Upon initial glance, the tour announcement of Nothing More with The Contortionist was maybe the strangest pairing I've seen since Marilyn Manson co-headlined with Smashing Pumpkins.
Yet as I began to listen to the two juxtaposed groups more, I realized the subtle, progressive similarities. Nothing More's recent LP, The Stories We Tell Ourselves, balanced radio-friendly rock with experimental electronic ambience and alternative metal, which contrasted quite impressively with The Contortionist's recent calmer and more straight-forward material.
Nonetheless, I felt inclined to speak to the dudes of Nothing More as I've been a longtime fan of their underrated approach to heavier music. After seeing the group perform, I spoke to guitarist Mark Vollelunga and bassist Daniel Oliver about the tour, their crazy live setup, the most recent album, and more. Enjoy the full interview with the two is below.
You guys are finishing off this tour with Contortionist, Big Story, and Kirra. How was it overall?
Overall, the tour was awesome. All three other bands have been great. We’ve known the Big Story guys way back from when we were a local Texas regional band, so it’s really cool to see another group from the same scene thriving. This has been by far the biggest run we’ve ever headlined.
Having The Contortionist in the lineup was awesome, but very unexpected. Did you know much about them prior to the tour and are you into that kind of progressive side of rock or metal?
For sure, we definitely have roots that come from that genre. We did a tour with Periphery about three years ago. It’s cool that in this band that we can lean on the progressive side of the spectrum as well as the other side to do a tour with Papa Roach or Breaking Benjamin. It’s nice to expose The Contortionist to a larger and different group of people. Especially with this new album they have. I really think they did a great job and put out something different from their previous stuff. It’s a little more rock-oriented and structured more around the melody and lyrics.
Your stage and show is way more elaborate than last time I saw you, which was at Knotfest 2014. Do you imagine your show will keep expanding?
Yeah, I think so. We started working with an engineer in Nashville named Trevor, who put together the set behind the drum and did all the programming for the lights on that. We also have the Scorpion Tail onstage, which is the new homemade design. I just finished that last Spring. The first few tours with it were more troubleshooting than actually performing with it. With the next album, we’ll probably have another gigantic something.
The instrument machines onstage reminds me a lot of Author and Punisher. Have you heard of him?
Yeah, I definitely have seen a few of his videos online. I haven’t seen him live yet though.
It’s been crazy seeing you guys grow in popularity and I think not a lot of people realize you have been around for 15 years and released records before the self-titled LP. Was there culture shock when you rapidly began gaining success with that self-titled release and the Eleven Seven signing?
I would say in some ways, yeah. It’s been a childhood dream. We’ve been in this band for over fifteen years. There’s been a lot of work and grinding to get where we are now. There’s been huge stepping-stones like getting signed, getting on bigger tours, getting on 'War for the Planet of the Apes,' having three Grammy nominations. Every single stepping stone has continued to expose us to more and more people. We’re totally honored and floored to keep doing this and keep connecting and relating with people through our live show. I think the biggest culture shock for us was realizing how much travelling we’d be doing. We’re all committed in some way to family back home whether it be girlfriend or marriage or kids. It’s definitely a strain leaving for this long, but at the end of the day we all feel like this is the coolest job in the world.
A good chunk of your songs have a sociopolitical curve to them. Do you feel it’s part of your responsibility as an artist to you use your platform and express your opinion on some of these hot and important topics through music?
I think so, but not in a Michael Moore type of way. Our job, I feel, is more to absorb the beauty and destruction of the world and just kind of put it back out there for all to see. In a South Park kind of way, just make fun of everybody. Like the song “Let ‘Em Burn,” sometimes we’re all just bullshit, ourselves included. We’re all a walking conundrum. And there’s great truths to both sides if we’re talking politics. We don’t feel it is our job to be political, we’re not politicians. We’re musicians.
On the contrary, there’s a lot of very personal songs in your category. Can you talk a bit about one of the more meaningful ones to you in the most recent LP?
The last song, “Fadein/Fadeout,” is definitely more personal to me. It’s about my father and son and pretty much the circle of life. One day, I just looked at my dad and it was obvious he was old and he’s only getting older. Our time is finite and we really need to cherish the limited time we have with each other. I only hope that I can make my dad proud with everything that he’s given me and take all of that and give it to my own son. We’re all really proud of that song. It’s kind of the epic one of the album. It’s kinda crazy because I never thought it’d be something that would catch on or potentially be a single. Octane has been spinning it like crazy and it’s really connecting with people. I’m so honored and proud that we can be a part of that.
It’s quite impressive that three-fourths of the band members have known each other since high school. Can you recall what you guys were like back then compared to now?
Really middle school actually, but yeah. We were different, but we had a lot of very useful idealisms. I think that’s a big reason why we stuck it through and made it. We loved each other, the music we were creating, and playing music. That was enough to justify committing us to the project without giving up. We have grown up a lot and where we are now is so much better than back then. We went from blind faith to actually becoming really good at we do, which allowed us to become even better and do all these cool tours. In a lot of ways, we’re the same though. Just last night, we were traveling from San Diego to Sacramento in the bus and drinking beer and putting on rock songs that we think are cool. It’s nice that that aspect hasn’t died.
I think the next plan is a tour with Papa Roach and Escape the Fate. It was pretty rad that you got to have the Papa Roach vocalist help out on “Don't Stop.”
Yeah, that tour will be early April to late May. Jacoby is such a ball of energy. It was really cool for him to agree to do a guest vocal on “Don’t Stop.” It all just happened last-minute. He was singing it to us for the first time the day of the music video shoot. We did the whole shoot without him already recording it, so it was pretty funny.
What’s next for the band for the rest of the year? Any plans besides touring?
We’ll be hitting Europe for some festivals this summer. And then in the later part of Summer, we’re going to be the opener for Five Finger Death Punch and Breaking Benjamin. We also should have a video for “Just Say When” coming out pretty soon. We just shot it in the El Paso international airport during the middle of the tour.
