Interviews

From A Second Story Window: Acknowledging the Past: Delenda 10 years later

Acknowledging the Past: Delenda 10 years later An interview with: Derek Vasconi formerly of From A Second Story Window Written By: George Archibald Allow me to paint a picture of a musical landscape for you. It’s 2006, Djent didn’t exist, deathcore was in its infancy, mathcore wasn’t even defined as a genre yet. Most music stuck […]

Published

10 years ago

May 26, 2016

George Archibald

Acknowledging the Past: Delenda 10 years later

An interview with: Derek Vasconi formerly of From A Second Story Window

Written By: George Archibald

Allow me to paint a picture of a musical landscape for you. It’s 2006, Djent didn’t exist, deathcore was in its infancy, mathcore wasn’t even defined as a genre yet. Most music stuck to the overall progression of verse, verse, chorus, bridge, verse or any variation of those. Along comes a band from Ohiovania (the area of where western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio meet) that will help change the way metal music is written and performed.

I remember being in my own local band and getting a call, “Hey man, get your shit together and come to Cleveland. We want your band to be on our CD release show.” Accepting, my band had no idea that we would be rubbing shoulders with Misery Index, Job For A Cowboy, and Animosity that night while waiting to hear something new from my friends.

From A Second Story Window released Delenda on July 11^th, 2006 through Black Market Activities a subsidiary of Metal Blade Records. The music was quite difficult to define or place in just one genre at that time, it still is. Infusing bits of melody, with death metal, a little bit of the spastic, and the fundamentals of math metal, Delenda was a bit of a masterpiece at the time of its release.

From A Second Story Window

From A Second Story Window was a band that had no set form to their writing. They would create up to and over 40 different parts per song and here’s the kicker, nothing repeated. Once you heard a riff it was gone, to be replaced by another riff. They were once quoted as, “We make music for people with Attention Deficit Disorder,” as there was always something in there to catch your ear.

This style of writing had to have been a massive undertaking. To help me reveal the story behind the album I asked a dear friend of mine, Derek Vasconi to tell his side of things. Derek is said to be one of the creative masterminds behind Delenda, and one of the main writers on the album.

George Archibald: Let’s start with the process of writing Delenda, I know the band was touring for several years before going into the studio to record the album. How did the idea of Delenda start off? Was it a riff, a drum beat, lyrical idea?

Derek: The writing process was… interesting, to say the least. Right after we finished writing for the EP, we started working on new songs. We were touring at the time so we only had “Soft Green Fields” written, which ended up being the first track on the album. What’s weird is that whenever I wrote guitar tracks for both the EP and Delenda, the way you see them arranged on the album is the order in which they were actually written. I know some bands don’t write like that, but for me, I had to do it that way, especially with Delenda, because of how the songs flow from one track to the next. I mean, there were exceptions to this, but not too many.

I also had a rule that I kept to as much as humanly possible with writing. That was to always start a song with something different than the song before it, end the song with something different than the song before it, and have something in the middle of the song that was different than all the songs before it. So the writing process got more and more difficult, as more and more songs got written. If you listen to every song from Delenda, this rule is followed religiously by us. That was kind of the beginning of the writing process. It was more of a self-imposed rule than anything else, but I did this because I really hated listening to albums that had five or six songs on them that sounded exactly the same. It just got tiring to me after a while with so many bands doing their writing like that. It felt lazy and not creative at all.

Anyway, after we had a break in touring and we had played “Soft Green Fields” for a while, we all wanted to follow up the EP with new material that would actually be part of a concept album. I forget what tour we were on, but I do remember there was one point we were all in the van and sitting outside a venue somewhere. We all kind of went through the ideas we wanted Delenda to be born from and from that conversation, I remember piecing together the entire album all at once.

For me, writing an album was comprehensive. I had to know, first of all, the outline for every song. Then I would write down how I wanted each song to feel, or sound like, and what would each song needed in order to follow the self-imposed rule I mentioned earlier. So that outline came first, that was painstaking, to say the least. Once the album outline was fleshed out, I got to work on the next song after “Soft Green Fields,” which was “Dark Waters of Thought”. This song was one of the only exceptions to song placement on the album that was out of order, song-wise, when putting a song on an album up to that point for us. I think everyone vetoed me on putting it after “A Piece of History Written in English.” I think everybody really wanted “A Piece of History Written in English” to follow up “Soft Green Fields” because of the tapping riff at the beginning of it was something we had never really done before, and wanted to show everybody we actually were growing with our guitar skills.

So in terms of writing, I started arranging how the songs would go, and then began the really fun (note: sarcasm) process of writing close to 100+ guitar riffs for Delenda. That took about a solid year of writing to get it all completed on my end, and that’s not counting all the drum work that Nick did, Joe’s bass parts, and Rob’s guitar additions.

GA: What were some of your influences at the time that affected the writing process of this album?

DV: Well, for me, everything could be an influence and often was. I also tried very much to NOT have any metal songs as influences, simply because I believed that it would water down our songs and not make them original. I mean, there were SOME metal things I enjoyed while writing Delenda and they kind of made their way into my guitar parts. For instance, I was hooked on A Life Once Lost for a while, probably for a solid month. I kept trying to come up with one of their crazy riffs that I think gave birth kind of to the whole Djent trend that is sadly now a saturated mess in the underground metal scene these days. Meshuggah is probably who I think everyone would agree officially started all the copycats of them from giving birth to the off-time guitar riffing and Djent madness of today. But ALOL was also doing it their own way, at least for a few albums in the middle of their catalogue. So, I did my best to come up with something too that was similar what they were doing with their syncopated off time riffs, and the part I came up with made its way onto “These Lights Above Us.” You can hear it near the end around the 2:50 mark, right before the big stoner riff that ends the song. It’s the part where Will is screaming “THEY ARE THE ANGELS SENT TO KILL US” over and over again. I’m sure you can guess the part if you listen to it closely enough and hear my attempt at being ALOL in there.

In terms of other influences, mostly it was stuff I really was deeply into at the time, for example, Bjork. If you listen to her album, Vespertine, the very first track’s weird beginning melody, which was kind of like a bassline, became the first major breakdown in the song, “The Crusher”. Of course, I added a bunch of breaks and our typical ADD stuff we put into our songs to make it interesting, but that riff formed that entire breakdown part. Thinking about that part now… I think I can say that I still love that breakdown probably the most off the entire Delenda album.

Another major influence was Circle Takes the Square, who was my favorite band to tour with and also to listen to. Their music wasn’t exactly metal, but more hyper-melodic parts infused together, one after the other, and just weirdness in so many indescribable ways that it was baffling to the mind to listen to them. Consequently, I think they were closest to us in many ways, in terms of how they structured a lot of their songs. Mostly I loved the fact that they could be so intricate with folksy guitar riffs, which was the key component to their weirdness and creativity. Well, my writing style came out of the fact that I could only play acoustic guitar when writing songs because I often lived with people who wouldn’t appreciate me playing on a half-stack or even a small amp. I would end up writing a lot of folky acoustic riffs but in a drop tuned format. They became these sad sounding, but kind of off sounding riffs, which is 90% of everything on Delenda. Circle Takes the Square kind of had that same sound. So it was easy to listen to their albums and borrow from them, and not feel like I was watering down anything in what we wrote. It was more a tribute to them, if anything else, because they were and still are one of the greatest bands to ever play music in the history of underground music. It was one of the greatest honors in my life to have toured with them, and they are all pretty nice individuals too!

Other influences were so varied it would be impossible to name them all, as I literally had a stack of a few hundred CDs next to me when writing Delenda. Some of the more unusual CDs that provided me with riff ideas that actually made it onto Delenda was 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ album, OK Computer by Radio Head, Sigur Ros’s albums, One True Thing’s Finally, and The Rocking Horse Winner’s albums. All material by them was reincarnated in some form, or another on guitar riffs I wrote for Delenda.

GA: One of the cooler things about the album is that Delenda is a concept album, would you like to add onto this? (What’s the story of the album?)

DV: The album is about loss. Every song deals with loss in some form. The name “Delenda”, means the process of destroying everything. But we weren’t trying to be hard asses by naming the album this or anything silly like that. I suggested the name and everybody fell in love with it pretty fast. We had always wanted to write an album that dealt with a lot of the loss we each had in our lives up to that point. As the songs progress to the end of the album, it goes from destroying ourselves, to destroying the world, and finally destroying the universe.

GA: Where did you record the album at, who with, and how long were you there for?

DV: We recorded in Syracuse at More Sound Studios with a very talented guy named Jocko. I don’t remember how long we were there for… maybe a week? Maybe two weeks? I unfortunately don’t remember, I’m sorry!

GA: During the recording process what was a typical daily routine for you and the band since you stayed in New York during the process?

DV: Well, once we got there and setup, Nick and I did a run through of every song to get his drums recorded. That was the very first thing we banged out. After that, I recorded all my guitar parts, then Rob did his guitar tracks, and Joe did his bass parts, and then Will did vocals.

The routine was really easygoing. We tried to keep a schedule most days, but it never ended up the way we planned, like, ever. I remember being really sick too. We got drunk and high a lot as well, which was pretty much what we did a lot at that time anyway. So I guess you could call that our routine while we were there. We all stayed in the very tiny apartment at the top of the studio, and did a lot of TV watching, eating good food. I remember there was an awesome place nearby the studio that had really good smoked BBQ wings… that was something I ate rather often while we were there recording. We listened to music while hanging out with people who stopped by to say hi to us and Jocko. I remember the guys in Ed Gein and Keith from Found Dead Hanging hung out with us a few times, and that was great to have them there since they were label mates.

In all honesty, every day was kind of different. As we got into more and more of the recording process, I found myself tied to the mixing board going over everything with a fine tooth comb rather than doing anything extracurricular. I think all of us did, pretty much, because we all wanted this album to be perfect. I’m not sure if we accomplished that or not, but I feel like there isn’t a single misstep on the album. Everything on there is what we worked very hard to have on there, without exception.

GA: This album has many different elements included in it, for instance there are wind chimes on the opening track and on Ghosts in Japan it has piano accompanied with drums? Whose idea was it to have these different elements on the album? To me this makes this album stand out and more dynamic for breaking the mold of what could be considered normal on a metal album at the time.

DV: The wind chimes were something we all wanted to have on the album, but weren’t quite sure how to go about having them on there. We practiced at Nick’s parents place, and they had a great set of wind chimes I believe right outside their front door. We decided to try those and see how that would turn out when recorded inside the studio being swayed back and forth. Fortunately, Jocko was able to do some cool stuff with the recording to get them to sound just right. If I remember correctly, we recorded those chimes for a while but only a certain portion of that recording was put at the beginning of Delenda.

The drum track with the piano that comes right after the wind chimes was a last minute addition to Delenda. It’s one of those happy accidents of recording. Jocko took us to this all women’s college where they had this brand new baby grand piano, and I was given permission to play it for “Ghosts Over Japan”. I think Jocko’s girlfriend at the time was either going there or teaching there. Anyway, in the music hall where the piano was setup, there was a gigantic timpani drum set up on the stage, right alongside the baby grand piano. When I was doing finger warm ups on the baby grand, I came up with the piano riff that you hear on that first track after the wind chimes. I just played that over and over again, and Jocko just hit “record.” When I heard it, I got the idea to then go over to the timpani drum, and play the beat you hear that comes in before the piano riff. I don’t how to explain it, but I just heard that drum beat over and over in my head while warming up to play “Ghosts Over Japan”, and it worked with that piano riff.

The guitar part you hear in the background of this piano and drum part, and which comes in towards the end was my attempt at being Sigur Ros. I had bought a cello bow, and we got some weird resin gunk and smeared it on the bowstring, then Rob played the bow on his guitar. So that sound you hear is all distorted and screwed up is Rob playing the cello bow randomly on his guitar strings. I believe we had the guitar running through a heavy reverb and delay pedal too.

As for “Ghosts Over Japan”, I had always wanted to kind of do something with piano. At that time, I was heavily into Tori Amos. Tori’s music also influenced a few guitar riffs here and there on Delenda. Her music often was written as though it was made for the guitar, I swear. Anyway, Will and I one-night kind of worked out the lyrics and how the song would go. Then I brought that to practice, Nick of course just nailed the drums behind it in one sitting. The song kind of took shape from there.

Musically speaking, this song was also written to convey just a different side of what we wanted to do musically. This was probably where we would’ve kept going had I remained in the band. I’m not saying we would’ve gone completely emo or not have metal or grind stuff in our songs. I remember right before I left the band, I wanted to do a possible double album concept, where one album would be mellow and the other super hard, and see how that dichotomy worked together for us. We were very lucky to have Will who could actually sing really, really well. We wanted to do more of that kind of song-writing eventually. Since everyone in the band enjoyed songs where it wasn’t just straight up head-banging or going nuts but also melodic parts you could really sink your soul into and get lost in. “Ghosts Over Japan” was sort of the first stab in that direction, so to speak. I think the band did very well after I left, with Will and his voice being really showcased on the songs they wrote for Conversations too. I was happy about that.

GA: On “Oracles and Doorsteps” there is a bit of a call and response element to the song, was this intended or was it just part of the concept of album and it caught on to live performances?

DV: Yes, I always wanted a call and response on that middle part. If you read the lyrics, you’ll notice it deals with the loss of life from a female perspective. So when we were in Syracuse, we called a bunch of our friends in the area who were female, including one of the girls who I believe was dating the singer for Donnybrook at the time. We got her and a bunch of other girls to come to the studio for us. So, one day in the studio, maybe ten or twelve, and they all did the call and response for the WE ARE THE MEANS response to the I AM THE ANSWER call that Will did. I remember it being a ton of fun, standing in the recording booth with them and kind of guiding them like a conductor.

The first recording didn’t come out great at all, however, and actually didn’t have the kind of effect I had hoped for. Thanks to Jocko burying it just right in the mix, I felt the end result turned out great. I am not sure if it ever caught on live because we didn’t play it out as much when I was in the band. I mean, we did initially when we wrote it, but it was still too new for anyone to know that part well enough to know it was a live call and response part that could be very fun to participate in. However, for the purpose of the song-writing element of “Oracles and Doorsteps”, I had wanted a call and response forever on a song. It seemed to fit that song perfectly on that part. I wanted to have just a part where our guitars kind of just sustained and Nick’s drums played with Will’s voice. Then the girls shouting and it breaks back into that tight, strange guitar part that was weirdly strummed. A one or two chord progression that was syncopated with Nick’s drums. Also, I wanted that call and response to be our “hardcore” moment on Delenda. I got the idea from listening to so many old school hardcore bands back in the day. I felt that was something so incredible on old hardcore albums. I loved whenever a part like that would come up in a song, so much so that I wanted to pay tribute to those old hardcore bands with a call and response part like theirs. The irony is that I did it with girls and not dudes. I hope people realize that was also intentional, since those tough guy chants on old hardcore songs were all about the testosterone, I thought it would be progressive, or just counterpoint to make them all estrogen, so to speak. Kind of an inside joke that only I think me and my band got at the time.

GA: What are some of your fondest memories in developing this album?

DV: Aside from all that I’ve shared? I think just being together with my band was really special. When we would go home from tours, I never got to hang out with any of them. I was either too busy chasing after girls, or writing guitar tracks. There were so many times that I couldn’t go and hang out, because I was confined to my bedroom while writing for Delenda, and before that the EP (or I was too distracted by girls to see that I had four other guys in my band who wanted to be my friend). I felt bad because it hurt my relationship with the others a lot. So much so that I left FASSW because of it. However when we were together recording, we all were pretty unified and had fun together. I remember we also had got confirmation during that time recording, that we would be headlining a tour that summer with Job For A Cowboy, Misery Index, Animosity, and Cattle Decapitation. Talk about motivation to write something that could even begin to hold its weight with all those talented bands!

I think working with somebody as talented as Jocko was a real privilege too, and also the spontaneity that kind of came out of nowhere on some of the stuff that was written. For instance, that drum part at the beginning of the album, or the guitar solo that Rob came up with on “For Those Lost”. That kind of stuff was so exciting to watch unfold right in front of us.

Maybe the best memory for me was the day that Will nailed all his vocals, and we had finally completed recording. All of us sat in front of the mixing board, with the lights low, and listening to what we had done together. It brought tears to my eyes, and to this day, it’s something that I’ll always have with me as one of the best memories of my entire life. I’ll take that to my grave, that moment where we all were just friends together, and did something that we knew we would appreciate, and enjoy playing for years to come.

GA: What were some of the difficulties that were encountered in making the album?

DV: Honestly, there weren’t too many. I mean, we went to the recording studio well practiced and everything very much thought out. The difficulties, I remember were staying on track each day, since all of our ADD kind of kicked into high gear being in that tiny apartment with so little to do each day when we weren’t being called upon to do something for the recording. Plus, for me, I was sick at the beginning, and that didn’t help things at all. I think nailing the guitar parts in some of the songs was SUPER frustrating, because they are so technical and I’m not a technical player in the least. I spent quite a few hours trying to play parts, and get them just right, it was hard for me. But nothing out of the ordinary I would say. It was actually a lot of fun. It was hard work, sure, but fun too.

GA: Anything you want to add to the interview or about the album?

DV: I just want to say thanks for even caring enough about Delenda, to talk about it ten years after it was written. I can’t even believe it’s been that long since it came out! Some days it seems like it was just yesterday we finished recording that album, and other days, I still can’t believe my fingers played so many technical things on that album. I came up with so many guitar parts for that album, that I couldn’t even begin to play today, it’s been so long! However, the best thing I took from writing Delenda was playing with four other guys who I was lucky enough to share the stage with and be part of with in FASSW. Along with this, I felt very humbled by the response we had by people who came to watch us play. All of whom I am very grateful to have met and talked to and got to know personally in many instances. There are a lot of days now when I wish I could have kept playing in FASSW, or that FASSW would reunite to do like a full tour where we played Delenda in its entirety. Maybe I could join on that tour to play those songs (If my fingers can somehow remember what they played on those songs!) It’s really special when you are lucky enough to be part of something people still talk about and remember a decade after you’ve been a part of it. For that, I am really honored and humbled. I can’t speak for any of the other guys, but if I had to guess, I would bet they all would say the same exact thing. I still listen to Delenda on occasion and remember these old times like they were new times. It always makes me smile, much like this interview has. Huge, huge thanks to you and everyone else!

Thank you as well Derek for sharing in the making of this special album. Delenda turns ten July 11^th, I think everyone should give this album another listen. The amount of effort put into the album can be heard on every second of every track. The writing style was very influential with its free form guitar riffs and lyrics. A blueprint that many bands today tend to copy. Again, thank you Derek Vasconi for talking about the history behind such a solid album.

*Edited to include edits requested by Derek Vasconi 5/26/2016 5:04 PM

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George Archibald

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1 Comment

Filip

June 25, 2020 at 3:51 am

Great to see so much praise for Circle Takes the Square. One of my all-time favorite bands, along with FASSW!

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Interviews

INTERVIEW WITH KURT DEIMER

Published

2 months ago

May 8, 2026

Ron

EMPIRE EXTREME GOT TO INTERVIEW KURT DEIMER ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM “A GROG IS BORN” HIM WORKING WITH GEOFF TATE AND JOSH TODD AND BEING KILLED BY MICHAEL MEYERS AND HORROR MOVIES

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Ron

Ron has keen eye for new talent, a love for the underground, and a tremendous passion for music of any genera. You’ll probably bump into him at a horror convention or some seedy club checking out the next need-to-know band.

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Empire Interviews

Inferious—Interview

Published

2 months ago

May 5, 2026

Josh Drespling

by Josh Drespling

I was at Preserving Underground to cover Filth and Resistor. I was all set with my photo pass and cameras at the ready. And then this young band exploded onto the stage. No grand entrance, no intro music, no flashy lights—just a wall of noise from the first guitar chord and a guttural growl that seemed to come from somewhere below the floorboards. I was blown away. Thoroughly impressed.

This band was Inferious, out of Dayton, Ohio. If you look up the word “inferious,” most dictionaries will tell you it means something low-status, submissive, or fit for sacrifice. But this Ohio metalcore outfit Inferious has spent the last several years proving that definition couldn’t be more wrong. Tonight in the basement of a converted church, Inferious delivered raw, sweat-soaked fury to all who were smart enough to show up early.

Before their set was even half over, I made up my mind that I had to talk to them and let our readers know about this band. Here is how it went:

Empire: This was the first time I have ever seen you guys. I’ve heard your name before but never had the chance to listen. The show tonight was freaking awesome. I loved it from the first few notes. The vocals and the guitar tone just hit ya right in the chest.

Since I am a new fan, can you give me the nickel tour of how you came together and I understand you are from Dayton, Ohio.

Shaun O’Shaughnessy – Guitarist: I live in Dayton, and the original band members all formed in Dayton, but it was kind of a collage of multiple band folks. People from the southwest Ohio area. Gabe [McQueen – vocals] and I were there at the beginning, and then through some line-up changes, this is our current and most solid touring line-up so far with Cody and Kyle. They also are from the area and have been in several bands. So they were always in the same circles, at the same shows, talking to the same people. It all worked out one day.

Empire: Given that, it seems like there is a healthy music scene in Dayton. Are there any good clubs, any fields to play in?

Shaun: It’s hard to say Dayton, Ohio, specifically so much as just southwest Ohio because of the way that Dayton, Columbus, and Cincinnati form like a little triangle. You’re only an hour apart from each other. So we can get into that larger music scene pretty easily. So Dayton itself has venues, but the whole collective area has stuff. There’s some house venues, like Gnome House, there’s Bob’s, but then Cincinnati has Madison Live, and Design Collective [DSGN CLLCTV] was doing shows for a while, but I think they got in trouble.
Cody: Yeah, it some code stuff.

Empire: I think there are a couple decent places in Akron, and even across the border is Huntington, WV?

Shaun: Yeah, that area still does have sick stuff. It’s just farther away from our personal local scene. Cleveland is kind of separate from us too.

Cody: That’s not necessarily our scene, but there is such a good underground local scene from the Huntington / Athens / Charleston area. Shout to Feverwar.

Shaun: We were just at the Grog Shop [outside Cleveland].

Cody: We were at the New Foundry not too long ago.

Empire: Oh, yeah, like upstairs?

Shaun: No, it is Foundry’s new location.

Empire: I’ve not been there.

Shaun: It looks basically like the old one, but it’s new.

Empire: You mentioned the Grog Shop. Were you guys there with Filth and Resistor?

Shaun: Yeah, we’ve been on tour with Filth and Resistor. The first half of the tour had Two-Piece on it; we missed them, but now Mono’s [Monochromatic Black] on for the second half, and they’re homies.

Gabe and I toured with them in Inferious a couple years ago with band called AMTAE, and Monochromatic Black. So, those are long-time homies as well. So, we’ve known Tanya [Elizabeth (Beickert) – Vocals] and Eddie [DeCesare – Drums] for a long time, and Pierce [Akers – Guitar] is our new best friend as well.

Empire: So, it’s just like a big hang for you guys.

Shaun: Yeah, all the homies are back. We’ve toured with Filth before too; we were out with them on the Oceano tour, and then actually a year ago, I think like right now, like today a year ago, we toured with Filth also. So, it’s Filth and Oceano, and then Filth again.

So, it’s been fun to have a full circle of friend hangs, and every night’s been sick. The show turnouts have been amazing, and then just hanging out with all our friends has been amazing.

Empire: That’s part of what makes it fun. Whether you have 50 people or 1000, you have that camaraderie and shared experience.

Empire: So do you currently have an album out? Where do you guys stand with that?

Gabe: We have music out everywhere, on all music platforms: Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play, and YouTube Music. Shit, if you even got to rip that shit, YouTube to MP4, do it, man!

Shaun: We got your back. We got three full lengths and an EP. We are working on a new EP with a label we’re signed to that we’ll announce here soon, but that’s going to be really exciting stuff, and just stoked to be able to get that out soon.

Empire: Cool. So don’t say the label name, but your deal is in place, and then the new album in the fall, winter, spring?

Shaun: Yeah, the EP should be coming out sometime this year, if all the schedules align and everything, but that’s in the works.

Empire: Cool. Filth tour, what’s after that?

Shaun: Finishing up the EP. Record release cycle, and then hopefully touring in support of that. Whether it’s co-headlining with somebody or doing some more support stuff, we’re down for whatever. Hopefully we can fill up the rest of the year.

You know, touring is hard financially, so while we’re able to still make ends meet on the road, it’s hard to pay all the bills, so we’ve got to go home, stack our bread back up, and then be ready to go back out again.

Empire: I understand. Is this your first time in Pittsburgh?

Shaun: We’ve actually played Preserving. This is at least the fifth time.

We played the DIY room, we played this room, this orientation, we played this room when it was facing the other direction. AJ, the owner, has been good to us. He is a rad dude.

Empire: AJ is great.

Shaun: The record shop and merch store upstairs is sick, I just bought a shirt, a Never Ending Game shirt, because we have to do a laundry soon, and I bought a shirt to extend one more day to get through.

Empire: Anything you guys want to add, anything going on? Shameless plugs?

Shaun: This has been a kind of sick tour, because I think we’ve all got to see family members. Gabe’s dad dropped him off, so we got to see Gabe’s dad. We got to go get breakfast with my mom and some family, I saw my aunt. Cody’s mom let us stay at her crib, and we got to hang out with her and his family. Kyle’s family came out last night and hung out, and that was pretty sick, so it’s been a good time.

Empire: Kyle hasn’t said anything, so tell me about your family coming out and seeing the show.

Kyle: I mean, it was my sister’s first time seeing us live.

Empire: What did she have to say? I mean, I’m sure she knew the style.

Kyle: Oh, yeah, she’s conditioned to it.

Empire: She’s not like a Britney Spears fan at a hardcore show?

Kyle: No, no, she’s by far not a normie, but close to it.

Empire: Thank you, gentlemen. That’s all I have today. Appreciate it, and thanks for the show. It was great; loved it.

Shaun: See you next time.

Before that night at Preserving Underground, I’ll be honest: Inferious was just a name on a show flyer. Another opening band before the acts I actually came to see.

That’s the thing about this level of heavy music. The headliners get the lights, the longer set, and the crowd that’s already warmed up. But the openers? They get twenty-five minutes, a soundcheck that barely counts, and a room full of people who are mostly looking at their phones. Inferious didn’t just overcome that. They incinerated it.

What struck me most, sitting down with Shaun, Gabe, Cody, and Kyle after the show, was how unpretentious they were. No egos. No rock-star posturing. Just four guys from southwest Ohio who’ve been grinding in the same circles, playing the same basement venues, and slowly building something real. They talked about the small venues with the same reverence other bands reserve for stadiums. They shouted out Feverwar. They bought merch from the shop upstairs to make it through one more day on the road.

That’s the part you don’t see from the crowd. The financial grind. The van trouble. The “stack our bread back up” reality of modern touring. And yet, here they were—genuinely stoked to have seen family members at shows, genuinely grateful for AJ at Preserving keeping the doors open for underground bands, and genuinely excited about an upcoming EP they couldn’t even name the label for yet.

Inferious may have a name that suggests something low-status, something sacrificial. But after watching them level a converted church in New Kensington, and after listening to them talk about their scene with the easy confidence of people who have nothing to prove, I think the definition needs an update.

Check them out on all the streaming platforms. Catch them when they roll through your town on the next tour. And for the love of God, show up early.

You never know which opening band is going to blow your doors off.

About Author

Josh Drespling

Josh is the Publisher and creator of Empire Extreme and it’s sister publication Kingdom Extreme Magazine. He is an accomplished writer, photographer and graphic designer. He is always conjuring up new ideas and has a amazing passion for the music industry and all the things that surround it.

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Empire Interviews

Resistor Interview

Published

3 months ago

March 20, 2026

Josh Drespling

Interview with Peter Smith, drummer for Resistor

Live photos by: Ron S. of Empire Extreme
Band promo photo credit: Sean Raynor

Long Island’s Resistor have never been content to simply exist within genre lines—they’d rather bulldoze them entirely. The self-described purveyors of “knuckle dragging wika wika core” are poised to unleash their full-length debut BITE THIS on March 27 via Paid Vacation, and if the advance copies circulating are any indication, the 29-minute assault is exactly the kind of no-skip, leave-them-wanting-more experience the quintet has been perfecting since their 2023 So It Begins EP. Built from the ground up with producer Randy LeBoeuf (Kublai Khan TX, The Acacia Strain) and featuring the turntable wizardry of Manhattan’s own Anthony Arce, the album channels the cocky swagger of nu-metal’s heyday through a hardcore filter that’s equal parts brutal and self-aware—a balance that’s become the band’s signature.

Empire Extreme recently caught up with drummer Pete Smith ahead of the album’s release and the band’s upcoming Northeast run with Filth, including a April 30 stop at Pittsburgh’s Preserving Underground. Over the course of the conversation, Smith dove into the story behind the album’s striking clay sculpture artwork, the reality of playing the Gathering of the Juggalos, why cassettes hold a special place in his heart, and how a wrestling ring full of real blood became the setting for one of the band’s most memorable music videos. He also addressed the obvious elephant in the room: whether those Islander jerseys are going to cause problems when the band hits Penguin and Steeler territory.

Empire Extreme – First off to jump right into it. The new album is coming out March 27, and my first question has to be, what is the album artwork?

Pete – Long story short, we’ve been following this theme with our last couple of records. We started with our EPs, so it all began a couple of years ago. We found this cool clown design that just resonated with us. For the last couple of records, we’ve been doing different versions of this clown. For this last one we found a random clown sculpture on Instagram by a local artist. We all saw it, and we fell in love. It’s so cool, it’s off-putting, but like in the best way. We all like it and fit with the music, so we hit the guy up. Initially it wasn’t available, then came to find out he likes our music, and he’s already a fan. Then he was like, “Yeah, you guys can just totally use the artwork” He was super stoked about it. So yeah, it makes a fun story.

Empire Extreme – That’s awesome, I was going to ask you about who the artist was. Can you give us his name, and give him some props?

Pete – Yeah, I believe on Instagram it’s Clay for Brains. His name is Tim. He makes these really cool clay sculptures.

Empire Extreme – Oh, so it’s like a three-dimensional kind of art?

Pete – Yeah, it’s a real sculpture. Our singer [Anthony Grambo] does a lot of graphic design work, so he took the sculpture and made into it what it is on the record.

Empire Extreme – That’s awesome that you are hands-on with that, and plus you got a local guy.

Empire Extreme – Speaking local, you guys are from New York, whereabouts?

Pete – Yeah, so we’re pretty much all based on Long Island, New York, but our DJ [Anthony Arce] lives in Manhattan. We’re all from more western Long Island, and you know. We definitely claim New York. You’ll see us wearing New York stuff, pretty much everywhere you see us. We’re not shy about it, but yeah, Long Island boys for sure.

Empire Extreme – As you know Empire is based in Pittsburgh, and I’ve seen a couple photos of you guys wearing an Islander’s jersey. That’s just not going to go well when the tour hits Pittsburgh. This is deep Penguin and Steelers territory. LOL!

Pete – You know, good thing our singer is not here. He would have a lot of things to say about the Islander’s. For me, it’s the Mets.

Empire Extreme – How about the Jets? We stole Aaron Rodgers now, so…

Pete – Oh, God. Yeah, honestly, my whole family is Jets fans, I haven’t paid attention to football for a long time. It’s very hard as a Jets fan, so you don’t want to pay attention. It’s pretty depressing.

Empire Extreme – All right, back to music stuff. You guys are doing a handful of shows with Filth. Resistor has done some shows with them before, but you seem like kind of buddies. How did that all develop, and are you looking forward to this next handful of shows with them?

Pete – We are all super excited about these shows. We met the guys in Filth. I believe it was summer 2024. That was when we were first gaining any bit of traction. We had finally released our new EP. We were really stoked when we got the first offer with them and it was like an instant connection. We became great friends, and since then, it’s history.

This is going to be our third run together, and this one might be the best one. It has so many good bands on it, a lot of good shows. It’s going to be really awesome.

Empire Extreme – Filth has been one of my favorites in the last couple years. Resistor kind of came onto my radar because of them, plus you were all over my socials. I think it was because of Filth or whatever, but yeah.

Pete – On our second tour together, I actually filled in with Filth on drums, so there’s a bit of it. We’re connected in more ways than one, for sure.

Empire Extreme – Well, your singer, Grambo is a big Limp Bizkit fan. With Filth redoing “Rolling”, is there any chance that you might knock out some type of collaboration or do something silly live?

Pete – We’ve always thrown up the idea of doing some kind of collab, but I’ll leave it at that. I won’t spoil it if we will or we won’t. If it happens, if it happens.

Empire Extreme – All right. Please explain “knuckle dragging wika wika core”.

Pete – “Knuckle dragging wika wika core” at its core, no pun intended is the best way that we can describe what we do. We feel like we’re doing something familiar, but it’s also something that is hard to place into a specific genre because we feel like it can kind of fall under a couple of things. So, we’re like, we got to start thinking of our own thing to call it. And what we landed on was “knuckle dragging wika wika core”. It’s just about crazy, heavy riffs. You know, stuff that makes you want to drag your knuckles across the ground and then you hear the wika, wika, wika, in the background. So, we just put them together.

Empire Extreme – When I first saw that, I just kind of laughed inside. I was like, that nails it right there.

Pete – Yeah, exactly. You know, we’re like, while we are super heavy, with a the “fuck you” [attitude] we also try to be a little goofy and self-aware of where we are. And we’re not taking ourselves too seriously. We are having fun.

Empire Extreme – Can you tell us about working with Randy LeBoeuf (Acacia Stain, Misery Signals, Counterparts, Thy Art is Murder, Every Time I Die, Unity TX, Kublai Khan TX)?

Pete – Randy, I cannot say enough positive things about him? Because he truly is like one of the best at what he does. But yeah, we went to the studio around mid-August last year. And I think up until November, we were writing and recording. We did have a month-long tour in between. But otherwise, we were literally at the studio writing, recording, almost the whole second half of last year. We feel like once it comes out, this record is really going to let people see why we’re taking so long.

Empire Extreme – We got an advance copy here at Empire and I have listened to it probably, I don’t know maybe 10 or 12 times. Just the heaviness of the whole album and it has that groove and a real hip-hop sensibility to it.

Pete – That’s awesome. Do you have a favorite song by any chance? Not to you on the spot first. The one that sticks out to you.

Empire Extreme – I don’t know the names off the top of my head. They all kind of still blend together in my head. But obviously the two singles you put out the videos for. I mean, both of those are slammin’.

Pete – I’m only asking because we are at a weird point where the album’s coming out in two weeks and obviously, we’re going to start playing live and we’re going to start releasing more music videos. So, I just wanted to kind-of get a vibe of what people are enjoying right off the bat.

Empire Extreme – I know exactly what you mean. Let me say this, you know, people say back in the day it used to be albums. How it is now with singles and streaming. We would listen to the whole album without skipping a single track.

Pete – Exactly. That was our main goal with this for sure. We wanted a no skip album. You know, a full listening experience.

Empire Extreme – Yes, it is. Plus, with the entire album clocking in at 29 or 30 minutes long? It’s like, oh, it’s over already.

Pete – Exactly. That’s another thing that we always preached that you never want to overstay your welcome. When it comes to live sets, but also with albums too. We very much want to leave them wanting more. You don’t want to get to the end of an album or a live set and be like, all right, we’ll I wish they were done 10 minutes ago. So, yeah, that’s like our number one thing. We always want to leave people wanting more. That’s a big thing for us.

Empire Extreme – I’ve been in lots of different bands in my life and that was always one of my things. Leave them wanting more because then they’re going to buy the CD, then they’re going to check us out online and even come to another show. We didn’t want to go there and play for an hour and bore them after half an hour.

Pete – I can’t tell you how many bands I’ve watched for the first 20 minutes of the show. Like, this is awesome. I’m so stoked. Even though it could be my favorite band on the planet, I’m watching it for 20, 30 minutes. This is awesome. This rules. And then, you know, minute by minute, you start to feel like, ah, I just wanna go home, this going to go all night.
Empire Extreme – Yeah, you’re looking at your phone and your watch.

Pete – Yes, exactly. I’ve got to speak about it from a showgoer’s perspective or a listener’s perspective, you know? Yeah, that’s a thing that is important to us.

Empire Extreme – You mentioned the videos. Currently there’s the “Dead Soul” and “Petty Fuck” videos. You kind of mentioned there’s more in the works. What’s the story?

Pete – Yeah, I won’t spoil what song it’s for. We did just shoot a video yesterday. That should be coming out the day of the record. It’s going to be really cool. It’s a really funny video. It’s not like the ones we’ve done before. It’s pretty much all a story. It’s very juicy. It’s so ridiculous that you’ll laugh when you see it. It’s not like any video you’ve ever seen before. I can promise you that.

Empire Extreme – I’m looking forward to it.

You guys played the Gathering of the Juggalos this past summer. I’m very familiar with the Juggalo family and have been involved with Psychopathic off and on over the year. It can be intimidating going in knowing that some bands get up there and they are pelted with bottles and booed off stage.

Pete – I want to be as positive as possible, but I’m not going to lie. It wasn’t a great experience. It’s one of those things where I’m happy, we did it. I’m glad to say that we did it. The community, we love the community. The people that were there to see us were super stoked. We love the community and the fans. The time was just weird. We just had to play early, and we also were in the middle of the studio. So, we had to drive from New York to Ohio for one day at a festival and then we drove right back. And things just didn’t line up for us.

Empire Extreme – So it was more of a logistics thing?

Pete – Yeah, I don’t want to say it was a totally bad experience. Just walking around the festival was crazy. You know what I mean? It is certainly site to see. It was a lot of fun. Everybody there was super cool and super nice. I love all the fans. Everyone who we talked to were the coolest people ever. I highly recommend that if you could go you should go once in your life. I would recommend going because it’s so ridiculous. It’s awesome.

Empire Extreme – That moment you walk in the gates of the Gathering. You’re just like, Oh my.

Pete – You know, it’s unlike anything you could truly do on the planet. So, in that sense, it rules. Our guitar player [Anthony Conti] did a Faygo launch competition, which is pretty funny. That probably was the highlight for me. I wish I could say it was like the best thing ever. And there were 5,000 people watching us, but yeah, we can’t win them all.

Empire Extreme – Well, the way they have it set up with the multiple stages and some of them are playing at four o’clock in the morning or whatever.

Pete – That’s the thing. The stage that we played was the second stage out of three. We thought it was like it’s like this big stage near everybody. It was a pretty big stage, but the problem is it’s not near anybody or anything. It was a 10-minute walk away from the main stage and then down a huge hill. If you weren’t near the hill, you couldn’t even see the stage at all. So, no one even knew where we were playing.

Empire Extreme – How was the load into that stage?

Pete – Surprisingly that was the easiest part. I think the only real issue was how early we had to play. Our set time was around four o’clock. We were like “Oh, that’s perfect.” We are right in the middle of day, everyone’s going to be like hanging out. But I think the reality is with the Gathering people aren’t really getting active until a bit later, you know what I mean? It takes until six or seven o’clock and then people start to come out and party. We realized that after the fact, but you know, you live and learn.

That’s why I said it’s like a lot of, a lot of little things. But overall, it was a fun experience, something I’m glad that we did for sure. We just had a couple little of hiccups.

Empire Extreme – To rewind back to the album, I forgot to ask you about the blue vinyl version coming out.

Pete – Yeah, this is our first time doing a vinyl for a full record. We have vinyl up for pre-order now on our website; weareresistor.com. If anyone wants a pre-order vinyl, we got them there. It’s a pretty short run. I think it’s only 300 copies. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. And we will also have them on tour too.

If anyone sees us in person, we’ll have tour vinyls as well.

Empire Extreme – You guys have a date here in Pittsburgh, I think it’s at the end of April or something like that? (Thursday, April 30 at Preserving Underground with Filth, Monochromatic Black, and Inferious)

Pete – Yeah. We’re hitting the Northeast towards the end of the month.

Empire Extreme – What does this band mean to you? I mean, is it a release or therapy, an escape, or a way to pick up chicks or an attempt to get rich?

Pete – Well, I would say if getting rich was my main priority I would have been out of this a long, long time ago. The real reason I’m here is just to make really, really cool music.

My parents are musicians. They’re lifelong musicians. So, it’s something I felt that I was meant to do from a very young age. It’s literally in my blood. My dad is a drummer and my mom’s a singer. That happens to be the two things that I do. You know, it’s a predictable path I went down. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Empire Extreme – Did you start out playing drums when you were a kid or did you start out on another instrument?

Pete – My first real instrument was upright bass. I played that all through elementary, middle, and high school. I played drums here and there as a kid, but I didn’t really have a passion for it. Until maybe when I was starting high school. I joined the band. Well, the original reason was because of this girl. I guess you could say that. It was like she was in the band, and I liked her, so I started playing drums more, and then it all went from there.

Empire Extreme – That’s funny and cool. So, who was your drum idol?

Pete – That’s a tough one. I have a few of them. Do you know the band called Periphery?

Empire Extreme – Yeah, I’m familiar with them.

Pete – Their drummer, his name is Matt Halpern. He was a big, big inspiration. I mean, just his style of playing. It’s a very progressive, very smooth style, very loose, and a lot of ghost notes and cymbals. You know cool little flourishes here and there. I really love that. And the obvious one Joey Jordison of Slipknot. They are one of my favorite bands of all time and hearing his drumming in the band. He had some of the first crazy drumming I’ve heard in my life. That’s an easy one. So, yeah, those two would be the ones if I had to [give] credit to me starting

Empire Extreme – Those are two very prolific drummers. You mentioned Slipknot, and I can hear some of that influence in the new album. The Slipknot rhythm kind of thing. I have it right here in my notes. Limp Bizkit mixed with Slipknot and some punk rock and some newer bands too.

Pete – Yeah, I kind of bring a modern style mixed with some old school style, you know what I mean?

Empire Extreme – Yeah, not to say that it’s all over the place, but it’s pulling from lots of different areas.

Pete – For what it’s worth, it is kind of is all over the place, but in a good way. We wanted it to be a little all over the place. We wanted to be something that, while it’s familiar, it’s something that people haven’t heard before.

Empire Extreme – I have kind of a handful of oddball weird questions, and you can answer them as you like.

Pete – Yeah, sure.

Empire Extreme – When you guys are driving in the van from show to show, who controls the music in the vehicle?

Pete – My personal rule is whoever is driving. When I’m driving, I will not break that rule. Otherwise, it depends on who’s driving. Some of the people in the van are more anal about their music being played. For me I won’t have it any other way. I gotta focus, you know what I mean? I need to have my own music or a podcast or something like that to keep me focused on the road, you know.

Empire Extreme – OK next one. Are you prepared for a zombie apocalypse or AI becoming aware? And is there a difference between the two?

Pete – I think I would take a zombie apocalypse over AI to be honest. But I think the second one is unfortunately way more likely one that happens. I’m probably not prepared for that. I don’t think any of us are. I think I’m probably completely fucked when that drops. At least with AI, I’m kind of already mentally prepared for that one.

Empire Extreme – Here is another silly one. If a cartoon character was to join Resistor, what cartoon character would it be?

Pete – Oh, that’s, a really good question. Mm-hmm. Maybe Beavis and Butt-Head, well one of those two.

Empire Extreme – That’s a great answer.

Pete – I feel like they would like sitting in our van, I feel like it would work. You know? The conversations are all over the place.

Empire Extreme – They’d fit right in, is what you’re saying?

Pete – Yeah, exactly.

Empire Extreme – Here’s another stupid one. Every time you walk into a room and a song plays, what would that song be?

Pete – It’s probably The Rock theme song. That is completely it. Or something really goofy or cheesy. I can’t take myself too seriously, to be honest, something along those lines.

Empire Extreme – You mentioned The Rock. One of my questions that I kind of skipped over was I’ve seen several of your social media posts and whoever is responding from your band has used wrestler memes several times. There was Stone Cold one and a Rock one. So, are you guys wrestling fans and who, what, why, where?

Pete – I would say our singer. He was the most into it out of any of us. I know he was into the old-school early 2000s era. We have a Resistor 3:16 shirt, like the classic Stone Cold shirt. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Come Mierda video, but we literally did it inside a wrestling ring with the real wrestlers. They were just beating the shit out of each other while we’re playing. There is a scene where one of the guys breaks a full light tube over to the other guy’s head and there’s blood everywhere. It’s all real. Nothing was faked. Its all real blood. We had to tarp off the whole thing, it was ridiculous, but a lot of fun. It is my favorite music video we have shot. The actual act of shooting it was so fun because we had a bunch of people literally pretending it was an actual wrestling event. The wrestlers had to do their walk-ins while we were playing and beat the shit out of each other. I also didn’t realize how bouncy a wrestling ring is. When you’re trying to play drums, you bounce and it is all over the place while smashing each other on the floor. It’s no wonder they are jumping from 10 feet off the ground. Makes sense. It was literally like going into a bounce house, but it had a metal floor.

Empire Extreme – I got a couple more stupid ones here. Have you ever gone to spring break?

Pete – No no. I’m not a party person. I’m very much more of a sit at home and play video games guy.

Empire Extreme – Last one, and I’ll get out of here and let you get back to your life. What is your preference. Vinyl, cassette, CDs, 8-tracks, download, stream?

Pete – Okay, so for obvious convenience’s sake streaming is great. But I don’t think it’s the best way to listen to music by any means. Nor do I think it’s good for artists, you know, Spotify and all that. You know the problems in the streaming industry. But honestly, I would love to go back to more cassettes. There’s a certain nostalgia that comes with listening to a tape. Listening to a CD still feels modern. But there is just something I like about it. I remember riding around in the car with my dad as a kid, and he’d always listen to cassettes, and he’d put me onto different bands. He had Rage Against The Machine tapes, and all these different bands. So, I think cassettes would probably be my number one, just for nostalgia purposes.

Empire Extreme – With the cassettes it kind of forces you to listen to the whole album. Skipping was kinda difficult trying to figure out where the next song starts.

Pete – Yeah, exactly. And similar, at least with vinyl you can lift it, but you’re more encouraged to listen to it from front to back, rather than just skipping through.

Empire Extreme – To wrap up is there anything you want to add? Any self-promotion?

Pete – Well, I’ll just end it by shouting out the band.

WeAreResistor on all platforms. Our new album, Bite This, drops on March 27, which I believe is less than two weeks away now, so that’s pretty crazy. But yeah, we’re streaming on all the platforms. We’ve got pre-orders on our website, weareresistor.com.

Empire Extreme – Awesome, great. Thank you for your time. Hopefully I get to check you guys out when you come through Pittsburgh here next month.

Pete – Yeah, I’m so looking forward to it.

Resistor is:
Anthony Grambo [vocals]

Anthony Conti [guitar]

Ian Schneider [bass]

Anthony Arce [turntables]

Peter Smith [drums]