Dave Naruszewicz - Heart Set Self Destruct
New bands these days think they can put a video on youtube and they think they will make it, overnight success style, but where is the hard work and the grinding in the local scene? Heart Set Self Destruct is such a band who has spent the last several years working their asses off in the Mid-West building a name and taking hostages to their sound. Now they have jumped to the big arena of national touring and Dave Naruszewicz, the provoking singer/guitarist for Heart Set Self Destruct, took the time to discuss the band and the new record, Of Nightmares, with Metal Exiles.
An interview with Dave Naruszewicz of Heart Set Self Destruct
By Jeffrey Easton
Metal Exiles: For a band out on a national tour for the first time, what is it like opening for a legendary band like Filter?
Dave Naruszewicz: There is something surreal about watching Richard Patrick. The first day of the tour they got all of this equipment from the company’s sponsoring this tour so we got to watch a three hour sound check. Being able to watch them in action with a front row seat with nobody else around was unreal.
Metal Exiles: What has being on this tour brought you so far?
Dave: It has opened up a lot of doors for us and with it being Filter and Saliva it has put us in front of a lot of people. We just recently hit radio so just being able to be out on a decent sized tour right when we hit radio is incredible.
Metal Exiles: I have covered some bands from the Mid-West as well as covering Rock on The Range and it seems like bands from there work harder to make it. What is it about being from there that makes a band work harder?
Dave: I can tell you that being from Chicago it is hard to make it. When you play a gig your friends will show up to see you and leave right after so to be able to keep those people in the room is a big thing for us. At our most recent show in Chicago we sold out the House Of Blues which is something I have wanted to do for a long time. As far as hard working, bands from the Mid-West are hardworking because they all want the same thing. Bands that I know like Janus and Seven Day Sonnet are constantly on the scene and reinvent themselves. The music is there because they all have the songs. Coming from the Mid-West you see the bands happening and try and make a name for themselves.
Metal Exiles: How were you guys able to make a name for yourselves, survive and get out on a big tour?
Dave: We have a crew that believes in us, which is one of the biggest things for us. We have a label, an investor, a management team and a radio team that believes in what’s going on and is pushing everything for us. It is not cheap to be out here so if we were going to go out on a nationwide tour it had to be the right tour and in front of the right people so if someone said Saliva our name would come up to. Being able to be on a tour like this is amazing, our manager really went to bat for us here.
Metal Exiles: I know with the proliferation of the internet there are so many bands out there or people who want to say they are in a band so to get someone’s attention is very hard these days.
Dave: One of the things we do is have a stage look with our stage clothes. We feel on a tour like this and being new to the national scene we have 25 minutes to impress everybody in the room, we have to throw down, our show is energy, energy, energy. With the stage clothes we make people stop and ask themselves “What are these guys all about?”. At least we got their attention from the start.
Metal Exiles: In the 80s it was about the look, the 90s it wasn’t and now it is again, why do you think that is?
Dave: Because everybody is trying to do something different to stand out and it works. Everybody stops and looks, we have their attention.
Metal Exiles: Of Nightmares is the new record. How do you feel it stacks up with everything else that’s out there?
Dave: I think we have a very well balanced record. We have everything: the slower ballady song, the main stream hard rock songs as well as the metal songs where we do some screaming. I feel we have something for everyone but with our own twist on it. My guitarist has a very unique style, he pulls from a lot of places so we are ready to go to bat for ourselves.
Metal Exiles: Your lyrics are interesting and are not exactly the most positive I have heard. It seems as if they are on the self depreciating side if you will. What mind space are you in when you write your music?
Dave: I write most of my lyrics between three and five am in the morning, I just wake up with a lot of inspiration. It is completely silent and I just have my thoughts in my head. I pull from a lot of experiences that I have gone through to get where I am like lost relationships. It is hard to find somebody that understands and gets this so losing these people are hard. I do go through some of those songs and I realize that maybe it’s me. There are some of those songs that aren’t so nice, the people I could care less for. I think we have all been there so my lyrics can relate to a lot of people.
Metal Exiles: What do you pull from the most?
Dave: Lost relationships for sure. It always seems to happen around the time I start writing lyrics for a new album. At least that’s what my mom always tells me. When I write lyrics I usually sink into a depression to get into a different mindset in which I am very hard to talk to. I just shut myself off from a lot of things so when I do those things it’s kind of hard to have a relationship at that point because you are detaching yourself from the whole world. It’s not something I can control either, its just the way I do it.
Metal Exiles: How do you get yourself out of it?
Dave: I don’t know, that’s a good question. What I do when I write lyrics is I for two months when I wake up I will take an object in the room and write about it for about 3 minutes and then I put it away. So now I have all of these descriptive things that I can pull from when I write for the record. But coming out of that funk is different. When I get into the studio and pour my heart into it I feel relieved so probably right after the studio sessions are done.
Metal Exiles: So when you bring your lyrics to the band do they have the music ready for you?
Dave: Chris will come up with an arsenal of riffs and we will piece them into the songs until we feel like we have something. We wrote a few of these songs with a friend from Chicago and we really liked working with him. Before this we had written a full length and a a few EPs together so we felt like we should get another set of ears in here and it was a learning experience. I think he was able to pull some things out of Chris that I did not think he thought was in him, just different ways to think about things.
Metal Exiles: When you bring the material to the band do they look at you as if you lost your mind when they read the lyrics?
Dave: As long as it has a strong chorus they do not mind, they are ok with it. I do not think I have failed them yet.
Metal Exiles: I know these songs that are on the EP do not have a brightside to them.
Dave: That’s why we called it Of Nightmares.
Metal Exiles: You have some great art work for your EPS and LPs. Where does some of this disturbing work come from?
Dave: We have had a few different covers for this album so I had them on my wall so I could pick from them. We have a great graphic designer who will sit with me for hours on end to help with the cover. We had a symbol that is a gas mask face and we want to keep that going as a branding tool. The most current cover is a guy standing in the raid with two gas mask tubes on his back and we wanted to go with the fall out theme. We wanted to include all of the titles in the artwork and that cover ties it all together.
Metal Exiles: I saw a comment that you made about how your music has made it to Southern California. As viral as things are, how is that surprising?
Dave: It is not but when you sit down and think about the fact that you have not been out here on tour to play for new fans it is.
Metal Exiles: With all of the shows and mini tours you have done in the Mid-West with name acts are you surprised you have yet to be on a national tour yet?
Dave: No because bands need to get squared away with what they need to do at home, concentrate on their hometown crowds before they go out nationally. With us once we started playing bigger venues in Chicago we decided to start doing this regionally so I would go look for shows. We do these one offs until we had been in each are a bunch of times and the bigger opportunity came when we signed with our label in which we did a few weeks with Nonpoint which was a big learning experience for us because we had not been gone that long before.
Metal Exiles: When did you realize you had proven yourself to go out on a national tour?
Dave: We are always going to be out here trying to prove something, that’s a constant process.
Heart Set Self Destruct is a band to watch for, their blend of melodic and aggression grabs you by the throat and does not let go.
Official Heart Set Self Destruct Website
BUY OF NIGHTMARES
An interview with Dave Naruszewicz of Heart Set Self Destruct
By Jeffrey Easton
Metal Exiles: For a band out on a national tour for the first time, what is it like opening for a legendary band like Filter?
Dave Naruszewicz: There is something surreal about watching Richard Patrick. The first day of the tour they got all of this equipment from the company’s sponsoring this tour so we got to watch a three hour sound check. Being able to watch them in action with a front row seat with nobody else around was unreal.
Metal Exiles: What has being on this tour brought you so far?
Dave: It has opened up a lot of doors for us and with it being Filter and Saliva it has put us in front of a lot of people. We just recently hit radio so just being able to be out on a decent sized tour right when we hit radio is incredible.
Metal Exiles: I have covered some bands from the Mid-West as well as covering Rock on The Range and it seems like bands from there work harder to make it. What is it about being from there that makes a band work harder?
Dave: I can tell you that being from Chicago it is hard to make it. When you play a gig your friends will show up to see you and leave right after so to be able to keep those people in the room is a big thing for us. At our most recent show in Chicago we sold out the House Of Blues which is something I have wanted to do for a long time. As far as hard working, bands from the Mid-West are hardworking because they all want the same thing. Bands that I know like Janus and Seven Day Sonnet are constantly on the scene and reinvent themselves. The music is there because they all have the songs. Coming from the Mid-West you see the bands happening and try and make a name for themselves.
Metal Exiles: How were you guys able to make a name for yourselves, survive and get out on a big tour?
Dave: We have a crew that believes in us, which is one of the biggest things for us. We have a label, an investor, a management team and a radio team that believes in what’s going on and is pushing everything for us. It is not cheap to be out here so if we were going to go out on a nationwide tour it had to be the right tour and in front of the right people so if someone said Saliva our name would come up to. Being able to be on a tour like this is amazing, our manager really went to bat for us here.
Metal Exiles: I know with the proliferation of the internet there are so many bands out there or people who want to say they are in a band so to get someone’s attention is very hard these days.
Dave: One of the things we do is have a stage look with our stage clothes. We feel on a tour like this and being new to the national scene we have 25 minutes to impress everybody in the room, we have to throw down, our show is energy, energy, energy. With the stage clothes we make people stop and ask themselves “What are these guys all about?”. At least we got their attention from the start.
Metal Exiles: In the 80s it was about the look, the 90s it wasn’t and now it is again, why do you think that is?
Dave: Because everybody is trying to do something different to stand out and it works. Everybody stops and looks, we have their attention.
Metal Exiles: Of Nightmares is the new record. How do you feel it stacks up with everything else that’s out there?
Dave: I think we have a very well balanced record. We have everything: the slower ballady song, the main stream hard rock songs as well as the metal songs where we do some screaming. I feel we have something for everyone but with our own twist on it. My guitarist has a very unique style, he pulls from a lot of places so we are ready to go to bat for ourselves.
Metal Exiles: Your lyrics are interesting and are not exactly the most positive I have heard. It seems as if they are on the self depreciating side if you will. What mind space are you in when you write your music?
Dave: I write most of my lyrics between three and five am in the morning, I just wake up with a lot of inspiration. It is completely silent and I just have my thoughts in my head. I pull from a lot of experiences that I have gone through to get where I am like lost relationships. It is hard to find somebody that understands and gets this so losing these people are hard. I do go through some of those songs and I realize that maybe it’s me. There are some of those songs that aren’t so nice, the people I could care less for. I think we have all been there so my lyrics can relate to a lot of people.
Metal Exiles: What do you pull from the most?
Dave: Lost relationships for sure. It always seems to happen around the time I start writing lyrics for a new album. At least that’s what my mom always tells me. When I write lyrics I usually sink into a depression to get into a different mindset in which I am very hard to talk to. I just shut myself off from a lot of things so when I do those things it’s kind of hard to have a relationship at that point because you are detaching yourself from the whole world. It’s not something I can control either, its just the way I do it.
Metal Exiles: How do you get yourself out of it?
Dave: I don’t know, that’s a good question. What I do when I write lyrics is I for two months when I wake up I will take an object in the room and write about it for about 3 minutes and then I put it away. So now I have all of these descriptive things that I can pull from when I write for the record. But coming out of that funk is different. When I get into the studio and pour my heart into it I feel relieved so probably right after the studio sessions are done.
Metal Exiles: So when you bring your lyrics to the band do they have the music ready for you?
Dave: Chris will come up with an arsenal of riffs and we will piece them into the songs until we feel like we have something. We wrote a few of these songs with a friend from Chicago and we really liked working with him. Before this we had written a full length and a a few EPs together so we felt like we should get another set of ears in here and it was a learning experience. I think he was able to pull some things out of Chris that I did not think he thought was in him, just different ways to think about things.
Metal Exiles: When you bring the material to the band do they look at you as if you lost your mind when they read the lyrics?
Dave: As long as it has a strong chorus they do not mind, they are ok with it. I do not think I have failed them yet.
Metal Exiles: I know these songs that are on the EP do not have a brightside to them.
Dave: That’s why we called it Of Nightmares.
Metal Exiles: You have some great art work for your EPS and LPs. Where does some of this disturbing work come from?
Dave: We have had a few different covers for this album so I had them on my wall so I could pick from them. We have a great graphic designer who will sit with me for hours on end to help with the cover. We had a symbol that is a gas mask face and we want to keep that going as a branding tool. The most current cover is a guy standing in the raid with two gas mask tubes on his back and we wanted to go with the fall out theme. We wanted to include all of the titles in the artwork and that cover ties it all together.
Metal Exiles: I saw a comment that you made about how your music has made it to Southern California. As viral as things are, how is that surprising?
Dave: It is not but when you sit down and think about the fact that you have not been out here on tour to play for new fans it is.
Metal Exiles: With all of the shows and mini tours you have done in the Mid-West with name acts are you surprised you have yet to be on a national tour yet?
Dave: No because bands need to get squared away with what they need to do at home, concentrate on their hometown crowds before they go out nationally. With us once we started playing bigger venues in Chicago we decided to start doing this regionally so I would go look for shows. We do these one offs until we had been in each are a bunch of times and the bigger opportunity came when we signed with our label in which we did a few weeks with Nonpoint which was a big learning experience for us because we had not been gone that long before.
Metal Exiles: When did you realize you had proven yourself to go out on a national tour?
Dave: We are always going to be out here trying to prove something, that’s a constant process.
Heart Set Self Destruct is a band to watch for, their blend of melodic and aggression grabs you by the throat and does not let go.
Official Heart Set Self Destruct Website
BUY OF NIGHTMARES
