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One From the Heart
An interview with Pete Appleby of
Renee Heartfelt
By Bob
Ignizio |
Coming out of such hardcore bands as Striking Distance,
Count Me Out, and Give Up The Ghost/American Nightmare, the members of Renee
Heartfelt (Pete Appleby – guitar and vocals, Colin Kimble – drums, and Aaron
Barth – bass) have crafted a great debut EP called ‘Magdalene’ that may not
be exactly what you were expecting. Like such post hardcore bands as Texas
is the Reason and Quicksand, Renee Heartfelt haven’t forgotten their roots.
They’ve simply expanded on them.
Utter Trash: You guys came out of a background in
hardcore, but Renee Heartfelt is something completely different. What made
you decide to go in that direction, and what bands influenced the style
Renee Heartfelt plays?
Pete Appleby: We've all been listening to this type
of music for a long time. Even when we were in hardcore bands we were still
listening to all sorts of stuff and I guess it just came time to do a band
that played more off our non- "hardcore" influences than our "hardcore"
influences. I think we were influenced by just about every band we were
listening to at the time of writing this record, which is way too many to
list. Most notably for me personally would be World's Fastest Car or early
Texas Is The Reason. But I think that's pretty obvious.
UT: I thought the material on the EP was incredible.
Do you have enough stuff written to do a full length already?
PA: Wow, thanks! Yeah, we do have enough material
for a full length. We are in a tough spot because we are dying to record
but we need to start touring for like 2 years straight before we can even
think of recording a new record. Hopefully we'll get that going in the
spring. I suppose we also need to figure out where it would be coming out,
in that we need a label that can put us in the studio.
UT: What in particular about Mary Magdalene drew you
to her as a metaphor?
PA: To be honest, I’m not completely sure. I love
religious metaphors, but I'm not a religious person. I suppose I wanted to
write a song about this person I knew a long time ago that was completely
misunderstood. I think Mary Magdalene was misunderstood, or at least a
victim of patriarchy in the church.
UT: Do you plan on touring in support of the EP, or
will you wait until you have a full length out?
PA: Well, we've been "planning" to tour now for about
a year. Thus far, it's been hard to get on the road. So if you're reading
this, please book us a show. We've been playing sporadically up and down
the east coast. Hopefully in the New Year we will be playing out as much as
possible and recording a full length. 2005 should be good.
UT: What sort of audience seems to have embraced the
band so far? Do you draw many people who would have gone to see your
previous bands?
PA: Right now I think a lot of our audience comes
from people that were into our past projects. I suppose our label hasn't
been too shy about mentioning that on the front of the CD. But I mean,
whatever gets them to at least listen to the CD I’m down for. I think it
may be a bit misleading because people are going to be expecting heads to be
ripped off when they put it in the CD player, but they get some post-angst
indie rock instead. The fact that we haven't gotten any hate mail is a good
sign, I suppose.
UT: The lyrics of hardcore bands usually have a
message of one kind or another. Are you still trying to get across a
message with Renee Heartfelt, or are you going for something more personal
and introspective now?
PA: I think Jason from Count Me Out's lyrics were
incredibly personal, to the point that he wouldn't let me read them at
times. I think he worked a lot off of themes and really had great ideas
about structuring songs on a record to convey something. With Renee, I keep
harping on these things in my life I can't seem to get around. I mean we
all have road blocks and issues, but I’ve just got these things beaten in my
head. I read this interview with this crazy old therapist that said the
root of human misery is in the fact that we all try to manipulate our lives
to this storyline that we somehow bought into. The whole idea that we
should do this, get married, work this job, etc.....I fall into the
trappings. This band is probably the only thing saving me from it...and
perhaps running. I really like to go running.
UT: What are your goals with this band? What would be
"success" to you?
PA: Our goals right now are to finish writing an LP
and to tour until the wheels of our van fall off. Success would be for me to
be able to forgo working between tours. Then I could just work on Bruce
Springsteen covers in my room all day and play them for everyone in the van
when we go back out. They would hate that, though.
UT: Anything else you want to add?
PA: Please listen to more Renee Heartfelt and buy our
EP out now on Limekiln Records as well as the limited edition 7" put out by
The North Sea Records in Richmond, Virginia. That has an unreleased song on
it too.
www.thenorthsea.co.uk. Thanks very much for the
interview.
Visit the Renee Heartfelt
website.
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