By snoadmin
Senses Fail front man Buddy Nielsen was at home in New Jersey when he picked up the phone to talk to me.
His band has had about a month off in between recording and touring to relax, but Nielsen doesn’t sound relaxed. He sounds like he is pacing back and forth while talking and the excitement in his voice permeates through every sentence he gets out. Senses Fail just finished recording its second album, “Still Searching,” and Nielsen boasted about it like a proud father.
“We’re excited for it to come out. I want everyone to hear it in its entirety and not just a couple songs over the Internet. We worked really hard on it,” Nielsen said. “We’re really proud of it. It’s a really personal record that explains a lot about life and sheds a lot of light onto things that have been going on for me in my life. There is a lot of musical progression, a lot of interesting, dynamic stuff going on on the record. I think people will be really surprised with the growth of the band.”
He said the word Internet almost sarcastically, but the truth is the Internet played a large part in the beginning of the band. The members of Senses Fail all met on message boards online.
Guitarist Garrett Zablocki put out a wanted ad looking for another guitar player. Nielsen played guitar and messaged him. The two liked the same bands, so they started working together and the other pieces of the puzzle just fell into place.
The band received attention fast. There isn’t a better place for a young band than New Jersey.
The “Garden State” has turned into a rock band super-womb, giving birth to bands such as My Chemical Romance, Thursday and Lifetime.
“You have examples of what a successful, good band is, so therefore you kind of follow in the footsteps of a band that is just a good band,” Nielsen said. “Instead of kind of not really knowing where to go, and being in L.A. where it’s kind of a free-for-all of everybody, here it’s more of a music scene of people and friends. It’s more of a close knit thing.”
Nielsen, who ended up doing lead vocals, and Zablocki, along with bassist Mike Glita, drummer Dan Trapp and guitarist Dave Miller, recorded a six song EP called “From the Depths of Dreams” on the local indie label ECA Records.
After selling nearly 1,000 copies, the band got attention from an even bigger indie label, Drive-Thru Records. It re-released “From the Depths of Dreams” with an extra song and an acoustic song. So over 250,000 copies later, it put the band on track to sign with major label, Geffen Records.
Things ended up not working out with Geffen, so the band was “traded” to Vagrant Records (both labels are partially owned by Interscope). It was at Vagrant that Senses Fail found a home.
It released its full-length debut “Let It Enfold You” in Sept. 2004. It peaked at number 34 on the Billboard charts and sold over 320,000 copies. The band played some Warped Tours, supported Taste of Chaos and soon became a staple in the music scene.
When it came time to start working on a follow-up, the band did it right. The band went home to Jersey and wrote from January to May. Miller decided to leave the band, but Senses Fail picked up Midtown guitarist Heath Saraceno and just kept on going. The band wanted something new and different.
“I think the record is different and it needed everything to be new about the way we approached it, the way we wrote it, [and] the producer. We needed something fresh,” Nielsen said. “I think the biggest difference would just be the sound of the band and how it has grown. I think that every aspect of the record is different from what it was.”
Finding a title for the record proved to be a little difficult. Nielsen had to contemplate it for a while and he finally came up with “Still Searching.”
“It’s almost an optimistic way to look at life that you can still be searching. The record is very, very pessimistic. But I think that once I was done with the record, and because we named it after it had been written and recorded, that it gave me a little while to look at the record and look at things and be kind of more positive about everything in general,” Nielsen said. “Still Searching” lends itself to be a positive name for a record that is very pessimistic.”
The record is very pessimistic, but in a fun way. Once you get past the melodic intro “The Rapture,” songs like “Bone-crusher,” “Calling All Cars” and “Shark Attack” may require you to turn down the volume on your iPod so you don’t blow out your eardrums.
It’s faster and harder, yet still keeps that toe-tapping beat that has made Senses Fail a favorite among all crowds.
“Still Searching” is in stores now. Senses Fail will headline a national tour with Saosin and Bleeding Through starting in late November.
