Josh Nacho: I would like to first off begin by saying that I have a notebook that I write questions in and I specifically didn't bring it tonight for the fact that- I did write questions though- I'm not gonna need it. I know what I'm doing. I have it in my head. I know what I'm gonna do. And I'm going to warn you first off, that I'm going to ask you three boring questions first.
Jon: Ok. What are they?
J.N.: Then we're going to get into better questions. The first three boring questions aren't really boring, they're probably just something you've heard a hundred times.
Jon: Well, maybe I'll be more well rehearsed on them then.
J.N.: (laughter) So the first thing I wanna know- blah blah blah- is what's the significance of the name Moment?
Jon: To tell you the truth, when I joined the band, they already had the name. They had another singer for a while who had a problem- his name's Tim and he had a problem with his lungs. He actually even had to go to the emergency room a couple of times. They were a lot heavier back then and a lot more screamy. They kind of mutually all asked him to leave just for his own health. So they were looking around for a new singer. I don't know the full story of them trying out new singers, but...
J.N.: You got here somehow.
Jon: Basically, I tried out- they showed me some of their newer stuff- and it was a little bit more melodic and I asked them if it was ok to sing over it instead of doing the screaming stuff and they were really encouraging me to do it so we kind of hit it off. At that point, I was like, "What are you guys called?" and they're like "Moment". That's it. I don't know the significance to that. It's a pretty concise name. There's a rumor that there's another band called Moment from northern New Jersey, haven't seen a record out or anything of it. As far as I know we're doing good with it. Next question.
J.N.: Next boring question. This is going to be a two parter, but, it's kind of a typical question. You're on Espo Records- how did you come about with them and what's your relationship been like?
Jon: We've always put out records ourselves- our first demo CD we pressed 500 copies... That 7", we still have a bunch of them left I think there was 500- we have 50 left maybe. And I guess we just realized when we were putting out records ourselves that we just had to press smaller because we have our budget and everyone's really busy writing songs and trying to book ourselves, stuff like that. So we just decided to see if a label would be able to get us better distribution since we really wanted to have better distribution but it was just one too many jobs for the members of the band to have to pull off. We just looked around and Shred has always been a friend of the band. He's booked us on a lot of shows that have been in the city. And a lot of times he books club kind of shows, and since we don't have a problem finding d.i.y. shows for ourselves to play- and we'd rather play d.i.y. shows- it's always really been kind of helpful that Shred's always kind of had his foot in the door with the club scene that I'd really rather not know the integrate workings of, 'cause it's not really my thing. So, me and Steve handle the booking and Shred handles the bigger club shows, so I guess that's how we know Shred. Shred really likes melodic music. He has a pretty diverse label though, a lot of the bands on his label are different like Close Call and the Warren Commission- they're some pretty opposite ends of the spectrum as far as independent music, but he just seemed really excited. He asked us if we could pull off writing a full length and we estimated how long it would take us and we actually didn't even end up off that far. We got it done a couple months behind schedule.
J.N.: How long did it take you?
Jon: Really, about a year. Shred's been awesome. He really helped us get the packaging we want as far as money. We spent a lot of time on the phone doing a lot of leg work, but when it came time to make some of the decisions as far as distribution and getting the record reviewed and a lot of other things we just don't plain have the money and time to put into, Shred really does a lot of the work for that. It's been a really good label for us- so far- and I think also having a label where we're friends with the person running it keeps it really under control. There's a lot of horror stories of bands signing to a label and having the whole way that they run their band change, and I don't think we wanna get into that, but we're just taking our time as far as getting on the next label. Espo- right now- is a really solid home for us.
J.N.: What I think is interesting, is not only how your CD is packaged with the cardboard that folds, but how even the Warren Commission has their notebook EP, and they aren't really traditional plastic cases with the little booklet inside.
Jon: A lot of that comes from Shred. He really just wants artists to have their way, and when we asked him about packaging, he was like, "Well, what do you guys want?". When we took the ball and kind of ran with it, I think he was really excited. Others band, I feel, let the label decide what the boundaries are for the packaging, and Shred was really just like "Well, see what you come up with and if it's really wild and crazy and I can't afford it then we won't do it". It ends up that it's a CD that sells for $10 instead of 8 or what have you, but it's something that I think's worth it.
J.N.: But then if you get something in the store that's on like, Columbia or MCA, it's like $15.99 and just plastic, so....
Jon: Right.
J.N.: It maybe two dollars more than you'd pay for a CD at a show, but that's the one thing that impressed me a lot was just how it was a small label doing it as opposed to a bigger label.
Jon: Well you know, big labels have a hard time doing it because they have employees and they're pressing a lot more of it and they're spending a lot more on advertising. For us, it's a lot easier for word of mouth to advertise and kids really pay attention to record reviews and stuff like that. To Shred, it's worth it to have a good product and to get the product to be seen by a lot of people- and that's how he looks at it and he does a really good job. From Moment's point of view, it's like, we don't have to sell a CD that we're not really psyched on the packaging or for a lot more money if we were on a bigger label. That's actually a big attraction to working with Shred. He really takes the label really seriously and he does a really good job at it.
J.N.: I think it's running really well.
Jon: Shred really wants the bands on his label to like his label and be comfortable on it. He really works hard to make it so they're comfortable on it.
J.N.: This is kind of the sub-question of the question. I think that right now there's really kind of a good number of bands on Espo that are original and that in their own way stand out. Have you thought about anything in the sense of one day Espo is gonna be the label to be on and right up there with all the labels people talk about?
Jon: Well, I know that Boston has a lot of labels that it houses. I think a lot of times, they're coming from a different angle. Shred's been a scenester in Boston for a long time and he has a lot of little sub jobs that he does that help out the scene. In that respect I think the label kind of moves at a slower pace than some of the other punk rock labels. But I think that having more diversity of the bands and being on a more personal level with the bands is what keeps his label always moving up. I think that Close Call is a really good hardcore band. And the kind of hardcore they're playing is kind of hot shit right now, but Close Call's been playing it for a long time. Having bands that are ahead of their time is really impressive. As far as Espo being the next big label is something you don't want- Moment approaches it too in the way that you don't want to blow up real big and then fade out real fast. I don't really think our label needs to do that either. Espo does what they do and they're very consistent, but I don't picture them becoming the label any time soon- to be honest- but they're constantly going to outdo themself.
J.N.: This is going to be my third and final boring question. It's a variation of a question you probably get a lot. It's about the song styles and rather than just being something boring like "What's your songwriting process?". The way that I like to look at it is that if you take something like a band like Saves the Day- any of their CDs- and between the twelve and fourteen songs they have on their CDs, they have these little things that make each song different from the one before it. But then you take all that and put it into one song.
Jon: I've read reviews of the new CD that put it a lot of more mainstream pop bands... Every once in a while a guitar player comes up with a hook that really catches people and some times they'll do it five times in a song. Moment tends not to do it, and I think that's a plus and a big advocate of Moment. It was our drummer Matt who said you don't have to show off and be so proud of your own shit that you pound it down people's throats. That kid really collects records and really knows what contemporary rock, punk rock bands and hardcore bands are doing, and they know when a part is clever and when a part gets the point across but not to do it five times in a song so that the person walks away with it stuck in their head. I find that it's gonna make someone wanna listen to the record more than once.
J.N.: I never do that. (laughing)
Jon: (laughing) Riiight. You know, by the third time they do the chorus in the song you're so sick of that part that they keep doing that you originally liked when you first heard the song. We're living in the information age- a lot of people get ideas pressed on them. I don't think people are as easy to impress as they used to be- musicians included. I don't think Moment needs to be so impressed with ourselves... If we think a part is really good someone else may think it's just an ok part, so we like to see where the part is going, and going into the next part of the song where that song sounded like it was taking us when we wrote it. And I think that's what makes us really attached to the songs and maybe that's why it took us so long to write the full length. You acted like a year was a long time.
J.N.: I think it's a good amount of time because I think if you took less amount of time... It's like, bands are like "We wrote this CD in three months" and it shows.
Jon: I'm impressed too when people can produce a large amount of work, but Moment always has at least one or two songs we're working on constantly while playing shows and we do some weird trips on top of that. So we're busy to kind of have the creative process constantly going on, but just the straight out of work of being in a band and when you have the songs just cut and dry like verse/chorus/verse and that's your song, you could write an album's worth of stuff in half the time and then spend the rest of the time touring. But I just feel like maybe we're working too hard for me to just have our songs go in one ear and out the other with people.
J.N.: Having those little parts there though- the parts that are there once and that's it- it makes you want to go back and listen to the songs just to find that part. Like in the first song on the full length the part after you sing "I'm not trying to fuck up this is how I am" and then it kicks into the guitar.
Jon: And it's not like Moment made that shit up, it's just that for an emo band or a punk band or a hardcore band, that's rare not to put the hook up front and rely on it. Everyone in Moment came from a background more of hardcore and punk rock and I think hardcore songs tend to be shorter and they go from one part to the next and then they'll have like, a big breakdown or a really intense zenith towards the end. I just think it's the mentality that we all came from. It's not something we discussed. I don't think Moment used to be more verse/chorus before I came in the band. Our drummer Matt will just be like "I don't wanna play that part eight times. We don't have to cram it down people's throats, we can just do it." You can kind of see- from working with Matt for a while- what his idea was but I think how that translates to more melodic music because melodic music is more pleasing to the ear and it makes the song itself important instead of just the little riff that you're playing in the song and I think that's important.
J.N.: This actually might be a boring question. And you can just say no, but as far as when people say, "What does your band sound like?" cause I don't know what to say you sound like. I say you're kind of like pop punk or indie rock, but you cold fit in perfect on a show with hardcore bands. And if you think pop punk, you think like, the pop punk that's out there now and it's just not that. It's so much better. So, it's like, what do you tell people so I can tell them that too?
Jon: Like all bands, we'd rather avoid the labels and if we can that'd be awesome. Originally I looked at Moment as a melodic hardcore band. A lot of the rhythmic and musical elements I thought were coming from a hardcore background- like breakdowns and having build ups to parts. As far as what we're doing nowadays, as time goes on, I see what other bands are doing and I think there are some grounds we don't need to recover and there are certain parts of hardcore that we're always going to have as part of our musical history. But I think Moment just needs to play music that all five of us are into, and I don't think everyone in the band can even see eye to eye as to what we listen to. If we're on the road going to a show, two of us will be flipping out over the music and everyone else will be like, "Oh, this is garbage". So everyone's always showing the others something different. And I think the more you pay attention to what bands are doing now, the better you can separate yourself from that. But then you can also see someone doing something really cool and it can put an idea in your head. If a band is melodic nowadays I feel their lyrics tend to be flimsy and superficial and I'm not impressed with that. I'd almost be embarrassed to have the lyrics be not something that the band can be proud of. We take the lyrics real seriously, and it's something everyone in the band can get on you about. And then there's some other elements of hardcore and punk rock that are some time retracing the old ground and doing what's already been done- kind of to show them you were paying attention to the fad in hardcore that happened a while ago. Moment, like other bands, is just going to wrestle with that. We don't want to be just another name in the pop punk/emo bands, and we don't want to be just another hardcore band. You don't want to have a label stuck on you like that. If that comes into play in your songwriting, then your songwriting suffers a lot. I don't want to have the fact that emo and pop punk get played out deter Moment from writing a song that they really want to, and I don't want the fact that indie rock isn't a label that is considered to be cool by some people or something to stop us from writing something we really want to either. I guess as far as labels I just don't know what I feel comfortable imposing on the band.
J.N.: It's tough when people ask me. I just ask them what they're doing and tell them to come over to listen to it. So let's make a segway and go into songs. I want to talk about two different songs. I wanna talk about "Murder Murder" first. I think it's a good song, and lyrically too. As far as just that it's about Brian Deneke, but it also reflects on government on a whole too.
Jon: There's definitely other hate crimes that I feel have a different element from the Brian Deneke and Dustin Camp situation where dressing punk rock and being involved in a punk rock style is a choice. And I feel Brian Deneke made a choice to do that, and it was a really tough choice to be in that part of the world. And that's the specific example to me cause I'm just a white male in a white male dominated part of the world, so I have the easy end. And in this part of the country, punk rock seems so much more accepted than down south as you can see in that situation. There are a lot of people who don't have the choice for the things they're discriminated for such as sexuality or race- you don't have the choice to hide it or to get out of it if you feel it's too much trouble. I feel like I want to apply that song to different situations like that because there's a certain frustration of knowing that I can't always relate to someone who's severely discriminated against. That's a lot of what that song's about too.
J.N.: Even the one simple line where it says "We are the minority", that can relate to so many different ways of just how people are treated that are the minority whether it be race, sexual orientation or whatever-- it's like, they're the minority and not the way everyone else is so for that they get the short end of the stick.
Jon: That last line in the song "This is what democracy looks like" that's something that I've always heard as a chant at protests and political rallies and a lot of times it's a left wing view that democracy isn't properly put into action in America- that democracy isn't properly governed. In the Dustin Camp trial, a lot of character witnesses and evidence in Brian Deneke's clothes put into light that Dustin Camp was really an upstanding citizen by our present date's society's values system, so it was really hard for him to get convicted. He did actually get convicted and the judged suspended the sentence, but it was basically a slap on the wrist. What I've always felt about that is that despite the fact that I think that's a really valid chant- "This is what democracy looks like"- when you see the people represented at a protest. I don't want to take any validity away from that, but I started to think after reading up on certain hate crimes- the Brian Deneke murder, Matthew Shepard who was a homosexual and was killed for being a homosexual and basically tortured- I think that people are in a minority and I guess democracy is the majority getting the way by winning their vote then minorities can't possibly benefit from that, and some times being a minority isn't something that you can help or something you believe in so intensely that you can't feel you can shuck the responsibility- whether it be a political cause or a religion. So I got a certain frustration with that too. I kind of feel like that song is sarcastic in the end too. I don't think that democracy's happening so that you could look around and be like, "oh, so this is what democracy looks like". So I always thought that chant had a certain displacement when it's not used to demonstrate the power of people- when people want something to happen and they protest or when people want something, it's an appropriate thing to yell. But then some times I've been at protests where the turnout and the support for the cause is so small, that chanting "this is what democracy looks like"- I almost felt sad. Democracy is most of the people don't care. They're not voting to help a minority because as far as they're concerned they're fine and they can ignore it. When it gets to the point that minorities are actually in physical danger because they're not protected by democracy I just feel like democracy itself should some times be questioned. There's a lot of sarcasm in that song. I don't think that- I'm not an eye for an eye type of person- I don't think that going out and killing a murderer is the right thing to do. But I guess that at the time that song was written, I just felt really frustrated that someone could just be a murderer and walk free and run into the friends of the person he murdered every so often. I just felt kind of frustrated about that and I guess that song's kind of a step out of reality to imagine if you really could do something about it. But I just think that you can't do anything about it on a day to day basis is something that makes me want to stay more level headed than I'd actually be when we were writing the song.
J.N.: Ok. Let's talk about the next song that I wanna talk about. Can you guess what song I wanna talk about next?
Jon: Umm... I guess not.
J.N: I wanna ask you about "Endall". It seems to me to be a bit of a general song, but kind of about a specific band...
Jon: Yeah, it is about a specific band.
J.N.: Which band is it about?
Jon: I'm not sure if I wanna say. I wanna think if somebody was listening to the song and they figured out it was about them they could have their own take on it, but I don't want to take any of the substance or meaning out of it because I really think when bands change the direction that they want the band to go in or they change the band or often times members or what kind of shows they want to play, I think the bands have a responsibility- especially when they start to be bigger and really start to have a serious following- they have a responsibility to the people who bought their records and really looked up to them and paid attention to their words, that if they're not interested in doing the band any more or if they're into doing something more poppy then I feel like it's time to start a new project and not drag the name of a well respected band through the mud. So that's what that song's about.
.MOMENT.
Espo Records
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