The Nintendo Fusion Tour is one of those tours that like to bring a grip of different bands together and smash them with the culture of the video game industry. Talk about strategic marketing. Now this year, the annual tour was headlined by the band Racket Magazine loves to hate, Hawthorne Heights. Now, you’re thinking, why the heck would we cover this tour? Our answer would be for the fact that the rest of the bands on the bill fancy our little hearts. Like Seattle’s EMERY. With a reputation for their energetic live show and a need to get as close to the crowd as possible (presence at an Emery show is required to truly understand this), it was my duty to find out more who Emery is outside of the stage. I met up with Dave (Drums) and Matt (Guitar) before the show, big glasses and southern accent included.
– By Jamie N. Rocha
RM Jamie: Now, a couple of months ago, you did the Vans Warped Tour, and it just so happened that it was my first time seeing you guys perform, and it really blew me away. What is it about Warped Tour that brings you back to it?
Matt- Well, I always tell people about Warped Tour that it’s in the middle of the day and you get off work by 7 at night. You are out working in the sun and it kinda feels like it’s the most unique tour of the year. Something different than being in a bar every night really late, it’s great in that respect. Dave don’t like it, tell ‘em Dave…
Dave: Uh, it’s not so bad…
Matt: Dave really doesn’t like it
RM Jamie: Really?
Dave: I like a club tour better…RM Jamie: I can understand that, some people don’t like to be in the sun and the humidity like at Warped Tour. Touring is like a passage for bands, so during the early years of Emery, did you find out anything about your band mates that you didn’t know before?
Matt: Well, we lived together, before the band; we were best friends, so not really. Devin, one of our singers, I’ve been roommates with him for more than ten years.
RM Jamie: Oh wow…
Matt: We’ve played T-Ball together when we were about 6 years old…not much to learn! And the other guys too, we’ve pretty much have known [each other] for so long, been friends before the band, so being on tour wasn’t far much different from our regular lives as far how well we knew each other.RM Jamie: So I know you guys moved from South Carolina to Seattle, why such a big move??
Matt: Well, we just figured we wanted to do whatever Kurt Cobain would do…
RM Jamie: So you moved to Seattle! Anything in Seattle you had to get used to that wasn’t in South Carolina?
Matt: Um, I think it was more of the case of the Pacific Northwest getting used to us. I think that was the bigger shock. [Laughs] Now there are a lot of things different about it, but nothing really bad. It’s really easy compared to other difficult cities like New York. You know, it’s not a big city thing to where we had a hard time adjusting. It was very laid back, so it wasn’t that difficult.RM Jamie: So, did you see any difference between your original hometown fans to your Seattle fans?
Matt: Well, we weren’t really a band before we started, so we didn’t really have any fans in our hometown. So ‘hometown’ is Seattle for the band. It’s obviously a lot different, that there are a million more people in Seattle that wanna support local music and come to shows. There was actually a scene there, where at the time in South Carolina, there was not one. And now there kinda is, but at the time, it was totally zero, so that’s a big difference.RM Jamie: And your move happened on such a historic day in our country, 9/11, which obviously affected everyone. Did you guys find it harder to write music about stuff personal to you that didn’t live up the tragedy, or did you find it more inspirational for your music?
Matt: It seems more than anything then just be more of just a marker of a time when things were different. It wasn’t a monumental thing as far as like in our writing and our music, or anything like that. More just like a marker of a time in our lives when we moved away, and it just [happened] right in the same time, it was just an easily identifiable time for everybody, and everybody knows where they were that day, and all this and that. So, for us it’s like,”Remember when that happened, well that was the same day….” You know. For us, our lives changed more because of what we did moving that day, than from the tragedy. Not to diminish from it at all, [of course].
RM Jamie: Yeah, because everyone takes it differently, I guess. Ok moving on… So we all know Joel departed from the band a couple of months ago. When he left, was it an immediate decision to put Devin on bass, or you were guys considering finding a new member?
Dave: It was little bit of both…We weren’t really serious about it, so we just tried whatever that worked!
Matt: We were hopeful that it will work that way and we are sure that it is. SO NO MORE AUDITIONS! [Laughs]
RM Jamie: So you guys are planning to go back in the studio after this [Nintendo Fusion] tour. Are you guys planning to do a full LP release, or planning to do, like what a lot of bands are doing now, an EP, as in releasing a few songs at a time…
Matt: Well, we like to do things all the way, right Dave?
Dave: Yes!
RM Jamie: See I like that too. Any DVD in the future?
Matt: We’ve got a DVD coming on the 21st of November. It’s the re-release of our CD [“The Question”] and it has a bunch of acoustic tracks and different versions of songs, and a bunch of extra stuff, and a hour and a half DVD.
RM Jamie: So “The Question”, we know, had a lot of influences, everything from Queen to Led Zep. For this album coming up, what listening influences are you taking in with you inside the studio?
Matt: Well, I will name my two! My two are The B-52’s and Tom Petty…
Dave: I will say Tom Petty too. I don’t think my influences will affect the record too much, but anything from the 80’s rock.
RM Jamie: Any bands or artists you like that your fans may go “What?? THEY like them?” CDs you know that you may get apprehended for? [Laughs]
Matt: Well, if the B-52s are bad, then I don’t know!
RM Jamie: Hey, I dig the B-52s…
Matt: Well, we probably like a lot of stuff; probably the most surprising thing that most people will hear will be that at least some of us listen to a lot of Pop-Country. Toby Keith, Tim McGraw, stuff like that. We like that a lot.
[Dave just shakes his head…]RM Jamie: Any CDs right now that you can’t stop listening to? Any new bands that we should check out, that you’re diggin’ right now?
Dave: Haven’t listened to any new CDs in a while…
Matt: Moneen is what I like right now…They are not a new band exactly, but they are really, really good.RM Jamie: Anything you guys want to accomplish by the end of this year, any goals?
Matt: I want to get better at surfing!
Dave: I want….I don’t know. [Everyone laughs].
Matt: Oh you mean, like the band or something?
RM Jamie: It doesn’t matter, personal or band wise…
Matt: [For the band] No goals. No professional goals. [Laughs]RM Jamie: [Cliché’ question, but I always like to know…] If you could collaborate with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be???
Dave: [Long silence] Elvis Presley.
Matt: Probably, I would like to work with Dave from Pedro the Lion, or maybe Mozart.RM Jamie: So the last question, I ask this to everyone, and it’s kind of where you can make your statement….When the battle is through, and the war is won, and it’s time for this time of your life to come to an end, what do you want your fans to remember you by?
Matt: We never cared about the fans or anything…. [Laughs]
Dave: No but, I would just tell them to take something positive from the music, that’s good enough for me.
Matt: I would just like to be at least a little bit different, like “They did the same things a lot of people did, but they definitely did it different, definitely had their own style…” I would like to think that… like I would like our record to be remembered and like, you look back, and if it sells the most now or not, but if you look back in 20 years, somebody will still talk about it or remember it…
