is the rawest one, specifically for me.
09:38You know, like these are the real first time anybody's ever hearing the thoughts inside my head and me having
09:46to like sing them in front of people.
09:50So I do think that every time I hear it, I'm like, I'm I don't want to say impressed, but
09:57I'm proud that like we actually put that together with very little knowledge.
10:02It is an honest album.
10:05So I would say that one.
10:07And it has just such a weird pace to it that is interesting.
10:13There is no, you know, you flash forward and like we know too much now.
10:17We're trying to like, you know, go over the rules of songwriting.
10:22And should this song be two minutes and 58 seconds instead?
10:26Back then, we're like, no, this is what it sounds like because this is how we wanted it to sound.
10:32There were no rules and I love that about it.
10:35So go in blind, no rules whatsoever, and just lose yourself in it.
10:43Besides yourself, do you have a favorite band to come out of Ohio?
10:47Oh, man, there's a lot of great bands out of Ohio.
10:52I'm going to go rogue here.
10:54Do it.
10:54Bone Thugs and Harmony, probably.
10:56I mean, it's just.
10:57That is right.
10:58Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of good Ohio bands.
11:00Bone Thugs, just in general, just I remember just being waiting before school to see the
11:06Crossroads video.
11:07It's got to be the best band out of Ohio.
11:10I mean, it's it's tough to mess with for me.
11:14Like, I don't want to say they're my favorite band that a band that I listen to or anything,
11:19but I would probably say maybe the Breeders, because I didn't live in Ohio when that came
11:24out.
11:25I was stuck in a small town in West Virginia, but I knew the Breeders because they were on
11:30MTV, you know, had a connection to the Pixies and Nirvana.
11:37And so when I was choosing where to go from West Virginia, I had heard of the Breeders and
11:46I'd heard of Guided by Voices.
11:48So I'm like, Dayton, Ohio, that's only three hours away.
11:52Sounds like a hotbed of, you know, music.
11:56I get there.
11:57It's definitely not.
11:58Those were accidental hotbed bands.
12:02But yeah, they were important to me because they literally chose where I went to live.
12:07And I found all these guys because of it.
12:10I'll give you one more, though, that has to be talked about.
12:13Well, 21 Pilots is an Ohio band.
12:16They're definitely in the world, like, they're one of the best Ohio bands for sure.
12:21You should tell the story about the story.
12:25I mean, like, we didn't know who, this is before they had signed their contract or anything
12:30like that.
12:31But we played with 21 Pilots.
12:34It was probably maybe 2010 or something like that in Lebanon, Ohio at, like, kind of a youth
12:44group that did, like, floor shows.
12:47And the guy comes up to us, the promoter.
12:51He's like, hey, I have something awkward to talk to you guys about.
12:55I was like, oh, I love awkward.
12:56Let it rip.
12:57And he's like, I think you should let this other band play last.
13:02And we're like, we're Hawthorne Heights.
13:04We literally don't care.
13:06But explain it to us why.
13:08He's like, well, this band is blowing up organically in Ohio.
13:14And it's their drummer's last show.
13:16It's their drummer's last show.
13:17And it's going to be a thing.
13:19And you really don't want that thing to overshadow you just playing your songs.
13:25And I was like, sounds awesome.
13:26Now we get to watch the thing, and we get to play before them.
13:30And totally cool.
13:32Turns out it's 21 Pilots.
13:33Still nothing.
13:34This is in a barn, by the way.
13:36In, like, a farmland.
13:38This is it.
13:39Yeah, still nothing.
13:40And then you flash forward.
13:42It's probably about six months later, and we're with one of our friends who's a graphic
13:46designer.
13:48And he's doing the design for their album cover.
13:52And it says 21 Pilots on it.
13:54I was like, why are you doing this?
13:55We just play with them in a barn.
13:57He's like, oh, they're on Warner Brothers.
13:58I'm the art director for Warner Brothers.
14:00And we're like, oh, my God.
14:04So oblivious to it.
14:05And then, you know, a year and a half later, boom.
14:0921 Pilots is massive.
14:11But they're, like, known.
14:12They're known for their live show.
14:13And at this show in this stupid barn, we let them play.
14:18And there was, like, we get done playing, and we definitely have, like, okay, let's see
14:21what this is all about.
14:22They were incredible.
14:24You could feel it.
14:25They were unbelievable in a barn.
14:26And we were sitting there watching, going, oh, this band's going to be massive.
14:29Yeah.
14:30You could definitely feel it.
14:32And it was right.
14:33Yeah.
14:33And, you know, they're an awesome band.
14:38From Ohio.
14:39Great.
14:39Do you have a favorite venue you've ever played?
14:42There's a lot of really, really incredible venues out there.
14:48We've never played Red Rocks, so we have a favorite venue we haven't played.
14:52So we'll start there.
14:54That was going to be my next question.
14:56What's the dream one you want to play?
14:57You know, I would say Warped Tour 2005, we went from, like, being nothing to being, like,
15:08one of the main stage bands.
15:10Like, we never played any other stage.
15:11We started there.
15:14And playing The Gorge outside of Seattle, Washington, it's, like, it's their Red Rocks.
15:22It's definitely, like, a classic, beautiful, iconic, all the seats are carved out of a mountainside.
15:32So probably that, that was just a moment where it was, like, we need to stop and really remember this.
15:38Because we'd only been a band for about a year at that point.
15:41We're, like, we know this is magic.
15:43You must take this in.
15:46Back in the day, the answer was always the Norva in Norfolk, Virginia.
15:51Because it had a hot tub backstage, and you just can't imagine that being possible.
15:56But then when you think about it, you're like, well, that's got to be the most disgusting place on earth.
16:00You don't want to get in that hot tub.
16:01I've never been in it.
16:02But in your mind, you're like, whoa, that place is next level.
16:05Yeah.
16:06I'd say Salt, I mean, Salt Shed in Chicago is, like, an extremely nice venue.
16:10You're very well taken care of.
16:12You feel like a big band at the Salt Shed.
16:15But the flip side of that is, you know, Troubadour, Roxy, and L.A. are so classic.
16:21There's so much, like, wonderful history there that you can be in a room where you know Elton John played
16:30his first ever show in the United States.
16:32You're playing that same stage.
16:34So we've just been fortunate to have a lot of really awesome moments.
16:40And it all depends on, you know, do you want the hot tub or do you want, you know, classic
16:46history and stuff like that?
16:47Well, we should base our decision on, like, how good the shows are.
16:50But I feel like you—
16:50We don't.
16:51When you ask a band, they always base it on the green room.
16:55It's because that's what you see.
16:56They're always kind of bad in their own way.
16:59Yeah.
17:00He's right.
17:01I feel like you guys have always been good at social media.
17:04Like, I've seen—even going back on your YouTube, you have stuff that from just Day in the Life from, like,
17:0916 years ago.
17:10And I'm curious.
17:11You've seen so many different social media platforms.
17:15Which one do you think has been the most beneficial for the band?
17:19That's an easy answer.
17:21Yeah.
17:22We got to grow up at the dawn of social media and be able to harness it.
17:29We knew very early on.
17:31We saw the power of connecting with people on the Internet outside of just being in a band.
17:40And that was my space.
17:41You know, there was—I talk about this a lot.
17:43It was such a positive experience because you could communicate with your fans all around the world.
17:51Before anybody knew who anybody was, you were trying to out-cool each other by putting the bands you loved
18:00in your MySpace Top 8, and then all your friends would see that.
18:04And then they would put the same bands in, you know, the cool people in the friend group.
18:08And it really grew organically that way.
18:12And, you know, you have little tinkerers that are, like, coding and everything, putting their little players in, re-scanning
18:19their—
18:19It was like online word of mouth.
18:22It was like this, like, direct interaction between the two things.
18:26It was very cool.
18:27And we were one of the first bands at that exact time period to actually—like, we had a rule.
18:33Every night after the show, we would spend an hour in the hotel room plugging an Ethernet cable into the
18:42wall where we had net zero.
18:45Because Wi-Fi was not really a thing yet.
18:49So we got a subscription for the band, and we would all answer any question.
18:56We would hit the comms for an hour a night, all of us sitting there, like, just—
19:02We were definitely forums, all the stuff.
19:05Yeah, because it mattered, because we were so excited that anybody wanted to talk about us or anybody cared or
19:11anything like that.
19:12You know, you flash forward to now, and it's probably YouTube, because you can do so much with it, but
19:19also there's so much entertainment on there.
19:23I feel like Instagram is cool, but you're like, it's very—it's not time-consuming enough for me.
19:33You scroll for a little bit, and you're like, all right, everybody's doing the same thing.
19:36On YouTube, you really can—that's where you get lost in it, because it'll go video to video, but it's all
19:44stuff that you're interested in.
19:46So, probably, right?
19:48MySpace, yeah.
19:49It's got to be MySpace.
19:52When you're performing at a festival, is there any particular band that you get excited to see in the lineup
19:57with you?
19:58Whether that's, like, an old friend that you've met that you've been doing Warped Tours with, or just somebody that
20:04you always love to see play.
20:05Yeah, I kind of break that into two categories.
20:09First category is bands that are a rarity for us, bands that we don't get to see play very often.
20:17Called Insane Clown Posse.
20:19That would be one of them.
20:20Yes.
20:21But, you know, that's on, like, a Danny Wimmer Presents, a festival that lasts four days.
20:28Every awesome band in rock music, no matter the sub-genres of rock music.
20:34So, we will.
20:34We'll get to stroll over to a stage, and we'll be watching Insane Clown Posse.
20:40Next up, over, you're seeing Metallica play.
20:43All these things that we don't get to play with, like, in genre.
20:47Nine-inch nails.
20:48Like, anytime you see that, you're watching purely as a fan and purely for enjoyment.
20:53And then more like on the Warped Tour circuit, we're just hanging with friends.
20:58You know, you know, like, you're asking, the second you get your offer, you're asking all your other friends.
21:02Yo, Silverstein.
21:03You get that offer, Bayside.
21:05You get that offer, Store of the Year.
21:08All these bands, Emory, like, all these people, because we want to know where the backstage hang is.
21:15We want to know, are we going to get to see our guys for, you know, 12 hours straight, and
21:22then the show becomes secondary because we're just hanging backstage being the dudes.
21:28And so, yeah, so you want either pure enjoyment for watching a band that you never get to see, or
21:37the polar opposite.
21:39The show doesn't matter.
21:41It's all about hanging backstage with people you've known for 20 years that you respect and that you have a
21:47lot of fun with.
21:47And we get to play on the same stages as bands we just don't play with.
21:51A couple years ago, we played two bands before Slayer, so all their stuff was on the stage.
21:56So we're playing our little pop songs, and behind us are, like, upside-down crosses everywhere, just waiting for their
22:02set.
22:03Not often we get to rip an upside-down cross on the stage while we play.
22:07And directly in front of us, you see, like, a legion of corpse paint sitting there looking like, oh, these
22:16guys are going to be bored.
22:17We start Ohio is for Lovers.
22:19They sing instantly.
22:20Yep.
22:21It's the universal song.
22:23Corpse paint, juggalos.
22:25Emo's.
22:26That's everybody.
22:27Emo's.
22:27Everybody likes that song.
22:29Yep.
22:29What does your post-show routine look like now, versus when you first started?
22:34Man.
22:35I know what that is.
22:36Post-show routine when we first got started.
22:38Sell CDs.
22:40For sure.
22:41Try to get as many.
22:42$5 CDs.
22:42As many $5 CDs out there as possible.
22:45And then get in the van and drive to the hotel hours away, till, like, 3 in the morning.
22:50Wake up at 9 a.m., do it all again.
22:52And now, we get done with the show, instant shower, and then bed.
22:59I mean, we're in bed by 11.30, midnight, because this tour, we play early because we know people have
23:05jobs, and we don't want to be playing till 11 p.m.
23:08So, we're probably in bed by midnight.
23:11So different.
23:12But also up at 6 or 7.
23:15Yeah.
23:15So, like, our schedule is, I would say, very adult.
23:21If you want the lying answer, dude, we are, the second we get off stage, drugs.
23:29The second we wake up, alcohol.
23:31But none of that's true.
23:33You know, like, we definitely play a show, and then we relax and get cleaned up, go to bed.
23:42But if it's football season, we'll watch the second half of a football game, which kind of rocks.
23:47We did that last night.
23:48Yesterday, we almost forgot to go on stage because we were watching football.
23:51Yeah.
23:52It's a problem.
23:53What advice would you give to new artists coming up right now?
23:56You know, we give the, we're asked this question a lot by other bands.
24:01You know, bands that are just coming up.
24:02Um, we can't really give them the advice that we had when we were coming up because it's an entirely
24:09different world.
24:11Um, our advice back then was take the show on the road at all costs.
24:17Just get on the road because there would be people at every show, at every venue, because it was just
24:23such a thing.
24:24We didn't have to compete with phones.
24:27Um, now.
24:29And that's how you would meet somebody out of town.
24:31You would go to them.
24:32Exactly.
24:32You would go to them.
24:33And now we have the internet.
24:35There's a better way now.
24:37Yeah.
24:37So now, like I would say, find a way.
24:40First of all, be authentic.
24:41Always be authentic.
24:43Try to create a band or a project that is unique, that has your point of view.
24:51That's the whole point in doing art is to find yourself within it.
24:55Once you feel comfortable that you've found yourself, that you're ready to share something,
25:03find a way for that music or that art to connect on the internet because you can either play a
25:13terrible show for 15 people anywhere in the world,
25:17or you can find a creative way to post about your music that can instantly hit millions of people, which
25:28will eventually allow you to go on tour with a fan base who is ready to see you.
25:33So, be authentic.
25:36Find a way to connect in ways that are just not on the stage because the stage is fun.
25:43The fun, the fun's going to come if you do it the right way, but don't make that the only
25:49thing.
25:50The most important thing is booking a show.
25:52And are there any emerging emo bands that have caught your eye right now that you think more people should
25:57know about?
25:59I mean, there's hundreds of millions of great bands out there.
26:07Currently...
26:09We're skewed because we still...
26:11I mean, I still think of Hot Mulligan as a new band.
26:13They're not.
26:14Yeah.
26:15But in my brain, they are.
26:19So, it's hard to think of new in that context.
26:22It definitely is.
26:23I mean, a band that I really like is a band...
26:28And I don't even know if I'm going to say their name right because I've never heard anybody talk about
26:34them.
26:34I've never met them or anything like that.
26:36But to me, it looks like Rosa Sharon.
26:40And it is a band that is doing a lot of awesome things that I love from back in the
26:48day and doing it kind of uniquely in their own way.
26:52So, that's definitely a band that I would mention.
26:56And they're screamy.
26:58They're spazzy.
26:59But also, they have really pretty parts.
27:03So, that's definitely a band that I'm into right now.
27:07Thank you guys so much for coming in.
27:08Where is the best place people can go to find out information on tickets, new music, and everything you've got
27:13coming?
27:13Well, it all depends.
27:15If you're of a certain age or want to see it larger, our website, hawthorneheights.com.
27:22That is very, very easy.
27:26Or Instagram, if you just want it tightly compressed and have an artwork element to it where we're usually talking
27:33or messing around with each other or something like that.
27:38And it's just Instagram, what, at hawthorneights.
27:44Whatever.
27:44Username that.
27:45Search that.
27:46You'll find it.
27:47Yeah.
27:47And we run all that stuff.
27:49So, like, all that stuff is from our point of view.
27:54And to this day, we still do respond to messages every single day when we have time because it's, like,
28:05important to us.
28:05Yeah, yesterday at a VIP, somebody just asked us about the song, Like a Cardinal.
28:13Somehow it got brought up that JT likes to beat.
28:15He is a birdwatcher.
28:18I'm not proud of it.
28:19And I told them, I said, tell you what, I have a video where I caught JT watching birds.
28:24And I'll put it up for you.
28:26So, it's the newest video on our Instagram is JT birdwatching and me going around a tree to capture that.
28:32So, it's just, we control it.
28:34Making fun of me, by the way.
28:35We do whatever we want on there.
28:37So, that's probably the best place.
28:39Thank you so much to JT and Matt of Hawthorne Heights for coming through and giving us their time on
28:43Barstool Music.
28:44Since we recorded this interview, they've dropped a new single, Carry Me.
28:48Go streaming everywhere today.
28:49And to find out if the Lonely World Tour is coming near you, go to hawthorneheights.com.
28:54Thanks for watching.
28:55Make sure to like, subscribe, and leave a comment below who you want to see next on Barstool Music.
28:59Beồi?
29:00Bye.
29:00Bye.
29:00Bye.
29:00Bye.
29:00There you are.
29:01Bye.