Gwen Stacy | Furthering The Dialogue
e want it fast and we want it now. We hate to wait and if it doesn’t work out right away we are quick to do away with it. Gwen Stacy, however, has armored themselves with some old-fashioned perseverance and it seems to be paying off for them. After a rough year they have refused to give up and with the recent signing to Solid State and the release of their sophomore album A Dialogue, Gwen shows all signs of being back on their way to the top. Brent Schindler (original bassist and vocalist) gave us a few minutes of his time to catch us up on what is new, their crazy 2008 journey and even the death of Michael Jackson.
So 2008 was a pretty crazy year for you guys, a lot of people thought you guys might be breaking up.
Brent Schindler: Uh huh, including us.
Can you tell us a little about what went down and how you over came some of the obstacles.
BS: Honestly, a lot of perseverance as cheesy as it sounds. We thought that when our vocalist Bob left on the Unearth tour that that was it. The three of us kind of sat in a circle on tour when we found out and kind of said what are we going to do? Throw in the towel? The stress with Cole was really hard. God played a part in it you know? It’s crazy to think that God will be there even when you’re not. I don’t think we ever gave up on Him but there were some times where we were like “where are ya man?” But He hooked us up with Geoff and he’s here and going strong. We got a new album coming out soon.
What can we expect from that?
BS: It’s heavy. It’s catchier. Its fun, a lot more mature and better, at least from a personal standpoint. It’s really honest and real. We explore a lot of things in it like addiction and if you had the chance to stare God in the face and say “Where have You been?” It’s all on there. We really needed to put a record out like that after everything we went through. We needed to get it off our chest.
Tell us about the new Gwen Stacy lineup and what we can be looking forward to?
BS: The new lineup is awesome so far. We’re going to try out some people next month for guitar. But right now we couldn’t ask for a more solid lineup. As different of people as we are its working, its awesome.
How did you feel about Michael Jackson’s death?
BS: You got that from the guitar blog I bet (laughs). I was shocked. I hadn’t heard anything about him in a long time so that’s why I was more shocked. He kind of fell off the face of the planet then he fell off the face of the planet. I know that he allegedly did some bad things and everyone makes mistakes and it’s hard to overlook those things but he was the king of pop. That dude was awesome. He was awesome enough that one of my best friends ever got married and we all learned the dance to “Thriller”. It sucks, it might be good for some people. Its unfortunate, no one deserves to die.
You dudes did the Scream the Prayer Tour this summer, it is becoming a bigger and bigger deal every year, tell us about that experience.
BS: Wow. Scream the Prayer was long. It was amazing on a lot of levels but it was also very frustrating at times. Everybody on that tour as far as bands were just awesome. We had so much fun with the bands and we made really good friends and rekindled friendships. It was a good experience as far as that. And it was a good reminder of everything we went through that there are people that are there if you need to talk. A lot went on at Scream the Prayer, bands losing members…
The stop I saw, Micah (Kinard of Oh, Sleeper) was really sick.
BS: Yeah Micah was really sick. Mattie from For Today, his mother in law passed away on that tour. Chris from Agraceful had to fill in on that last week. A lot of hardship happened. Part of it had to of been you know when you’re doing something right that’s when something starts to go wrong. It was cool because there were a lot of people there to talk about things that needed to be talked about. Mattie and I talked a number of times. I believe his dad passed away from cancer when he was a kid and my mom had cancer but she’s all better now. It was just cool that there were a lot of people there to relate. It was long though, twelve hour days, ten bands. I don’t know if I’d do it again just because of that, but you never know. It was a lot of fun despite everything that went on. It was a good tour for us.
Thanks so much Brent for taking a few minutes out of you busy schedule to chat with us! Gwen Stacy just released a new album titled A Dialogue which is available everywhere, so be sure to go grab yourself a copy and help make 2009/10 their best year yet.
