By Allyson Kingsley, music journalist with Metal Coffee/Metal Moose
Lineup:
Nick Barlage (Vocals)
Jacob Smith (Guitar)
Oney Michaels (bass)
Chad McElwee (Guitar)
Amanda McElwee (Drums)
Hi everyone. Thanks for your time to conduct this interview. I had a chance to listen to your EP Set On Rising. Let's start with a history of your band's formation.
The Band was actually started out of guitar lessons if you could believe that. During lessons one day Jacob said “We should start a band.” Chad and Amanda are siblings and have played music all through high school together, so the chymistry was a good fit. However the story doesn’t really start untill late 2017 when Nick and Oney joined the band. We Spent most of that first year just trying to figure out what we where supoosed to soundlike as a group. It wasn’t untill we wrote the song Letting Go, that it just clicked so to speak.
Of course, I am inevitably curious as to who your influences are both collectively and individually. Are your families musical?
Diverse. We love metalcore. But indivually that gets very wide. For example Chad would say Bullet for my Valentine, Killswitch Engage, and Architects. While Jacob would lean pretty heavy into Slipknot. Oney has been a fan of the very early punk stuff all the way into deathmetal. Nick brings the curve ball with Lamb of God, Kill switch Engage and even has been know to enjoy soul music. Amanda is really the odd one out with major influences from Dave Matthews Band, and the 2000’s grunge days, of Breaking Benjamin. Pretty wide range of influences that make up what we bring to the table, but that’s why it works so well. Yes music has run in our families past, but nothing really noteworthy, hopefully we can change that.
It states in your biography that your band does alot of charity work. What types of charities have you all contributed to?
This year we are doing the Mizfit Toydrive again. We had so much fun last year raising toys and even cash for the families that really needed it. Beyond that we have done wounded warriors benefits, the Rockout Food drive this year set a new record with just over 4000lbs of food donated to the mid ohio food bank, and that was an amazing event. We have done events to help raise money to support our local podcasts, musicians, and even fans. There is always a good cause to get behind to help out our scene and local communities, and we will always continue looking for more ways to give back.
If you could describe your music without using a genre name, how would you describe it?
Heavy, energetic, melodic, with a bounce. Music is an extention of the soul, so every note has it’s place and purpose.
What does your song "Bleeding Hearts" touch upon?
Its about losing that fire inside, and trying to live vicariously thru the person you once where to get it back.
My favorite track on the EP is "When Wolves Bleed" (love the drumming by the way). What does it talk about?
Thank you. When Wolves Bleed is a favorite of most of our listiners. The song is essentially about how easily we can become dependent on another person, and give them way too much control over our happieness. “Even the wolves can bleed in the dirt.” Is about taking back that control.
Let's talk a bit about the metal scene in Ohio. How would you describe it? What are some of your favorite venues to perform at? What are some of the local bands that deserve a shout out?
Muddy Creek Saloon is hands down our current favorite venue. They have always treated us locals as family. We love our community, and there are so many that make it great, but just a few to shoutout. Cryptic is always a blast to be around, A Decade Apart great guys love their energy. Kienemy always brings a good time, and a new favorite of ours Atimera.
You recently made a video for "Lifeline". Who produced the video? How was that experience?
Dray Stewart of Draydayvideos produced the lifeline video, he also did a documentary for us earlier this year. Dray is always professional on set, and just a great guy. His videos he does on his instagram are very inspiring. We look forward to working with him again in the future.
You received an award for your song "Synical". It is beautifully heavy and touches on suicide. We have all experienced the pain, whether it be through a personal loss or through experiencing the agony of depression. What made you write this song? The vocals are simply amazing. You can palpate the agony. Having experienced the loss of several people in my life to suicide, when I played this in my car, I stopped and had to shed some tears. I thank you personally for writing this.
First off our condolences for your loss.
So a local musician had recently took his onw life, and though the song isn’t directly about him, it is about loss. We wanted to bring awareness to what you may leave behind. Suicide rarely only affects the one commiting, but often those around them. The song has ment so much to all of us on different levels, but we strongly encourage anyone that is considering suicide to reach out and talk to someone. Anyone. You are not alone.
Your not the first person to thank us for writing a song, but we are glad to hear it. Our goal is to inspire those around us. We can’t change the world, but we can affect change in the way we see the world around us.
What do you feel is one of your personal biggest challenges in your dealings with the music industry? If you could change something about it, what would that be? What do you like about the metal scene of today that differs from several years ago?
Getting above the noise so to speak. That’s one thing we love about the metal scene today, its so diverse. That is also what makes things harder. We don’t sond like another band. We can’t say if you like so and so that you may like us, but we always get to meet some amazing people at the same time. The one thing that I would love to see change would be the attendence as a whole. I don’t just mean to our shows. It’s hard today when your competing with Playstation, Xbox, Netflix, and so on. So much content being delivered into everyones livingroom, it’s hard to get above that noise. We want to do a run a shirts that say “I paused my game for this” on the back. How cool would that be to walk into a venue and those shirts everywhere?
Thank you for contributing great music to our ever growing metal scene and we wish you luck on your future endeavors.
Thank you for taking a listen and for taking some time to talk with us.
Links:
https://m.facebook.com/thenfallsthesky
https://mobile.twitter.com/thenfallsthesky
http://www.thenfallsthesky.com/
https://thenfallsthesky.bigcartel.com/
https://open.spotify.com/album/0VhgvWc9ZDpRRp94EcMO8B?si=ZwIIH0c4QG-ehfiAu7mXJA
https://music.apple.com/us/album/set-on-rising-ep/1463470576
https://www.patreon.com/Thenfallsthesky
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCpCPD3byezwktDSOCC21g5g
https://www.instagram.com/thenfallsthesky/
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