ALBANY—Back in 2004, if you were into pop-punk and hardcore—especially the East Coast variety—there was an acute sense of anticipation building around Long Island scene icon Vinnie Caruana’s brand-new band, I Am The Avalanche.
Caruana’s former group—the incredibly influential and beloved LI punk act the Movielife—had recently and abruptly disbanded in 2003, just when they’d hit their stride, leaving fans wanting more. Caruana briefly played thereafter in Head Automatica with his pal Daryl Palumbo (Glassjaw), but the hope was IATA would pick up where the Movielife left off. What the world got in the end was perhaps far more than anyone could’ve hoped or imagined.
In September 2005, I Am The Avalanche released the band’s Self-Titled debut, an album rightfully regarded as a modern punk classic, written amid a very turbulent time in Caruana’s life, resulting in powerful staples of the band’s set to this day. The record sparked years of touring in its wake, which when added to protracted issues with former label Drive-Thru Records, delayed a follow-up effort for six years.
Fortunately, 2011’s Avalanche United (released on I Surrender Records, thanks to the help of label head Rob Hitt, also drummer of Midtown) was every bit worth the wait. More worldwide touring ensued and then three years later in 2014, near the point of exhaustion and suffering key lineup changes, the band dropped Wolverines, arguably their darkest LP, before going on indefinite hiatus.
But then, in late 2020, something amazing happened: The band dropped a new record, Dive, after a six-year studio absence. And it wasn’t just one of IATA’s best; it was one of the straight-up best releases that year. As the pandemic faded Caruana put together a renewed touring lineup that features founding members Brett “The Rat” Romnes on drums and guitarist/co-songwriter Mike Ireland on guitar, along with new additions Chris Smith (Backtrack) on second guitar and Jon Markson (Such Gold) on bass, replacing original members Brandon Swanson and Kellen Robson, respectively. I Am The Avalanche were finally back, and they were crushing it again.
And now, as the band works on a new studio effort, IATA has embarked on a 20-year anniversary tour, with openers Be Well (whom we featured in a special April 2022 interview) and Rochester’s own Such Gold; two excellent bands that also share a history with Caruana and Co. (IATA’s Markson also plays in Such Gold; Be Well is fronted by Brian McTernan, longtime Movielife producer.) The tour stops at Empire Underground in Albany on Sunday, June 16 (Father’s Day), giving all the punk rock dads in the 518—this one included—an extra special treat.
So to take stock of 20 years of IATA in all its glory, I recently chatted with Caruana, who’s an old friend of mine from my days of living and reporting on Long Island. As we looked back in honor of the anniversary, the interview was very much a full-circle moment for us both: I’d first interviewed the band for the Long Island Press nearly two decades ago in 2005, when that first IATA release dropped, amid a memorable night of drinking pumpkin ale at the Harbor Ale House, back home on Long Island. At one point, I watched the band open a box containing their first shipment of CDs, and we all sat there, huddled together in the van, just looking at them in awe. I still have my personal copy from that night.
BRENDAN MANLEY: It’s beyond exciting that I Am The Avalanche are finally coming back to the 518. When was the last time you guys even played Albany?
VINNIE CARUANA: Oh my God… I have no idea… Probably Valentine’s, sometime in the early days. It’s been a while. It’s been too long. I’m really stoked that we’re hitting Albany. I know that upstate people in the area are usually like, “Okay, they’re playing Buffalo and New York City. I guess I’ll go to New York City, or I guess I’ll stay home.” We’re all stoked.
We were all together yesterday in the studio; the next time we’ll see each other is two days before the tour starts, where we do the rehearsals, and it’s just a month out now, so we’re starting to feel the excitement. I think the last time we played a show was the Bayside tour, so it’s been a while. We’re not the only excited ones; I got a lot of people writing to me with requests and stuff, which is always nice, and I am making notes. Every time somebody requests something, I make a note, and I write down the city.
BM: You’re even bringing out your old producer friend, Brian McTernan, and his band, Be Well, on tour with you. I love that it’s such a full-circle moment.
VC: They’re kind of like us in a way: These are all dudes that have been around for years and have made tons of important records and they’re in their 40s, and for Be Well to exist, in my opinion, is unreal to me. Brian [McTernan] fronting a hardcore band nowadays was not something I expected to happen at this point in his career, and he keeps making genius records with these guys. So yeah, it was such a quick conversation.
Brian was an important figure in my formative years in music and in songwriting and recording and touring, so it means a lot to myself and the Avalanche guys. It’s going to be a sick fucking tour. I can’t wait. There’s off days, and I’m looking at like AirBNBs in the woods on a creek. I fucking want to do fun stuff like that; do the stuff that old guys do.
You step back from the situation and it’s like, “Yo, let’s leave time to do this. Let’s leave time to do that.” We’re usually good with a one-song sound check. We’re always eating up our day, telling the promoter we’re gonna be a half-hour late, when we’re sitting on a beach, looking at a seal, going, “This is fucking cool.”
BM: Your current bassist, Jon Markson, also plays in one of the opening bands, Such Gold. Is he pulling double duty on the tour?
VC: Yep, but he’s stoked for it. It’s not every day those guys play. Such Gold are by no means a fulltime or even a heavy part-time band, so I think people are stoked to see Such Gold. I think that was a really good pairing for us and Be Well. People are going to be walking in the doors early to make sure they see Such Gold as well.
BM: You’d mentioned that you’d be playing a career-spanning set in Albany, and on this entire tour. What can we expect from that?
I think we have a 20-song list that we’re choosing from and we will be weaving different songs into different sets, depending on what mood we’re in. I think it’s probably a 17- or 18-song set, so there’s like eight to 10 songs that won’t be played, that we’re ready to play.
We’re digging deeper into the oldest stuff; songs that we don’t play from the Self-Titled record as often, and just adding more songs to the list. I don’t want to play the same stuff every night. I want to mix it up. I want someone to be bummed that they didn’t go to the show when they see the set list. And I will post the set list. After every show I’ll post the set list from that night.
But it’s also good that you get momentum, and that happens with playing the same set every single night; you really do get into a groove, so we’re just going to have to be creative and thoughtful about how to not disrupt that when we’re putting new songs into the set, like when we’re introducing new songs in Cleveland, or in Pittsburgh, or whatever.
BM: As for new songs, what’s going on in the studio at the moment?
VC: We’ve been slowly making a full length. We did a tiny bit of work for a few days last year before the Bayside tour and since then we’ve gone on to record 14 more, so we have 16 in the bag right now. Most of those don’t have vocals on them, so that’s kind of what I’m doing now. I’ll be back and forth to the studio, like, “Alright, I got three; let’s do three.” Go home, next week come back, “Let’s do two,” and just chip away at it.
We’re not releasing the record this year, so nobody really has a gun to our head, but we’re very keen on it. I don’t know what it is, but I feel this every time that we do a record, it’s like, “Alright this has to be the best thing we’ve ever done.” Something about this time and the way we got started on this record, the bar is so high as far as Avalanche songs. The two songs with vocals on them right now from last week are the two best Avalanche songs, like 100 percent. So now I’m freaked out. I’m like, “Oh my God.”
I’m 44. I’ll hold my hands up: I’m a 44-year-old dude, who is just as fucking excited as like, the first Movielife demo; the recording and the excitement of it and writing. I’m sitting there going, “Oh fuck, this is going to be the best record. The other ones that go on the record all have to be this good.” I’m trying not to put pressure on myself, but all these songs are there for me to go and kill, and as long as I go and kill, this is going to be a very, very special record. The musical side of it—the riffs that are happening, the structure, the parts that are happening—have never happened on any other [IATA record]. It’s just new stuff happening and it feels so fucking right. I’m just in it right now.
Right before I was talking to you, I was listening to a song that we just finished yesterday and trying to get things going, because as soon as we’re done, I’m going to walk five miles around New York, like I always do, and I don’t care; if I get one line…one idea for one song, it’s so fucking valuable to me, because I could just build off of that and then I have a direction. So I put in the work every single day and some days you think you got nowhere, but you did: You broke through some walls and you were problem solving. I’m home right now, so my full-time job is to make this Avalanche record fucking sick.
BM: What do you find yourself being inspired to write about this time around? What’s going on in your life?
VC: Where I’m at in my life now, the things I feel, the things I see now as a 44-year-old, with the wisdom of a 44-year-old guy… The last record [Dive] came out during the pandemic in 2020. We recorded it in like 2019, early 2020; that was a long time ago. A lot’s happened and by the time this record comes out, it’ll be like five or six years since we wrote that other one. It’s just an absolute ton to catch up on with our listeners and the people that dig what Avalanche is. And trust me: That’s a tough thing.
I’m really just stream of consciousness writing, getting good stuff, good ideas and then getting rid of some of it, structuring it, getting it into melodies, cutting some of it, and adding some more stuff, now that we know where we’re going creatively on it and what kind of direction I’m taking lyrically. It’s really, really, really, really fun, but this is hard. I wish I didn’t do this to myself.
It’s rare that we all write together. We wrote three songs this week together, which was really fucking awesome. The last song, I actually looked at Mikey and Jon and Chris and was like, “I’m not touching this. I’m gonna go outside, smoke a joint and write lyrics. You guys write a song.” That felt so fucking good to do. I’m looking at all these talented guys, like “I don’t want to touch this one.” I’ll come in later and be like, “We got to move this, nudge this, let’s cut this,” and then I’ll write to it.
When we’re all in the same place, I’m really prioritizing getting what we can out of them, so the fact that we keep going in together as a band, I keep not writing lyrics, because I’m just working on new music, and now I have a mountain to climb. I’ve got two songs done, and there’s 14 more, and to be honest with myself I probably won’t write two or three of them. My goal this past week was three of the songs, so I probably have 11 more to write.
BM: You mentioned the last record, Dive, which I personally loved, and was one of my favorite records to come out that year. It seemed like a very pandemic-era record, thematically.
VC: To give you some context, we went back and forth a few times recording that record. We were there for a week and then we were not there and then we went back for a week. The last week that we were there is when we really started knowing what was about to happen, so I would say that like maybe two or three songs of lyrics were written after I knew. I didn’t know, but I had an idea that things were about to get weird.
Some of the stuff that comes across as the overall vibe of that record is pretty positive and like, “Let’s keep our heads up and let’s fucking go.” Some of that stuff was just there, and then a pandemic happened and then some of it was written where I was like, “Okay I’m going to speak to the listener here, because we’re about to all dive into shits creek.”
BM: What was the lead-up like to that record in terms of timing? It was six years between Dive and Wolverines. What was going on during that time?
VC: Mikey quit the band to go and open a bar. Kellen quit as well, so it was me and Aggro [Swanson] and Rat, and we toured. We put out Wolverines—me, Aggro and Rat made Wolverines; Mikey sent songs in that were made and recorded on Wolverines, but he didn’t take part. He really needed to see his business through. We went and did a year of touring on Wolverines, and I looked at Rat and I’m like, “Let’s take a break, man.” He was starting to make pretty big records for big bands and stuff [as a producer], and Brandon was getting into tattooing, and we all were like, “Let’s give it a rest.”
Avalanche has been really good about not breaking up and not saying anything, so I think that year we started doing some Movielife shows for the first in a very long time, and I think that year Avalanche played one show. About a year later we played one show at Music Hall of Williamsburg [in Brooklyn], and that was the way it was. Avalanche was like, “We just play few times a year. It’s fun. It’s special.” Then things just start coming back around.
The way it happened was, I told everyone in Avalanche, “Listen, we’re not touring, so if you guys want to come back into the band, we’ll play shows and have fun every once in a while.” Eventually it always happens where when me and Mikey are talking and hanging out, we’re writing. We write music when we don’t even try to write music, so it’s just, “Let’s do an Avalanche record.” “Okay.” That’s just how it works and I’m always down.
This band’s really important to us. We don’t want it to wither and die. We really care about it. We don’t feel like an old band, but here we are, about to do our 20-year anniversary tour, you know?
BM: There’s a lot of parallels between the Movielife and the Avalanche, but were you intentionally going for something a little bit different? What was your original vision?
VC: First of all, I was going to play guitar, because I was writing all these songs. This was not going to be a pop-punk band; this is me at 24, not 19, you know what I mean? Right around the same time, I started smoking weed, experimenting with psychedelics—not being straightedge basically—so that record was a very transformative time in my life. Movielife broke up, I was living with my parents, which wasn’t a thing before, because we were never home, but now I was home and working in construction. My dad was like, “So what’s the plan now? Because you don’t just live with us now; you’ve got to get an apartment and shit.” I’m like, “Oh yeah.” A lot of reality checks were happening.
I went over to Mikey’s apartment—he was living with Rat. Rat and Mikey were living in Brooklyn and they had a spare room and I was basically trying out Mike for Avalanche as the first member of the band. Two weeks later I was living in Brooklyn and really doing this band; practicing and writing a lot and doing what bands should do; really just starting to hear what it is. Because I was writing the Avalanche shit on my own before I put the band together, and the first time hearing it, playing it in a room with a band, I was like, “Oh that’s what this is.” It was slower tempos, sludgier, stonier, big halftime mosh parts, big fucking Breeders influence, big I don’t even know what was going on back then.
It’s funny, I was talking to Max [Bemis] from Say Anything the other day and he’s always very kind in mentioning how important the Movielife and I Am the Avalanche are to him. …Is A Real Boy just came out right at the tail end of the Avalanche sessions, when basically everything’s getting written. So there’s a little attitude from that on there, because we listened to the Say Anything record.
It’s really full circle, the fact that he feels that way about my music and the fact that we were talking about “I Took a Beating,” and just how stoked he was in the moment recently listening to it. I’m like, “Dude I drove from our apartment to the studio listening to the Say Anything record when I tracked those vocals.” That’s a fact. We listened to it every single day for 30 days. We went back and forth to the studio just listening to the Say Anything record.
BM: You guys came out of the gate with a lot of momentum on that first album, and then kind of hit a snag for a long while due to problems with your former label, Drive-Thru Records. It was like another six years between the two records, right?
VC: Right. That was another rough period, in between the Self-Titled record and Avalanche United. We were stuck, and at the same time we were on a label that didn’t really exist, but a contract did exist, and it just happened to happen at a time in our life when we had been on tour for like three years or something. We were back in Brooklyn and enjoying it. Going on tour for three years when you’re not making any money can fuck you up, so we got back into New York and we’re finally home making money, bartending, meeting our future wives, and just being in our 20s and kind of living life and enjoying it. We didn’t stop thinking about the band—we did play shows and stuff; we would randomly go to Japan or Australia—but we woke up from that haze a little bit, you know what I mean?
It always comes back around, like when you’re living life and you’re doing it and priorities are changing, creatively I always snap out of that and go, “Alright, let’s bring it. Let’s write some music.” It’s always been a very important thing to not let Avalanche die and just keep it alive, basically forever. That’s the way I feel about I Am the Avalanche: keep it alive forever. I probably won’t jump around and shit when I’m in my 60s, but you know, I’ll grow into it; maybe play a guitar.
BM: I remember that back in that dark period, Rob Hitt and the I Surrender Records label came through and bailed you out.
VC: Rob Hitt, I Surrender Records…Midtown drummer, good friend. His relationship with Drive-Thru and his dynamic with them was super crucial in getting us off the label. That was insanely important. If that never happened, I don’t know how long that would have lasted, so getting off Drive-Thru was exhilarating. Having that contract done was a new lease on life. I had a few songs in the can: “Brooklyn Dodgers” was the first song written for that record and I could already tell where it was going and that it was going to be good. It was a really good time in all of our lives, making and writing and recording and touring on Avalanche United.
BM: A lot of those songs, you guys had been playing in your live sets for a long time before that album actually came out. I remember the anticipation for the studio recordings.
VC: Yeah, we recorded some demos with some people; we’re still tight with some of those people, but some of the other people were a little weird to be honest, and I’m pretty sure one of them leaked those demos, so we had to embrace it. We turned it into lemonade. When those demos leaked, we started playing “Brooklyn Dodgers” last in the set. That’s how quickly people started to catch on to what we were doing.
There’s a whole Avalanche record, by the way, that will never see the light of day, because it was never properly recorded. But we wrote like a whole record; tons of songs that no one will ever hear, and it’s good that they won’t, because we were all over the fucking place. We were getting pretty experimental. I’m not sure it was going to be a good record.
BM: When was that in the timeline of things?
VC: Probably 2007, 2008, 2009. We were demoing and sending them to Drive-Thru, but it was apparent that Drive-Thru was on their last breath as a label, as far as putting out music and stuff. I’m still thinking of some of the ridiculous songs…there was some bad shit. I’m glad we got a lot of bad shit out of there, but “Brooklyn Dodgers” was in there.
For those sessions we went to Peoria, Illinois, just to get out of New York and get everybody focused. Do you remember the band the Forecast? Dustin [Addis’] parents were away and we went into Dustin’s basement and brought very crude recording equipment and just tried to put some shit together. We scrapped most of that and wised up. I wrote “Brooklyn Dodgers,” and then Mikey wrote the music for “Holy Fuck,” and I was like, “Oh cool, we’re gonna make a punk anthem record. Let’s do it.”
BM: Then from there, it seems like Wolverines is a darker record, in comparison.
VC: Totally. That was a weird time in my life. I had hurt myself pretty badly in 2013: I fucked my back up really, really bad. I still have the injury now; I just manage it. But I couldn’t walk upright without the help of very hard drugs for six months, probably. I was going to get back surgery and all this shit.
I was in a pretty tough spot; I was in constant pain, so a lot of the themes and the cloudiness and gloominess of Wolverines was definitely where I was at. I was in a state of constant pain and I was feeling pretty helpless. I was on fucking oxycodone for half a year; all those lyrics are written doped up and in pain and frustrated. The little lights that shine through, I must have just fought through it, or I was just feeling high enough where I wasn’t in excruciating pain.
At the same time, on Wolverines, our bass player [Robson] and our guitar player [Ireland], who was super responsible for a lot of the music and the bigger songs on Avalanche United, were gone, so I didn’t have my writing partner anymore. It’s a strange period.
We were talking about Wolverines yesterday actually in the studio. It’s cool that when we put out records, there’s a few songs that pop off on a record. For a band that’s 20 years old, it’s nice and it’s something that we notice, that every time we release a record, there’s at least a song or two that become a mainstay and that you’re obviously gonna play, because everyone knows the words and shit. I think that’s sick. A lot of bands can’t really do that or don’t know how, or their fans won’t give them the grace to do that. Wolverines was one where that’s what I said out loud.
I don’t feel that with Avalanche United; there’s maybe one or two. Wolverines, there’s probably four that I’m like, “Yeah.” “The Shape I’m In,” which is just me being in pain, and “177” were the songs that popped off that we play a lot. This time I want there to be like eight songs that everybody knows the words to off the new record, instantly. That’s my goal.
BM: When I saw you open for Lagwagon in Brooklyn in 2022, you told an incredible story about tripping on shrooms, to introduce the song “Amsterdam.” I’d love to hear more about that one.
VC: Oh my God. Um… The song is pretty celebratory. The song is more about… Oh my God, like we fucking survived. A bunch of people from my town came out; they traveled Europe, we hung out with them in a few different cities, and they would party and vacation and then meet up with Avalanche and then really party. Avalanche was touring around UK and Europe for a month, and we partied so fucking hard.
Man, I hope my mom doesn’t still listen to my podcast interviews… My brother called me once and he’s like, “Mom’s been listening to all the interviews you’ve been doing on people’s podcasts,” and I’m just like, “Oh.” I have no idea what I said, but she hears stories that she’s never heard before, you know what I mean? From our childhood and stuff.
I’ll spare the gruesome details, but one of our friends had a medical incident while we were all peaking on mushrooms—and we’re not talking about we ate a mushroom; everybody ate an eighth of mushrooms as soon as we got off the stage.
BM: Right, the Long Island dose, like you said that night at the show.
VC: A proper dose. The night kind of unraveled and I ended up in a really bad way. The only time I’ve thrown up blood; a real rock star night. We were in Amsterdam acting fucking insane and having a really good time celebrating life, and I came inches away from having to go to the hospital. I just kept throwing up blood. It was really fucking Motley Crue.
The bus call was 9:00 am; we had to go to Germany or Austria or something, so I left my friend who I was really worried about. I didn’t really know how he was doing, because we didn’t all have cell phones in Europe and shit at the time, so the song “Amsterdam,” is more like when we reunited in Zurich, Switzerland, and everybody was in one piece, and we had seriously survived a night that I’ll never have again.
I don’t party like that anymore. I barely did. But yeah, “Amsterdam” is a celebratory song about a wild night. I’m glad that I chose not to write in the lyrics about throwing up blood and “I think one of my best friends is gonna die, and then I’m gonna die and I’m on mushrooms.” It’s got a much more positive spin, for sure.
BM: It’s funny, what you said about your mother; I remember in our first IATA interview, 20 years ago, you were like, “Don’t put anything in the article about me smoking weed, because then my Dad will be pissed.”
VC: It’s funny. Fast forward 20 years, and my parents are on the Oregon coast for the first time. I bothered them here for the last 20 years until they went there. They love it. But fast forward 20 years, and I’m like, “Oh Dad, the dispensary is over there. Enjoy yourself.”
BM: How have the newer guys in the band affected the dynamic?
VC: Me and Mikey wrote 12 songs together. The other three or four were written with everybody, so now you have more input from different guys with different ideas. On stage, it’s fucking awesome. They’re just rockers and they’ve been rockers forever, so they’re very comfortable on stage and our fans are very welcoming to them. I think the people that like Avalanche are appreciative of whoever is touring in the band, because we’re keeping the Avalanche party going and doing a good job, and if anything, elevating the band and keeping it feeling fresh and alive.
Also from a stage standpoint, Jon Markson is a fucking insane musician and a really prolific producer. He’s got a really good voice, so now I have Jon next to me singing perfect harmonies the entire set. It just feels a little less wild; Avalanche was always a this close to being too drunk to play kind of band. It’s not really like that anymore. Of course, there’s certain nights, when people don’t do as well as other nights at not drinking 10 drinks before the show, but for the most part, we’re all fucking adults. We want to be out there. We want to play well. We want to have fun. We certainly don’t want to be hung over in a van for a six-hour drive the next day. I think that things on stage are just a little bit more cohesive and pro.
BM: Jon also does a lot of work producing Drug Church, who are an awesome band from here in the 518.
VC: I think they’ve made three records together now? He’s like a member of their band, from what I can see.
BM: Speaking of which, you guys have got that situation going on with Rat too, doing all the production. How long has he been doing that, and how does that affect the band?
VC: Rat’s obviously on the inside, but he doesn’t hear most of the songs that me and Mike are writing, so Rat’s not involved in the writing of it until we start moving things around and changing and doing the stuff you do in the studio. His first record [as producer] was Avalanche United.
Rat has basically taught himself how to produce records and he’s gone straight to the top. I mean, 2011 is his first record; now we’re talking about working with massive bands (Hot Mulligan, The Front Bottoms, Brand New), and a big part of that, a lot of these bands that he works with, view him as like a member and part of how they do things. It’s kind of nuts how fucking good he is at his job. It’s wild.
When we were doing those demos for the record that never came out, he had started to try to record stuff and it sounded like a voice note on a phone. He’s really done it: He’s turned himself into a world-class producer. It’s not easy to do; it takes a lot of time and a lot of commitment.
BM: That’s awesome. Plus, it must be nice to not go outside for that help, or pay somebody, right?
VC: Well, that’s the thing, too. We don’t have a label; we don’t have a deal. We just do one by one, so we don’t know who’s releasing the next record yet, but we have the luxury of going to the studio and making a record without waiting on anybody to pay for it. Then we always take care of Rat when we sign a deal and get the record paid for. That’s a good system for sure; you’re not waiting on anybody.
BM: What are some of your favorite tracks you’ve done so far over the years with IATA?
VC: Let’s see, favorite Avalanche tunes… “Brooklyn Dodgers,” “Gratitude,” “Holy Fuck,” “Amsterdam,” “Better Days,” “Fake Weed,” “177.” I like “Where Were You?” on Wolverines. That’s a cool one. Those are my favorites, aside from the new stuff from yesterday.
BM: You don’t survive two decades as a band without going through your share of ups and downs. What were the biggest challenges that you’ve had to overcome?
VC: Sitting there with a Drive-Thru contract was tough. That was something that took a lot of time and effort to get through. We could have died. We could have just slowly died. That was a tough one. Hardships as a band, I don’t know… Maybe certain bands consider what we’ve been through as hardships; nobody in Avalanche is salty that we’ve never been rock stars, you know what I mean? That doesn’t really exist. What we’ve been through may sound hard for a band that wants it easy, but we’ve never had it easy and we don’t mind.
BM: Big picture, when you look back on 20 years with Avalanche, what are the highlights? What are you most proud of so far?
VC: As far as music goes, I’m most proud of the first two records. I’m extremely proud of all the records, but I think the first two were really, really special and were comprehensive and just strong throughout. The touring that we’ve done, the friends that we’ve made, the friends that we’ve kept, the people in our lives as a result of what we chose to do with our lives and the directions that took us, and where we have all gotten with our lives now, with the constant—I Am the Avalanche—being a very important part of all our lives the whole time.
This new record is the thing I’m going to be most proud of and I want to be most proud of. I’m going to make that a reality. I don’t like the idea of, “Play the old stuff.” I love playing the old stuff, but I like the idea of showing up on a stage, playing a song that somebody skipped and them being like, “Holy fuck, I’m gonna listen to that on the way home.” That’s the goal; that’s the plan. To make everybody proud; everybody that has supported us forever: our families, our wives, our friends, our peers.
I just want to show everybody you can still have fun with this shit. Don’t ever stop writing music. I would love for some of my friends who don’t do music anymore, to hear the Avalanche record and go, “Oh fuck. Oh yeah, it’s possible. You can do it.” You know?
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I Am The Avalanche headline Empire Underground on Sunday, June 16, with special guests Be Well and Such Gold. Tickets can be purchased online here.
