3 (Three)
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Three’s re-release of The End Is Just Begun has just hit the shelves and the band is in preparation for a much anticipated tour with Dream Theatre, Opeth and Between The Buried And Me. That said, things are certainly looking good for thisWoodstock, New York’s ensemble. Sitting someplace in the modern musical sphere between Coheed & Cambria, Muse and Porcupine Tree it’s clear that ‘Prog’ is not a dirty word in their vocabulary. Asking vocalist/lead guitarist Joey Eppard to quickly talk us through the conception of their recent full-length, Blistering.com set aside all preconceived notions of drawn out guitar solos and set off on a brief voyage of discovery, taking in both the internal and the external worlds we humans occupy, simultaneously.
Blistering.com: First of all, how would you describe the Three sound to someone who’s not familiar with you?
Joey Eppard: It’s something you’ve got to see for yourself. But we’re a collective of five individuals and we each bring different influences to the table. But what I think we have most in common is our passion when it comes to playing music and we love good songs and it’s a beautiful thing if you can grace a good song with technical prowess, and to me that’s the ultimate combination.
Blistering.com: So as a collective of five individuals, how was the writing of The End Has Begun?
JE: You know, this time around we really had a concept. We’re kind of known for changing up our process from album to album, like trying new approaches and this time around we started a lot of the songs as acoustic demos. The concept was this: I feel like a lot of bands take themselves out of their element when they go into the studio. They’re used to playing on stages, they’re used to playing in a rehearsal space. Then they get into the studio and it’s not the situation they’re most comfortable playing. So my concept was to rehearse the way we would record. We all had headphones and mixers and we multi-tracked everything we did. We would listen back and really what a great way to hone the composition and listen back right there. You kind of just know instantly “that’s not working” or “that is working and let’s go with that”. It was just the five of us working together and taking the seeds of what I’d come up with and developing them. I think it’s a great way to work.
Blistering.com: That’s quite good. It’s certainly very different from what you hear most bands doing, which would be getting together in the studio and working on it there. Or else belting out songs in a rehearsal area at full volume until they get them to work.
JE: Exactly. It’s… you want to try ideas when you get in the studio but you can also convolute what you were going for and we wanted to be really ready to go in there and get very natural performances, so we didn’t have to do the work after the fact. We didn’t have to do editing. We could just go in there and play the songs the way we had already put them together in our minds, in the rehearsal. It’s just a great way to work and I think you end up with something a little more organic than if you were to do it the opposite way.
Blistering.com: Did that cut down on your time in the studio as well? Did you just manage to go in and get the album knocked out quickly?
JE:Yeah, it definitely cuts down on studio time. When you’re in the studio sometimes it’s hard to not watch the clock. You’re under a certain budget and you’ve got to stay within that. So we wanted to be able to go in there and kill it. And fortunately that’s what we were able to do.
Blistering.com: So the album, The End Has Begun how is it a concept album?
JE: You know, it’s always a concept album with us. This time around we’re sort of confronted with this idea of impending change and I think there are going to be a lot of changes for humanity in the near future, I mean it’s inevitable really. But what seems like a rather dark title, it depends on your perspective, because any of sort of ending is an opportunity for a new beginning and in a way that sort of, the change things. Take a different approach. The record embodied both of those perspectives and, that’s what we were going for. If you see the album cover it sort of has these elements of this very dark, foreboding landscape and then you also have this innocent, little girl holding a balloon. Sort of this combination of opposites that creates what we’re about, because we’re sort of like that. Sometimes the most aggressive and technically intense are then graced with very simple vocal melodies and I like combining those elements to create something new.
Blistering.com: So the whole things ties together. Can the image of the girl be seen as a fresh start?
JE: To me, she is sort of the idea of the next step, the next step in evolution, the opportunity for growth.
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