Bayside Interview (Mean Street - October 2008)

Bayside

By Rei Nishimoto

Positive Vibes

“I spent a lot of time at the Rainbow Room,” says drummer Chris Guglielmo, about his days off while recording the new Bayside record, Shudder, in L.A. “I’d just go in there and people watch. It’s like being in a time warp.”

It was apparent that they were enjoying soaking up the Hollywood experience of their rare off time, but the band worked hard on their record. After recording their prior albums on the East Coast, Bayside wanted a change of scenery and recorded Shudder at Red Bull Studios in Santa Monica with producer David Schiffman (System of a Down, Audioslave).“

[Schiffman brought] his calming influence,” says bassist Nick Ghanbarian. “He works to each individual person. It’s going to sound bigger and better, and he knows how to do that while you’re tracking your part. He knows what sounds good. You might have played it perfectly, but he may make you play it again louder just so when he’s mixing and the song’s done, the energy and the vibe mesh well together.”

“He works in a stressful environment,” adds Guglielmo. “When you have four people relying on you for certain things, he handles it very well. He doesn’t get too edgy at all.”

The band has overcome every challenge set in front of them. Since the band’s formation in 2000, they appeared on the 2007 Vans Warped and the Victory Records tours, as well as appearances on Late Night With Conan O’Brien and Total Request Live. But they also overcame lows when the band was involved in a fatal van accident in 2005 that killed then-drummer John Holohan. They paid tribute to him on their 2006 Acoustic EP.

Shudder retains a lot of their sound while refining what fans loved about them. Much like on their prior releases, the songs on this record also maintained a theme as well. Vocalist and guitarist Anthony Raneri says he wanted the theme to be positive.

“I don’t approve of a lot of the bands out there today with these big fan bases that are putting the wrong ideas in kids’ minds to party, drink and do drugs and have sex,” he says. “We want to be a better influence. Musically, I wanted to write songs [whose] cores were simple and very easy to latch onto. That’s why we named the album Shudder because we wanted one word, very powerful, to the point and easy to remember.”

The songs on Shudder feature the melodic pop-punk style Bayside have built their careers around. The first single, “No One Understands,” is a straightforward song structured around melodies and hooks, while “The Ghost of St. Valentine” and “Boy” retain the guitar-driven sound Bayside is best known for. Plus there are the anthemic pop-punk sounds on “Roshambo (Rock, Paper, Scissors).”

“To us, we could say we’re trying things, but inevitably it’s going to sound like us,” says Ghanbarian. “I think it’s more youthful.”

“I think the only real difference in this record from the other records is coming out in the sonic aspect,” says Raneri. “The songs are Bayside songs. We have a couple of ska-tinged things and a couple of rockabilly-tinged things. But it sounds like Bayside.”

ON THE STAGE: Oct. 22— Glass House (Pomona), Oct. 23— Troubadour(W. Hollywood)

On the web: myspace.com/bayside