Catching up with Hawthorne Heights
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Scene, punk, emo, screamo — whatever label you put on it: Hawthorne Heights was probably in your Top Played playlist on that antique iPod Video of yours at some point. So it was probably nostalagia that drew so many, myself included, to the North Star Bar when HH came through to Philly a few weeks ago as part of their Silence of Black and White 10 Year Tour. With Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, other and ’00s alt-emo band enlisted to open, it was hard to hear the speakers over the sing-along. Not entirely a bad thing. Before the show I sat down with HH frontman JT Woodruff, bassist Matt Ridenour and guitarist Mark McMillon to talk shop, talk Philly and talk memories.
CP: How does it feel to have been playing this specific album, Silence in Black and White, for this long?
MR: It feels weird, you know, but we’ve just been always doing what we do, so it came out of nowhere like, ‘oh, hey, 10 years.’ But it feels normal, I guess.
JTW: I mean you wake up one day and it’s 10 years later and we’re still kickin’. We’ve seen a lot of our friends in contemporary bands not make it as long, for whatever reason, and it’s crazy that we have lasted this long, and it’s only really becsause our fans have continued to support us.
CP: When you started, did you have anticipate making an album with such staying power?
JTW: No, we didn’t anticipate anything to be honest with you. We’ve just wanted to put out music and tour professionally, we had zero expectations.
CP: How has your writing process and influences developed since the debut album?
JTW: It hasn’t really changed a whole lot; we all help write the songs, so it’s always been that way. We all bring ideas to the table, whether they’re small ideas or a whole song. That’s why it’s always been fresh creatively since it’s coming from all of us.
CP: How has the tour progressed so far, any bumps in the road?
MR: I mean there’s definitely bumps in Philly, y’all need to fix your roads.
JTW: There’s always bumps, but they’re little bumps. We argue. We’ve been on tour 40 forty days and small things end up being big things. … We just need our space once in a while.
CP: So speaking of Philly, what’s your favorite thing about the city?
JTW: Cheesesteaks.
MR: Such a lame answer.
JTW: You have to understand, what you guys think is basic and boring since you can get it everyday, we can’t. So we hate to be typical, but why not be proud of it? You got the Rocky Statue man and cheesesteaks. No one cares about the Liberty Bell.
[laughter]
CP: How does it feel to go on this tour without Casey Calvert? [The former HH guitarist died tragically in 2007.]
JTW: It’s kind of one of those things that’s a very big part of our history as a band but also as our, and not to get all hippie about it, but our journey through life. One of those roads we had to walk down was losing a friend, like anybody else losing a friend, it just so happened to be somebody we were in a band with. It’s still tough, but we’re trucking along.
CP: What was the craziest show experience you guys have had?
MR: There’s crazy shows like energy, and then there’s shows that are just crazy, like we played a baseball stadium with Metallica. Like the show wasn’t crazy, but the idea was crazy.
JTW: You wake up playing in Dayton, Ohio one day and then flash forward three years and you’re playing with Metallica. It’s weird.
CP: What’s been some recent favorites in your personal music stash?
MR: The new U2 album.
[laughter]
JTW: Well one of my favorite driving albums is Against Me! White Crosses. I just think it’s really well done. But something that just came out kind of recently that really blew me away, kind of silly, but the new Tom Petty album is actually good. It’s hard because we’ve been playing music each night, that we don’t even wanna listen to anything once we’re done.
MR: Podcasts keep me a lot more awake than music while I’m driving. I’ll listen to music once I get home. I’ve been really into Fucked Up lately, they’re newest album [Glass Boys] is really good.
JTW: Also, the audiobook of Stephen King’s It. The book’s like 1300 pages long, I’ve just been listening to it and it’s been pretty interesting.
