It’s not often a band from Bucks County in Eastern Pennsylvania can make metal hearts swoon. With thrashing heads and long flowing locks knocking side-to-side, triumph exudes in the perfectly simple, yet sentimental, sounds of the metal-meets-grunge band Superheaven.
Tomorrow night (Saturday) at the Middle East in Cambridge, the band formerly known as Daylight makes its way up north for the second-to-last tour stop of their spring headlining run to promote new record Ours Is Chrome, before Sunday’s record release party in Philadelphia. With Ours Is Chrome playing on a constant loop, Vanyaland caught up with Superheaven frontman Taylor Madison to talk album inspiration, the hard life of “the musician”, and melting snow.
Madison Silvers: What town are you from in Pennsylvania? I spent some time in Bucks County last summer.
Taylor Madison: I kind of move around a lot, but a lot in the general area. A lot of people think our band is from Doylestown, but none of us actually live there. But it’s only like 15 minutes away from us really. All of the surrounding towns are pretty small. I’m like an hour north of Philadelphia. Everyone else, like our guitar player is like 20 minutes away. Our bass player lives like half an hour away, our drummer Zack Robbins lives a little closer to the city. We’re just kind of scattered out, but we’re all in Pennsylvania.
What’s it like to be a band from the sort of suburban parts of Pennsylvania, as opposed to New York City, or even Philadelphia, or something along those lines?
I don’t know. I don’t really know what it’s like to be a band from anywhere else. I would imagine it’s pretty much a part of the same. If you’re in a band that’s completely in New York City or something, I’m sure it’s more of a pain in the ass to be in band. You can’t just practice at a house in New York City for the most part. I guess you can in certain places. I feel like a majority of bands in New York City probably have to rent a practice space and deal with all of that. But we just practice at Jake’s parents house. So that’s convenient. I would imagine it’s a little easier for the most part, as far as that goes. I’m sure that being in a band from anywhere is roughly the same. At least in America.
What is the story behind the new album Ours Is Chrome?
I guess the album title sort of refers to how I guess that a lot of people, well I guess there is a misunderstanding… well, not misunderstanding. But, I guess that a lot of people aren’t familiar with what it’s like to be in a band, and stuff like that. At least a full time touring band, and from an outside perspective it kind of has become apparent to me that a lot of people think that you know, we’re making a lot of money and that we get to go to all of these cool places. Which it is great that we get to go to all of these cool places, and I don’t want to come off ungrateful, but we certainly don’t make a lot of money. At least a band of our size.
There are bands that tour a lot and make a lot of money. But we don’t. I don’t want to make it sound like we just struggle all of the time. Our band makes money, it’s just that there are a lot of expenses for being in a band. At the end of it we don’t make as much, as individual from the band. At the end of it, because the band takes up so much time, it’s hard to make money elsewhere. I know a lot of bands do make that work, but it’s been tough for us. I don’t know, I guess it just refers to how a lot of people kind of see it as one thing. But, on the inside it has its downsides. People don’t see the downsides to it, I guess.
The record is playing off of that kind of financial struggle, then?
Yeah, I wouldn’t say that all of the songs are about that necessarily. But I feel like the overall theme is. That was sort of the vibe going into it. In the past year it has become more of a hard thing. We’re trying to tour more, and do more stuff. But we’re not making that much money to really survive. Like I said, it’s hard because you can’t really find work when you are touring so much—to just have a secure job, even to just have a temporary job, while your home. Like if you’re home for a month at a time. Even the whole applying process, and being interviewed. It’s like, okay, at this point I’ll work for one week, and then I’ll leave again.
Would you rather be touring, or would you rather be working?
I’d rather be touring, which I guess is why I do it. But it’s just that, people ask me that all of time, and I tell them, well, we don’t really make a lot of money. Then there like, well why do you tour? And I tell them, I don’t really know how to do anything else. When the band ends, I don’t know. Obviously I could find a job, it’s not like I can’t work. I just can’t, I don’t know. I’d rather do this while I can, but it can definitely be difficult at time. I don’t want to make it seem like it’s like “Wahhhh, being in a band is so hard,” but there are parts of it that are very hard, and people don’t realize it.
It affects your personal relationships with people, like your family and stuff like that. It’s hard to do something that takes up so much of your time, and you don’t get much in return. It’s hard to explain that to relatives and stuff, because they don’t get it. They think that, oh, if you’ve been to Japan you have to be making a lot of money. I’m like, well, no, not really.
Do you foresee Superheaven ending anytime soon?
To be perfectly honest, it’s like a day-to-day thing. Well, I don’t think we would break up. We would just stop touring. We would be way less active. You know, we all get along and we like writing music together, so I don’t think it would be that kind of thing. I think it would be kind of silly to break up just because we decided to not to the band full time. It would be more of the band slowing down significantly. But, I don’t know. It’s often that we talk about it. Just because, you know we’re not like 20 years old or anything. We’re all in our mid to late 20s. We’re not like grandpas or anything, but it’s at the point where there is definitely pressure to …well, you know you want to not be completely broke at this point in your life. It kind of sucks, but there are certain rewarding things about touring. There are moments when you’re in a band, and you’re like this is why it’s worth dealing with that shit.
What about your fan base, which is pretty big now?
Sometimes it seems like that, and other times it’s like not. I mean, I don’t want to downplay, and act like we’re not grateful for the people that do support us, I guess. But, you know we’re not like killing it, or anything like that. We come home from tours and it’s usually like pretty good. We get a pretty decent reception. But, it’s at the point where we’re about to go on our first headlining tour and I really don’t know what to expect as far as people attending the shows and stuff like that. Because we’ve never done it before. We never toured like just a tour where we are supposed to be the main attraction.
Are you excited?
I am excited. I’m more excited than anything. There is definitely a nervousness. It’s kind of looming…
Is there anything you’re looking forward to when you guys play in Cambridge?
To be honest, I really like playing there all of the time. I think just playing in Boston overall is something to look forward to. Is there still snow?
[laughs] No, not anymore.
We played there in I guess it was February. There was tons of snow on the ground.
Did you guys have a snowball fight?
No, a couple of people got pushed into snow. But, I don’t think there was a snowball fight.
Well, sorry to disappoint. There won’t be any snow this time.
That’s good, I hate snow.
SUPERHEAVEN + DIAMOND YOUTH + ROZWELL KID :: Saturday, June 20 at the Middle East, 472 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA :: 6 p.m., all-ages, $12 :: Advance tickets :: Facebook event page
