Portland natives Amongst Us aren’t out to reinvent the wheel, they are perfectly satisfied to be part of their local scene and play for the fun of it, for the release of energy in performance, and for the music itself. It’s not often I come across a band this good that aren’t focused on becoming rock stars, but instead Amongst Us is truly all about the music. I got a chance to sit down with the trio at Geomana recording studios and we talked about the bands history, influences, and the creation of their music.
Crave: So tell me a little about how Amongst Us got together?
AU: Back in 2001 I was in the band Berzerk and I was pretty much finished with it and I wanted to start a metal band so I got a hold of Mike who was in Scouts honor at the time. In 1997 Chris Finster and I (Chad) played in a band called Anthem together, and that's how we met. So I started jamming with Mike and then I got a hold of Chris and that's pretty much how it started. The alliance was formed. Then in 2003 we fired our bass player Mike, we did interviews for a while and eventually hired Brooks Schaper as the new bass guy and he has been working out great ever since. That is the birth of Amongst Us.
Crave: Is there a story behind the name?
AU: Actually we had a few different names, and then I had just written lyrics on a song, called #5, and the first line is “Lie amongst us, be amongst us, see amongst us” and that just stuck so we ended up going with that. Ironically you would think that someone else would be called Amongst Us but there isn’t. There’s Amongst Thieves, and Amongst Bandits, but there’s no Amongst Us so we registered it and that’s us. It seemed like an obvious choice.
Crave: What’s the biggest show you have ever played, or your favorite show?
AU: They’re all the same (laughing) We have some really good ones coming up though. The thing is, they are all fun. They are all our favorites. Its hard to say, personally when I get up there I don’t really care who is around me or what’s being watched I just go into Amongst Us land and then its over. Yeah, it’s easier to tell the ones that suck from the ones that are good, you always remember the bad shows. Vegas was a huge show, but I don’t want to count it because Brooks wasn’t in the band. We did a tour back in 2002 and it was pretty successful, nothing huge but we got really good reactions and sold a lot of merch.
Crave: How would you best describe your sound?
AU: We’re pretty much just screamo thrash, a lot of our lyrical content has delved into mind control, and things that we see in society that we don’t think our right, like religion, and politics, like the government. We don’t push our views on anybody, but we just point out what we see and let you digest it however you wish. If you read the lyrics it definitely makes the songs have more of an impact, to where if you didn’t it might not have quite as much. Musicians seem to like us quite a bit, and then we get people who aren’t musicians to like us once they read our lyrics a little bit, it seems to hit home, at least for people in a certain demographic.
Crave: Who are your major influences or inspiration?
AU: (Chris) Slayer, Morbid Angel, Radiohead, Neurosis (Brooks) I don’t really feel like I pull a lot of my own influence in this band, I think Chris is my biggest influence, I don’t feel like I pull a lot of my own style. (Chad) I’m pretty much the same, I listen to all kinds of stuff but If I had to choose it would probably be Dave Lombardo from Slayer, The Haunted, I don’t know me and Chris just kind of feed off each other and do a lot of the writing, and I don’t really necessarily get this part from any band, we just feed off each other, but definitely listening to old thrash gets me going.
Crave: What was the first album you ever owned?
AU: (Chris) Dio, Last In Line (Brooks) I think it was probably Bryan Adams, Waking Up the Neighbors. (Chad) I would say it was probably Kill Em All, I remember buying it cuz it had the hammer and the blood on the cover and I thought that was really cool, but I remember thinking my Mom wouldn’t like it because of the cover so I had to hide it. (Chris) I had that too, my brother before he left for the service left me AC/DC Back In Black, Scorpions Rock You Like a Hurricane, and Ozzy Blizzard of Oz and she had this safe, and she would take my tapes and my porn and put them in the safe. I was behind her one day and I watched her put in the codes so I got them out later and made copies and put them back in the safe. We love Eazy E, Too Short, all different kinds of Hip Hop too. I also have to add in Iron Maiden Killers cuz I loved the covers with Eddie on them. I think Powerslave is my favorite Maiden album of all time.
Crave: What do you do to prepare for a show; do you have any before show rituals?
AU: We are the most low maintenance, don’t give a shit band. We practice maybe three times a month, most of the time we just sit at Geomana and write riffs, and come up with parts, then we might practice it twice before we go out and play it. There’s not a lot of talking between us, we just kind of sit down and do our thing and then its over. We usually meet up before the shows and have a drink or something. Most bands are like deep family, where as were low maintenance, we don’t require a lot of hanging out, I’ve known these guys for so long we’re just family now. We don’t ever fight about anything. I love to pick on Brooks though.
Crave: Why are all your songs numbers instead of names?
AU: When we first started out writing songs, the way we write we don’t do any of the lyrics first. We always do that last, we don’t like the process of it it’s just a pain in the ass. The music always comes really fast for us. Then we’re like sitting there going, now we gotta write vocals. We always like them when we’re done. So basically the only way to figure out what the song is called is just to call it numbers. That’s just how it happened, and then it just stuck. We tried naming the songs, but we all ended up just saying “Lets play #4” anyway. They stay in order, if we axe a song; the next song we write goes back and fills the number gap.
Crave: Who writes the music and lyrics?
AU: I will usually generate the riffs in a pretty loose format then I bring them to Chad and he arranges them for me. Basically I orchestrate most of it and then he helps me arrange it. Brook does his own things, he writes his own parts in the confines of the riffs that are already set. Then the lyrics, Chris and I record a song and listen to it over and over and write verses back and forth and sometimes we go line to line, back and forth. You don’t really know what you’re writing about at first, until you write a few sentences. It doesn’t always follow a certain formula, it’s more like poetry.
Crave: If you could share the stage with any bands, past or present, who would they be?
AU: Slayer! We have wanted to play a show with Slayer since we first started out. I would have to say Neurosis. Maybe original Metallica with Mustaine and Cliff Burton.
Crave: So tell me what’s in the future? What are your goals?
AU: We do it for us, and for the fun of it, for our friends and our family. You can’t really play this kind of music and expect to have a radio hit. You do this music because you love it and no other reason. Whatever you get out of it is above and beyond what you would expect; it’s just a little icing. That’s just the way the industry is. A lot of people say metal is coming back, but what’s the difference when albums don’t sale. What industry could pump out that many metal bands, it’s not like were Brittney Spears. We aren’t really trying to get signed. We don’t tour, we have had offers before but it’s like we don’t tour. I run Geomana, he runs Donovan’s tattoo, we straight up don’t have the money or the time to do it. A label wants you to go out for six months or 8 months at a time. As much as I would love to say I got signed, I wouldn’t want to give up my woman or my life. I like my life. It really quantifies what it is to be signed, I am signed, I got a decent thing here with people that I care about, and everything that surrounds my life right now is good, so I’m signed.
Crave: What are you guys working on right now, what's in the immediate future?
AU: We are eight songs into finishing our new album called The Final Approach. We had another album that we released but it was with our old bass player and he had about 50% of the singing role at the time and he had written some of the material on it, so it's a good album but it's not a reflection of what we do now. Probably in a couple more months we will have it half done and maybe by summer we will have it out, and then hopefully a two-week tour so we can get the reactions of people in other towns that don't know our music. Just for the fun of it. I think one of the things that hits hardest about people that haven't seen Amongst Us, is just the performance. I know myself; I don't ever want to leave the stage feeling like I didn't put everything into it.
Crave: Is there anything you think the world should know about Amongst Us?
AU: I just want to thank all the people that come to our shows, and I want to thank all the bands that come out to support us. I just want to tell them we will return the favor every chance we get, and were happy to be part of a healthy scene in Portland and we hope it grows. That and come record your band at Geomana!
