HI! I'm Denise. I attend Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, PA where I major in Studio Arts, with a minor in Art History. My taste in music, movies, clothing and culture is superior to yours. Read my column bi-weekly to learn how you can be as cool as me! (Almost!) Support these awesome sites!

THANATOS: KICKIN' IT OLD SCHOOL Hardcore's not dead, it just really sucks right now. Labels such as Bridge 9 and Dead By 23 sign new bands every minute sure, but then you realize they only have two good bands between the two of them: Slapshot and Champion, and handfuls of mediocre bands trying to sound like them: all the rest. Even the once great festivals of years past are packed with screamo, new school and grindcore/crust junk with only a few bright spots in between. You have to look hard, at firehalls and garages in pocket sized suburbs but there are fun little scenes out there. A prime example is my home area of Middleburg(look on the map, it's a real town!) and no band better represents them than Thanatos. Last Friday night they played a "than-tastic" (their word!) headline set at The Armory in Altoona with new guitarist Chris Jordan. They were in all of their usual glory, blending intensity of hardcore with their good natured fun and cheeseball antics. They pulled out all the stops with Ant diving backward off the PA system's stacks onto the crowd and Sammy going into the crowd to join the pit WHILE playing. They initiated Chris into the band by strapping a bra around him halfway through the set and pelting him with water balloons. They played straight through with almost no set breaks. But the most shining example of what they stand for came right before their set. The 3 opening bands played from the Armory stage, but Thanatos set up on the floor. And why? To be in with the crowd, to make everyone a part of it. "3 car loads of kids followed us here from Lewisburg," said lead guitarist Kurt Iobst. "And they'll probably follow us to Perkins or Dennys or wherever afterward and all hang out for dinner. It's amazing how much the kids in our scene support the bands. Tomorrow they'll follow City & State out to Hazelton to watch them play. They are as much a part of the show as the bands are." And there you have it, that's what makes Thanatos a truly great hardcore band: their tight live show and positive attitude. If your still bitching that Mouthpiece and Rain On the Parade broke up, you owe it to yourself to check them out. I was one of the kids who joined them at Perkins afterward. Ant and Kurt were kind enough to give me some personal time to talk about the band and offer a song-by-song breakdown (hardcore pun absolutely intended!) of their new long overdue CD "Blood, Sweat, & Broken Strings". A few fun facts that were brought to me by the boys as we talked: If you listen to the album in the morning while eating some toast with jam, you've got yourself some "Thana-toast"! And since Perkins serves breakfast all day, we all got to eat "Than-cakes"! See what I mean about the cheeseball factor? They do this a lot. You guys sounded tight tonight. How did Thanatos come together, and how long have you been around? +(ANT)+ We've been talking about doing this for years. We met at a Make a Difference conference when I was still in high school, I lived in central PA and he was near Allentown, so it was hard to do anything. We got together over a weekend and recorded 5 songs we wrote with me on vocals, him on guitar and overdubbed bass and our friend Jon Hendershot on drums. We sold some copies at random shows and to friends but then it sat in a box for years. We kept in touch, then he moved up to New Berlin, about 45 minutes from me. We found a few friends to play with us, it was only supposed to be once or twice, to finally play these songs we had laying around so long. We were having fun, getting a good response from the crowds so we kept booking shows. It's been about 6 months I think. +(KURT)+ There was an open mic and entertainment night the last night of the conference and this skinny dweeb looking kid with pink hair got up with an acoustic guitar and did 2 Bad Religion songs. I gave him some copies of my zine, the legendary Lehigh Valley Spooky Poop and we kept in touch through email. That demo is rough but after the first show we played we had so much fun we knew we'd have to do more. Is it still just the two of you then that write the songs or is it more a group effort now? +(KURT)+ Ant and I still write the lyrics and lead guitars but the rest of the guys really help with the song structures, like the breakdowns and changes. Trav Kochel played rhythm guitar on most of the album, and he had this amazing knack for putting in harmonics and filling out the sound where it needed. He played in Truth About Lies with Sammy and those 2 work so well together coming up with transitional parts. With Chris joining we're looking forward to seeing what he brings to the table as far as crafting the songs goes. +(ANT)+ You can really hear the difference between the 2 recordings, I mean they're years apart but you can hear the benefit of having a full band on the new album. I overdubbed the rhythm guitar on a few of the demo songs and I could barely play at that point, and Jon is a great drummer but he had one day to learn those songs and lay them down. Having a steady lineup has really made the songs what we want them to be. Even with Trav leaving, he taught Chris all of the songs over a few practices, Chris is a really fast learner and had them down in less than 2 weeks. After you started getting well-known in the area, some of the die-hard local kids started a thread on the scene messageboards (PASHOWS.NET, CHECK IT OUT!!!) asking you and/or Fast Action (their label) to release the old demo. Any hope for that in the future? +(ANT)+ Probably not. We re-recorded three of the songs, "Scene Points," "Strong Inside," and "It Begins Now" for the new album and they sound so much better. "In Due Time" is one of my favorite songs Kurt ever wrote and we still play it all the time, and we like saying we have sort of a B-side or unreleased song in the setlist. And the fewer copies of "No More Bones" out there, the better. +(KURT)+ That song is the worst thing I've ever written. Everything about it is terrible, it's got this droning breakdown that lasts too long and this awful spoken-word part at the end. The lyrics sound like I wrote it when I was 10. I was going for something like Black Flag's "Family Man" meets Inside Out's "No Spiritual Surrender" but it didn't work. We recorded all the instruments and when Ant went to do the vocals we realized we'd recorded it up a few steps and he really struggled to hit some of the notes. No passing the buck, I take full credit for that piece of shit. Our friends know how much I hate it and they yell for it at every show just to be jerks. We'll play it sometimes if I'm in a mood to laugh at myself. "Blood, Sweat, & Broken Strings" is amazing and we're glad it's finally here! I was promised a tell-all about the new album and the recording process including a song-by-song breakdown. Start with the title, where did it come from? +(ANT)+ Our friend Frank DelRosario came up with the name accidentally after a show at the Winfield firehall. I mistimed a mic toss and cracked myself in the head and started bleeding pretty good. Kurt also shredded all six strings off his guitar and played the last song by banging on it with a drumstick which also broke. Frank was helping us clean up and blurted out about having to clean blood, sweat and broken strings. +(KURT)+ Plus it's what we leave in our wake of destruction every show we play. It sounds cheeseball but it's true: I'm not afraid to say we can hold our own as a live show with anyone. We leave everything on the floor when we're done. Our frontman is one of the best, Ant's got this manic energy that doesn't quit. He's a scrawny little guy but he's all over the stage, in the crowd, bouncing off the drums, speakers, whatever. Sammy and Justin too, those guys are mellow and never talk, but once the music starts they're all over the place. You can see the two of them locking eyes throughout the set, making sure they're keeping time and keeping the rhythm tight. We're sad to see Trav go but excited to have Chris from Team Radar take over. He's already one of us and after one show it feels like he's been with us the whole time. "20 Minutes of Euphoria": +(KURT)+ This is me trying to explain to my parents and anyone whose not into punk and hardcore why I'm willing to drive 3 hours to play a show for half an hour. Next to my time with my wife and kids it's what makes me happiest in the world. The same goes for driving 3 hours to just watch a band play for 20 or 30 minutes. I always tell those people who don't get it, if you don't get it, come see us play, just once. We pack more energy and passion into 20 minutes than Sum 41 has in a week's worth of shows. +(ANT)+ This is the first song anybody wrote music for other than Kurt or I. Sammy wrote the main riff for Truth About Lies before they broke up and never got to use it, he and Justin were jamming on it when the rest of us got to practice one day and Kurt wrote the lyrics in about 2 minutes. "Be My Brother": +(ANT)+ I wrote it for my friend Isaac, we've been friends since I was 15 and we've seen each other through breakups, deaths, just about everything friends can go through together. I usually take forever to finish songs but this one came out in an hour. One night at practice Trav played a new riff, the other guys filled in the verses and the breakdown while I scribbled down the lyrics in the garage. It's the fastest we've ever put a song together and it's the unofficial single from the album. This and "20 Minutes" are the 2 songs that best represent Thanatos, and they'll never NOT be played together live. "It Begins Now": +(KURT)+ The first song we wrote together and laid down for the demo back in yesteryear. I wanted to write my own version of Rain On the Parade's "Spirit of '88" and this is as close as I got. Ant helped finish the words to the chorus and when we started playing live and planning for a run as a whole band we sort of took the chorus on as a mission statement. It's usually the last song we play before we close the set with a cover. "Might Ain't Right": +(KURT)+ The idea came from watching the two-year-olds fighting at my wife's day care, pushing each other over and throwing toys. I expanded on it to reflect how hardcore has changed over the years, moving away from the unity of the late 80's/early 90's and focusing more on the "solve your problems with violence" attitude a lot of the more recent Indecision Records bands carry with them, like Bleeding Through and Adamantium. I stole the title from the name of a seminar we put on in my old middle school to raise awareness of school violence and fighting. +(ANT)+ This breakdown is the best on the album. You can hear Justin's jazz composition background in that whole last part, it's awesome. "Strong Inside": +(ANT)+ I'm pretty sure I wrote at least one verse of this song at the Make a Difference conference where I met Kurt. I was in a band called The Degenerates at the time and I wrote constantly, I had at least 2 notebooks filled with lyrics that I'd just pull out and use when the band had a song and needed something to fit. There was a seminar called "Mind Like Water", that's where the first line came from. The demo version is twice as long as the album recording. When we were recording the album, Justin accidentally counted it off way too fast but we played through it anyway, and when we heard the playback Kurt just said "That's how that song is SUPPOSED to sound!" We kept the first take and it came out to something like 48 seconds. Not bad, it would be considered a long song by some hardcore standards. "Teamwork": +(ANT)+ It's corny but it's supposed to be. I saw an 80's Trapper Keeper at the Shamokin Dam Salvation Army, it had an insert with all of these inspirational slogans about striving to achieve your goals with "Teamwork Works" in giant pink letters. The whole thing read like a hardcore song written by first graders, I just built off of that. What's funny is it's called "Teamwork" and it's probably the most collaborative song we've done. I wrote the lyrics and main guitar riff with help from Kurt, Sammy wrote the lead-in to the breakdown, Travis and Justin wrote the breakdown. +(KURT)+ For 2 guys who write and play songs in a positive hardcore band, Ant and I are 2 of the most negative & cynical people I know. We always said writing and performing positive hardcore was therapeutic for us, and this is us going way overboard with that concept. "Old Songs (New Hope)": +(KURT)+ It's a total nostalgia song, about the days when you were young and just getting into music, and all that mattered was saving up to buy a CD or go to a show on the weekend, and how those memories keep you from losing your shit when you get older and have to deal with real life. The line in the last verse, "When Ray said 'make a change', I knew it was my time" is as vivid a memory as I have of those days, it didn't matter that Ray sounded like Cookie Monster when he sang or that you couldn't understand him anyway. When I read the lyrics and saw how he took his anger and turned it into something positive, that's what started it all for me. +(ANT)+ This is usually our only real break in the set, so we can say a few words to pay tribute to the scene, and punk and hardcore. The guitar harmonics Trav came up with for the latter part of each verse is one of my favorite parts of the album. "Scene Points": +(KURT)+ It's a potshot at everyone who takes punk rock and hardcore too seriously and takes the fun out of it. All the kids who can't have a good time because they're too uptight and too busy looking the part, acting the part, like punk rock shows are boot camp. We played at the Hideaway in Maryland once and the whole crowd was either standing, arms crossed trying to look bad-ass, or thrashing too hard in the pit trying to hurt somebody. We made up these coupon-looking things that we scribbled on, "Scene Points: 10 points! 20 points!" and during the breakdown Ant jumped into the crowd and thrusted them at people who were acting like assholes. +(ANT)+ It evolved into something more fun at the hometown shows, it's our most requested song and when we play it everyone competes for scene points and tries to see who can dance the most before the breakdown's over. We played in Winfield one weekend and forgot to bring scene points, a bunch of people were asking if we were going to play it and give them out. I had to find a pen and make some out of the toilet paper from the hall bathroom. "Push Harder Than Before": +(ANT)+ Kurt is a conniving bastard who stole this song from me. We wrote the music late at practice one week and I didn't have any lyrics that fit. I went home with the tune in my head and wrote lyrics for it. I was late to the next week's practice because of the weather and when I got there they were doing the song with lyrics Kurt wrote. This song should be titled "Two Points For Honesty" and it would be a lot better. The best parts are Kurt's screams at the end of the choruses that ring out long after I stop. +(KURT)+ I didn't know he wrote lyrics, I found some of my own I never got to use and he'll never let me forget it. I couldn't find a teaching job when we first moved to PA so I started working at a concrete plant in New Berlin. Everyone I worked with was a racist piece of shit, talking all day about how much they hated anybody who wasn't white. They were full of nothing but hate and negative energy and it was really draining to be around. This was all about my desperation to get out of there and how much I needed my friends and family to get through every day. This is my favorite breakdown to do live, we do the Quiet Riot thing with Ant climbing on my shoulders and riding around while I try and thrash around without bucking him off. "You'll Never Win": +(KURT)+ Last minute addition we wrote about the Enron scandal and the people who lost all their savings. The last song was originally going to be "Nail On the Head" but we wrote this one pretty fast and liked the way it came out. Got the music recorded in two takes and Ant came up with the idea to have the "You'll Never Win" shouts echo in the chorus, that's one of my favorite parts. There were a half a dozen kids who come to the shows who came into the studio and sang the backup on that. We gave "Nail On the Head" to Jumpstart Records for the "Best of PA Punk/Hardcore" compilation. +(ANT)+ Kurt kept saying he hated the line about "stealing from people to buy a brand new boat", he thought it was stupid and kept asking me to come up with something better. I thought it was awesome and refused to change it. How long did it take you to record, and what was the process like? +(ANT)+ It really only took two sessions of about 3 or 4 hours each. We recorded with Ed at Fullerton Studios in Lewisburg and he's really easy and fun to work with. It would have taken less but we spent a lot of time ordering in food, goofing off, playing pranks on each other. Particularly memorable was Kurt eating a giant bowl of Wendy's chili and farting in the very small and confined vocal booth for several minutes just before I was going in to do vocals, then barracading me inside. Kurt has a very smelly ass. +(KURT)+ He loved it. Recording was a breeze, some fuckups here and there but we did no overdubbing except for vocals. Everything was played live with Ant singing us through and then re-recording everyone's vocals. If someone fucked up we just started over rather than overdub, we wanted to record as naturally as we could. Ant tried to screw us up a few times by singing the wrong words, like "Push harder in your ass". That song took the longest to get down because he did it like four or five times. We brought in a lot of the scene kids the second day to do backups and group shouts. It was a really fun album to make. Now that "Blood, Sweat, & Broken Strings" has come to fruition are you going to address the rumors that have been on the scene messageboards about a highly anticipated "Aban-atos" split 7" with Abandon Ship? I'm throwing in my two cents and saying I'd love to see that happen! +(ANT)+ We've talked about it for a long time, we'd all love to do it. Abandon Ship is a great band, some of our best friends. We've written some songs with them and Kurt and I have both sung for them at different times when Christian was away with the Navy. It'd be a great project but records are so much more expensive to put out than CD's. If we could ever pull together the cash it'd be a guarantee. +(KURT)+ I think we started those rumors. We had the idea to each put down two originals and then cover one of each others' songs. We did it live once, we did "Good-Fucking-Bye" and they did "Be My Brother." It was a lot of fun. We're going to have a long run of shows the next few months and play Posi Numbers Fest, and if we can raise the money we'll definitely do it. By the way, props go to Ron from Tornado of Knives for coming up with the name "Aban-atos." That was genius. Finally, how did you come to end your set with Pat Benetar's "Heartbreaker"? +(ANT)+ We were supposed to play an 80's night benefit for the skating rink in Kreamer. We had to cancel early on due to some scheduling conflicts and "Heartbreaker" was the only song we'd gotten down. It's so much fun to play, we decided to leave it in the set. We've always closed with a hardcore cover like Youth of Today or Gorilla Biscuits, or one of the early Revelation Records bands, we still do, we just tack this one on at the end. Everyone loves singing it as much as the rest of the set. +(KURT)+ Nobody topped Night Train to Terror's set that night anyway, all Pixies and Fugazi. "Heartbreaker" was made to be a hardcore song, such a great breakdown in that chorus. It's part of what we do, and what we strive for as a band, keeping hardcore fun. We're goofy and we're cheeseball but it's just who we are and what we do and it's how hardcore should be. We'll never make it onto Revelation or anything and we're not trying to, we're just trying to have a good time while we're here. Not just a good time, a "than-tastic" time. We hope the crowd does too.