Junius for me is one of the those dream bands, meaning they have the exact type of sound that I am obsessed with. Any band that has a heavier sound mixed with somewhat clean soaring vocals is always going to be a favorite of mine and after I stumbled upon the the song “Elisheva, I Love You” off of their second album Martyrdom of a Catastrophist I was hooked. I was even more enthralled with the band when they released their third full length Reports From the Threshold of Death in 2011, which continued even further into their heavy yet clean-vocaled sound. I had been waiting patiently to see them live for a couple of years then finally in February 2012 they were swinging by SLC with O’Brother and I was so excited, but like an idiot I mistakenly booked a vacation over the date of the show. Isaac ended up not being able to make it due to an unforseen injury caused by a blizzard (see our post about that here). The same blizzard also caused Junius to miss the show, which was unfortunate for them, but made me feel slightly better about the situation.
Now a year later the band made it’s triumphant return to SLC on March 10th with a concert at The Shred Shed and I was finally able to meet up with the guys to chat about life on the road, what new releases the band has coming up and what ideas and music inspires their awesome sound.
BGM: Seems like You guys have been touring non stop for the past two years. How do you guys handle being on the road so much?
Joe: Listen to Music, watch a lot of movies. Some of us drink a lot (laughs).
Joel: Since we are all spread out, we don’t all live in the same city, so we don’t get tired of each other. So it’s just a bunch friends hanging out.
BGM: You do a lot of European touring as well, whats the difference between touring Europe and the U.S.?
Mike: Everything.
Joel: It’s like a whole different ball game.
Joe: It’s what every band wants touring to be like. Even if you’re a smaller band they still care for you. The hospitality is just naturally better over there. Granted we’ve had some rough European tours, but not like the some of our U.S. tours.
BGM: Are the crowds bigger in Europe?
Mike: Definitely.
BGM: I always see pictures of guys playing in Germany.
Mike: Germany is like our second home. We got lucky, somewhat early on we got connected with a great label and a great booking agent who promoted our record a lot and it definitely paid off. We just love it over there.
BGM: Any funny moments from being out on the road or horror stories?
Mike: Too many (laughs). No nothing to bad.
Joel: Luckily nothing terrible has happened. We’re a serious and dark band, but we still like to goof off just as much any other band.
BGM: Last year you guys toured with O’Brother, how was that tour?
Mike: Very sweet guys, they play great music. We couldn’t ask for better tour mates.
BGM: Any Favorite tours or tourmates from the past?
Mike: O’Brother definitely. There’s a bunch.
Joe: Honestly we’ve only had one bad tour which we will not talk about (laughs).
Mike: We’ve been pretty lucky. We’ve had very little drama, were pretty easy going. We just did two weeks with our brothers in Caspian. We both came up around the same time in Boston and they are some of our best friends. It had been a while since we had toured with them, so that was nice.
BGM: So the first album The Martyrdom of a Catastrophist drew a lot from Immanuel Velikovsky. Is philosophy something that you guys are all into or is just more Joe?
Joe: We are all into it, but this was me. All the concepts are mine, because I write the lyrics. So yea we are all into it, but Immanuel was a big obsession of mine. Finding him around the same time we were writing that album that changed everything.
BGM: When Reports From the Threshold of Death, first came out and before I researched the subject matter. I almost felt as though the album had a more of a religious vibe to it rather than spiritual. Is there any type of religious influence in Junius’ music?
Joe: No. That was based on the idea that I wanted to tie Martyrdom in with Reports. The last song on Martrydom is about the death of Immanuel Velikosky. So after that It was like where do we go, I didn’t really want to do another Martyrdom. Literally it was a continuation, after that when people die where do we go? Regardless of whether I believe or not. That wasn’t the point, it was more of an exploration and continuation. It’s supposed to make you think about something bigger than yourself, the religion thing didn’t have anything to do with it. I’ve definitely had some issues with people asking why are you promoting the whole religion thing and it’s like I’m not. I just had a conversation with someone asking me about that and it’s like come on use your imagination, go with it, have fun with it, pretend. So whatever, I just basically researched near death experiences and followed the pattern that seemed to be happening with that.
Joel: The album title is what it is, this is reports from the threshold of death.
BGM: Tonight will be my first time seeing you guys live. What songs does the set consist of? Do you mix in any songs of the Junius release?
Mike: Oh yea, from all three.
Joel: Definitely leaning towards more of the newer stuff, because we are still touring on that album.
BGM; What songs do you love to play live the most? Any that are difficult?
Mike: It’s different for me than these guys.
Joel: Yea I just rock out (laughs). “Stargazers and Gravediggers” is one that is so much fun. I’m just in love with that song, I never get tired of it. We are doing a couple of songs from the new album that we hadn’t ever played before like “Transcend the Ghost”. We just started playing “Elisheva, I Love You” from Martrydom which is one that we haven’t played live very much.
Mike: We just started playing a lot of our older songs tuned down, mainly out of necessity because we can’t bring all our guitars on tour. So we are just transposing the parts down, which actually breaths new life into the songs. It actually makes it easier for him (Joe) to sing as well.
Joe: Yea, it actually helps a lot. It’s a relief because now we can play songs that I normal was too scared to play. But, I would say that “Ten Year Librarian” that song is a beast its almost eight minutes long and I’m singing the whole time too. That one is tough.
BGM: Any new songs that you guys haven’t recorded yet that you guys play live?
Mike: No not that we are playing. There’s some new songs that we are working on that were recording right now, but were not playing them live.
BGM: That leads into my next question. What are your plans after the tour? What are the plans for the next release? Have you started writing for it yet?
Joe: We have new EP due out. It’s going to be part of Martrydom, kind of a side story from that album. It’s taking the actual catastrophe that Immanuel obsessed about and kind of just pretending that it did happen. Each song Is going to talk about impending doom and destruction. So essentially we are just going to do that. Its going to be a four song EP maybe five or six tracks. After that possibly another Europe run, then not sure. Hopefully start working on the new album and get that to start to take shape.
BGM: You mentioned that this new EP is kind of side story to The Martyrdom of a Catastrophist, are these newly written songs or b-sides?
Mike: The songs on the EP are neither newly written or b-sides… They were songs we started writing during the Martyrdom sessions, but thematically didn’t fit the plot of the album. These songs focus specifically on the theories of Immanuel Velikovsky, whereas Martyrdom more or less told the story of his life. We decided back then that we wanted to eventually make an EP that would serve as sort of an addendum to The Martyrdom, and that’s what this will be.
BGM: When do you think it will be released? and will it be out on Prosthetic Records?
Mike: I can’t say much more about it until it’s finished, but we hope to have it released later this year, and yes, it will be on Prosthetic. More details to come.
BGM: So what direction do see the band’s sound going for the next full length album?
Joe: I want to try do a combination between Martrydom and Reports. The new album, I want it to be like a trilogy were all of them relate to each other. With the third one, I want it to be a mix. Where Martrydom is very intricate, very detailed and Reports is very bold and simplistic for us. So now it would be nice to do something kind of in between and then tie the two subject matters together with a new concept to go into it. Which I think I have a firm grasp on… I’m not going to go into the subject matter though, in case it changes (laughs).
BGM: One of the things that I admire about you guys is the clean vocals on top of the heavy music, what is your approach and inspirations as a singer?
Joe: Originally I wasn’t going to be a singer. I mean for Junius I was, but not when I first started playing music. When I first became a singer in a previous band it was just because I was better than the other guy, that was the only reason. As far as inspiration no matter what, 80’s music that’s always going to influence my style. Because I feel like there’s more bold melodies and there’s darkness to it. It’s not too dark where it’s sad and depressing. It’s always going to be there. I try to stay away from it, but it always comes through. I’ve tried to change it, if I feel like it’s to 80’s, but I can’t, I don’t want to. Because this is what happened, this is what I came up with.
BGM: I know Hum has been mentioned as a main influence as well as Sunny Day, Failure, and Deftones? Anybody else? Any new artists right now that you guys dig?
Joe: I’m not really the coolest anymore (laughs), I don’t listen to a lot of rock music. But, I love M83, Anthony Gonzalez is incredible, their one of the few new artist that I’m into. I listen to a lot of classical music and soundtracks, stuff like that.
Joel: I keep it slow and dreamy these days. There’s this band True Widow.
BGM: Oh I love True Widow.
Joel: I can’t stop listening to them. The Life and Times is amazing. Besides that stuff, especially after being on tour and hearing a bunch of metal and heavy stuff, I just want to listen to the opposite of that.
Mike: I’ll listen to a lot more electronic stuff, like Purity Ring, M83 for sure, Tyco, all this kind of downtempo minimal electronic stuff. Every night it’s like playing with all these bands, I just want to give my ears and brain a break.
BGM: Final question, what would your guys’ dream concert be?
Joel: It’s always going to be Neurosis, I just wanna be friends with that band (laughs). Then probably The Cure, Isis, and M83. If we could get on that bill that would be sick (laughs).
Joe: Definitely M83 and I don’t know. It’s hard to find bands that our sound would fit with. But, yea definitely M83.
Mike: Oh Deftones. So Deftones, M83, and us. That would be perfect (laughs).