Introducing: Endeverafter
An interview with vocalist/guitarist Michael Grant
Theres a very good chance that you've never heard of Endeverafter...and thats okay. Their debut album is still being worked on and will be released in a few months by One Haven/Epic Records. However, the band has already played in front of hundreds of thousands of people, as the opening act on the recent "20 Years Of Rock" tour by Poison and Cinderella and there is a ton of excitement building over their album. Anarchy Music strongly supports the return of Rock N roll to the music landscape so i hought it'd be a good idea to introduce everyone to a band that you'll be hearing a lot about in 2007. I sat down with my friend, Endeverafter singer/guitarist Michael Grant and talked about the band and what the future has in store for them...
You're a new band so lets introduce ourselves, who's in the band and how did you guys form?
I'm Michael Grant, I play lead guitar and I'm lead vocals. We also have Tommi Andrews on bass Kristin Mallory on guitar and Eric Humbert on drums, and everybody usually sings back-up vocals. How it started? Me and Kristin were best friends for about 5 years and I guess three years into our friendship we started thinking "what kind of band do we want to start" and we wanted actually to start a revolution and thats the god honest truth. We've always set our sights to the top of the line. We set our sights to like Zeppelin and The Beatles and not like, "oh, we want to play The Hoo-Ha Club" and that's our dream. Our dream is to take over.You know what I mean? If you're going to set your sights high, then why not the highest?
Why not start off going "lets be the greatest rock band of all time"...
Exactly
And if we fall just shy, then we're still one of the greatest!
Exactly, and we really feel that anythings possible. Some of our idols have become fans of ours and have proved our vision to be pretty fruitful. Like, some of the bands that you would never expect to be fans of ours, and thats fucking awesome.
So, who's come up and said "Man, your band rocks"?
CC Deville, Bobby Dall, Bret Micheals, everybody from Cinderella, everybody from Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco just a lot of bands.
Thats great that you have such a crosover with the old and the new...
We're not trying to resurge the 80's or 70's, we're playing the kind of music thats coming out of us, naturally. It's not forced. I think that some of the bands that are doing teh same things as us are very fabricated. Its fake as fuck and you can tell its fake. It doesn't feel natural and I think it gives bands like us a bad rep. Because people think we're a tribute band and luckily by the end of our set they have nothing bad to say. It's nice to know that all kinds of different bands from indie folk arists to our idols like Poison and Cinderella are fans of ours. thats huge to us. It really makes what we're doing worthwhile.
Lets go over the influences that help create the sound...
Well, I'm a huge 70's fan. I love the Rolling Stones, I love The Beatles, I love Led Zeppelin. Then I love Motley Crue and i love Guns N Roses. Those are the five main influences that shape the sound of this band. I think those would be the top ones. And Aerosmith actually. Aerosmith is huge for me.
The thing is that a lot of kids are into that music now, they're going back and getting the old records but there isn't really any new material being put out.
Exactly
You guys can say "hey, we were inspired by that and we're going to give you a different spin on it and maybe pick up where they left off".
People say "what are you trying to do?" and we're saying "we're putting our own modern spin on classic rock". It's not to say that everything we're ever going to do is going to be classic rock based. We're not interested in becoming a niche 70's, 80's tribute band at all. We're doing our own thing and we're making our own music and we're writing our own shit, to make it ours and not everyone elses. We dont sound like Poison, we dont sound like Guns. All those elements are in there, but when you listen to it, it doesn't sound like anything. It sounds like Endeverafter.
You're from California right? What part are you from?
We're all in different places. we all got together in Sacramento and thats where we all met up and started the band. We had a different drummer at the time and we canned him right before the Poison tour because of musical differences and stuff like that. Our drummer is actually from Chicago. He was Fall Out Boys drum tech. We had opened for Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco and The Starting Line in Sacramento and thats where I first met him. We weren't friends or anything. We barely even talked. Its weird, we got a call and we were looking for a drummer. He flew out from London because he was doing a Fall Out Boy tour. We tried him out and it instantly just meshed. It's weird because he was Fall Out Boys drum tech and we'd jam out Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin and you never would expect that from a guy thats on tour with Fall Out Boy. Its proof that you cant judge a book by its cover.
How did you get the attention of One Haven/Epic ? Not many 80's rock n roll style bands are getting signed.
When we first recorded our EP "Blood On the Stage" I guess it was passed on from one guy to the next and it got to an A&R named pablo mathiason, pablo passed it on to Crush management who is Fall Out Boys management, they got ahold of our shit, passed it around and next thing you know there were labels flying in from all over the place to Sacramento to our little shows. First it was just Epic, then it was Columbia and Epic, then it was Columbia, Epic and Atlantic and they were all there at the same time And before we knew it...you know, we had only played 10 shows before we got picked up.
Damn!
We had only played 10 shows and everybody started wanting us. The demand became a little bit bigger and the next thing you know we're thrown on the Poison tour.I guess Bobby Dall had gotten ahold of our cd, or CC I think it was. And then they were like "why don't you come out for the tour?" and you can't say "no" to that.
About that EP, thats not available anymore?
We only printed 2000 and everything happened really quickly. When the contracts happened, we didn't really have the urge to print more. It just didn't make sense since we were recording a new album. We wanted to take a diferent direction and since we had the opportunity to have our new stuff listened to on a wider scale we just decided not to reprint that. We're actually going to re-release it in a couple of years. It'll be one of those lost gems
It's cool to listen to on Myspace, but I want a copy!
When the third or fourth album comes out we plan to release that, sorta like a Garage Days or something along the lines of that. So its like a rarity.
Do you think the industry is ready for rock n roll to come back?
i think they've been starving for it and I don't really think that anyone has realy had "IT", I guess is what I'd call it. i just don't think anyone has it. you can name any band and the masters are still Aerosmith, Motley Crue, Guns circa Appetite all the way to use Your Illusion, not the Chinese Democracy Guns N Roses. I think they've been starving for it. Theres a reason why you keep rewinding to "Sweet Child" and "Paradise City" because for the kind of music we set out to do, thats the top. "Back In The Saddle" still plays, "Sweet Emotion" still plays. I just don't think the new bands are writing very good songs, at all, to be honest with you. a lot of them have the skill and the vibe and everything, but very few of them have the star quality to them.
You played with Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, theres some bands out now that you like, its just a different style.
Its a differnet style, because we don't just listen to classic rock. We listen to every kind of music. Folk, to rap, to hip hop, to rhythm and blues, to blues
Which is what makes you different from just another band thats ripping off Guns N Roses
Right, we're not interested in that.
You're bringing out your own style, meshed from all of your differnet influences.
Exactly, most of the great music in the world has been ripped off in the first place. Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin ripped off all kinds of blues artists from the 40's and 50's.
And they probably ripped it off from someone singing on a street corner...
Not to say that we're ripping anything off but everyody's influenced by something. If youre human its going to show.
And if you have a variety of influences you can create your own sound...
It blurs the lines and noone can tell by then.
You talked about wanting to have a revolution in rock, whats the agenda, how do we take over?
(my photographer laughs)
Oh, I'm all about it! I'm full bore with it baby!
Honestly, I think it only takes one young new band. Motley Crue, whatever bands that have done it cannot do it again because its already been done. It takes a new artist, it takes new, fresh material in order to do it. And everybody has to put their chips into one band. It can't be like you spread it all over. If indeed a band deserves it, and I do think we do. If everybody puts their chips into one band, and fucking, is all for it and all about it and really loves that band and puts their foot forward and the band doesnt fuck things up by being too fucked up on drugs and not showing up to gigs and shit like that it can happen. Its very easy. All it takes is good songs and a good band that puts out a good vibe with a good image and its over. And nobody's had it, nobodys had it.
But like you mentioned, in the 80's when the whole glam thing happend it didnt start with the Scorpions making a comeback or anything like that...it was the new bands coming out and even the older bands were able to ride that resurgence. And next thing you know there was a whole new trend going that was pretty badass.
Exactly
And it tends to start that way, like when Nirvana came out and next thing you know the whole world had changed.
But everybody put their chips into Nirvana, you see what I'm saying. All the labels and all the magazines had suddenly turned their heads to Nirvana and realized that this was something new and fresh and that thuis could be a musical revolution. And I think that the pendulum always swings back and forth, and I think its swinging back to, not glam, not 80's, not 70's, but rock n roll...good fun-loving rock n roll. Everything you hear on the radio is so goddamn sad and so weary and dreary and just depressing. There's nothing like a "Paradise City". Theres nothing like a "Brown Sugar". Theres no "Jumpin Jack Flash" anymore. Theres nothing like that. Theres no "You Shook Me All Night Long"''s anymore. Its all you broke my fucking heart and Im gonna slice my wrists with these razor blades
Hold on, Im writing these lyrics down...thats my hit!!!
Turn on the radio and Im sure its already there. I'm not judging anyones music. Its that kind of music in particular is just not my favorite. Im more into listening to music and having a feeling of enjoyment. I think thats what rock n roll is all about. Its having a good time. Its not like, this is a song about my girlfriend who fucked another guy and sliced my heart out of my chest. Come on man, how old are we? This isnt high school anymore.
As far as media attention goes, one thing I've noticed is that they'll leech off of a particular trend and the magazines that are out now will swear to god that they were never covering limp bizkit and when they were covering limp bizkit they swore to god that they never covered whatever came before that. So, do you find that now its hard to get press for a rock n roll band? Obviously everyones going to jump on once you start selling records. But is it difficult now to say "hey, its okay to cover Fall Out Boy AND us"?
I could see where the difficulty would present itself there, but the first problem we have is that we don't have an album, but if it was out I actually think they would love covering the both of us since its two different things and theyre both very controversial in its own way. I think the industry has been waiting for Endeverafter, and I;m really serious when i say that because we believe in what we do and we love the music.
If you dont believe in the band then theres no chance, so thats a good thing.
And we know what we have and I think the fans are really starting to see that. In our heads, we are the greatest rock n roll band to ever walk the earth. In our heads...
You gotta have that mentality or youre going to go out there and 15,000 people are gonna know it. So you have to go out and say, Youre going to believe we're the best band too and youre going to get a lot of new fans that way.
Right, they have been and its been a great ride so far. these two and a half months that have passed by touring with Cinderella and Poison.
Have they treated you really well and how have the fans reacted to you?
Oh, theyve treated us amazing. We expected to get beat uop and pissed on and shit like that when we first got on but since then theyve proved us to be completely wrong and have been nothing but great to us. And I that think they feel very nostalgic when they see us because it feels like theyre passing the torch on to us...and they have actually certain members of Poison and Cinderella have sort of brought that up.
Because on previous tours its been, Faster Pussycat and Ratt and nothing but a retro tour for them and this the first time theyve ever taken a new band on tour. For me, before I ever heard a word from you guys when I heard you were on the tour I was like "Okay, Poison has decided its time to pass the torch and lets start up a new rock n roll trend".
Right and I cant complain. I'm incredibly thankful for it. Those guys, have taken us under their wing and have given advice here and there, and completely look at us, not as competition, but as the little brothers who are going to assume the throne that they have been sitting on for years and years and years. In order for you to succeed I think you truly have to give.
And their fans have been receptive to you?
Their fans have been nothing but receptive. We've never gotten booed off. We get standing ovations almost every single night.
Is it crazy though to play 10 shows in bars in Sacramento and then next thing you know youre playing in front of 20,000 people? Does that blow your mind?
Um...no...
(everyone within hearing distance laughs)
I think we're the kind of band who was born for this kind of thing.
Thats what I've heard from all the reviews, its always been "this band is so at home" and its almost like the world was just waiting to catch up to them because this is where they belong and I've heard it over and over...
None of our guys are ever scared or feel out of place. If anything we feel out of place when we're not up on that stage. When were walking around malls and stuff like that, thats when we start to feel sort of out of place. But when we're on that stage man, for those 30 minutes, we're gonna fuck you up. We're gonna show you what youve been missing out on for the past few years.
This tours gonna be over before the record comes out, do you know what the plans are after this?
After the tour I'm going to enter the studio with my boys and we're going to record I think two or three more tracks and tack those onto the album and then the main focus from here on out is getting the album perfect. We got on this tour without an album and it wa sort of like a rock n roll boot camp for us. Its been exactly that, actually. And we've learned and acquired so much musically just from touring with these bands and being able to watch Cinderella and Poison night after night after night and its been amazing. we stick around and see their shows all the time . We try to learn...in my opinion. theres no local band thats rocking like Cinderella and Poison at the moment, so thats the main thing.
Is there a moment that sticks out in your mind so far that blew your mind?
Yeah, we've had a series of really amazing shows where its been incredible, its shocking. i think those shows were Nashville. When we played Nashville...usually we play at 7...so if theres 40,000 people there by the end of the night we play in front of 15,000 maybe. But Nashville, it was like they all showed up early. We played in front of maybe 17-20,000 people and by the time we ended we were playing in front of like 25,000 and everyone got out of their seat, standing ovation. we play "Baby, Baby, Baby" last most of the time, and we played "Baby, Baby, Baby"...
Will that be the single?
That probably will be the single, its either going to be that song or a song called "Poison"...which has no relation to the band...and was written before we were on the tour. But everybody stood up and was clapping and it was the loudest roar that I'd ever heard. And we all looked at each other and it was truly a moment that if youre not on that stage you'd never understand it no matter how much you tried to explain it. It was definitely something that I don't think any of us are going to forget and we've had a couple of those shows, like in Detroit. Detroit is some of the craziest rock fans I've ever seen in my life. That show was pushing 45,000 people that night and they were already capacity and we got to play in front of maybe 25,000. And it was the same deal man, standing ovation. We always go out to meet the fans no matter what we tell them after our set to come meet us over by the merch booth. At first it was just a couple of people and now its just like people swarming and it plays into what i believe people have been fucking starving for. They have been starving for a new rock band. There are no new rock bands that are doing it right Nobodys doing it right, nobody
Its gotta be reaffirming for you to be doing music and saying "I think we've got this and we have that X factor thats going to take it" and then you have 20,000 people going "oh, youre right!"
Yeah, and we encourage the naysayers, because by the end of the set your standing on your fucking feet anyway. We've had plenty of shows where the first two songs people are booing us and by the end of the set theyre fuckin bowing.
With some people it just takes a little bit to get over the fact that they dont know who you are quite yet, but once you kick em in the ass its fine.
The most common comment we get, and we get it every single night is "I gotta admit man when I saw you guys i was like who the fuck are these guys, and I was like booing and by the end of the set i was on my feet fuckin bowing and clapping. "You guys are the shit". We get that every single night and we love it because why should anyone be completely accepting of a new band with no album out whos opening for Cindrella and Poison? Most of the people who buy these tickets just want to see Cinderella and Poison, but by the end of the night theyre very happy that they've gotten to see a new band whos bringin the shit on.
And you want to earn this...you dont want it handed to you...
No, we've had the opportunity to just break into mainstream and go straight to radio and we're like, No we want to tour. we want to be in a shitty van and pay our dues. Go out there and play the arena tour and when people think we're too big to do anything, we'll fuckin do a club tour. We're not above it. We just want the street credit and we want people to know that we fuckin write good songs and thats what its all about. At the end of the day, its all about your songs. Thats the true basis of any great rock n roll band.
Hopefully we'll turn a lot of new people onto the band. What do you want to say to someone whos reading this and they're like maybe I want to check these guys out..any final word you want to say to them...
Maybe I want to check these guys out? I would say if you didn't check us out, you'll probably find out about us one way or another. Youre gonna hear about us, it doesnt matter what you do!
You've got a choice, you can listen to them now, or you can listen to them in a year when everyone starts telling you to listen to them.
Exactly, and then you can join the bandwagon then. We feel really strongly about this. There's a lot of bands that don't listen to their own music and aren't fans...We're a fan of our band. we love our band. we'll listen to our music when were in the dressing room and people are like "you guys listen to you???" FUCK YEAH were listening to us! This is fuckin good!
Nobody else was cutting the music we wanted to hear so we did it ourselves!
Exactly, I like what you just said right there. Thats perfect man, and thats very true...
You can use that in later interviews by the way, when you're in Rolling Stone
(whispers) Thanks to Anarchymusic.net
You could totally steal that.
Trademark, trademark Anarchy Music. But truly, what it all boils down to is that the music that we've been longing to hear ourselves that hasnt come out since 1987. Thats fucking 20 years ago. We're like, fuck man, we might as well do it ourselves. If theres anything worth doing its worth doing right, so we do it, we're that band!
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COME ON PEOPLE! Endeverafter is trying to bring back real rock n roll! the album may not be out yet but you can check out their Myspace page to hear "Baby, Baby, Baby" and a few of the songs from the previous EP. Send them a friend request, and support this fucking band!
Endeverafter on Myspace
And be on the lookout for their debut cd, coming soon!