Events|July 08, 2015 12:18 EDT
As Cities Burn's Colin Kimble Says Band's Music is Meant to Inspire Whether Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist [INTERVIEW 2]
Christian metal band As Cities Burn has reunited to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of their debut album, Son, I Loved You At Your Darkest, and bassist Colin Kimble chatted with BREATHEcast about the message in their music, the lack of social media in 2005, and the 'anniversary tour' trend.
Read part one of our chat here.
As Cities Burn has always been known as a band of faith and core values. Their music sparks hope and a longing to find peace and look to a greater Being for guidance. Kimble said this is a popular topic for the band to go back and forth with people on the Internet.
"It was never a mission of faith," Kimble said of the band's Christian themed lyrics. "All the band would agree that we want to inspire hope and this lack of helplessness in our audience...That's through my beliefs, my family; and some of the other guys share the same thing."
He thinks the discussion of being a Christian band or Christians in a band itself is "juvenile and for close minded people."
Kimble said along with Christianity, what they did have was goals, and one of his was always to inspire people. "It's hope and acceptance...inspiring thought. If you are a spiritual person look at what you're doing within your faith. Is it real, are you believing in the right things for what you want to believe in?"
He thinks their goals of being inspirational and hope driven aligns with Christianity, but believes whether you are a Muslim, Buddhist, or Mormon, it is all about connecting. He wants to be able to connect with them just as much as he would with a Christian.
While on the topic of "connection," it is now by far easier to do this with fans more than ever with social media, crowdfunding, and various outlets for music interaction. There is something to this that he both loves and hates, and feels like it may not have affected the band too much had something such as Facebook or YouTube been more prevalent when they were active. The bassist feels "less is more" when it comes to social media, something he can't seem to agree on with drummer Aaron Lundsford who thinks Twitter is "king."
Kimble enjoys the certain mystery a band has when you can just see them play and only really know the musical side to them. He jokes that now we "discover" the biggest parts of an artist's day, such as drinking coffee and eating a breakfast burrito. "Now it's just so blah that it's given the peanut gallery too much of an opportunity to say meaningless stuff all the time."
With the constant influx of online activity it also gives fans or outside commenters the opportunity to give feedback whether they were asked for it or not. For instance, if As Cities Burn puts out a new song, there will be hundreds of people saying they love it or hate it. The later part, is something that becomes taxing because they obviously put a lot of work into it. "If you wouldn't say that to my face at a show, then don't say it online," said Kimble.
He also feels that sometimes engaging with negative comments does not help anything, but rather "lessens the integrity of the artist."
He continued, "I feel like as artists we shouldn't stoop to the back and forth. If someone doesn't like your music, then they honestly have the right to say that."
Ultimately the bassist views it as, "Is commenting on Facebook going to contribute to the completion of goals I've set in my life? Typically the answer is no."
That being said, he understands the importance of social media and said the band began to see the trend in the mid-2000s that whichever band had the most likes on Myspace they were most likely next to be signed.
"Wow, Myspace. Remember that?" he laughed.
One of the trends that Kimble does not like about today's music as opposed to 10 years ago is the heart behind the art.
"What I don't love is the lack of musical integrity and just integrity and character in general." In today's world nearly anyone can make music on a laptop or even a phone, or worse yet, studio magic can make bands sound decent regardless of talent. "I don't think people listen to messages and meanings like they used to," Kimble said referring to audiences just eating up the latest fad of music regardless of quality.
"...Dudes know how to head bang, and they got the right clothes, and kids love it. It's terrible. There's a lot of just terrible music," Kimble admitted before adding that with every bad band there are also a bunch of great ones out there putting out solid material.
Kimble doesn't have any regrets on how ACB handled their early days and is not sure what they were necessarily missing or needing that would be easier in 2015. He does think however that another record with T.J. Bonnette at the helm would have altered their path significantly.
"You know, Underoath exploded on their second record and we put out our first and it did really well. Everyone was waiting for number two, and we lost T.J. so we kind of had to divert from the original plan and find out who we were. I would have loved to see what we could have done with another record and the platform that would have put us on."
Well now, As Cities Burn gets to bring the boys back together and recapture some of that magic with T.J. again. This anniversary tour however, is not a new concept for bands in this scene. Over the last few years a slew of bands have been celebrating 10 year anniversaries for either their first record or their most groundbreaking record. A short list of bands would be Taking Back Sunday, Story of the Year, Yellowcard, Emery, Silverstein, and now As Cities Burn. It seems these bands are gaining new life by revisiting their past.
"I think it's a cool opportunity for bands to almost get back out there and say thank you. Get back out and reconnect with the audience, and get back away," revealed Kimble. "I would hate for all these bands, who are older dudes, to just try to gen-up the bands they had before. I think that's a terrible idea."
He continued, "It's cool for us because...we put out this record and then immediately changed as a band. Lost the guy who sang on it. Our band was smaller from that point on because we weren't in that huge [heavy rock scene anymore]."
It is a small sample for As Cities Burn to relive that era while bands such as Silverstein or Underoath got to put out many records with the same core sound and continue on in popularity.
"It's a cool shout out to kind of go back and tell people we appreciate them and reconnect," he said.
Read interview part one where Kimble talks about nostalgia, having T.J. back, and new music here.
For tickets, and added tour dates, check out the band's latest post.
"NEW SHOWS! We will be performing songs from 'Come Now Sleep' and 'Hell or High Water' for the following tour dates:
"8/11 - Salt Lake City, UT @ In The Venue
8/12 - Denver, CO @ The Marquis Theater
8/13 - Lawrence, KS @ Jackpot
8/14 - Little Rock, AR @ Revolution Music Room
Tickets on sale 7/10. Ascitiesburn.net will have links for tickets."
