Jim circa August 2005
Jim Connolly Circa March 2008
Jim Connolly is one of my oldest friends. We've been roommates, co-workers, bandmates and most importantly close friends through it all. He is currently 1/4 of the Providence, RI based band Soul Control. I decided the other night that i
wanted to contribute something of substance to the online world. So, i decided that being i know neumerous friends involved in bands and the hardcore music scene, i'd take the oppourtunity to interview them. But not in the way most interviews go, more on a personal level. So, this is going to be my first installment of interviews of my close friends that are currently doing bands or something signficant, that i find worthy of interviewing them about. Here is a little background on me and Jim:
I met him in 2000ish. It was when Sean Murphy ( then singing for providence band What Feeds The Fire) called on myself, Jim and Anthony Amaral (also now in Soul Control) to fill in some voids of memebers who left WFTF.
(What Feeds The Fire in Utah, during their full us tour w/bane, hatebreed and Poison the well)
We practiced and it was perfect. We started hanging out, and one of the first times Jim and myself hung out was a trip to Foxwoods casino where i played 2-5 No-Limit Texas holdem with like$ 2,000 on the table and i think jim was playing 2-4 limit. I remember him saying that he couldnt concentrate on his own game becasue of the magnitude of the game i was in and how much money was at stake. Soon after we started hanging more and WFTF started playing shows and touring.
After WFTF had its run, a weird twist of fate and good timing lead to me moving into the apartment where he was living in providence with a couple other people. We still were trying to be involved with music, starting bands and it never really going anywhere, but the thing that remained constant was that Jim and Myself always remained friends, roomates and always involved in music, either going to shows and playing in bands, or just sitting in our living room listening to the Withcraft record "Firewood" for the first time, we've shared alot of good times.
So i decided to get some questions to him via email and have him put some persepctive on his band Soul Control and more depth behind his creative mind. Enjoy. Thanks Jim for taking it seriously.
Starting from the breakup of what feeds the fire to now, which was about 6 years, can you give a summary of your musical endeavors up to soul control?
basically just that one band with you. ever changing, ever evolving. diff names, diff styles but it was always me and you and whoever could play. started as "never" which was like a more metallic wftf then morphed into goat island which at first was a sludgier version of never. then we went instrumental and had more of a hum meets isis vibe. those few instrumental shows were real fun, especially that last one at as220. technically we never broke up?
Youve been into hardcore for a long time, coming up on the " old man hardcore" description, when and why did you get into it?
ya i'm 30 now, so i guess i'm officially old. i went to my first show in 1994. a month or two before then i was late for a field trip so i had to get on a bus that none of my friends were on. i sat with these dudes, they were cool even though i didn't know them. my high school was huge, you could easily not know people. we ended up hanging out that day and i rolled back with them on that bus. we kept hanging out, they would play me tapes and stuff. i remember them playing me burn and then inside out and then pointed at the rev logo and told me to just buy anything that has this star on it haha. they were always going to shows so eventually on my birthday they convinced me to go to one. they made me stagedive. it was a sam black church show with black train jack and i can't remember who else. i had a good time and said i was down to go to a show the next weekend. that show ended up being madball at babyhead in providence. needless to say my life was changed. from then on all i did was go to shows.
Soul Control. Richmond VA, July 2007
There was a point that you "got out of hardcore" why did you decide to become a british-rock/indie/shoegaze snob?
it was tough being in wftf man. you should remember that. seriously, we all fought so much. that one year of the hatebreed tour and all those shows and stuff burnt me out. near the end i would just sit behind the merch table sulking every show. i wasn't enjoying hardcore anymore, i felt like i was being forced to BE hardcore at that point. i donno, it was weird i just wasnt happy. after we broke up i only went to like 2 shows. one of which ended up being that bane show in ct where we "reunited." at the team neale gig, our last show, i wore an electric wizard shirt haha. i didn't become just a indie/shoegaze snob, at first i heavily immersed myself in stoner metal, which i still do. british music has always been a favorite of mine starting with the beatles when i was young. oasis was big with me and through them i found ride which led to all the other shoegaze stuff. i donno, hardcore will always be one of my favorite types of music but i obviously listen to alot of other stuff which leads you to calling me a snob haha. but yo, i may have seen belle and sebastian live 11 times but i've still seen madball more times than that.
Soul Control, Richmond VA July 2007
When did you decide that you wanted back into the world of hardcore, and being in vans and playing shows?
actually i didn't decide to get back into it, i accidentally did. i had started going to hardcore shows again albeit sparingly. it was really one show that did it, in fact it was that time that bedard was on the couch cuz you guys had gone to the woods and you guys got me to go to that bane show at the qvcc, remember that? i went nuts at that show, it was crazy. so many kids, lots of stagedives. kinda felt like a young kid again. then after their set i was standing around and this dude comes up to me and starts telling me how wftf was his fav band and that he models his own band after wftf and thanked me for doing the band. i was a little weirded out, but i said you're welcome man and told him to take his band farther than we did with wftf. then i asked him what band he was in and he goes "i sing in a band called have heart." i hadn't heard them, but i went home and checked em out online and sent him a message telling him i was sorry for not knowing who his band was but that i liked their songs. little did either of us know that a few months later that same band would be taking my new band on our first tour. so it was a combo of that bane show and talking to pat flynn that made me want to be more involved again.
as far as starting sc, that was a total accident. most people don't know that YOU were actually in and i wasn't. you on drums, eric on guitar, ant on guitar and mattdude on bass! you were revitalizing your old band skeleton flamethrower for fun. i would sit around and tell you guys when your riffs sucked. so basically i just sat around telling you guys you sucked ALL THE TIME cuz those songs sucked haha. mattdude would call me up and be like yo i'm not into this but i wanna hang with all you dudes again so i'm gonna still jam but i don't think we'll ever play a show. then you got the call to do either the reggie tour or the mcr tech gig and you had to leave for what was supposed to be one month. while you were gone ant asked me to help write some songs for the band, he'd play drums and then teach the drums to you when you got back. in about 15 mins we had written what became "dive". played it for the dudes, everyone got amped, matt wanted to sing over it and blamo...we were born. after telling you that we had started something else while you were gone and convincing ant we did NOT want to be called skeleton flamethrower we became sc and finished the demo and the rest is history. as far as getting back in the van and touring, that still surprises me cuz seriously i figured we'd maybe unload 25 demos and play like 2 local shows.
Soul Control, Corpus Christi TX August 2007
With soul control, you are the main writer of the music. What is your process of writing songs and what influences you the most, being for the past few years hardcore hasn't been your main focus of music?
i just sit in my bed and play around with my guitar. eventually i'll hit a chord i like and then build off that. after i find that one chord i'll usually mess with it till i have a whole song. i don't like presenting a song at practice until i have an entire song, its just how i roll. then at that practice eric will take it and add all his parts and basically color in the picture i drew. ant never needs much direction, he feels it out for a vibe and just goes with it. if anything we'll be like try hats instead of ride, but he usually has the beats on lock. as far as my influences in my writing i don't really see it shining through too much. the sc stuff sounds nothing like what i've been listening to since i've been in the band, thats for sure. if it did we'd sound like morrissey meets sonic youth or something haha. when i wrote the demo, which had some def "burn" parts i hadn't been listening to burn for a while. then some of the invo stuff had a quicksand vibe, which makes sense cuz when they wrote slip they were trying to write a shoegaze record and look what came out. so theres a similarity there, shoegaze. in this band i've never sat down and said "ok, i'm gonna write a song that sounds like this." i just strum around till a find a noise i like and go from there. what comes out after that is up to my hands.
Soul Control, Anaheim CA August 2007
Lets talk about gear for a minute...Whats your current setup/wishlist? IF you could have one guitarists setup, what would it be?
currently i use a 50w tube head through a couple of 2x15 cabs. our buddy the captain turned me onto 15's. i play pretty clean, so the 15's don't end up sounding muddy like you'd assume they would. my 2 guitars are my 83 sg special that i modded a bit and my 88 tele. the tele is my current live guitar, the sg is too fragile now. after a tour its so messed up from me flinging it everywhere when we play sometimes. i wrecked the neck, i prob need a reset and a fret job. the tele is a workhorse, it can take anything i throw at it. i love that thing. oh, if i could have one dudes setup, easy...jmascis.
Jim stoked to be doing merch at Sound and Fury 2007.
Tell me what Soul Control has accomplished since its initial creation?
a lot more than we planned. bunch of tours, i saw europe for the first time. couple records with another on the way. a lot of stuff i didn't think i'd ever accomplish musically, thats for sure.
Soul Control, Sound and Fury 2007
The rest of the guys in Soul Control are also older and come from a different school of hardcore and music, do you think the 4 of you have a different way of approaching the band, in comparison to most of the current hardcore bands?
not really. we might not be as "gung ho" as some younger kids i guess, we try to make smart decisions and not just jump at every offer there is. when i say smart i don't mean financially or anything, i mean smart as in we can stay sane enough to keep doing this. we did some long tours last year, europe especially and we got tired. we don't want to stop touring, so we figure just making them shorter is a good solution. thats one example of what i'm trying to say.
Soul Control, Carlsbad Beach August 2007
One show. 4 bands, living/dead/together/broken up. Who would they be and where would they play.
ugh, i hate these things. not because its hard, but its just weird. i donno. cuz like obviously i'd wanna see the beatles but at the time that they played out they hadn't written the songs i'd wanna hear ya know? is time travel involved? like a bill and ted type deal where i could go and pick people up and then make them play at my high school aud? i'm gonna go with that scenario. i want disraeli era cream to play and leave their backline on stage for me to oogle at. vauxhall era morrissey. pre noel worship ride, maybe using creams gear. normally i'd def go sabbath, but cream and ride would be loud enough and i'd want another chill band. prob belle and sebastian with isobell doing stuff from the first 3 records and some beatles covers to take care of the beatles thing. see why i hate these things? see what i do to myself thinking about em? ask me tomorrow, guaranteed diff 4 bands.
I think the exact quote was, " Dude, get me flipping off Japan." Carlsbad Beach, August 2007
Tell me what you are stoked about recently, in Music and in life in general.
hardcore wise, the new verse, the new blacklisted and ceremony and trash talk. i love a bunch of the bands we play with, but as far as core on my ipod goes, those are the ones that get the plays. outside of that i'm on a big jesus lizard thing right now, prob from working with lex. lots of nirvana, sonic youth and mudhoney. in europe g from blacklisted made me want to get stoked on cat power, so i've been listening to a lot of her. dinosaur jr is big, especially with me and zak. why do you gotta make me talk about music man, its all i do so it's all i'm gonna talk about.
...and this one was " Dude, lets flip off a gorge!" Devils Canyon, Utah August 2007
Whats your take on the tv show Lost. Give me your theory.
i'm back into it. seriously i hated season 3 to the point where i almost didn't even wanna watch this season. but they are doing a good job. i think whats unraveling is some time travel stuff. if not time travel some extremely high speed travel that messes with the space time continuum. like magnetic fields man, magnetic fields opening worm holes and stuff. i watch a lot of alien tv shows and it's all about magnetic fields.
Give everyone an idea of what its like to be in a hardcore band these days. Knowing you take care of most of the organizing and writing and merch and designing stuff, it must get a little stressful.
yea, sc is pretty much my job even though it makes me mad alot. i do all the mailorder which can get tiring but at the same time how can i not be stoked that all these people want stuff? like today i spent my day off packing up like 75 packages. then i did some work on organizing our summer. at some point i gotta sit down with my guitar and write some more for the sc record. it gets stressfull when i'm booking shows and designing merch, then dealing with the merch debt and all that. i donno, its a lot of work but its worth it because i love the band and it's what i wanna do in my life right now.
Soul Control, Atlanta GA, July 2007
With your constantly changing musical ideas and direction, what should people expect from Soul Control on the new record?
hmm. well its a little heavier. not in a chuga chugga sense, but just an overall heaviness. noisier, a little more melody. it varies from song to song, but it all fits into place as an album. its cohesive, at least we think it is. the burn and quicksand comparisons will def end, but you could kind of tell that if you listen to the progressions through the record. you could see where we were headed. i think its the next logical step. we're never going to put out something that sounds like the previous release. thats boring. i'm gonna assume some people might not like that, they'll say the demo was better or whatevs, but we can't just do the same thing over and over. we'd get bored and break up. the first 5 songs on invo sound nothing like the demo if you think about it, but they all fit together well, especially live. these new songs will fit right in live.
Soul Control, Lexington South Carolina, July 2007
Lastly, tell me how hard it was to be serious through this interview.
honestly, it wasn't hard. i was initially just gonna do a bunch of jokes that only we'd understand but they were better questions than we normally get. finally an interview where i didn't have to say "ummm, we're NOT a religous band...have you ever actually read the lyrics?" thats it though, i'm done. fly home and make me pancakes.
Anthony (L) and Jim (R) Sound and Fury 2007
All photos except the What Feeds the Fire group picture were taken by me, Rich Gaccione.
Thanks for looking, and please visit again in a couple weeks for another interview/photo update with Sean Murphy from Verse.
