The music business is a crazy world, to quote David Lee Roth, here today, gone later today. Alesana have defied those odds and ten years later, here they are, still packing fans in and creating music the fans want to hear. Shawn Milke, Phillies fan and one of the head visionary's of Alesana, took the time to give you the fans a look into why Alesana are still around ten years later.
An interview with Shawn Milke of Alesana.
By Jeffrey Easton
Metal Exiles: In light of your 10 year anniversary, does it feel like 10 years?
Shawn Milke: From the perspective of I started this band when I was young and now I am married with a kid I can see it being that long but when it comes to writing and touring, I still feel like a kid.
Metal Exiles: This tour that you’re on with Get Scared, Hearts & Hands, Farewell, My Love and Megosh is pretty sick. Did you hand pick the bands since this is a pretty big event for you?
Shawn: With the position I am in now I pick the package that we tour with. We get submissions but sometimes I go outside of that. Megosh are signed to my label so it was a no brainer to take them out. Farewell My Love is playing second and I caught wind of them not to long ago. They are all great guys and I like the fact that they do the whole theatrical thing on stage. We have toured with Get Scared in the past so it’s great to see them get so successful and that we can tour with them again.
Metal Exiles: It’s great when you can pick your bands that you tour with because I know sometimes bands get thrown together.
Shawn: If you’re going to spend five or six weeks with people in close quarters you have to be able to enjoy the people you are out with. We have toured with some egos in the past and it never makes for a good time.
Metal Exiles: To look back on your ten years, what were some of the better touring memories you have?
Shawn: One of my favorite ones is that we thought we would jump in the van and do a few shows by ourselves. After doing that we met a band that wanted us to come along and do a few shows so we did that and with that we were spotted by an agent that had some regional pull so he got us on another two weeks. Then someone from the Autumn To Ashes camp saw what we were doing and then they invited us out on their full U.S. tour. When it was all said and done we were out for a full 17 straight months except for when we went home for Christmas. We left for four days and were gone for 17 months. We made the decision to do it and we knew it would take hard work and sacrifice, all the clichés you always hear, and I still remember taking ketchup packs to mix with tuna and heating up on the hood of our van just to have something to eat. I think it’s cool that we were such a self-made band and here we are 10 years later.
Metal Exiles: Is there anything you would rather forget?
Shawn: I am a “take everything in stride kind of guy”, I think we all are and even with any of the bad things that happen we try to spin it into a positive. I have always had a fun time touring and the only toughest part is being away from your family.
Metal Exiles: For your last few albums you have had a story going so what was it like to go in and just write a normal rock album?
Shawn: The last two records were part of a trilogy that we are doing but even the two for those were from literature as well so when we got to the EP we decided to step aside and write about us for a change but when we started to write we were like “How do we do this?” because we do not remember the last time we sat down and wrote a song about one of our experiences. It was different and very rewarding at the same time.
Metal Exiles: Nevermore has gotten a huge response from your fans, what was behind that?
Shawn: I am a huge Edgar Allen Poe fan, he was the inspiration to write the trilogy in the first place, and his work inspired that. Nevermore is about the death of music and art and what technology is doing to the music. There is the fickle nature of fans these days where they like you one minute and forget about you the next. You have the internet, home studios and laziness contributing to music and art being diluted and Nevermore is a call to arms to anyone who is willing to listen that if we keep allowing art to go down the drain music and art as we know it will die. It will only be our fault, we are the only ones to blame. We have to remember why we do it in the first place. We don’t do it for money, fame or success; we do it because we love music and we love art, everything else is just a by product of that.
Metal Exiles: Why do you think fans claim they love a band but then they will download the music for free?
Shawn: Because it is just right there for the taking. It is just human nature to want things the easy way. If you put a hundred dollar bill on a table right beside a piece of paper showing you how to earn a hundred dollars in front of someone they will take the hundred dollar bill and not pay attention to the piece of paper. We are an “immediate” society, we want it right now. The internet puts everything right at our fingertips, we are lazy and impatient and we are not going to spend the time or money to go buy a cd when we can just take it for free from the internet. It’s not really their fault, it is just how we are conditioned now. People like me, being 34, I remember when I had to go to the store to buy a tape or CD and the next generation will not even know what that means. “Why would I go to a store and buy a cd when I can go to a torrent site, rip it and listen to it in ten seconds?”.. The thing that really makes me crazy is that someone will write on your facebook page that “I am your biggest fan, you are my fav band” and that person may have never bought a shirt, a cd or gone to a show, not having contributed to your success or your sustainability. Nothing that person has done has gone to us existing as a band and yet they will swear up and down that you are their number one band. They don’t have to put their money where their mouth is because the internet allows them to say it.
Metal Exiles: I know that fan, they don’t support you which allows you to do that next album.
Shawn: Exactly but I am not saying money is complete fandom though. I am a huge Phillies fan (editors note: someone has to be, right?) and it would be pretty hypocritical to call myself a fan and never got to a single game, pay for a subscription to MLB TV, not buy a hat or a jersey. If I did not do any of that I would not be contributing to the greater good of that teams success so how could I call myself a fan if I did not support them in that manner? I think the biggest, misconception by the fans that they think that bands that tour are rich. I have had fans tell me I can afford because I am rich and I just tell them they don’t have a clue. We cramp 10 dudes in a van when we go out on tour.
Metal Exiles: What was behind the rest of the EP?
Shawn: The whole vibe behind the EP was this is how we see the industry, each other and life in general. Double Or Nothing was about us leaving home to make a career out of this, Ravenous is one of the more negative songs on the record. It attacks critics and others who form opinions too quickly and people who are so big mouthed, it is just the negative side of the industry.
Metal Exiles: What else can we expect from your tenth anniversary year beside the EP and tour?
Shawn: We will be recording a lot of the shows and we will be putting out a live album and finish recording our next album so we can complete the trilogy. We are also going to try and do a documentary because we have so much footage lying around. We want to do something on an underground rock band that somehow exceeded expectations and defeated the odds that still make music that fans care about.
If you have yet to check into what Alesana is doing where have you been? Pick up The Decade, your life will be changed.
Official Alesana Site
BUY The Decade!
An interview with Shawn Milke of Alesana.
By Jeffrey Easton
Metal Exiles: In light of your 10 year anniversary, does it feel like 10 years?
Shawn Milke: From the perspective of I started this band when I was young and now I am married with a kid I can see it being that long but when it comes to writing and touring, I still feel like a kid.
Metal Exiles: This tour that you’re on with Get Scared, Hearts & Hands, Farewell, My Love and Megosh is pretty sick. Did you hand pick the bands since this is a pretty big event for you?
Shawn: With the position I am in now I pick the package that we tour with. We get submissions but sometimes I go outside of that. Megosh are signed to my label so it was a no brainer to take them out. Farewell My Love is playing second and I caught wind of them not to long ago. They are all great guys and I like the fact that they do the whole theatrical thing on stage. We have toured with Get Scared in the past so it’s great to see them get so successful and that we can tour with them again.
Metal Exiles: It’s great when you can pick your bands that you tour with because I know sometimes bands get thrown together.
Shawn: If you’re going to spend five or six weeks with people in close quarters you have to be able to enjoy the people you are out with. We have toured with some egos in the past and it never makes for a good time.
Metal Exiles: To look back on your ten years, what were some of the better touring memories you have?
Shawn: One of my favorite ones is that we thought we would jump in the van and do a few shows by ourselves. After doing that we met a band that wanted us to come along and do a few shows so we did that and with that we were spotted by an agent that had some regional pull so he got us on another two weeks. Then someone from the Autumn To Ashes camp saw what we were doing and then they invited us out on their full U.S. tour. When it was all said and done we were out for a full 17 straight months except for when we went home for Christmas. We left for four days and were gone for 17 months. We made the decision to do it and we knew it would take hard work and sacrifice, all the clichés you always hear, and I still remember taking ketchup packs to mix with tuna and heating up on the hood of our van just to have something to eat. I think it’s cool that we were such a self-made band and here we are 10 years later.
Metal Exiles: Is there anything you would rather forget?
Shawn: I am a “take everything in stride kind of guy”, I think we all are and even with any of the bad things that happen we try to spin it into a positive. I have always had a fun time touring and the only toughest part is being away from your family.
Metal Exiles: For your last few albums you have had a story going so what was it like to go in and just write a normal rock album?
Shawn: The last two records were part of a trilogy that we are doing but even the two for those were from literature as well so when we got to the EP we decided to step aside and write about us for a change but when we started to write we were like “How do we do this?” because we do not remember the last time we sat down and wrote a song about one of our experiences. It was different and very rewarding at the same time.
Metal Exiles: Nevermore has gotten a huge response from your fans, what was behind that?
Shawn: I am a huge Edgar Allen Poe fan, he was the inspiration to write the trilogy in the first place, and his work inspired that. Nevermore is about the death of music and art and what technology is doing to the music. There is the fickle nature of fans these days where they like you one minute and forget about you the next. You have the internet, home studios and laziness contributing to music and art being diluted and Nevermore is a call to arms to anyone who is willing to listen that if we keep allowing art to go down the drain music and art as we know it will die. It will only be our fault, we are the only ones to blame. We have to remember why we do it in the first place. We don’t do it for money, fame or success; we do it because we love music and we love art, everything else is just a by product of that.
Metal Exiles: Why do you think fans claim they love a band but then they will download the music for free?
Shawn: Because it is just right there for the taking. It is just human nature to want things the easy way. If you put a hundred dollar bill on a table right beside a piece of paper showing you how to earn a hundred dollars in front of someone they will take the hundred dollar bill and not pay attention to the piece of paper. We are an “immediate” society, we want it right now. The internet puts everything right at our fingertips, we are lazy and impatient and we are not going to spend the time or money to go buy a cd when we can just take it for free from the internet. It’s not really their fault, it is just how we are conditioned now. People like me, being 34, I remember when I had to go to the store to buy a tape or CD and the next generation will not even know what that means. “Why would I go to a store and buy a cd when I can go to a torrent site, rip it and listen to it in ten seconds?”.. The thing that really makes me crazy is that someone will write on your facebook page that “I am your biggest fan, you are my fav band” and that person may have never bought a shirt, a cd or gone to a show, not having contributed to your success or your sustainability. Nothing that person has done has gone to us existing as a band and yet they will swear up and down that you are their number one band. They don’t have to put their money where their mouth is because the internet allows them to say it.
Metal Exiles: I know that fan, they don’t support you which allows you to do that next album.
Shawn: Exactly but I am not saying money is complete fandom though. I am a huge Phillies fan (editors note: someone has to be, right?) and it would be pretty hypocritical to call myself a fan and never got to a single game, pay for a subscription to MLB TV, not buy a hat or a jersey. If I did not do any of that I would not be contributing to the greater good of that teams success so how could I call myself a fan if I did not support them in that manner? I think the biggest, misconception by the fans that they think that bands that tour are rich. I have had fans tell me I can afford because I am rich and I just tell them they don’t have a clue. We cramp 10 dudes in a van when we go out on tour.
Metal Exiles: What was behind the rest of the EP?
Shawn: The whole vibe behind the EP was this is how we see the industry, each other and life in general. Double Or Nothing was about us leaving home to make a career out of this, Ravenous is one of the more negative songs on the record. It attacks critics and others who form opinions too quickly and people who are so big mouthed, it is just the negative side of the industry.
Metal Exiles: What else can we expect from your tenth anniversary year beside the EP and tour?
Shawn: We will be recording a lot of the shows and we will be putting out a live album and finish recording our next album so we can complete the trilogy. We are also going to try and do a documentary because we have so much footage lying around. We want to do something on an underground rock band that somehow exceeded expectations and defeated the odds that still make music that fans care about.
If you have yet to check into what Alesana is doing where have you been? Pick up The Decade, your life will be changed.
Official Alesana Site
BUY The Decade!
