INTERVIEW – A-Z WITH CINDERS

Check out American acoustic-pop outfit Cinders take on our A-Z interview below!

A Song Which Made You Want To Make Music:

Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Tears For Fears. Who doesn’t get super pumped when that song is playing? It is one of the greatest songs of all time and it inspires you to move and smile. If we could bring a little more of that feeling to the world with our music then we have done our job. We will always be inspired by Tears For Fears

Best Experience While On Tour:

The first time we toured we didn’t expect to see anyone come out to our shows. We were a brand new band. One of the best experiences for us was showing up to a venue for the first time full of people who were wearing our t-shirts and screaming the words with us. It is still crazy every night to see all those kids in the audience singing and dancing along. It never gets old.

Cover you would really like to do?

The only cover we have ever played was In Between Days by The Cure. We made a weird agreement that if we ever do play a cover it will be by The Cure. Their music coined the sub genre of “Happy Sad”. Cinders definitely fits into that sub genre so it is hard not to pay tribute to the originator.  Short answer would be Just Like Heaven by the Cure.

Deepest Lyrics One Of Your Songs Features:

“Old friend, look what you’ve done

I held your hand while you shot the gun

A part of me has died inside my mind”

-Walls

Our new record Looking Forward To Looking Back is much heavier emotionally than our previous releases. It has many more analogies and metaphors relating to overcoming depression and self doubt. Walls is lyrically one of our favorite tracks. It is a strong self realization that life can be very hard, but much of that is self inflicted. We all want someone to help share our pain that we often feel. Though sometimes we need to gain enough strength on our own, to climb out of these pits we dig ourselves into.

Easiest Song You Wrote:

It was probably the first song that we wrote for this record. It is called Gigantic. This is one of the only songs where we sat down all together and said “alright whatever we start playing next is going to be the first song we writing for the next record.” That song was finished in about a week. It has gone through some changes during recording but the actual writing of it remained the same from that first week.

Favourite album/single/EP you have released:

We have been extremely proud of everything that we have released and very pleased with how much our fans have enjoyed the music. We would definitely say Looking Forward To Looking Back is our favorite! We feel we have come much farther as musicians, performers, and song writers, and that is shown in this new record. We can’t wait for everyone to hear these 11 brand new songs on September 29th!!

Greatest Show/Festival You Have Played:

Our favorite festival that we played was this year on the 4th of July. We were asked to headline an Independence Day music festival/firework show for 25,000 people. It was an incredible night and one we will never forget. Also the fireworks went off so close that ash, debris and sparks were flying into the crowd. It was the kind of danger that felt cool rather than being in actual jeopardy.

Happiest Moment You’ve Experienced In The Band:

Finishing this new record and listening to it front to back for the first time. This has been a 2 year process and we are so happy and excited for our fans to finally be able to hear it! The next happiest moment would be when our two saxophone players happened to date and got married. That is definitely second place.

Interesting Fact About One Of Your Members:

Our bass player Adrian was in a metal/hardcore band before joining Cinders. That is where he gets his crazy energy and aggressive stage presence. He also has helped sculpt some of the heavier moments in the songs from his background in heavier music. Aside from being in a metal band, he is an accomplished jazz guitar player. Makes sense why we have him playing bass right?

Jokes You Have In The Band:

We have a vision board in our with all of our goals written on it. We have a lot of goals written on there. One of them being to have one of our songs featured in a major motion picture. We have been banking on Infinity Wars part 2 for a while now. We know it is finished.. But there is still hope that they will use one of our songs. Spider-Man could have his big return while Call it Home is playing. Just imagine the emotion that would consume that audience.

I guess that is our joke.

Kicking Off Your Set Is Best With Which Song:

We can’t remember the last time that we opened up a set with a song other than Dog Heart. That song is perfect for new and returning audiences. It is a great way to show the crowd what they can expect for the next hour. It is also one of the easiest songs to sing and dance along with.

Longest Distance You’ve Travelled To Play A Show:

The longest distance was probably the drive from Southern Utah to Northern California. That was about 12 hours. It was a lot of time spent playing Mario Tennis. Without Mario Tennis it would have just been a lot of time sitting. I guess it was still a lot of time sitting. But with Mario Tennis that sitting became very competitive

Movie That Best Represents The Band:

That Thing You Do! It took a while for the whole band to finally see it. But it probably represents us the best. With that being said, Brad will be the only one who has a happy ending and Adrian will most likely die in combat. So maybe it doesn’t represent us in exact detail.

New Band You’d Recommend:

Recently discovered a group called HIGHS. They are awesome. Their mix of male and female vocal melodies with punchy perfect guitar tones creates a sound you can listen to for an hours.

Opening For This Band Would Be Ideal:

We talk about this one pretty often. We usually end up with the same few answers. Probably Twenty One Pilots, The Front Bottoms, Grouplove, or The Head and the Heart. We feel like our music would match well with any one of these bands. The real dream is that in the near future they will be opening for us though.

Place You’d Most Like To Tour:

Right now we really can’t wait to make it to the East Coast of the US. We tour the West a lot and absolutely love it. We just can’t wait to make it out east to see more of our fans!

Quote That You’d Like To Pass On To Readers:

“The roughest road often leads to the top.” – Christine Aguilera

Christina said it best. I think it should be added that no road will be easy, so you might as well pick the one that takes you to the top. Otherwise you may just be walking in circles forever.

Reason For The Title Of Your Recent/Forthcoming Release:

One of the songs on the new record has the line “I’m looking forward to looking back.” It was our drummer Brad that had first brought that idea to us. From then on we ditched any other name we had in mind. It sums up the ultimate feeling and theme of the entire record. Whether there is a moment that you love in life or an extremely difficult hardship you are trying to make it though, you can take some comfort knowing that one day you will be able to look back on it. Either as a great memory or as a trial you overcame, it can be celebrated.

See Us Live At:

Cindersmusic.com/shows

We have a list of Western US tour dates all throughout October in celebration of the album’s release!

The First Song You Ever Played Together As A Band:

At our first practice together we jammed our song Closed Blinds. Following that we played songs Last Year’s Winter and I Could Do Better. Those were 3 of the first Cinders songs written.

Unusual Merchandise:

We once put one of Brad’s sweaty post show t-shirts on sale. That may not be very unusual, though the funniest part of it was that Jordan’s mother-in-law is the one that purchased it before anyone else could.

Variations You’d Like To Do On Any Of Your Songs:

We’d say a dubstep version of Call it Home but apparently someone already did that! It is pretty sweet actually. You can check out the remix on YouTube!

Worst Experience On Tour:

I guess it would be boring to say that sitting in a van with no leg room for 10 hours a day is the worst. Though it really isn’t. Some of our best stories come from being crammed in that van. The worst experience was playing a venue with 0 in attendance. The venue owner also said we could only play 4 songs because they had to pick up a friend from the airport. It was a rough night for sure. The awesome thing is that we have 6 of us to share the pain, so we can laugh about it now. That is a great example of something that we were looking forward to looking back on. Glad that is over. To every artist out there who has struggled with pulling a crowd in a new area, we have been there!!

X-rays Or Any Other Treatments For Band Related Injuries:.

Our lead guitar player Montana had to have surgery on his wrist due to carpool tunnel. It was a music related injury though so it is equally as cool if not cooler than a sports injury. Also Jordan hit Adrian in the face with his guitar on stage once. No treatment needed… but there was a lot of blood.

Your Favourite Show You’ve Ever Played:

We love our hometown crowds so it is hard to choose anywhere else. Our single release show for Tree House earlier this year was insane. The crowd was as rowdy as we were and they were screaming along with every word. At one point in the show we went out into the crowd and did what we believe to be the world’s largest group hug. Guinness says other wise though.

Zoo Animal That Best Describes The Band:

Probably a Pygmy marmoset. Those are the craziest and weirdest little monkeys. I’m sure people have described us in the same way after watching us preform.