By: Gerard Ucelli
Platinum selling, billboard charting 2013 Vans Warped Tour headliners, Hawthorne Heights of Dayton, OH is back with a new sound, new producer, and last yet certainly not least, a new album.
Zero, released on June 25th is Hawthorne Heights’ 5th full-length album, and self-admittedly their most ambitious album. However; this is their first attempt at creating a concept album that was overseen by producer, Brian Virtue. Interestingly enough, the word “zero” in this aspect has nothing to do with being at the bottom or represent any means of being a loser. Instead, it represents a positively luminous future.
Speaking of the future, the story behind this album is supposed to take place in 2017 where a domineering corporation is taking over a middle-America hometown. It’s up to the Zero Collective, which consists of young rebels with good intentions to prevail over the corporation, and try to take the city back. Ultimately, the Zero Collective represents the album artwork for this release, which resembles a slanted Z that looks thoroughly contained in a circle.
One of the most ironic aspects of Zero more on an industry standpoint is that Hawthorne Heights has stated in the past “when people hear Zero, they’re going to be hearing a new band”. Then critics such as Alternative Press came out with a review of this album stating “Zero feels like a return to form for Hawthorne Heights”. It’s certainly safe to say that Hawthorne Heights trying to be ambitious didn’t translate well to others, but it personally translated to me.
“I think everybody listens to one of our albums and hears something different than the next person. I heard that in regard to our third album for example whereas a lot of our fans felt like we abandoned our older style. That’s great if fans want to hear that especially if it inclines them to listen to the album,” Drummer, Eron Bucciarelli stated.
Getting more into the creative process behind Zero, Hawthorne Heights has a broadcast right in the middle of the album better known as “Coalition of Alternate Living Methods”. The way it was recorded sounded so authentic that it seemed like it was something to listen to on the radio in the 1950s. “We try to make it sound like a communist propaganda,” Bucciarelli stated. Not to mention Bucciarelli was the one who did the voiceover for that broadcast. “We also wanted to make it eerie kind of like the war of the world’s broadcast where people would think it’s entirely real and think aliens are coming down to attack them,” Lead Singer, JT Woodruff followed.
Since this is their first concept album, there was quite a transition not only on how songs would be structured, but the lyrical content as well. “It’s kind of been ‘let’s come up with 12-15 songs we all love, get out there, and play live shows’. We wanted to do something that was more unconventional than what we’ve done in the past,” Woodruff stated.
Going further into the writing process for Zero, Woodruff stated “I had to make a lot of revisions for myself personally before I showed them to the guys. I even took other pieces of songs to put them with other pieces of songs to see what would sound better sonically. It was definitely different than what we did before. We all tend to write the music and jam out on it. This, we had to all think of it as a story instead of individual songs.”
Zero marked the first time that Virtue ever worked with Hawthorne Heights. It’s was one of those weird combinations that seemed to click because Virtue comes from a hard rock/metal background who’s worked with bands such as All That Remains, Chevelle, Puddle of Mudd, and 30 Seconds to Mars. To think the jump into a post-hardcore band such as Hawthorne Heights would be like a small fish in a big pond is a misconception.
“It was nice and refreshing. He brought a whole different spin into the recording process from what we’ve done in the past, which is a breath of fresh air to us. It seems we’ve been in the studio a billion times so it brings a whole different perspective towards this album was definitely much appreciated,” said Bucciarelli.
Now you all must be wondering what Gary Busey has anything to do with the rest of this article. As a fun fact, a main influence behind Zero is the movie, Cloverfield (2008) so that triggered me to ask them which actors would play the Zero Collective if this album was made into a movie. Sarcastically speaking, Woodruff stated that “Ryan Gosling would play me because we’re both beautiful men.” He also stated that “I’m waiting for Gary Busey to be involved with anything this band does.”
In conclusion, the band came to a final consensus that Gary Busey would play everybody in the Zero Collective. In the land of make believe, this film is coming to a theater near you.
http://www.hawthorneheights.com/
Source:
http://www.muenmagazine.net/2013/08/hawthorne-heights-discusses-zero-the-creative-process-and-gary-busey/