Originally published in Verbicide issue #4

Hailing from the quiet shores of Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont, a very loud band called Drowningman has become a prominent force in the hardcore/metal scene. Already having released impressive EPs and full-lengths on both Hydra Head and Revelation, “D-man” recently released a new EP on Equal Vision entitled Drowningman Still Loves You, and have begun work on their next full-length for Rev. I got a chance to speak with vocalist Simon Brody in early October.

What’s the hardcore scene like in Burlington? Do you have a loyal local following, or is the majority of the public even aware that you guys exist?
Well…there is a local scene; it’s a pretty typical “small-town” New England scene where there’s high school kids into high school bands playing the heavy “mosh” kind of stuff. We do fairly well here, but it’s never really been an area we concentrated on — even early on, we were always more interested in playing out of town than playing in Burlington. We do better here than we used to.

Did you start off playing shows locally, like at Higher Ground?
Actually, that place wasn’t even open then. We started out playing at 242 Main, which is an all-ages club in Burlington that I actually run now. We used to play a lot at Toast, too…I used to work there. Nothing against the Burlington scene, but it’s a small scene. It’s not what people who live in bigger cities or who are from bigger states are used to. If the band was gonna go anywhere, it’s not like we could sit in Burlington forever, because that’s not really gonna do much for us.

What is it like being in a band from a small, rural area, competing with bands from larger areas like Boston, New York, and so on? Do you find that it makes it easier to get noticed because the music market is less saturated, or is it more difficult because the area doesn’t get much attention?
Well, I don’t really like to think of it as “competing” with other bands, although we’ve definitely met up with other bands that can turn it into that. It definitely took us a while before we got noticed…I had just moved back to Burlington in late 1995, which is when the band first started. We didn’t start playing shows till the beginning of 1996…at that time I had been living in Boston for a while…

Did you go to school there?
Yeah, I went to Emerson, so I knew a lot of people in Boston. At the time when the band was starting, we kind of had ideas of what we wanted to do, and around that time some records started coming out that helped to shape what the band became…like Deadguy’s Fixated on a Coworker was a favorite record, and changed a lot of things for us; also, we listened to the Converge seven-inch and that definitely made some changes in the band. It was a good time for us, because we were playing a lot around Boston. Some of our first shows were with Piebald, Cave In, and Converge, and it was a time when that whole scene was starting to get noticed, and we got lumped in with that whole thing, which was a good thing. A lot of people early on assumed we were from Boston because we got signed to Hydra Head and we were playing a lot of shows in that area.

Do you take extra pride in knowing that you and your band have accomplished so much coming from such a remote area?
Yeah, it’s kind of cool, but what we do and what’s gone on for us…a lot of people up here don’t even know about it. I mean, maybe it’s a good thing for us, because I think other kids in bands from other areas can end up getting a “big head” because all the kids in their local scene are so…

“Into them?”
Well, not even that; there are kids up here that are into us, definitely, but it’s not like there’s a ton of “scenester” kids and we’re not the “cool” kids because we’re in the “big band” in town, you know? And you see that happen to a lot of kids in bands, and here, we’re just “normal dudes” to everybody. The thing that’s definitely made it hard for us is that Javin [Leonard, guitarist and Drowningman co-founder] and I are not kids, we’re “older” people. When the band started out we were all playing with people our age; the band has been around almost six years now, and people have come and gone…over the past year we’ve given up on trying to find people our own age if somebody leaves the band, so we have younger people playing in the band now — which can be a cool thing.

Your first two records were released on Hydra Head, followed by two on Revelation, and your current EP Drowningman Still Loves You on Equal Vision. How were you discovered by these larger independent labels?
Right when the band first got together — probably about two or three months afterward — we recorded a demo and sent it out to a bunch of labels, and got no reply from anyone. So we decided we needed to play more out-of-state, so we spent a whole year playing any show we could book out-of-state. After that year, we decided to put out our own seven-inch. We spent as much time as we could, saved up as much money as we could — about $1500, which at the time wasn’t easy for us to scrape together — and then we went into the studio and recorded.

When we were done, we felt that it came out really well. We figured it would take us a long time to save the money to record a full-length, so in the meantime we sent out about 12 or 13 copies to record labels and got responses from seven of them. Revelation and Equal Vision got back to us, but they were a little hesitant because at the time we were unknown. Hydra Head got back to us right away, and wanted to put out a record with us — there were only a couple labels who in the first phone call said, “Let’s put out a record.” At the time we didn’t want to bother with waiting and negotiation, and we went for it with Hydra Head.

What are your plans for your next full-length? Will you be returning to Revelation, or will it be released on Equal Vision?
We have one more full-length left in our contract with Revelation.

How did you end up doing the EP with Equal Vision?
They make all our merchandise. We once had a tour with a lot of van trouble, so we came home pretty broke…we spent all the money that we were supposed to be saving to pay them back for merch on van repairs. We negotiated with them to do a record in trade for the merch. Plus, they were cool enough to do it. They’ve been friends with us for a while; they were one of the first labels to be interested in us.

What’s it like living with the awful truth that you’re not as cool as you’d like other people to think you are? (laughter)
It’s not easy, and I think most people do it.

This past June, you organized & put on the Monster Fest in Burlington. How did that go, and what was it like trying to attract bands and legions of hardcore fans to make the trek to northern Vermont?
It was definitely a stressful thing putting that all together. I think we are going to do it again, on some scale, but it definitely won’t be a three-day event. I wish I’d reconsidered doing the Sunday show and putting some bigger bands on that day, because as I found out, everybody leaves on Sunday to go home. It didn’t do as well as we hoped, and we lost a bit of money on it, but I think enough people came to it. We figured out what we spent way too much money on…and there were certain bands that didn’t really help the draw that we spent too much on.

Which bands?
Basically, any band that had a tour bus cost a lot and was unnecessary for the bill, like Soul Brains and Napalm Death. They headlined both days, and not as many people stuck around to see them as I’d hoped.

What band, in your opinion, was the highlight of the festival?
It’s hard, because I was so busy I didn’t really get to watch everything. The only time I was anywhere near the stage for a full set was when we played…well, actually, I saw all of Darkest Hour’s set because their sets are so short. That was probably one of the highlights for me, watching Darkest Hour, and knowing that soon the whole headache of doing the fest was going to be over, and in a week we’d be on tour of them. It got us psyched for the tour.

Who are some other bands that you’re currently into or find inspiring?
I actually just bought the new Milemarker, the new Dismemberment Plan, and the last Bjork record — I mostly listen to quieter stuff; I’ve definitely seen enough and heard enough metal in the last five years, so I don’t tend to listen to it a lot at home.

Who is your favorite all-time hardcore/metal band?
Jeez…I dunno…my favorite all-time band is The Clash, but they’re not a hardcore band…I guess I’d have to go with either the Misfits or the Bad Brains.

“Old-school.”
It’s funny, because it’s not stuff I really listen to much, but I’d have to say that because those are bands that I just listened to over and over again. Probably once a year I can throw one of those records on, but I end up burning myself out on stuff a lot.

Are you planning on touring any time soon?
Well, we realized that we were over-scheduling ourselves, and beating the shit out of ourselves by being on the road, and recording, etc. etc…for this next record we wanted to really make sure we made the best possible record we can make, and sit down, and think about everything before we do it. I think it’s going to be a different kind of record than what we’ve done in the past, but hopefully it’s gonna be a big leap — in a good way. We’re working on a lot of stuff, bringing a lot of people in, trying to get a little “tricky.”

Name your single most favorite & least favorite things about Vermont.
My favorite thing is fall in Vermont, and my least favorite thing is winter in Vermont. (laughter) Like the two weeks at the end of January and the beginning of February when I’ve just had enough of it!

Last question: in the spirit of Phish and the Grateful Dead, will Ben & Jerry’s be manufacturing Drowningman ice cream any time soon?
Funny, that’s probably the third or fourth time somebody’s asked me that.

Damn! I thought I was being really creative.
(laughter) Well, I doubt they will.

Those bastards.
Yep.