I first saw Down To Nothing play at St. Stephen’s Church in D.C. This was back in 2010, not long after I’d been introduced to the latest generation of straight edge hardcore bands, including Down To Nothing as well as Trapped Under Ice, Cruel Hand, Cold World, and more. The macho bravado and heavy, fast riffs that were these bands’ stock in trade bore a superficial resemblance to the scene breakdown bands (The Devil Wears Prada, Suicide Silence, Whitechapel) that I had listened to through most of high school, but straight edge hardcore was more real. Songs about friendship, loyalty, and hardships were more relatable then mindless brutality. Instead of swoopy, asymetrical haircuts and 808 bass-drops, raw album production and the tough guy asesthetic seemed much more badass.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE NEW ISSUE OF RVA MAGAZINE!
I first saw Down To Nothing play at St. Stephen’s Church in D.C. This was back in 2010, not long after I’d been introduced to the latest generation of straight edge hardcore bands, including Down To Nothing as well as Trapped Under Ice, Cruel Hand, Cold World, and more. The macho bravado and heavy, fast riffs that were these bands’ stock in trade bore a superficial resemblance to the scene breakdown bands (The Devil Wears Prada, Suicide Silence, Whitechapel) that I had listened to through most of high school, but straight edge hardcore was more real. Songs about friendship, loyalty, and hardships were more relatable then mindless brutality. Instead of swoopy, asymetrical haircuts and 808 bass-drops, raw album production and the tough guy asesthetic seemed much more badass.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE NEW ISSUE OF RVA MAGAZINE!
Being a senior in high school, I listened to Down To Nothing’s “Home Sweet Home,” with its claim, “Hanging out is what we do best,” a million times. My friends and I dreamed about graduating high school and moving to Richmond. Down To Nothing made this city sound like some sort of punk rock utopia. I couldn’t wait to go to shows and swim in the river all the time. I wanted to hang out around VCU and the rest of the city, shooting the shit with my friends all day.
Now it’s 2013, and I’ve lived in Richmond for three years. Down To Nothing’s last full-length album, Unbreakable, was released five years ago, but they ended their long break between albums this fall with the release of Life on the James. Their fifth album expands on the ideas originally expressed in “Home Sweet Home”–it’s an ode to the James River; Richmond and its people; and the local hardcore scene in which DTN have played a crucial role over the last decade. Much like fellow Richmond punk rockers Avail, Down to Nothing use their music to celebrate Richmond in all of its grimy, historic, sun-drenched Southern glory.
Life on the James shows a lot of pride in the city. What makes you proud to be from Richmond?
David Wood (lead vocals): Obviously, with the name of the record, we love the river. I think the small community–how small the city is, everything is really tight-knit–it makes the music scene feel like a family. It’s very easy to hang out and make friends here. In other cities, you have to drive like an hour and a half to hang out for the evening. For years, we lived blocks away from each other and we could just ride our bikes or walk to each other’s houses. Daniel and I have been swimming in the river since we were kids. Later, through hardcore, we started meeting our friends, and we’d swim in the river. That’s this thing we did. So when other bands that we had met on the road would start coming into town, they’d see how we all interacted at home with all of our friends. Every band from out of town felt like they had a home in Richmond. They’d always tell us how much they loved it, and loved coming down and playing, and swimming in the river and stuff. Just hanging out. Bands would a book show here just to hang out with us for days at a time, sometimes even weeks.
Daniel Spector (drums): Sometimes they’d just come through on the road, on the way somewhere else. Like going from DC to Carolina.
David: Jared moved up here from Florida to be in the band, so he can say some good stuff about it.
Jared Carman (bass): Yeah, it’s a small-big city. It’s pretty central [to] everything on the East Coast. Where I grew up, it was pretty secluded. It was like a 12-hour drive to go anywhere else. In Richmond, more so than anywhere else I’ve been, everybody knows everybody. Sometimes it’s not such a good thing–everybody knows your business, even if they don’t know your name. They know who you hang out with, or who you date. [But] it’s not always a bad thing. It’s definitely a smaller, hometown vibe, more so than anywhere I’ve been. The good outweighs the bad, for sure.
David: It’s still the South, so it definitely has southern hospitality. Our friend’s bands that will come through are like, “Man, strangers have waved at me and say hello, ask me how my day is going.” I think that adds a lot to it.
In the 90s, Avail was the Richmond band that represented the city the hardest. Dixie, Over the James, people say those records embodied what Richmond was like at the time. Now, I’d say as hardcore punk goes, you’re carrying that torch. How does that feel?
David: It’s crazy. We were just talking about that the other day after our show at Kingdom. The last few times we’ve played in Richmond, we’ve sold out the venue. Which is just unreal to us. Growing up, going to an Avail show, it was sold out at Twisters, Alley Katz, and then Strike Anywhere had that moment when they were massive, and sold out shows at Alley Katz–which is Kingdom now. I still don’t think of us that way. I still picture us as some young kids, for some reason. It still hasn’t sunk in that we’ve sold out a venue in Richmond. It’s pretty cool. We’re in our 30s now, and seeing kids geeking out about Down to Nothing stuff, talking about Richmond… These kids from Florida drove up to the show last week, and they were talking about how they saw Shafer Court, which is in “Home Sweet Home.” And they went to Belle Isle and Pipeline, more places we’ve written songs about. It made me realize that we do put on a good face for Richmond.
Dan: I used to feel that same way about Avail too, because they’d have lyrics about Monroe Park and Oregon Hill. We grew up in Southside, and we’d come over and it was like, “Whoa, this is the place in that song.”
You guys started when you were in high school. Comparing Richmond hardcore from 2000 to 2013, what was it like when you guys first started playing shows?
David: When we first started playing shows, we were young as hell. No one took us seriously. We got heckled on stage and stuff. Shows weren’t at Alley Katz really, they were all at Twisters, which is now Strange Matter on Grace Street. Hardcore shows were huge before our time–early to late 90s. We started coming out in ’97, and hardcore shows weren’t that big because hardcore shows were so violent back then. There weren’t that many hardcore bands out of Richmond at that time. So, seeing it now to then–there’s so many kids, plenty of straight edge kids. The hardcore scene isn’t segregated at all, all the edge kids hang out with the kids who aren’t. It’s pretty sweet. It’s definitely way less violent. I can’t remember the last time I saw a fight at a show in Richmond, which is awesome.
Dan: Going to a show in the late 90s, you were guaranteed to see a fight, at least one or two every show. And you always kind of had that guard up–you wanted to just be safe. I think it’s a lot more positive now. It’s a definitely cooler than having to worry about getting beat up. Don’t get me wrong, you can still see some violence at shows, but it’s less encouraged as it was back then. I think it’s definitely a positive thing, especially for people coming out of town for shows.
David: When we started going to shows, we worried about getting our asses kicked, just because we were young and people didn’t know who we were yet. So, when we got older, when we saw a kid, we’d go up to them and be like, “Yo, what’s up man. Here’s some records, here’s a mixtape of some old bands, you should check them out. Here’s some old shirts of ours.” We’d try to welcome them, instead of intimidate them from coming out to a show. I think, our generation and our friends, we really helped made the Richmond hardcore scene grow a lot.
When you were younger, what were some other hardcore bands that you listened to? What influenced you?
David: Gotta give love to our locals first, like Avail and Count Me Out. Strike Anywhere, Hate O Four, this band called Indypendant.
Dan: Bands like Floorpunch and Ten Yard Fight. Not local, but definitely a big influence in my eyes.
David: There was also lots of Hatebreed and Earth Crisis shows at Strange Matter. Definitely bands like that, a lot of the early Victory Records bands were our main shit. Oh, and Madball.
I’m sure when you guys signed to Revelation Records, you were stoked to be on the same label that lots of those bands were on.
Jared: That was like the biggest deal for us, we took a picture when we signed the contract, of us holding it. We put the Revelation logo on every single thing we could.
David: We definitely took advantage of that, bragging with the star. That was a funny time that summer. Splitting Headache had just come out, got us off our label at the time, which didn’t care about us. We started getting offers from cool record labels. One of our friends was working at Rev, and told us that they wanted to put out bands again. We thought, how could we not do it? Same label as Gorilla Biscuits and Judge–are you kidding me? We’re stoked to be on Rev still. It’s awesome.
Dan: I think it was more of an emotional decision to go with Rev at the time. We were so excited about it, that we just did it. Instead of looking at the finances, it was like, “Nah–Rev star.”
You guys don’t play too often, since you’re all busy with other bands and other things. Now that Life on the James is out, are you going to be touring more?
David: We usually play Richmond once a year, sometimes twice. We did United Blood this year, and did our Christmas show last year. We can’t do that [this year] because my other band [Terror] is on going to be on tour most of December.
We’re definitely going to try harder now, but with Daniel being a doctor and my schedule with Terror, it’s very hard. We’ve got some pretty cool stuff for early next year, though. We’re trying our best to make it happen. Any weekend, or anything we can squeeze in, we’re going to do it because the new record is out. Jared’s also been super busy with Trapped Under Ice.
Dan: Between the three of us, it’s kind of like magic when all of our schedules work with each other so we can play. It’s been hard to do.
David: It kind of makes it more exciting when we do finally play. There was one point when we were all burnt and sick of being around each other–it was like “Ugh, guess we gotta play this show.” And now, it’s like, “Yesss!! ahh!!” I’m doing backflips when we get to play together. I get so excited just to practice with these idiots.
You’re a doctor?
Dan: I’m an emergency medicine resident at VCU. I’m a second year resident. It’s a three-year program, so I’ll be a doctor pretty soon.
You guys started promoting this record pretty heavily last year, saying it was going to come out last spring for months.
Jared: It just takes a long time for a record to come out. When a label sinks so much money into it, they kind of have the say as to when it comes out. Summertime is better than springtime for releasing records, so it made sense to be patient.
It definitely did help, pushing it back. The stickers for Life on the James are everywhere around the city. I’ve seen them just as much as the RVA stickers. Lots of people I know who don’t listen to Hardcore notice them and have being using that phrase, Life on the James.
Dan: I’ve been seeing random people hashtagging #LOTJ on Instagram that have nothing to do with hardcore, which is cool.
You should look to get hired by the tourism department for Richmond.
Dan: That’s what somebody said on the internet for the video we just put out. It’s of us at the river and somebody said that the tourism board should pay us. Everyone’s been saying, “God, I want to go to Richmond now.”
Another thing that’s cool about the new record is that you can appreciate it if you’re not a hardcore kid; just the name of the record and the vibe, and what it’s about, almost transcends that barrier. People around Richmond can enjoy it. If nothing else, they can enjoy the imagery and the phrase, Life on the James.
I’ve seen a lot of people who were straight edge end up breaking edge, writing off straight edge hardcore, and getting immersed in some other kind of subgenre of punk or metal. As an edge band for all these years, what do you think about those who break edge and sort of leave the scene?
David: It’s true–just like anything, someone will see something and think that looks cool for the moment. So they try it out–then they’re gone. It just happens, but it happens with anything in life.
Jared: It’s not just in straight edge hardcore, if you played football in college or something, you’re damned if you do, damned it you don’t. If you keep doing it the rest of the your life, the people who were into it when you were into it are going to be like, “You’re still doing that?” And those who quit doing it are going to say “Oh, I got over that,” or whatever. Anything you do in your life is going to be like that.
Dan: Especially when people get into it at 18 years old. You can’t expect everyone who gets involved with it at 18 years of age to still be in it. You can’t be butthurt about people coming and going.
Jared: I think when you’re a young kid and you’re real passionate about it, you get upset about it and your feelings get hurt, you take it personal or whatever. But all of us have tons of friends who aren’t straight edge anymore. I just don’t even bat an eyelash. Nobody does. I don’t want to see anyone do anything stupid, but I’m buying my friends beer all the time. We were trying to have a record release party at Vinyl Conflict in Richmond. I was going to take band money, like $200, to buy beer for our friends. On that same token, we’re not just a band for straight edge kids. We are straight edge, but we’re not just limiting ourselves to that.
David: Straight edge is a weird thing–it’s like, very weird. Everybody drinks. Everybody’s parents drink. The entire world drinks and smokes. It’s just easy for someone to not be straight edge anymore. The majority of the world consumes alcohol. It’s bound to happen.
Is there anything else you want people to know about?
David: Check out Naysayer, Break Away, Tough Luck, Fire & Ice, Upperhand…
Dan: It’s cool that there’s so many young bands out now. When we started, we were a young band that no one gave a shit about. Maybe one of these new bands will take our spot. All of them are good, so check them out.
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