The Ongoing Concept are changing the way rock music is created with their new album Handmade by quite literally starting from scratch. BREATHEcast spoke to vocalist and guitarist Dawson Scholz about making their own instruments, being brothers in a band, how they write songs, and a huge tour they have coming up with Norma Jean. (Interview part two coming tomorrow).

(Photo : Facebook: The Ongoing Concept)

The first thing to know about Handmade is it's a DIY project that features music made by instruments the band members built themselves. They cut down trees to make the wood, soldered electronics to the guitar boards, and attached everything together. All of this is well documented on their social media sites and on Youtube.

Dawson explained that the Handmade name does not particularly apply to the musical themes on the album at all, but it made them approach the record with a more organic raw sound. It is in this way that they adapted their writing style. For example, the song "Amends" has a lot of reverb filled percussion and ambient noises. They were specifically trying to get sounds from different places here. "What can we do to make these drums sound really big and roomy?" said Scholz. "Lets try to keep this as organic and real as possible."

While recording they also kept in mind what they would be able to do live versus what studio magic they can use. Even when using different takes to record, they tried to record with that same energy. They also did big chunks of songs at a time because punching in loses some of that feeling. Ultimately, it is this quest for being truly authentic that helped cultivate the sound.

The singer revealed "There was no real brainstorming session to come up with the Handmade concept." Dawson said he came up with the idea about a year and half ago. From there he began looking up tutorials on how to build instruments for fun, and thought it may be a more cost effective way to use instruments because they tend to break a lot of things playing shows and touring.

Dawson kind of casually talked himself into it as the thoughts of cutting down trees and the uniqueness of doing so crossed his mind. He put the idea into his brothers' ears and while they thought it would be a ton of work, they were on board. He thought it was a perfect opportunity to push themselves harder and have the experience be much more gratifying.

"The whole process was like eight months between writing, demoing, building, and recording. To build the drum set and guitars and stuff it took three months, maybe four," said Scholz.

The reason it took so long is that they would go back and forth between just building or just writing. It helped them stay fresh in their focus instead of beating down on one thing at a time.

Amazingly enough the guys of The Ongoing Concept have no substantial background in building or crafting, but his brother Kyle does work in construction. Kyle has the most experience working with wood and was appointed "the man for the job" as far as seeing these instruments come to life through a lot of trial and error.

Dawson admitted the precision required made the job tedious because one wrong cut could sabotage the whole instrument, especially the drums. He thinks if they build another set, it will be even better. "Each flaw with every instrument makes it a little more special" he said.

Building a guitar versus buying a guitar holds a different meaning when being valued in price. He said that making the guitar with your bare hands and toiling over it as opposed to just purchasing a $2000 guitar holds a different weight to each person. The amount of work into handcrafting your own things is priceless.

He also said he wouldn't want to sell any of these instruments and is not really thinking of making anything commercially for other people either.

So far Handmade has been praised for its ingenuity and unparalleled use of genre and sound by both critics and fans alike. Read BREATHEcast's album review here.

They received this love in person on the headlining tour they just wrapped up. Dawson said, as they toured, the album was well received every night, and one of the cooler things was everyone bringing their preorders to get signed and then taking pictures.

"It was one of those tours where we were the headliner and people were treating us like we were a famous band. But we're not, we're just a couple of kids from Idaho. It was really cool to see us bringing a crowd rather then just us as support hoping to impress people."

And speaking of tours, at the time of the interview The Ongoing Concept had a bit of a secret as far as their plans. However, today they made the official announcement, they will be heading out with Norma Jean for the 'O' God the Aftermath' full U.S. 10 year anniversary tour. Dawson said there will be another guest announced in the next few weeks as well, but to just stick tight for now.

(Photo : Facebook)

Stay tuned for part two of our interview with Dawson tomorrow where he talks about fighting with his brothers, writer's block, and how they elevate their sound.