Latest / ATX Metal Podcast / Darkness Divided: Returning to Austin One More Time (ATXMP Showcase Headliner)
Transcript
- Ryan Rayle (00:02.636) What is up everybody? Ryan ATX Metal Podcast back again with another showcase artist interview today. We've got darkness divided on the line. We got the vocalist here with us. So we're going to take a little, take a little deep, not a little deep dive. That's Noxie Moron. We're going to take a little dive on the band, you know, history and everything from when they started to where we're at. Gerard (00:21.354) you Ryan Rayle (00:29.63) But they are headlining our show on December 6th at come and take it live the What year is this now the 11th annual? I haven't thrown 11 shows, but this is the 11th year that we've been doing this and Whenever I got wind that darkness divided was was up on the bidding block for doing some shows I reached out to him via Anthony Stevenson. Shout out the homie and you know, I Personally have history with you guys Just from being around back when you guys were pretty on the up and up but But we'll get to that again December 6 come and take it live the showcase We got seven artists obviously darkness is headlining Sims Foundation is gonna be there really really glad that they're gonna be on board And and joining us there, but anyway, let's get to the good stuff drawer Tell us who you are where you're from what you do in the band, and then we'll just go from there, man Gerard (01:19.713) Thank Gerard (01:26.239) Yeah, so I'm Gerard. I'm one of the guys from Darkness Divided I yell at people and get really sweaty. From San Antonio, just a little south, 35. I was born and raised there. I technically live in Floresville, little bit more south now, but yeah, I've lived here my whole life, minus when we were touring and stuff. Yeah, excited to get back to Austin. The last time was in Austin was 2018. So, long time. Ryan Rayle (01:52.851) bit it has it has it has been a minute as they say Gerard (01:57.951) Yeah, yeah, that was a great show too. I was trying to remember the beforehand, but I remember Fifth for An Autopsy was there. I'll say The Art of Murder was there. It was one of Anthony's big fests and it was our last Austin show. Yeah, actually a funny story about that show. We had just played with Spite in Vegas and somewhere else and we were playing that show. Ryan Rayle (02:22.446) Mmm. Gerard (02:24.861) are whatever click track we're doing and I'm not the technical guy so I can't give you the whole thing but basically the headphones weren't working and they let us use their whole whole entire headphone rig because they had just played right before us for that show and it was like barely made that one I think we started they were like nope you gotta start playing right now I'm like all right let's do it so excited to be back and not not hopefully not in a rush with broken stuff You never know, Ryan Rayle (02:53.986) It's it's You it's it's just one of those things that you know Something could go wrong and you practice and you practice and you get your rig set up and you get it dialed in I mean hell I was just interviewing future ghost and Seth has a little bit of a little bit of OCD. He has like his whole rack color-coded He has like a schematic for it where all the plugins go, where it routes to. And then just something could happen, you know, such as like your in-ears, just take a shit. You're like, well, there goes that. How do you, you know, what do you do? It's not, it's not a, how do you dwell on it? It's like, how do you recover? Right. And even, even if you had to go out there without in-ears, like, okay, let me ask that question. If you had no option, what would have been the fallout for that show? no in there. No monitors. Gerard (03:46.727) well, I was gonna say we don't do in-ears, we're not that fancy. So it was literally all we ever do. We're not that good. all we ever do is the drummer has the click and like some of his parts or whatever and stuff. So I guess at that point, it's just figuring out if he's gonna be able to hear anything himself. But if he can't hear himself, then man, I don't know. We would stumble through some stuff, I guess. Ryan Rayle (03:52.668) Ryan Rayle (03:56.843) You Ryan Rayle (04:17.752) He would've just been hitting things like, god, just I don't feel good. Where's the my goodness? Well for those Yeah, right Let's just not play let's not stop play the tech death this would go around Let's let's just do more of you know, some of this for four over here. We'll be good But for those for those that don't know darkness divided give us like a little a little brief bio of Gerard (04:22.532) We played a less tracky song. Gerard (04:35.004) There you go. Ryan Rayle (04:44.524) You know when you guys started who were the og former? Band members and then how we got to where we're at today because you guys have a little bit of a break in your Wikipedia actually I I was shocked that you guys actually do have a Wikipedia, but it does need to be updated I just wanted to let you guys know got to get some more Some more sight some more citations in there to play catch-up, so we'll give you a chance here Gerard (05:06.129) Yeah. The lore is out of date on Wikipedia. You know, and that's the most trusted source out of anything. So I'm surprised. Ryan Rayle (05:15.49) Do real quick, real quick. People used to shit on Wikipedia about it not being a good source of information because it can be edited by actual people. But when you do request an edit or, or something like there are citations to credible sources multiple times each. So the fact that you actually do have a Wikipedia means that there are credible sources of information out there that are Gerard (05:27.205) Uh-huh. Ryan Rayle (05:44.15) Truthful to you know, what is the band? So anyway, sorry. didn't mean to like take a left turn there I was just you know, shout out to Wikipedia Gerard (05:51.792) Something that AI hasn't taken over yet, or it's on its way. Yeah, well, I guess kind of the quick hits for us, you know, we formed, was me and my two brothers who were in the band, Joe and Chris. We formed the band, well, I mean, I guess we started playing in the garage, like every other person, right? Covering, you got your like diet metal bands that get you into it, like a Ven 7 Fold and. Ryan Rayle (05:56.952) Right. Gerard (06:21.702) so on and so forth. And that was something that, you know, Joe and Chris, they were all one year apart, so we're all really close in age. I'm just the oldest. But they're all in the same wavelength when it comes to music, at least back then. And so I was kind of the one right behind. Like I liked Yellow Card and like pop punk stuff, you know. And then so they were writing all this music and they were playing and jamming and they were just like, Ryan Rayle (06:31.625) okay. Gerard (06:50.907) You know, for me, I was like, I was just there. I didn't have anything. I was just, I had to be the one who started yelling that stuff. So, um, we, we wrote our, started writing some music, played our first show at the white rabbit, San Antonio, uh, April 23rd, 2010. I remember that day and yeah, long time ago, man. And it was like, always like, let's see if we can get a song to our band. Let's see if we can do it again. Let's see if we can go play. Ryan Rayle (07:08.45) Whoo! Gerard (07:19.45) somewhere else, it's not San Antonio. And it kind of was just like that, you know, I used to, we put out an EP, we actually went to, I know it's a sore subject now, but back in the day, we went and recorded our first EP at Lambista Studios in California. And after that point, you know, I started going to college, my brother Joe started going to college the next year. And we just had lots of different members at the time, a lot of good friends that we went to high school with and whatnot. And I would just book us little runs, like spring break, summer, anyone that would take us, man, we would go make it happen. And my brother, Chris, I mean, even at that age was like 17 years old. So like my parents would come and we'd all, it would be like family vacation, man, it'd be a good time. Lots of good days. And then once my brother Chris started going to college, and he was like, you know, I just don't want to do this anymore. I want, let's, let's make a real run for it. We kind of sat down, me and him at this time, I was living at my grandparents house, going to school closer in town when I was going to college. And he came over and we made our first EPK and we were like, this is what we're going to do. We're going to, we're going to like take, we're going to try to step up our. you know everything that matters to labels like our marketing and social media and blah blah blah and we were going to record our first album whether we could get labeled to help us or not you know we wanted we started writing the music for it and then we put out a single which I'm gonna blank on what it's called, but it's off of... Written in blood. In 2013. But at that time, yeah, gosh, now it's really gonna bother me. Ryan Rayle (09:09.454) I'll help you out. I'll help you out. Ryan Rayle (09:18.392) Let's see. Spotify's got it in chronological order as the truth. Gerard (09:27.208) Not that one. So that was like off that first EP. Ryan Rayle (09:28.974) That's two. Yeah, that's March 11, 2012. Then we got Chronicles, which has one, two. That's the EP. So then Redeemer. Gerard (09:35.149) That's the EP. Yeah. The next one. No, that was just kind of, there's two more songs in there. Yeah. Redeemer Voyager, the singles, the next next one, which it might not even be a single on there anymore because we ended up putting it on the album. Remnants. That's what it's called. Yeah. There you go. So we had, that's funny. Can't remember. Ryan Rayle (09:43.191) single. Ryan Rayle (09:55.823) the breaker. Remnant yep. As soon as I click on it. Gerard (10:05.016) I'm saying we're not playing that one. I'm playing a long time. Ryan Rayle (10:09.39) Yeah, by the way, we're not playing that one. Gerard (10:13.112) But anyway, so we had done that song and at that time that summer I had booked us a bunch of these shows like we were gone for like a month on the road and we would go play all these Christian metal festivals like Sunshine Festival, Cornerstone was a thing back then, Life Fest and all these things, right? And we got some new, no, HM Magazine. I don't know if you ever saw that magazine. But they would do... Yeah. Yeah, so this is going way back. But back in the day, when we were in high school, there was this TV station. It was called KTV. And they would play Christian metal music videos at like some part of the night. And that's how me and my brothers Ryan Rayle (10:38.542) Mm-hmm. Ryan Rayle (10:45.651) H and HM? That sounds very familiar. Gerard (11:06.411) you know, besides like the old face down samplers or solid state samplers that you get at work tour and all this stuff. That's how we would find a lot of our music. So like they'd play like a plea for purging as they dying. They'd play, you know, haste today, all these bands that we liked. And in that they had a really good connection with this magazine called HM Magazine, Heavy Music Magazine. And the guy, David Stagg, would actually go to all the festivals and he'd be there and he'd you know, do the marketing, interview bands, he'd pick up stuff. So it became really good friends with him. He's actually out of Houston. Yeah, and we never saw him in Texas. We'd always seen him like Illinois or wherever we were in Minnesota and stuff. But anyway, so we became good friends with him. He took that song and he sent it to a bunch of labels that he was friends with. And sure enough, after that day, me and my brother sitting there making all that, making all those ideas. and then going out and playing music. That's when we got our record deal victory and put out a couple albums. And then everyone wanted to get married, man. Yup. Stuff like that, man. And we suddenly being on the road for six months out of the year wasn't going to happen no more. So we put the band down in 2018. And then after that, just, I mean, obviously it's, you know, I'm related to most of the band, so we get together all the time. Ryan Rayle (12:18.966) They wanted to like settle down and shit like what are you doing? No one Gerard (12:47.028) And Sebastian, who's one of our best friends, we see each other quite a bit. And Hayden, who's our drummer, we're all best friends or whatever. So we'd get together and I was like, you know what, it would be just fun to see, to get out there and play every once in a while. So that's kind of what we're doing. Like we were talking before this started, there's not really a whole master plan or anything, but we, put some music out and we've written some more songs. We just haven't nailed them down yet. you know, people reach out and if it makes sense for us and for our families, we're happy to play some gigs. So appreciate you having us for our first Austin show in a little bit of time. Ryan Rayle (13:33.519) Dude, I, you know, like, like I said, you guys dropped King of the undertow, you know, February ish 20 early 2024. like, like I said before, I either heard it back, burned it, missed it, missed the release. but you know, again, I heard it and it's just, it's just, it's just good, you know, like it's just good. Battle core, you know, vibes and, my, my little history, like, like I said, I. first heard of you guys off of a Victory Records sampler that included bands like Islander, you guys were on there and I actually still have it. I think I was going through our chats and I actually took a picture of it and I was like, look what I found. dude, that whole compilation is just, it's so good. It's just, it's a piece of, it's a piece of history, you know? Like, so the, Gerard (14:32.209) Well, there's a funny story about that sampler too, actually. And sorry if I'm waving around like a crazy person, it'll fly in my house somewhere and keep landing on me. But they misspelled the song name on that sampler. Yeah, so it's a song called Eternal Thirst and they put Eternal Trust on there. And it was like way before we even had any of the other songs. Like we just did a mix for that one. Ryan Rayle (14:32.546) So why, guess my- Ryan Rayle (14:46.966) Really? Gerard (15:01.2) Just like put it on the sampler, which is awesome. So it's like the wrong album art and there was no album art. So I just put something on there and misspelled it. So that's pretty funny. Ryan Rayle (15:01.997) Yeah. Ryan Rayle (15:13.442) They're just they're like they're just telling some intern they're like, hey, Joey. Yeah, just it's something trust. I don't know. Truth. Yeah. Just just get on MS Paint and just make something quick. Yeah. Gerard (15:25.232) Yup, pretty much. But I mean, I'm glad we were on it. Those things were cool. I mean, like I said, that's how we heard a lot of bands back in the day. Ryan Rayle (15:33.775) I really enjoy stuff like that. mean, and that's why I throw the showcase is I want to bring different sounds into the same room. Like you can take that sampler CD, throw it in your car. I mean, for those that still have CD players in their car, they actually stop doing that. I fuck. can't remember. I've been in the automotive scene for over 10 years and I can't remember exactly when, but it was like late teens, early 2000s as CD players in some models. They are no more. So, but yeah, you just ride around, you just ride around with that and just let it play. And it's just, who is this? who is this? who is this? So that's, know, why, why I throw these showcases is you're going to hear, you know, like we have a very, I feel like we have a, the only thing that we don't have, I feel is a solid hardcore act. Like we don't have that just knuckle dragging, you know, Kubla Khan sound or that I am or You know the the just I mean because our hardcore scene here and to include san antonio san antonio's got a spicy little hardcore scene going on but What's what's it like when you guys throw? What's it like in the hometown shows? I mean you guys did you've played correct me if i'm wrong, but I know with memories and broken glass shout out to the homies. Who else you guys played with this year? Gerard (16:41.495) Yeah. Gerard (16:59.148) This year, a whole lot. did in January, we played the Vibes Underground, which was cool because we actually, I'm an insurance agent, so I actually kind of just sponsored that show or whatever, paid the rent. And I was like, hey, let's just have fun, man. So I booked a couple, I mean, a lot of really, we kind of had picked the bands. So was us, Bloodlines. Ryan Rayle (17:02.489) Or was it? Ryan Rayle (17:16.579) haha. Ryan Rayle (17:20.622) Yeah. Gerard (17:28.108) from the valley. Postal, Left 4 Dead, now I'm gonna be a jerk because I'm gonna, Crossways was there. So a of great bands. 400 people came out, so that was cool. And then, and that was just on a whim. And then we did, that Corpus show kinda went south, unfortunately, but we played in Corpus. Ryan Rayle (17:30.445) Yup. Ryan Rayle (17:37.469) yep. Gerard (17:58.165) The promoter was awesome, still had us, but the venue fell out the week before, so memories didn't end up laying. But then we played San Antonio again for one of our really good friends, Jennifer Holt, from Twin Productions. She booked our first show and booked us many, times throughout the years. It was her birthday, so a couple weeks before it happened, she was like, can y'all play? And I was like, let's do it. And then... Ryan Rayle (18:26.979) Ha ha ha! Gerard (18:27.632) Before that, we played when Shattered Sun came back last year at Brewster. Ryan Rayle (18:35.055) That's what I was thinking of. The Brewster Street shattered. Gerard (18:37.834) We did that. We did Corpus with Impending Doom last year. And then we played with The Pawn in Houston last year. And then we played with The Pawn in San Antonio for our first show back. I think that's it. I think that's all we've done so far. And then we put the song out. So. Ryan Rayle (19:02.063) Yeah, so and and for and for those that don't know this will be their only Austin date So get your tickets now. You can go to the website and type in you know My bad med at that one out But you can you can you can go to the website to the the to the link you can put in? Darkness divided you can put in any of the bands or you can just pay us $25 at the day day of show come in and put monies Gerard (19:16.082) See you. Ryan Rayle (19:31.307) in my hand so can turn around and give it to these fellas for creating the sweet sweet sounds. So since you guys don't, I mean you guys have a pretty pretty pretty good catalog, what can we expect sound wise or song wise to include anything that's not on the internet? Gerard (19:33.736) We appreciate it. Gerard (19:53.03) Hmm. Well, we're not playing anything not on the internet everything you can get pretty much on the internet. Yeah No deep cuts man, yeah, no where you know we We've fallen into like the songs that we love the most that we just like to play so we pretty much stick to those Ryan Rayle (19:57.463) Okay. No deep cuts. No deep cuts. Gerard (20:19.176) You know, we do all the ones we have videos for and stuff like that. But there's like. We I feel like there's like two eras of our band and it's like and I'm awkwardly standing by both of them, right? Are they're sitting right behind me? So you have your more metalcore ish sound and then you have this one which is, you know, it's still metalcore, but it's got like more guitar solos and bigger choruses and stuff like that. And I feel like for the most of the band. Ryan Rayle (20:23.855) Mm-hmm. Gerard (20:49.795) We like to play most of the self-titled stuff, but we do a little bit of a good mix of both, for sure. Ryan Rayle (20:56.505) Okay, okay. What about, where did, so speaking of, mean, obviously the artwork behind you is obviously written in blood. mean, that's just, that's like, you know, and I hope you, I'm sure you guys wear that song with honor. It's like, that's like, you know, the song, right? People are gonna. People are going to lose their minds and you know, and you know, whenever you're announcing it, you're like, all right, this is our last song. If everybody knows it, come up here and sing it. And then we're all going to move up front. We're all going to come sing it with you. But, but where did, where did, where did Kings come from? Was that something? Cause I mean, again, to go dark in 2018 and then in early 2024, you just released this song and it's like, poof, here it is. And, and now it's just, you know, Gerard (21:32.487) I that. I need help with it. Ryan Rayle (21:49.955) We're all patiently waiting like, is there more? Is there something down the road? But yeah, where did that come from? Gerard (21:57.425) Yeah, we actually wrote that, part of those, like Sebastian Chris wrote some of those riffs, like I wanna say literally like a year after we broke up, like 2019. And then, I mean, it might've been later than that, but somewhere around there. And then same thing, man, just, know, life's busy, life moves quick. And, you know, we knew we couldn't do the band at the same capacity that we had been doing it. Ryan Rayle (22:08.836) Okay. Gerard (22:25.288) But when more ideas come up, and we're very fortunate because my brother Chris has the studio, right? So if he's inspired, he just puts it down. And Bass is able to record himself too, so they kind of did that for a little bit. then I want to say, gosh, probably, I guess it had to have been, probably it was just a few months before we announced that first show. We actually were like, okay, let's let's you know, sit down and write to do the song together and no one knows this because we didn't really talk about it or say anything about it. But that song is all a hundred percent about fishing and I don't think anyone got it. If you like. Ryan Rayle (23:15.196) Hold on, it's all about fishing? Really? Gerard (23:17.39) It's all about fishing. if you go back, so I wrote the lyrics to where it sounds like you can, if you, if you go back and read it now, you probably laughed about it. it's kind of like fishing, which is the king of the undertow is a fish. Right. And then, but I wrote it like in a way where it's like, could, maybe it like get some kind of like, almost like spiritual meaning or something else about it. Like if you were like in there. Like you couldn't really tell, but I was like, but you can kind of tell, at least I can tell. So, that was cool because it was like, we were putting the first song back out, like, you know, we didn't want to like make it like it had to fit a mold or like we were super pressured to do it like a certain way or anything like that. We just wanted to put something like some music out, like we just wanted to do it, right? And so. Ryan Rayle (23:48.111) Okay. Gerard (24:14.117) Even when we were just shopping the idea, like in the studio, like putting it together, since it's just one song, there wasn't like a big theme to it. Like if you listen to our self-titled album, it's broken into three parts and it's like a whole entire journey, Lyrically and sonically and everything. This was just like, we're guys, we're friends, we're putting this song out. let's not take it too seriously, but seriously enough. And so it's cool. It was fun to do and it took a lot of pressure off and it made recording it a lot of fun. And we have all these ideas, like we wanted to do like, like shoot a video of us fishing at like ponds and at the ocean or whatever, stuff like that, but never made it happen. But it was cool to get the song out and. If you look at the out mart, there's the it's just two guys on a boat fishing for that big fish. Ryan Rayle (25:13.689) Yeah, I was gonna say this for those obviously you can just go look well. It's not gonna zoom in but Yeah, that is a gnarly fucking animal that has climbed out of the oceans I was I did not think fishing, but then again. I really don't I really don't listen to the Something I don't listen to the lyrics the lyrics are there and if I can understand them and if I can come around and you know if I listen to the song enough obviously, but I'm more of a music guy, more of the audio, the guitars or the drums or the bass or even the vocals. like that's what got me into it was the actual sound, the song itself. I am now going to look at this song a little bit differently knowing that it's just about fishing. Gerard (26:00.769) Yeah, we we put it out and then I don't there was some YouTube channel that picked it up Like I bet just reviews like new artists that are artists that are putting on new songs and stuff like that I can remember it's pretty popular one and they're like it just feels like the lyrics are like, know, like on the word undertow It's like real generic and stuff and I was like, don't they just don't know what the songs about Ryan Rayle (26:27.471) They don't know. They don't know. Gerard (26:28.801) It's okay, man. Everyone's gonna listen to it their own way. That's how music is Ryan Rayle (26:33.295) Of course, of course. that's, and I think that's, I'm, I mean, it just goes to show that you can be a serious band, but you can put out music that, you know, is low key about something completely different. But everybody that hears it might hear this revelation of something. And they're like, just, I mean, just imagine standing in the merch line and they come up and they're like, my God, Gerard, that song changed my life. The lyric. you know, da da da da da, and in the back of your head, you're just like, hey, that's great. That's great. It was just about us on boats and ponds and lakes, but the fact that you just, you know, had this spiritual connection to it, perfect, right? It's, it's, it is crazy how music can make you feel and, and, you know, get you, get you moving and grooving in the pit. get you or just hanging in the back with us old folks just bobbing our heads trying not to catch a backy-otomy. I don't want to take up too much more of your time. I know that you got the little one there to tend to, so I greatly appreciate you carving out some time. I'm glad that we did get to do this. Is there anything, anybody you want to give a special shout out to? Thanks. And then the at's where people can follow you and support you. Gerard (27:52.287) Yeah, no, that sounds great, Well, I appreciate you. Thanks for having us come play. And I know you've been playing our music for years. You know, I've seen it all the time. And so I appreciate that a ton. That was that's always super helpful. And it's cool to have, you know, someone in the community doing what you're doing. So thanks for that. I'm excited to play. Of course, always thanks to come and take Anthony Stevenson, you know, like we're talking about before we started this. He was really the only one who would ever book us in Austin. Ryan Rayle (28:01.049) Yep. Ryan Rayle (28:10.511) Appreciate it. Gerard (28:21.824) I remember when we played the Dirty Dog all the time before he had his own venue and stuff. So he's a homie. Excited to see him. So appreciate that and the Austin scene and everything like that. But no, nothing else, man. We're just excited to come play. A good way for us to end our year. you know, for as far as like following the band, you know, we're on all the things. We have a Twitter account, but... Ryan Rayle (28:27.609) Rest in peace. Gerard (28:48.479) I don't even know how to log in there and get like that. And it's not called Twitter anymore. Ryan Rayle (28:52.365) go ahead. I'll go ahead and tell you Twitter is not where it's at for bands. It's either it's either Instagram or or Tick Tock. Gerard (29:02.751) Yeah, we don't have to talk yet. We never moved over there. We're old, but Facebook, Instagram. We haven't made that transition yet. I haven't posted a lot of reels or whatever they're called. But anyway, Instagram, whatever Spotify that's aging there, man. So, you know, just whatever they are, the little things that you can swipe like a bathroom or whatever. But know that YouTube. Ryan Rayle (29:08.111) bunch of old bums. Ryan Rayle (29:20.783) He's like just whatever they're called just them their video things Gerard (29:31.921) Spotify, Apple Music, all that stuff. So, appreciate it. Ryan Rayle (29:35.663) Cool. And it's darkness divided, not dark divine. If you don't type in enough letters, you're going to get the wrong band. anyway, yeah, again, Drawer, thank you very much. I'm super excited to see you guys come throw down one last time, and the only time in Austin. So if you're a fan, if you missed them in their heyday whenever they were on the swinging, swinging steps of victory and you know, to call it, not quits, but they just had to hang it up for a little bit 2018. Come on out, day of $25, come give us that cash and get your butt in there and have a drink and buy some merch. We got an excellent, excellent lineup of locals all the way from San Antonio to Austin, Texas, up to Temple. It's gonna be great. you know, I really hope to see, you know, We're gonna see some friendly faces, I really I want to see I want to see some new faces We'll see some new faces So if you're new and you're coming out, make sure you find me and tell me hey, this is my first time here Or hey, this is my first time seeing darkness or my first time seen any of the other local bands I would love to have that conversation with you. But until then draw my man be safe. Take care of that little baby My name is Ryan. This is the podcast and we'll see you later Gerard (30:57.501) Awesome, thanks man.