As horrific of time as it is to be a new band, credit someone like Philadelphia’s Stygian for sticking their neck and not falling prey to the ever-shoddy industry “machine.” A quick glance at their Myspace page (www.myspace.com/stygianrocks) reveals a band willing to go the extra mile to the get their name out in a super-crowded market. Widgets, blogs, and constant communication with their fanbase has helped the band’s latest effort, Fury Rising become a darkhorse choice in more radio-friendly circles. We caught up with drummer Steve Bacchia to dish on his tireless band…
Blistering.com: From what I’ve read/seen, Stygian is very much a home-grown band. Do you think because you’ve had to work so hard for everything, it is finally starting to reap rewards?
Steve Bacchia: Yes absolutely, we realized early on that there is no such thing as someone helping out of good will or because they see our potential. People have come along who helped with certain aspects like photos or videos or tech guys, but in the end it's about working during the day to make money to invest in our music. It's also about putting in the hours on social networking sites and making sure we are available to our fans or friends, as we like to think of all the people who support us. Oh, and when time allows, we have to write, record, and practice our music too, ha-ha. Nothing is easy, but I think what makes it possible is the passion and love for music. This is the only thing we can all do where there is no clock, so to speak. We are willing to do the hard work and put in the long hours, and as long as we are progressing, the results speak for themselves.
Blistering.com: Just by reading your bio, it sounds like you’ve taken full advantage of the Internet. Describe the amount of work that goes into a building via cyberspace?
Bacchia: Being a home grown, built on hard work, band means it's not easy for us to play shows out of our region. With the days of tour support long gone, the best way for us to reach outside markets is through the power of the internet and social networking. However, this is not just a matter of creating a MySpace or a Facebook page, and people will just realize how great our music is, ha-ha. It takes hours of researching the right markets and audiences for our music, and not only initiating communication, but keeping in touch with anyone and everyone who is interested. This resulted in us having some truly great people on our side, and we started seeing orders coming in from the UK, Mexico, Canada, Australia, even Turkey. We would also give stuff away to people, and post video updates, blogs about our favorite bands, live songs, etc. It's really a cumulative effort. We live in a whole new age of communication, and people expect more.
Blistering.com: Does your geographic locale hurt or help when it comes to building a fan base?
Bacchia: From talking with other bands from other cities & regions, I get the sense that our area is much like other areas, in terms of what kind of music people like and how the venues work. So it seems as though it neither hurts, nor really helps.
Blistering.com: What is the Philly metal scene like?
Bacchia: The Philly metal scene is mostly hardcore and screaming bands. There are a lot of 12-band festivals that put one band after the other of this genre, and we do have a difficult time finding our way through with our genre. However, the upside is that we get some of the bigger shows since we play our style of music which includes singing vocals and straight up grooves. It helps land us regular gigs at Flyers games (NHL) and also opening for nationals. Around this area, it's hard to break through if you're not a cover band, but once you do, Philly has some of the most loyal fans in the world.
Blistering.com: your location has one benefit, it’s that you can access New York, Jersey, etc. Is this something you do on a regular basis?
Bacchia: We've played in both New York and New Jersey, but we don't do it regularly because most shows now require pre-sales of 100 tickets or more, and it's hard to compete with the local bands in that area. Unfortunately, the reality of the touring industry allows local promoters to add 4 local bands to a show just to ensure the venue owner will at least break even. This makes it quite tough for new bands to break into other areas.
Blistering.com: You’re playing a style that isn’t fashionable at the moment, so do you feel that gives the band an angle of being unique at the moment?
Bacchia: Yes. Although we are not re-inventing the wheel with what we do, we are playing a style that has been lost of late. Most bands now are either very heavy and screaming, or more emo punk-ish. We just always enjoyed good vocals, guitar solos, and solid rhythm and drums. We are glad to see bands like Alice in Chains be a force again, and with Metallica stronger than ever, and Godsmack seeming to go back to their heavy rock roots, it might be a great time for a band like us to come to the forefront.
Blistering.com: Fury Rising is an exercise in quality songwriting (i.e. conventional structures, hooks, etc.). Do you think this has become a lost art?
Bacchia: Yes, it has truly become a lost art because, at least in our belief, the riff is no more. Our background is based on listening to and always enjoying quality riffs. Remember when there were different and awesome riffs written just to go under a solo? I think the way music stealing has changed the industry, it's made it much harder for labels to take a chance on unique bands. Everything has to be turnkey now in order to ensure a label won't go under from bad sales figures. It's all about the next Nickelback, the next Shinedown, the next Three Days Grace, because this means radio success and also usually means generic guitar and formula songs. That being said there is nothing wrong with those songs, but how many bands try to write a quality full length album any more.
Having quality riffs, different parts, and solos helps keep a listener interested, and I believe it goes further into building a true fan base, as opposed to a radio "fad" fan base that leaves after your first non-hit album. Frank spends countless hours in his room writing riffs and sending me mp3s. Then we work out the arrangement together, and we also have tons of parts that never make the cut. The final piece of songwriting is knowing what to keep and what to chop in the editing phase of recording. Some songs feel good when written, but then when you hear it recorded, we realize a whole part may be unnecessary.
Blistering.com: You take the semi-risk of going into ballad territory with “My Regret” and “Fever Slide.” Were you at all concerned as to how they’d come across? They’re both very effective...
Bacchia: No concern at all. Actually “My Regret” and “Fever Slide” are band favorites and have received very good fan reaction thus far. We always played ballads, and Frank writes tons of acoustic stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if we do an acoustic record one day. We don't abide by the notion that a heavy album has to be crushing straight through or it's lame to have a ballad or whatever. Good music is good music, and the ballads help diversify the album and the lyrics serve a purpose. In “Fever Slide” we got to put in some real piano courtesy of a friend in Finland, and some real violins and cellos from a few recording buddies, and it came out great.
Blistering.com: I’m of the opinion that if Stygian were around 10-15 years ago; you’d be a sure-fire radio/major label band. Do you wish you had a time machine?
Bacchia: I guess in a sense, yes, because back then we'd maybe be on tour with Metallica or Pantera, labels would give larger advances, and people would buy albums. On the other hand, maybe this is the time that could forge us ahead since music is cyclical and our genre is coming back. This could be a better time for us to make our own way. I also think technology makes this a very interesting time for music. Although we'd fit in the time period you mentioned, we wouldn't have been as unique with all that was going on then. We truly believe the music we play is badly needed back in the current environment, not just our band, but the style in general.
Blistering.com: Where does the music industry go from here? Clearly, a hard-working band like Stygian faces a huge uphill battle...
Bacchia: It is a huge uphill battle. People buy less music today than ever, the touring industry is badly hurting, most of the investment has to come from personal income, and radio is not what it once was. This has changed the model for success greatly. It's about having fresh ideas like selling a flash drive that contains all of our music, photos, videos, etc. It's about realizing the old separation of band and fan is gone. Our attitude toward fans is we work for you. What can we do for you? It's truly a service industry now. Does a fan want advice on how to start a band, do they want to know what pizza I prefer, do they want to get tabs for our music? It's about providing as much as we can, and fast. It's an immediate gratification world we live in. We may only have 20 seconds through an iPhone to grab someone. If we prove that we are there for them as they are there for us, we develop that true fan base I spoke of earlier, not that "fad" fan base. We have to constantly think of new things to offer, downloadable guitar lessons, drum videos, daily life episodes, anything that keeps and grabs interest. The days of just selling CD's in the store and merch at the show are over. We work for each and every supporter we have. It's like any other job. We go to the office (laptop) and put in 4 or 5 hours almost every day.
Blistering.com: Finally, what’s on tap for the rest of 2010?
Bacchia: We are excited after our first week of strong sales for Fury Rising, along with the great fan reaction. We will be going to radio with “Crimson Sand” this week and hoping it gets the strong reaction nationwide as it has so far from our fans. The idea is to get the album out there, get our song charting, and hopefully parlay that into a decent tour where we can really prove our worth, because in the end, our best strength will always be putting it all out there on stage.
