The band subtitles. has been a favorite of the Never A Phase Network appearing on our Network multiple times. Now that they've spent the summer releasing new music and establishing their live sound, Shannon Elaine caught up with Jake from subtitles. again to see how the new era of the band is going and what comes next!
Interview
Shannon Elaine sits down with Jake from subtitles.
You’ve done quite a few interviews since subtitles. on came out. What’s something about this band that nobody has asked you about yet?
We have!! To be honest, it's typically about how we became a band from across the world, how we got our name, what influences we had; but I don't think anyone has asked about the true vision for the project long term and I'd love to briefly talk about that! We decided very early on that if we were going to make it work, we needed to do it the right way or not at all. We made sure that our projects were all top quality between the music, the content we started putting out, and our overall direction from writing music together shifting to building a world together. We would love to build a genuine community around this project not only as lovers of the music we make, but people who care about bringing authenticity back to the scene; and we would love to eventually play our music all across the world, with the subtitles. on in each language of course!
Interview with Jake from subtitles.
When the album came out, you were talking about what you hoped this band could become. Looking at where you are now, what has happened that you didn’t expect?
As much as I'd love to say "we didn't expect" any of the things that have happened... We have absolutely put ourselves through the grind and put ourselves in the right spot for things to start happening "for us" the next year! Free The Witness bringing us on tour, and getting that first experience of what it takes to make that happen; that was a pretty amazing time and we didn't think we would cross the entire Western US in two weeks this early in the career. As far as where we see ourselves ending up though, this has been an incredible start to a very long journey.
Has there been a moment this year when subtitles. stopped feeling like a project you were building and started feeling like a real band?
Kind of on the contrary! For the first year, this was a project we were trying to make happen... then having the album out really felt like the true beginning of us being a "real band" but I would say that the time between the album and the tour changed our trajectory from wanting to be a real band, to wanting to leave something great behind that people can truly attach themselves to. In our current state, I would say that we are a real band with a plan to turn this into... kind of a legacy? Feels weird to say that about my band but that's probably the best way to describe it.
Now that you’ve had the chance to perform these songs for people, has the audience changed your relationship with any of them?
Definitely! I think when you see the few people in the crowd that know every word to one specific song, it makes you take a step back and really appreciate that your music is able to resonate so heavily with someone that they not only came out to hear the music live, but genuinely know it by heart because it's helped them through something. I think the best example on the tour would be "Reasons To Stay," not only because it's one of our most known songs (and most emotional), but also because of the response of the crowd being fully locked in and the wave of quiet that filled the rooms when that riff started. Very cool moments for sure.
Is there a song from the album that listeners have connected with completely differently than you expected?
Midwest Home for sure! It's now one of our top played songs with much less time than the original singles and it's very specifically about being from a small town and finding yourself in a tumultuous city environment where you can easily be taken advantage of and cast aside. It's a pretty niche topic so I didn't expect so many people to love that one!
You went into the debut trying to establish what subtitles. sounds like. Now that you’ve done that, do you feel more freedom to make something that doesn’t sound like subtitles.?
Great question! Since the tour we have been in a bit of a hibernation and just recently have mapped out our next projects! This includes an EP that we plan to release early next year that will be exactly that: songs of ours that wouldn't necessarily fit into the concept of our large scale album plans, but still ones that resonate heavily with us and that we'd like to share with the people. This includes some emo/hardcore type stuff, some straight up early 2000's pop punk music, and possibly more! Like I said, we're still getting the tour crust out of our eyes, so keep an eye out for those announcements!
Pop-punk and emo are having another huge cultural moment, but nostalgia is a massive part of it. As a newer band, how do you participate in that scene without becoming a recreation of something that already happened?
Yeah there is definitely a massive wave of emo and pop punk adjacent music (and even subgenres) coming out right now. I think we are very grounded in what we want our sound to be and what our plan is, so it makes it easier to really just stay true to ourselves and enjoy all of the amazing things happening around us! Alex comes from the more traditional punk/pop punk background (Blink 182, Sum 41, etc.) and I definitely lean into the emo/alternative side of things, and it naturally blends very well without much effort. I think there will always be influences though; even the band who influences you had influences of their own that pushed them creatively to become what they are today, so I think it's important not to disregard that.
There’s an interesting contradiction for independent bands right now: you have more ways than ever to reach people, but you’re also competing with an almost endless amount of music and content. Do you feel like good songs are enough anymore?
Well, it's not even just the amount of music being released. It's the entire culture today that's set up around either a toxic environment online that only helps if you're willing to do an insane amount of "content" and take comment beatings from... let's face it, bots most likely; or, if you have money and (literally any level of quality) music to release, you can be famous! In the same way we need to take money out of politics, we gotta get the money out of music promotion. Obviously money is required to push things out with ads, but like what are we doing.. yanno? I think that's why I'm really loving the movement of independent media and content creators taking the ball and running with it. Good music will always be necessary if you're going the independent route with your music, but it's truly not enough these days. You can spend $100 on a meta ad and get 400 (again, probably bot) likes, or you can have an awesome conversation with great media outlets and get genuine fans who care about you and what you're doing. So thank you for what you do, by the way, Shannon.
You’ve been very open about wanting the band to help people through difficult things. Is there ever pressure that comes with knowing listeners may attach deeply personal experiences to your lyrics?
To be honest, that is exactly why I write the music the way that I do. I don't care to be over generalized or fit into a certain box so I can "appeal to the masses" because that's not my goal. I want to write music for people who have been through the mud and came out on the other side. Almost every song we have so far has been about some kind of real life emotional trauma that I've dealt with, and I know with certainty that millions of others deal with, daily. We will have music that isn't so directly personal and emotionally relatable at some point, but again this was the staple of our project and we wanted to make it something special. I truly think we achieved that goal.
What have you learned about the music industry this year that you wish somebody had told you before you released the album?
Honestly, the answer to that is just to grind and be yourself, don't be a d***, create meaningful connections, leave people with good impressions, and eventually you will succeed. Almost seems like... huh, is that just morals and ethics? Anyway, I think understanding that piece of the current industry about needing to go 100% and do all the necessary things to grow (or have a bunch of money) is important, because it truly isn't "easy" to make it these days. It almost takes someone psychotically obsessed with the project, and having everyone involved willing to do what it takes, to actually "make it" these days.
You’ve remained completely independent so far. Has this year made you more interested in eventually having a label behind subtitles., or more protective of your independence?
Great question again! We have definitely talked about the idea of a label more as time has gone on, but we would really need to find the perfect home for subtitles. before we connected ourselves to one place. Right now we have a manager/social media manager/photographer that we're working with and that's really all we need right now. Shoutout Charlize. Potentially down the road we could look into a label, but in today's industry... I truly don't see that much value in closing yourself off like that. For now, we're going to trust our gut and keep doing what we've been doing the past few years!