by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
WHAT: Circa Survive at Warped Tour
WHEN: July 19th, Warped Tour (11 am – 11 pm)
WHERE: Reynolds Park Yacht Center
From the fragments of the band This Day Forward, Circa Survive emerged as an experimental rock band that quickly established itself by touring with major bands like My Chemical Romance. The lead singer, Anthony Green, came from a band called Saosin. Although that band was on the edge of major success, he left both because of homesickness and because he was looking to head a different musical direction.
Just a couple of years ago, when the band was brand new, they joined the Warped Tour, traveling in a van and playing one of many side stages. This year, things are different. They’ve made it to the main stage. We got the chance to speak with Colin Frangicetto, former drummer in This Day Forward, who’s now the current guitarist in Circa Survive.
EU: I really love the cover art for your last two albums, Juturna and On Letting Go. The artist is Esao Andrews…How did you guys hook up with him?
CF: It’s kind of an interesting story. Like a lot of things that happen with us, there’s just a lot of strange coincidences that link us together. Brendan and I…were in another band together and…just a couple of years back he could remember a friend showing him [the artist’s]…work but he could never remember the his name. When we started looking for artists, he was like ‘I gotta find out who that one guy is, I think he’d be perfect for us.’ He was randomly on the Internet one day and someone IMed him, ‘Hey you should check this guy’s artwork out.’ and it wound up being the person that he had been talking about [to us]. So we were all just, like, freaked out…[Andrews] had never worked with a band before so he was like ‘Sure I guess, lemme hear your stuff.’ And he was into it, thought he could complement it… It wound up working out just awesome.
EU: How have you guys changed since the band formed?
CF: I think it’s evolved naturally. I think we were lucky enough to have the sense that this band could probably go anywhere it wanted to and not be stuck in a genre. So in our first album…we did ourselves a favor by making it a little diverse. Some of it’s real basic, some of it’s rock and in-your-face, some of it’s trippy and some of it is more experimental. We just gotta feel that we’re gonna be heading slowly-but-surely in ALL those directions simultaneously…with a little more focused effort. We’re still finding our sound. We’re a young band, we’ve only been together like two years or so. It’s awesome, it feels great.
EU: Lyrically, your newest album, On Letting Go is stronger than Juturna. What was the inspiration for the some of the lyrics this time around?
CF: I totally agree with you. Anthony…in the same way we’re all getting better as musicians, he’s really honing his craft as a writer. I think over the last year, while we were writing this album, there’s a lot of stuff going on…a few of us just went off on…tangents, looking into all kinds of strange research, strange metaphysical concepts. I think there’s a lot of spiritual undertone to the album, or at least like a questioning that’s going on. It’s much less bitter and angry…lyrically, and I think it’s directed more inward…
EU: How has Warped Tour been so far?
CF: Actually, it’s been f**king amazing. I was not…dreading it or anything, but I was kinda nervous. ‘Cause we did it- I guess two years ago- and it was nightmarish...We were on a small stage, we were in a van. It was really terrible. But we decided that the timing was just a little too ridiculously perfect for us to pass it up [this time], with the new record coming out. If there was a right time to do this, it was definitely now. So we agreed to do it, being on the main stage and being on a bus. We’re two days in right now, and it’s f**king amazing.
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