Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band.
Hey, I'm Joe D and I play guitar in Surfacing. Here's everyone else in the band:
Ryan Mayorga- Vocals
Tony Gabriel - Drums
Adam Magosa- Bass
Brian Wenzler - Guitar
For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to Surfacing? How long has the band been around?
Surfacing just celebrated our 6 year anniversary on December 14th. Before then we were originally a female fronted pop punk/easycore A Day To Remember meets Paramore band, but only for a few months. None of us were in any major projects before, we we're quite young starting this band.
What’s the origin of that name and have you changed the band’s name before?
When we chose Surfacing it wasn't for any great meaning. It was actually more like a least worse option. I told the guys to come to practice with a list like I had seen M. Shadows say in A7X's All Excess DVD. Of course as he said I also went looking through the bible for options. That soon lead me to looking through album and song titles and good ol' Slipknot came through. The guys and I met up and through process of elimination we ended up with Surfacing. I really enjoy it now because it reminds me of New York's state motto "Excelsior" which means ever upward.
Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time?
Come 2012 we decide to start recording the a full length as we had a decent chunk of the album written by then. We were recommended to engineer David Andronico based here in New York. We immediately hit it off with Dave and recorded Thank You For The Inspiration, Amongst Giants and Turned To Ink. After going through the recording process with Dave I knew we struck gold. Up until then writing process was fairly simple. Basic pre production was our original guitarist Matt or I would come up with a riff and the band would jam around it a bit.
From there I'd put my producer cap on and work on the tracks at home then bring them back to practice and Ryan would write vocals over them. After doing the initial batch of songs with Dave we decided to have him on as a producer for the album as well because we were astounded by his ideas. Dave highly influenced a lot of the vocal work on the album and his post production touch is invaluable as it helps tie a lot of the album together. He's the easiest to work with, extremely knowledgeable and I'm pretty sure at this point not one member of the band wants to work with anyone else for our next album.
On the back cover of the album we have the "story" of Chaos Through Clarity which was something I wrote to roughly correspond the concept of the album(see attached). 90% of the lyrics were written by Ryan with me writing some on Pitch Black and The Demons of Attica. What I find to be interesting is that each song on the album somehow has it's own very strong theme yet still ties in the concept of Chaos Through Clarity.
What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?
At this point the metalcore inspiration is well gone. I remember a few years ago I was so entrenched in writing the album that it pushed me away from metalcore. I dove deep into hip hop so you can thank Chaos Through Clarity for my obnoxious Kanye West obsession. I like to say if there was one album to sum up the last 15 years of metalcore, it's Chaos Through Clarity. I know it comes off bold but I firmly stand by that statement. When Surfacing first formed in 2009 we were highly influenced by August Burns Red, Miss May I and A Day to Remember and you'll hear that in songs like A Wish To Perish, Smother The Symphony and Begin To Decay which were written very early.
The benefit of having 5+ years to work on an album was that we got to grow immensely as musicians and songwriters. A few years in I knew I wanted a more rounded body of work than just the current metalcore trends and that's where earlier metalcore bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Killswitch Engage and Lamb of God came to influence us on songs like Amongst Giants and The Demons Of Attica. If you've been an avid fan of the genre over the years I think you'll enjoy hearing the vast timeline of metalcore influences. I can't say I know too many albums that can do the same, maybe we're finally showing that this genre has got some great history to it.
Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band?
There were two distinct moments in my life that I can remember that inspired me to start a band. The first one was listening to Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory as a kid and the second was when I was a teen, my first show ever, My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade album release show. Interestingly enough both albums came out on October 24th. I feel like LP turned the gas on and My Chem sparked the flame. I'll never forget that day in Webster Hall, I learned I wanted to do nothing other than be on that stage for the rest of my life.
What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, ect
Always stretching, pushups and some guitar warm up exercises.
What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far?
I could say "we played this show with so and so" or talk about releasing an album being a dream come true. The fact of the matter is the true highlight of Surfacing is the fact that we made it 6 years together without even releasing an album. Tell me a band that's done the same because it's unheard of to me.
If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?
Oh boy, I could go in so many directions here. Talking about My Chem has now got me itching again for that reunion tour so let's go with that right now. Surfacing opening up for My Chem after we release our next album Honesty. Honesty is more hard rock focused so I think it'd make a great show. As for the dream show...let's play with Linkin Park, Avenged Sevenfold, A Day To Remember, My Chem, Paramore and somehow get a Kanye West feature in our set...and let's do it in the world's most famous arena, Madison Square Garden.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Thank you for having me. I'd like to take this time to just encourage anyone out there who has a dream, a vision, a passion. Get out there and persevere, it'll happen one day. I started this band when I was an 18 year old college dropout and here I am a 25 year old married man releasing the album that I've wanted to make since I was 11. Don't ever give up. Happy holidays everyone.