VIEW THIS PAGE Rockin' on stage can get bloody for American band Story of the Year, which is known for its raucous, high-energy shows.
“I’ve been hit in the head a few times [by guitars] and blood will just be running down your face,” said lead vocalist Dan Marsala in an interview with the Taipei Times from his hotel in Nagoya, Japan, where the band just finished a run of shows.
But gore won’t be the centerpiece of Story of the Year’s concert tonight at The Wall (這牆) in Taipei. “We’ve been doing it for so many years that we’re really good at dodging each other now,” said the 28-year-old.
The band, originally from St Louis, plays modern hard rock, melding guitar-driven genres that thrived in the 1980s underground: thrash, hardcore metal, grunge and emo.
While not a household name, Story of the Year has enjoyed modest success and a large enough fan base to keep the group on a steady schedule of touring and recording. The band broke into the US rock scene with its debut album Page Avenue (2003), which went gold, and toured with groups like My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park.
Since the release of Story of the Year’s last album early last year, The Black Swan, the band has toured non-stop touching down in the US, Europe, Brazil and Japan.
“It’s what you’ve got to do to be in a rock band these days,” said Marsala. “It’s how people make money, now that nobody buys CDs anymore.”
Nonetheless Story of the Year is focused on making music with a message. Songs like Welcome to Our New War clearly show the members’ rage against the machine: The power elites wear the thickest disguise/Setting the rules as the classes divide they keep their heartless/Eyes on the prize and leave the masses with a lifetime of poverty and crime.
“I grew up listening to a lot of punk bands,” said Marsala. “That’s definitely where the inspiration for our politically driven music came from. Some of my favorite bands were Bad Religion and Propagandhi — a lot of political punk bands that I grew up listening to ... I’ve always been into music that had some kind of message, rather than love songs.”
Despite the “serious” content, the band still enjoys being a little “goofy” on stage. “You want to suit the music but you want to have fun at the same time,” he said.
Marsala says he particularly likes playing clubs like The Wall, which holds a maximum of around 500 people.
“If you’re playing a huge arena, you’re not going to feel the energy of the crowd,” he said. “There’s just something magical about a small room full of people, just screaming and having fun.”
Story of the Year’s show tonight begins a big weekend for The Wall. Tomorrow the venue hosts The Band Apart, a Japanese indie-pop group with a loyal following that regularly fills 1,000-seat venues, according to The Wall’s Miyuki Yang (楊懿琳), who is in charge of booking international acts.
The Tokyo-based band plays groove-oriented music full of jazzy guitar riffs, pop hooks and sweet vocal choruses. All the lyrics are sung in English by singer and guitarist Arai Takeshi.
Taiwanese audiences and indie musicians will relate to The Band Apart’s origins — its members started out as a heavy metal cover band but moved on to writing their own songs. The Japanese indie-music blog keikaku.net notes their “eclectic” influences such as bossa nova and emo, which can be heard in their song Shine on Me, which also has a strong J-pop feel. VIEW THIS PAGE
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