By snoadmin
Middle school: For many of us, it was a time in which we were adjusting to the idea of taking multiple classes and (in the case of boys) struggling to talk to girls, all while trying to figure out what those strangely pleasant feelings “down there” really meant.
For the guys in My American Heart, it marked the beginning of a musical journey that has lasted through numerous Warped Tours and produced multiple albums despite lineup changes.
Ever since the San Diego-based alt-rock band first formed in 2001, when most of its members were 14 years old, it has specialized in cranking out honest and heartfelt rock with the kind of unabashed earnestness that can only come from a group of kids looking to bare their souls.
“A lot of us left high school junior year to tour full-time, so while trying to grow as a band, you have five guys trying to grow as people,” bassist Dustin Hook said. “We were basically going through puberty while on tour, I would say. It’s amazing how different we’ve become over the years because we’re still growing. That is definitely the inspiration for a lot of our songs and lyrics.”
My American Heart’s latest album, “Hiding Inside the Horrible Weather,” is another collection of heart-on-your-sleeve lyrics powered by guitars. However, unlike the quintet’s 2005 debut LP “The Meaning in Makeup (which Hook described as a “rushed and thrown together” album), “Hiding Inside the Horrible Weather” was the end product of a band that was given more time to craft something worthwhile.
“It was like we were given an assignment that we had to finish,” Hook said. “The spontaneity is still there, but we just took the time to work out any kinks and make the songs really work.”
The first three years of the band’s existence were marked by countless local shows and the release of three independently produced EPs despite the fact that the guys were barely in high school.
After My American Heart beat out other Southern California bands to win the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands in 2004, however, everything changed.
Not only did the victory earn the guys a spot on both the inaugural Taste of Chaos tour and the Vans Warped Tour in 2005, but at the final Ernie Ball show at Key Club in Hollywood, Warped Tour and Taste of Chaos founder Kevin Lyman offered to sign them to his new label, Warcon Enterprises.
“[Lyman has] done some amazing things for this band,” Hook said. “It’s really good to have him on our side.”
Following My American Heart’s first Warped Tour go-round that summer (a period during which Hook joined the band), “The Meaning in Makeup” hit stores, and the band went on a period of extended touring in support of the record that included its first headlining run and a second consecutive appearance at Warped.
2007 marked the year that My American Heart went international: This past fall, the guys supported “Hiding Inside the Horrible Weather” by embarking on their first overseas tour, a U.K. jaunt with Madina Lake.
“In Europe and the U.K., it seems like the kids out there take a lot more pride in their music that they listen to,” Hook said. “Here, a lot of kids listen to music and like it, and when they drive in their cars they’ll listen to it, but over there it’s like they live and breathe the music that they love. It’s really a breath of fresh air to go over there. The kids don’t go to the shows to look cool. They go to the shows because they love the band. I’m not saying that everyone here does that, but that’s definitely the case in some places.”
After the band wraps up this year with a brief headlining tour, it will go on the road with Madina Lake again for a U.S. tour that will include a kind-of-out-of-the-way stop at the Australian Soundwave Festival, a Warped Tour-sized festival in numerous Australian cities that will feature bands such as Incubus and The Offsrping.
The guys also plan to work on a follow-up to “Inside the Horrible Weather” in due time, but according to Hook, fans shouldn’t expect an overblown prog rock epic or a 45-minute bongo freakout session recorded in the name of “doing something different.”
“I feel like the sound we have now, we’re making it ours,” Hook said. “As we’ve grown as a band and as people, we’ve molded it into the sound we have now, and it’s hard to say what will come a year or two from now. I think sometimes bands try too hard to do something different just for the sake of being different, when that’s not them. You’ll never hear a forced sound from us. We’re just going to play the stuff that feels comfortable to us and go with it.”
As for advice for fledgling bands, Hook emphasized the necessity to hustle and get the word out instead of just waiting around and hoping to become an overnight success along the lines of Panic! at the Disco.
“I don’t have a problem with stuff like that happening, but if people think that’s going to happen to them, that’s going to screw them,” Hook said. “Panic! at the Disco are extremely blessed guys, and I can’t say anything bad about them, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to follow in their footsteps if you’re in a band. You can’t do nothing and expect to be big six months after you start your band. There are 100,000 bands in the United States or something ridiculous like that, so you’ve got to set yourself apart.”
My American Heart is playing at Chain Reaction in Anaheim on Saturday and at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood on Tuesday.
