Hey Aaron, what's your job in the band?
I play the lungs. It's a difficult instrument, one of those curve-balls... Like the Triangle.
So who else makes up Heaven's Basement?
We're a four peice, so the other boys are Chris Rivers (Drums) Sid Glover (Guitars) and Rob Ellershaw (Bass)
For all those unaware of the history, how did Heaven's Basement come about?
Well, the band had gone through the motions of previous incarnations with other members coming and going as a lot of people know. Chris and Sid are the founding members of Heaven's Basement, they've played in bands together before Heaven's Basement which is how the band originally started. But at end of 2009, Rob was brought into the band on bass duties and I first met Basement in August 2010, I came to live with them for a couple of weeks, and eventually - I got offered a place as the lead vocalist for what is now, the newest incarnation of Heaven's Basement (Which may I add, is how we intend to keep the band - until we become a rock orchestra with the occasional appearance of William Shatner!).
It's festival season - where have you had your favourite festival experiences?
Well, for me it's been a pretty intense year. I had never been to either Download or Sonisphere, so to be a part of that, obviously, was incredible, and on behalf of the band and our team, I'd like to thank everybody that showed up to make what happened at each of them shows happen. It seriously caused a stir and the ball is rolling in a big way for us now. As one of the leaders of The Gospel Rejects [the band's official street team] it's awesome to see our people going out of there way to be a part of everything we are, For all of us, everytime, it smacks us in the face and feeds that little sick piece of us that makes us walk onto that stage no matter how big or small, no matter how long or short our set is, no matter what goes wrong, with the 4 way mind set of 'Let's fucking destroy this, and leave these people as our people and nobody elses'. - The Gospel Rejects are a cult that we watch grow and bloom each time we leave the stage. It's a cult open to anybody out there who's got a story to tell. We're out in this sea of politics and world wide bullshit to take people's minds away from what is effectively 'The Great Depression Mk 2' - You want a story?- We've got plenty of stories. And we want each and every person out there to know about them. We're not out here to change the world. We're quite happy to leave that to Greenday, Bob Geldof and U2. But if there was ever a time for a band to allow people to relate their stories to somebody elses, like ours. That time is now. And will continue to be that time for a long time to come.
Festivals or gigs?
I have learned to love 'the festival'. They're like the common cold because once you find your self caught up in one, you know there's likely to be another one coming to smack you in the face very soon after and because of how tired and lets face the facts here - drunk - you get, you kinda tell yourself that doing another festival probably isn't a good idea. Only there's more shit, piss, and general debauchery involved. Frankly. The likes of Download and Sonisphere were a big learning curve for me. I can pretty much say that if I need the toilet that bad in future before I go onstage and there's a queue at the toilet door. I'm quite happy to piss myself and deal with the matter after the show...
But to relate back to the actual question. I'd say gigs. Festivals are great but I like like nothing more than smelling the own blood, sweat and tears of the audience infront of me. And lets face it. Who wants a 15 foot gap between audience and band? I hate to think about the amount of Festival fines I'm going to cause this band... Security are going to have an impossible job on their hands.
What can we expect from the new EP 'Unbreakable'?
You can expect a wall of sound to remove your bodily organs in a way you wish never to think about! - No, not really, You can expect some hard rock to melt into your ears and when you turn it off for the night, you won't be able to sleep because you'll be playing the song through in your head. And when you start to dream, you'll be dreaming about being at a Heaven's Basement show, only it won't be a dream, because a dream is never actually a dream - everybody will turn into Zombies... you'll shit your self in your own bed, wake up, listen to the EP again go and tell your best friend about your dream. They will think you are totally fucked up. Be intrigued. Go buy the EP from iTunes, Amazon, Play etc... then they'll listen to it and some crazy shit will happen to them... you see how this relates to The Gospel Rejects always having a story to tell? Haha...
Where was it recorded and how long did it take to produce it?
We recorded at Sandhills studio in Liverpool. It took over a week or so and we were on a pretty tight schedule as we needed it out before the tour and we had mega issues getting booked in. Before Rob or myself were in the band, Bob Marlette DID help produce Paranoia (as a song) and The Long Goodbye (as a recording), however, he wasn't the actual producer of the Unbreakable EP. We owe that credit to Al Groves at Sandhills. We recorded all the tracks (except The Long Goodbye - of which the music IS produced by Bob - with Vocals produced by Al) from scratch. Complicated huh?
Is the name of the EP a reference to the band's ability to keep going despite setbacks or is it about something else?
My belief is the same as Sid, Riv and Rob's belief. And that belief is the same as The Gospel Rejects belief. We don't let people down. We'll go till one of us die on stage. My funeral is going to be my last show, and unfortunately, it'll probably involve me getting electrocuted at a rainy festival, or falling off of some ridiculous stage rig. Maybe I should consider adding a Coffin to our rider?!
You're doing some acoustic dates later this year supporting Keith Caputo? - will you be reworking the material for this or playing a different set?
We'll play what feels right. We never define our intentions until about 5 minutes before stage when we have felt the energy of the audience. We have a rough idea of where we're going to go with the set, but if something doesn't feel right onstage with the next song we're supposed to play - we'll change it there and then. We're getting to a point now where we can feel what each of us are thinking onstage.
Have you done any acoustic shows before as a band?
We played our first acoustic set at The Camden Underworld the Wednesday before we played it at Download. We borrowed some Gibsons and shortly after got asked to do a video acoustic set for them at Sonisphere on the Gibson bus. Nice chaps! Cheers for lending us a hand!
What made you decide to go down that route?
We call it the calm before the storm. We like to keep busy between writing the album so we take whatever our agent will give us. Generally, we keep on at him 'til he gets so pissed off with us he puts us up for anything!
And finally what are your plans for the rest of 2011
Work on the next album.
