Interviews: Under Auburn Skies

This is a new interview with the Metalcore band Under Auburn Skies from the USA. Check out the interview and follow the band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1. Where did you get the idea for the band name, you plan it or came out just like that?

It definitely wasn’t planned. It came up at the end of one band practice when we realized we’re a full band and had all the right members that we decided to shoot names back and forth. It took some time but we combined a few names that were thrown out and ultimately came up with “Under Auburn Skies”.

2. Why did you want to play this genre?

It was the main metal genre that we all kind of revolved ourselves around. We all had a similar interests in artists and stylistic writing so it just made sense to write the songs off our first EP, “Afterimage”, to be based off what music influenced us back then. As the genre has progressed and evolved, we had to too. You can see a drastic change in writing styles from that first EP and our latest one, “Invention of Reason”, due to trying to keep up and be as modern as this genre calls for.

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed?

Well, kind of. When this band was being created, it was in the middle of another project falling apart. When that was happening, myself (Oscar), our then bassist (Derek), rhythm guitarist (Dalton), and drummer (Nate) decided to join me in starting a new project without our vocalists at the time. Nate found our now current vocalist, Joe, and we actually got to have him try out before we played our last show in the previous project and had him hop on board immediately. After that, our recent guitarist Jeremy was moving up to the Denver area and I had asked him to join the new project to be part of the 3 guitar visions I had. We scheduled a practice for Jeremy to be a part of a month in advance (as he was still transitioning moving up here) and come the day of practice, our drummer Nate bailed on us for a party. So we let him go and come in Martin, our now current drummer. He and I were in another project together and that’s how I met him so I originally asked him to fill in for us for a couple of shows coming up and he just never left haha. At some point, Dalton left in between all that so I had my brother, Jose, come play 3rd guitar with us and for a while, that was our lineup: Oscar, Joe, Jose, Martin, Jeremy, and Derek. Then we found a common friend we met through social media and his name is Addison; He started joining us on a lot of shows helping out our sound and tones for when we would play live and that’s how he caught our interest. He was looking to start a project as he was a guitarist himself and as things developed, we let go of Derek and found a new bassist named AJ, but then AJ was let go as the writing to this new EP started due to conflicting interest in writing so we moved Jose over to bass and then Addison became one of our guitarists. Up until recently, Jose left the band and we found Travis by holding “try-outs” to see who’d be able to learn our material. He was in a previous local band called Relentless Ruin but told me they broke up and was a fan of our music and wanted to try out and got the spot almost instantly after learning 2 of our songs in less than 2 days. So that’s how we all came together; The only difference now is that Jeremy left at the end of 2021 and he’s the one that you can hear doing all the clean singing in all our previous songs, as well as the ones in our latest EP. Aside from that, our lineup now consists of Joe, Oscar, Addison, Travis, and Martin.

4. Each band member's favorite band?

Travis - Erra

Oscar - After the Burial

Addison - Deftones

Joe - Lamb of God

Martin - Blink-182

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs?

For myself and Addisson, it’s mainly about writing music that we want to hear. For Joe, there was a more realistic response. “I'm inspired by a lot of things. But all my life I was an angry kid who never had friends, never had an outlet and felt like I didn't fit in anywhere. The only thing that helped was listening to music. I write songs for those kids. The kids who feel like they don't fit in; For people who have struggled. Because when I'm gone, I don't want to just be another page in a book, I want to look back at my life and see that I made a difference in someone else’s. To that angry kid in his bedroom. To the people who feel like giving up, I want them to know that they aren't alone.”

6. Where was your last gig?

Our last show was in Portland, Oregon at Mano Oculta during our tour run with Smile on the Sinner.

7. Where would you like to act?

As far as performing at? There are a lot of cool and big venues that we would love to play at but in a more realistic possibility, if we could play Chain Reaction in California, I think that would be a bucket list venue for the band!

8. Whom would you like to feature with?

Might be speaking for myself here but Sam Carter of Architects or Anthony Notarmaso of After the Burial would be awesome to have on a song! I’m probably speaking for myself here but having Anthony Notarmaso (After The Burial) do guest vocals at some point would be amazing! But almost anyone from any of the bands we listen to now would be phenomenal to work with.

9. Who not?

Uhhhh, Ronnie Radke? Not too sure really haha

10. Have any of you ever suffered from stage fright? Any tip for beginners on how to beat that?

I feel like we all had that at our very first show together but it went away real quick. Once we were on stage, it almost became second nature to perform. There’s a lot that we’ve learned when things go wrong and when at some points when performing, you really just have to roll with the punches but overall, attitude will always help pertain the crowd on how to handle the rest of your performance. What I learned from the stage fright issue was if you let it control you, it’s not going to be a fun time. As long as you have fun, your fans will enjoy the show as much as you.

11. What bands have inspired you the most?

There’s an endless list but the top 5 that I think the band can agree on are After the Burial, ERRA, Alphawolf, Currents, and Architects.

12. What's the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for?

I don’t think we’ve had too many weird experiences of fan requests. One weird opportunity came up where one fan asked if we could perform at the Taco Bell that he managed. We were about it but it never ended up happening so….

13. What do you think of your fans?

They’re the fucking best! Lately we keep seeing more and more support and it feels fairly surreal. Addison and I just went to a show to go see All That Remains and we got to see a small handful of people wearing our merch and supporting us while seeing a much bigger band. Seeing that out in public more and more is just real exciting every single time!

14. What do you think of our site? 

It’s awesome! Really enjoy the variety you guys have with not only interviews but with behind the artworks and tracks by tracks too!

15. Something you'd like to add?

It’s not much but just a fun fact regarding us as musicians and nerds is that there are small themes around most of our songs that are based from video games. We just keep it subtle because a lot of games that we play are relatable to a lot going on in this world.