Before Their Eyes | For The Love Of Music
t is very apparent that the guys in Before Their Eyes are playing music solely because they love it. They show little interest in sticking to a formula or adhering to a genre, even thought it would most likely broaden their market, let alone talk about why they play the music they do. However Front-man Nick Moore and Guitarist Landon Tewers were gracious enough to give us a few minutes of their time while trying to juggle a new release, steady tour schedule and families back home. So sit back and soak in this brief conversation we got to have with Before Their Eyes.
Your music is very eclectic, one song is very poppy then the next will be heavy and the third is a mix of the two, or something new (Classic Rock). What are a few of your many apparent musical influences?
Nick Moore: Landon listens to a lot of heavier music and I don’t really listen to any heavy music. I listen to a lot of pop or pop rock so I guess when we come together we butt heads because Landon writes a majority of the music and I write a lot of the vocals and melodies so that’s kind of what comes out.
Landon Tewers: I listen to a lot of heavier stuff and a lot of radio rock. I listen to anything from Jimmy Eat World, Yellowcard, and Forever The Sickest Kids to For the Fallen Dreams, Impending Doom, and Slipknot. My taste in music is all over the place, I’m always listening to something different.
What keeps you from taking one sound and sticking with it?
LT: Good or bad, it’s a part of our sound now. I’m sure some guys in hardcore bands wish they could just bust out a rock song in the middle of their set, and vice versa. So it’s cool to be able to do both in the same band. We get our fill of both every night.
NM: We don’t really think about a certain genre or style. We don’t want to be boxed in, like we’re not only going to play songs with breakdowns the whole time or we’re not only going to play poppy songs. We play what we’re in the mood for, we’re not going to be restricted by genres because we all listen to different ones.
The album title Untouchable is about this unpredictability right?
NM: That’s pretty much what it’s all about. The music we want to write is untouchable. I think on this album more than any other ones we really stuck to that and stayed true to what we want to do even though every album has had a lot of different styles on it.
LT: Yes, we write what we want to write. Because it’s our band, not our label’s band, not our friends’ band, not even our fans’ band. We’ll write whatever we want to write. We’re happy with what we’re doing and we won’t change for anyone. It’s a good mindset to have in my opinion. You just gotta be yourself, do what makes you happy. That’s the general theme of the album.
What has the feedback been as far as always having different styles?
LT: Good and bad, just like anything else we’ve ever done. We have the kids that think we’re selling out because “we went poppier”. Then we have the kids who are stoked that we brought back some actual breakdowns. It’s definitely our poppiest and heaviest album yet. So you can’t really say we went one way or the other. I’m totally fine with a kid only liking half of the album, whether it’s the pop songs or the heavy songs, at least they liked something. Honestly I think even the hardcore kids will find themselves getting into the poppier stuff as well, you just have to be a little more open minded. In my opinion, you’re not selling out until you write music you don’t like just to sell records. We haven’t done that, and we never will.
NM: You always have the people that just want to hear the breakdowns and that’s it. So if they hear one of the poppy songs they’re probably going to think the whole album is going to sound like that and that’s not the case. A lot of people think we went lighter but I think some of the songs on this album are some of the heaviest songs we’ve ever written. If you look at our first CD, “Why is 6 so Afraid of 7”, that’s a straight up pop song, there’s nothing heavy about it and its our most sold song on iTunes to date. I think this CD is the heaviest and the lightest we’ve ever done.
Talk to us a bit about the meaning behind the track “Hell Or High Water”…
NM: They lyrics are about a soldier who went overseas to war; I have a buddy who’s in the military over there. I just put myself in the shoes of someone being close to somebody going over there and how tough it must be.
The track “Start With Today” features the beautiful vocals of Kristen Williams. Out of all the voices, what made you decide to go with hers?
NM: I have a little label that I run which she is on. We always wanted to do a song with some female vocals on it. We were thinking of some people who we wanted and we just thought of her and she wanted to do it. We’re old friends so that was good.
Last year you and your wife had a son, how has life on tour been since his birth? It must be hard to be away from them for so long…
NM: It’s a lot harder to leave now than it used to be. We work it out; we do the video chat thing. He can’t talk yet but the video chat thing is awesome.
What would you say it is about music that drives so many to the roads every year in pursuit of their dreams? What is it for you?
NM: I don’t know what else I would be doing without music, its just a dream. If you don’t go after your dreams you’re going to regret it someday. I think a lot of people go for it because they don’t want to have regrets down the road. Music isn’t about how many records you sell or how much money you make. To me, its something I love and something I’m passionate about no matter how well it does.
LT: Music is just an amazing way to share your thoughts, emotions, opinions and hope. There’s really nothing like it. For me it’s just such a release. I can channel different emotions into a song that other kids across the country can relate to. Just seeing a kid walk out of a show holding my bands CD or wearing our shirt still blows my mind. There’s absolutely nothing like it.
You guys are heading out on tour with Blessthefall the month of April right? What is the plan for Before Their Eyes after that?
NM: Yes soon. We don’t have anything solid right now but we are heading to Japan in July which should be pretty fun. It will be our first time over there.
How do you guys gauge how well you will do overseas? Is it just iTunes sales or what?
NM: I don’t really know. I know our album came out on Twilight Records over there. They’re actually the ones that are bringing us over to do the dates.
Right on! We wish you luck, and thanks again for taking a minute to talk with us! Be sure to check out their new release Untouchable which is available in stores and online now!
