Design The Skyline @ Moe’s Original

Tim Wenger | April 1, 2012 | 0 Comments

by Max Giffin

Photo Credit: Max Giffin

Design The Skyline is a 7-piece electronic metal band infamous across the Internet. Since signing to Victory Records last year, the band has been bombarded with controversy. Almost overnight, they became one of the hottest topics in the metal genre. Some deem them the worst band signed to a major label; others praise them for their unique and original sound. Regardless of the mixed responses and excessive hate mail, the band has been touring full time and bringing their music to cities across the country. On March 23^rd, the band hit Denver at Moe’s Original where they played a short but high energy set for a few rambunctious fans. While the turn out was not large, those who were there made up for it with crazy moshing and jumping around. Several members of the band took a moment to share a little bit of what the whole experience has been for them.

Design The Skyline will be returning to Colorado in April on the Psychedelic Sex Metal Tour in Colorado Springs at Sunshine Studios Live.

CMB: For those who have never heard of Design The Skyline, would you introduce yourself and explain your sound?

John Martian: My name is John, and I play drums and our music is fun and chaotic.

Eric Azure: I’m Eric. I do vocals.

James ‘Keebler’ Lemos: I’m Keebler and I do synths.

CMB: So tell me about the “Design The Skyline experience”. What’s it been like for you guys?

JM: It’s been a lot of different things. It’s been a lot of fun, a little bit of stress, a lot of work, but mostly fun.

EA: It takes a lot of sacrifice but in the end it’s what we’ve all wanted to do so we’re all really willing to go as far as we can.

KL: Yeah, we love having great times with all the other touring bands and pulling pranks or making jokes. We keep it fun on the road.

CMB: So since you guys signed to Victory in 2011, your band has been kind of controversial. How do you feel about that?

JM: I feel that no matter what kind of controversy anyone wants to bring to us, we’re still gonna do what we love to do and we’re still gonna write the music we love to play.

EA: I personally love it; it just shows that we’re doing something really different because people don’t understand it. It’s easier for them to hate on it then try to understand it. So, I think we’re doing a really good job.

KL: Honestly if it wasn’t for all this controversy, we wouldn’t have maybe one or two songs on our album. It kind of influenced us to create such songs and gave us the boost we needed.

CMB: So what are those songs?

EA: Like our first music video, “Surrounded By Silence”, got a bunch of hate but it also surpassed a million views. That’s what got us signed and known and stuff. It’s been hated a lot but it got us so much publicity and it’s making our dreams come true pretty much.

JM: After all that hate we wrote actually two new songs in the studio that we did kind of last minute. One of them was “Under the Blood Driven Moon”. When we were in the studio we pretty much took all that hate that we received and put it into a song. Then, the other song was “Break Free from Your Life” which we also wrote last minute after all that hate came out. We wrote it so we could break free from all of it.

CMB: A lot of people say your new album “Nevaeh” is a lot different from the “Surrounded By Silence” music video which is what you guys got famous for. Did some of the hate influence you to change your sound at all?

JM: It’s just a mild coincidence. Some of the songs that are on that album were actually written before or with “Surrounded by Silence”. “Surrounded by Silence” was pretty much a compilation; it was kind of like all our sounds put into one song.

CMB: What are some things people might not guess about you from first sight?

JM: I like to read poetry.

KL: I don’t know, I guess just our personalities. We’ve been really misjudged and everything. People think we’re just some kids when we’re normal guys just having a good time.

EA: People think I’m like sixteen years old sometimes.

CMB: How old are you?

EA: I’m twenty.

CMB: This is only Design The Skyline’s third tour. How is touring life different than you might have expected it to be?

JM: It’s a lot longer tours than we expected it to be and it’s a lot more work than we expected it to be but we’re ready for whatever work we had to put in for this.

CMB: Elaborate on that; what’s some of the work?

JM: Well, we have to do paperwork pretty much every day for our label. We have to keep mercy counts every day. We have to loud in and unload every day. I have to keep my hands warm before shows every day. I have to constantly practice and constantly work on new songs that we’re trying to write for the next album and constantly come up with new ideas to try to make our music better, try to make our sound more elaborate. All sorts of things like that.

EA: It’s also about being mentally strong. You’ve got to make sure that you feel focuses and putting your 100% into it and always improving. Physically too, you don’t want to let yourself get fat from eating fast food.

CMB: What does practice look like when you’re on the road? When do you guys find time for that?

JM: We just usually pull some acoustics in the van while we’re driving. I’ll pull out my drum pad and we’ll go over some new ideas that everyone’s been thinking about. We’re on the road a lot to where we usually write most of our songs on the road. Then when we go back home we take them to our practice room and really work on them.

CMB: What’s your favorite experience on the road been so far?

JM: My favorite experience has been meeting new bands that I’ve listened to. Like, we just went on tour with Dr. Acula and I used to listen to them when I was in high school and that was kind of surreal to me for a while. Just meeting new people and having fun with new people every day.

KL: I’d have to agree with John. We all listened to Dr. Acula as younger kids and it’s like a dream come true that we were actually touring with them since we looked up to them. It’s also cool to meet all the band members and find out all their personalities and get to know them a lot better. It really developed good bonds.

EA: Just seeing the world pretty much, it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. It’s really exciting, and playing really classic venues like The Whiskey and Crocodile Rock. It’s been really exciting, and meeting some pretty big musicians like Craig Mabbitt saw us at The Whiskey. That was pretty inspiring.

CMB: So as a newer band, what are some goals you guys have for the future?

JM: We’re hoping to get on Warped Tour next year and we’re hoping to just keep moving up with out music. Hopefully we will never stay still and we’re just gonna keep on touring. We’re gonna keep working as hard as we can to write better music every single time.

CMB: What’s the craziest thing a fan has said to you?

KL: One of the craziest experiences we’ve had was we got together to take a group picture with a fan and she started crying on us. She was so happy. I don’t have any experience as far as people saying anything to us just yet. Maybe on twitter, but not in real life.

EA: One fan got some of our lyrics tattooed on his neck from “Break Free From Your Life” and I thought it was pretty touching.

CMB: Do any of your tattoos have any specific story or meaning behind them?

JM: I just got a Zappatos tattoo on the back of my calf. I love Pokémon and I’ve always loved Pokémon. That’s my favorite Pokémon.

KL: I have Pokémon tattoos; one of my first ones was a Pikachu sitting on a Poke ball. I guess all my tattoos have sentimental meaning; I have a transmutation circle from Full Metal Alchemist, which is just basically equivalent exchange. That’s basically how I live my life.

EA: I got this crystal idea from the Final Fantasy crystals but eventually I’m going to cover my whole arm with it. There’s going to be a demon or a monster underneath it like breaking out and it just symbolizes the crystals as being trapped and the monster breaking free is being yourself, not letting anyone hold you back, breaking free from your norm and the mold everyone tries to put on you.

CMB: Do you have any band traditions?

KL: One of them would be that we like to switch our accents for every region we go to. We just got done with the whole eastern Boston accent. As we go more west we’re going to bring in our European accent again since we love the west coast and they totally dig it over there.

CMB: Any closing thoughts?

JM: Listen to the album and don’t listen to what kids say. Your opinion on music is your own opinion. If anyone wants to bring you down for your opinion then you can tell them to go fuck themselves.

KL: Keep updated with us; we’re constantly doing new things and getting updated with our Facebook. We’ll be touring for the rest of this year and for the rest of time so come see us at a city near you. We’re really friendly, we love meeting people and new experiences and hearing stories people have so don’t be shy and come hang out!