Review Fix chats with Prosevere Frontman Gary Segars, who discusses how the band’s new EP “The Damn Disaster†was written, as well as what’s on the band’s to-do list in 2014.
Review Fix: You guys have done a lot over the past few years, what’s on your to-do list in 2014?
Gary Segars: In 2014 we’d like to finally release a new full length and get back to touring more regularly. We’ve written over 70 songs for the full length that are more of what we consider “our” style and we feel really good about a lot of them. We’re hoping to continue to prove that rock music can be successful in the current and future music landscape.
Review Fix: What do you think your highlight of 2013 was?
Segars: The highlight was 2013 was definitely getting to tour with our brothers in Shinedown over the summer. We’ve been friends with that band for as long as I can remember, but with management and booking agents, etc, we were never able to get together at the right time. Finally, this summer we went out and did a brief acoustic run with them and then did some off dates from their tour with KISS in Michigan and Minnesota. It was an eye-opening experience, seeing the day-to-day operations of a band that size. It really motivated us to not only reorganize and restructure our band’s workflow, but also inspired us to get healthy and become even more of a family than we already were. Shinedown has made us a better band, and we’re lucky for being able to call them our friends.
Review Fix: How is it working with Zach Myers?
Segars: Working with Zach feels like the old days, for me anyway. Zach and I were in a band together called “The Fairwell” back in 2003, and we’ve known each other for 14 years now. For us, music has always been about how awesome it makes us feel when we put something together and just feel it. Zach gets what we want to do — write music that makes us, and other people, actually feel something. It’s not a fashion show or a popularity contest to us, and Z gets that. We enjoy writing real, genuine music about stuff that matters, and he fits into that and understands what we do, so it’s easy working with him.
Review Fix: How did the idea for “The Damn Disaster” come about?
Segars: We were sitting in our friend Jessica’s living room with Blake from the band Devour the Day, and we watched Dave Grohl’s documentary “Sound City.” It really struck a chord with everybody in the band, and we thought about the idea of, while we’re still working on the new full length record, releasing something different that’s really fun and energetic and shows people another side of the music that inspires us.
Our regular music is more melodic and, in some cases, more commercially acceptible, something along the lines of Shinedown, Chevelle, or Breaking Benjamin-ish tunes. “The Damn Disaster” was a chance to do something along the lines of a mix between Down, Every Time I Die, Foo Fighters, Glassjaw, etc. Our influences vary quite a bit, so releasing something like this was going to be a lot of fun.
Rather than going in and tracking single instruments or parts, we recorded this project live, all together at the same time, in our practice space. Blake had everything we needed and he helped us produce the songs and get them to sounding great, and our friend J. Hall (our producer for the Burn the City EP) mixed the songs for us, and rather than try to make a profit off of these or whatever, we just wanted to give the songs away to people. We’ll print up physical copies and go give them away at shows, and offer the download for a while online for free, and hopefully it’ll strike a chord and show people that we just want the music we make to be fun while also having a purpose.
Review Fix: How important do you think it is for a band to have an active and passionate participation in social media?
Segars: It is INCREDIBLY important for bands to be active on social media. Today’s music fans want to know about you and they want to feel a connection to you. In the old days, people didn’t have the luxury of tweeting or facebooking their favorite bands and getting their opinions or learning about them as actual people. Now, in some cases, if the musician is a real asshole, it can hurt them… but for the most part, we’re all just normal people that watch sports, drink, and enjoy life. We’ve got families and we’re not untouchable. To maintain relevancy, you’ve gotta interact with people… and you can never have enough friends and family.
Review Fix: What song on the EP do you feel like is the best at telling fans what you’re all about?
Segars: On this EP, the best song for people to know what we’re about would be “1000 lbs.” It’s heavy, but the chorus is really melodic, and it sounds the most like the other tunes that we’ve done. That song is actually about our own band and how sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves to get things done rather than just enjoying the moment. We’ve gotten a lot better over the years of not taking things for granted because, at the end of the day, we’re a very blessed group of guys that have gotten to do some pretty amazing things together.
Review Fix: What are your long-term goals as a band?
Segars: It’s really amazing how much your goals change the longer you’re in a band together. We four guys have been in this band for over seven years now (since Nov 2006) and it went from wanting to play a sold out show in our hometown, to wanting to play at the Beale St Music Festival, to wanting to play an arena, to wanting to tour with a platinum artist, etc. Our longterm goal is to make this a more financially viable project — we all still have day jobs, but we’d like to ultimately quit those when the music takes off more. We’ve turned down independent label deals in the past because we’re lucky enough to be successful ourselves, but it’s on a much smaller scale. We’ve made it 7 years already… there’s no reason we couldn’t do this for another 20. We love music. We love rock n roll, and we love doing this thing together as a band of brothers. Our hope is to find a label that can maximize what we do and make it a national thing instead of just regional.
Review Fix: How do you want “The Damn Disaster” to be remembered?
Segars: “The Damn Disaster” should be remembered as something fun. Like Garage, Inc was for Metallica. It’s something different to showcase our varying influences, as opposed to sticking to a single formula for writing tunes. This EP is heavy and showcases what we can do live, and while some of our other stuff isn’t always super heavy, this shows that we do appreciate and love other genres.
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