Few bands on the scene have made me fall in love quite as quick as Our Sunday Affairs did, so I was delighted to get an interview with a band whom I considered to be rising stars of our world. When the interview revealed to me that these guys were calling it a day, I was gutted. However, read below and check out their upcoming record, Cave, and prepare yourself to say goodbye in the best way possible.
Hi there, Our Sunday Affairs!
Hey Kelly and everyone at Alternative Tone! We're super stoked for this opportunity, much love!
No worries! Who is Our Sunday Affairs and what's your story so far?
Ever since Transitions the band has been Jake Schwab as our vocalist and the dude who really shows the most raw energy during our live performance.. Ryan Malmos as our drummer, who started playing drums shortly before he joined, and had no band experience what-so-ever. He ended up being an amazing drummer, and really showed a lot of heart through the good and bad times of this band.. Donald Malmos as our bassist of course! He's one of the funniest guys and is primarily a jazz bassists, so it's always cool seeing what he has to add to my guitar playing. My name is Tom Weil, and I am the guitarist. This band has been a chid to me and Jake, who have been in it since our very first EP, "Smiles From Next Year". Right now we are about to finish recording our big farewell LP, a concept album entitled "Cave" and we have big, big plans for this album! It's something we've spent countless months trying to write and make perfect in our eyes, and I am still finishing the instrumentals of the album to this day!
Big farewell LP?
Unfortunately, after dozens of rad house shows and a load of EPs, the members will be going their separate ways. This started back in 2010 when everyone in the band at the time was 14 or 15. We were all 15 when we recorded Smiles, and now the youngest of the current lineup are Jake and myself at 18. With everyone off to different colleges and such we figured the only thing to do was to buckle down and create the best OSA release we possibly could. HOWEVER, we will be playing a few goodbye shows, and who knows, maybe a year down the line we'll pull a classic emo band move and have some swanky reunion show! "Cave" is a very unique concept album with a variety of emotional directions spiraling throughout it. Everyone pushed themselves as hard as they could to do things we never have, but still keep that Our Sunday Affairs sound that our fans are into. On top of this we will have a bunch of really awesome guest vocalists who are good friends of ours, such as Sam Ray of many musical projects like Ricky Eat Acid and Teen Suicide, and Ricky Christian of Mallard. I don't want to spoil all of the guests but we wanted to try and get many of those who have meant a lot to us in our years as a band to help us do something awesome and meaningful for our first and last LP, and they're all really talented people!
Wow. I'll be sad to see you go. The record sounds like it'll be amazing though. What was the inspiration behind it?
There are many inspirations that have driven us to do more with our music as well as do something creative with this LP. Jake has always been inspired by weatherbox and as of recently, definitely the anime Evangelion. There may be a similar theme or two in Cave and our previous EP, City of Dogs, if anyone is into Evangelion! A big inspiration of the band has been a lot of technical music in general, as well as the old school music both the Malmi are into! We are not an extremely technical band, of course, but we always try to add mathiness to our music. I personally have been big on Maps and Atlases, Glocca Morra, Minus the Bear, Toasted Plastic, Animals as Leaders, and The Dillinger Escape Plan lately. Totally different bands but I get inspirations from mostly their ability to see music outside of the box. I believe that is key, especially in our generation... where most mainstream music we've heard throughout our lives starts to sound the same. We want to put out something different within our style of music.
What are the lyrics on the record about?
Well, we would like people to perceive this album as they will. It follows a story arch, but the deeper messages and underlying emotion we will leave open to interpretation... it's music after all! I will say, however, that it has to do with spirits, the end of the world, rebirth of said world and a special girl.
Were you aware that you were calling it a day when you started writing the album?
Yes we did. After releasing City of Dogs we knew we had a realistic lifespan that wasn't going away. Growing up sucks, let's be real. We took advantage of this! We saw it as an opportunity to use our precious time left to make the best damn album we could.
How did that affect the album making process?
It helped it flourish! We looked at the calendar and realized we had exactly a year to spend writing before we had to record, and it gave us a lot of room to breathe. Writing this many songs was a pain but with a year I'm confident we could've done much more. Our average writing time for EPs was always a month sometimes less once we got into it with the exception of Smiles From Next Year, which took us about 2. With all this said, we were mature enough this time to space things out, sit on ideas, and really develop the album over a year. To this day, it isn't 100% complete! This is why recording dates have been scattered and there has been a lot going on with pre-production demoing.
If the record sees success, do you think we may see more from OSA?
It's hard to say for now, but in the event that Cave somehow "blows up" I can for sure see us continuing to play despite college inhibitions. If not it would be rather hard considering we're all going to want/need jobs on top of our "education" or whatever you want to call it. Regardless, I personally will be pushing this band to do an even more final grouping of shows during the winter as another small tour, but it's hardly worth mention as I can't promise anything about a winter tour.
What can fans expect from the winter tour?
Well as I said before it's impossible to say right now if a winter tour will happen or not, but if it does, fans can expect us to put on our all and show them an emotional experience they've never seen before! Also bad jokes.
What are your plans for after OSA?
I will be joining the Marine Corp. I hope to become involved with one of their musical programs. It isn't patriotism or anything like that. It's having shitty high-school grades and an undying love for music combined into a convenient life choice I guess. Jake will be off to Temple University and Donald to UArts. Very proud of them both!
Great! If Our Sunday Affairs was a novel, what would it be?
If graphic novels/mangas count then we'd be Neon Genesis Evangelion!
Final words?
For updates on vinyl pressing, release date reveals, etc: check the Facebook some-what frequently for announcements! We're really putting our hearts and souls into our music and we know it'll be worth it in the end when you all can hear the final product. Once again, a warm thank you goes out to Alternative Tone and yourself
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