Years Since the Storm – The Highwire Daze Legacy Interviews

Years Since the Storm: Raging Shelters

Originally Posted: 04/01/14

Years Since the Storm combines metalcore with a decidedly nu-metal edge, and the results are astonishing!  Raging out of Central New England, the collective recently signed with Artery Recordings, and has unleashed their debut album entitled Hopeless Shelters.

Here is an interview Highwire Daze did with vocalist Donnie Andrich…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Years Since the Storm, and how long the band has been together?
What’s up everyone! I’m Donnie Andrich and I am the vocalist of the band Years Since the Storm! YStS has been a band since September of 2008.

Where is the band based out of and what is your local music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
Years Since the Storm is based out of Holyoke, MA and the scene is pretty decent here actually. The shows here do really well. The Waterfront is kind of the go to place for local and smaller touring bands. You’ll always have a good time! As far as local bands go I would suggest checking out With Eyes Like Mine, Limitless and Vena Amoris! Those bands have definitely built up a reputation around here and I personally think everyone should check these bands out!

How did you wind up signing with Artery Recordings?
We wouldn’t be with Artery if it wasn’t for our managers Scott Lee and Leah Urbano over at Crimson Management! They helped us shop out to labels and Artery was really interested in our sound and so they decided to take us on! We are very happy with our signing. They are doing big things for us so it was the right choice.

Is there any story or concept behind the title Hopeless Shelter?
The last year of our lives, both as a band and individually, has been easily the toughest year to date. Mentally, we were all in a pretty dark state while writing this album, and so when Snapper came up with “Hopeless Shelter” it just seemed like a no brainer. We all have a Hopeless Shelter inside of our heads.

Select two songs from Hopeless Shelter and what inspired the lyrics.
I’m gonna go ahead and have our drummer Kyle answer this question because he was the main lyricist for this album.

Kyle: The second track on the album and our second single, (Sin)ical, was written at a time in which I was noticing a lot of the extremely hypocritical actions that take place among different religions, specifically Christianity. I won’t go into detail, but I find the entire system to be corrupt and disgusting. Religion is a disease and all I wanted to do in this song was to voice my belief on that. Some of the more unique and intriguing lyrics on Hopeless Shelter occur on track number six, Guilty Pleasures. I’ve been at low points in my life in which I’ve been nothing but hurt and let down by people that mean a lot to me. After so many times of that happening, you tend to shut down emotionally and not be able to feel anything anymore. This song is essentially about sex being the only thing that makes you feel alive, or feel anything at all for that matter. I wanted it to be raw, and get straight to the point. Also, I love how the lyrics and vocals reach a sort of “climax” at the end of the song. I thought that was really cool.

Who did the artwork for Hopeless Shelter and how much input did you have on it?
Snapper came up with the concept for the cover of Hopeless Shelter, and then Mike Milford and Sam Shepard from Artery created the artwork itself. We had a pretty high level of input on the artwork, and it came out just how we had envisioned it to.

What could one expect from a live Years Since the Storm show?
If you go to one of our shows, we will definitely play our hearts out for you, and you will get your money’s worth! We are very energetic and we always go 150% towards giving our fans a good time! Plus, we are very friendly so you can come up to us and talk to us and hang out! We love interacting with our fans and we also love meeting new fans!

What was the experience like playing Warped Tour and how many dates did you play? Any chance you’ll be playing Warped this year?
We’ve actually played Warped Tour 2 times so far! We played Hartford, CT in 2012 and Mansfield, MA in 2013 and both experiences were amazing! We had a huge crowd watch us both times and it was just so unreal! As far as I know we won’t be playing the whole tour but we may play the Mansfield or Hartford dates again this year so keep a look out!

Has Years Since the Storm ever played here in the Los Angeles area or plan to do so in future days?
We have never played in California at all yet! It’s been a dream of ours to hit Cali and we definitely plan on doing so a couple of times in 2014 so be on the lookout for future tour dates!

Any strange or scary happenings on the road or at a Years Since the Storm show?
We’ve actually had a scary incident happen back in 2013. We were heading home from playing The Jamboree in Toledo, Ohio and while were driving our trailer tire shredded and we had no idea until a driver flagged us down and was yelling out their window. So we pulled over and found out that we destroyed the whole rim because we were driving on it for awhile. We were very fortunate that nothing devastating happened because things could have gone way worse. So we got really lucky!

If Years Since The Storm could open up for any band either now or from the past, who would it be and why?
If Years Since the Storm could open for any band it would definitely be Slipknot and my other band mates would say the same thing. Reason why is because Slipknot was a very big influence on the album and also Slipknot is one of the biggest heavy metal bands out there! So having an opportunity like that would be the best thing ever!

What’s up next for Years Since the Storm?
Well, we just released Hopeless Shelter and so now what we plan on doing is constantly tour the U.S. And then hopefully head overseas as soon as possible and then write our next album!

Any final words of wisdom?
When on tour bring a shit ton of clean socks & boxers…and baby wipes are your best friend in the world. Aside from that, please pick up Hopeless Shelter. We all worked our asses off on it and would love to share it with the world!

(Interview by Ken Morton)

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