Arm the Witness – Nowadays

By: Jennifer Vintzileos

Q) How would you best describe your sound?

A) It’s hard to really describe our sound. We all have such a wide range of musical interests and tastes and that sort of all overflows into the music we write. We recently dealt with some major member changes and have went through many sound changes with member changes in the past so we decided this time shouldn’t be any different. So, we’ve took a step back in order to forge a new way sound. We blend elements of Pop, Alt Rock and Hard Rock to create something that we feel is unique and speaks to people.

Q) Who are your greatest musical influences?

A) My greatest musical influences are honestly a lot of 80’s 90’s Pop and Rock artists. I’m honestly a lot more influenced nowadays from Pop music than anything, but I’ve always been a rock n’ roll fan at heart. Growing up on bands like The Doors, Pink Floyd, Motley Crue, Gun’s N Roses and Metallica probably influenced me the most to pursue music as a career.

Q) Tell us the story behind the song “Nowadays” and how music has helped you recently.

A) I wrote the lyrics for “Nowadays” when I was in a dark place mentally. Things just didn’t seem to be going right no matter what I did. I had gotten out of a seven-year relationship several months prior and I struggled with it a lot. I felt betrayed in ways and felt like it was what I deserved in others. So, when I began writing it, I sort of just let my emotions flow. Music has helped me in so many ways recently. From writing it to listening to it. Being in the middle of a pandemic I’ve been stuck inside a lot and music has really helped keep me sane and also given me a place to speak my thoughts.

Q) You also recently shot a music video for “Nowadays.” How did you develop the concept behind the video?

A) There really wasn’t a big concept behind the video. We just wanted to show images that conveyed emotion and movement. Kind of literally and figuratively bringing the viewer in closer to the emotion in our actress’s face.

Q) Frontman Aiden Shaw not only directed the music video for “Nowadays,” but has also directed & edited quite a few of your music videos. What is the benefit of the band having a more hands-on approach in all aspects of the music?

A) So, for me, I feel like directing and editing our own videos has allowed us to really be in control of our vision. It has also eased some of the financial burden that comes with filming music videos and allowed us to invest more into the video itself, instead of just hiring a bigger director – which for me this helps me grow as a director and editor. It helps me really put my ideas to work and create something from straight out of my head.

Q) With the release of this new single, is there a full-length album in the works?

A) There is not a full-length in the works right now unfortunately. We don’t feel like now is the right time to even consider it. We live in an era where (for unsigned bands at least) is heavily dominated by single releases and it is clear why that works, especially in a stream heavy landscape. Also, as I DIY band, we barely have enough funds to properly market one song at time. It would be next to impossible for us to fund the marketing on an entire full-length. So, we’re at the point where once we have a fan base big enough to justify needing that and once we’ve developed our sound more that’s something we’ll begin thinking about.

Q) You also recently covered “No Time To Die” by Billie Eilish. Why did you decide to cover it and how did you approach putting your own spin on the song?

A) So, we decided to cover “No Time To Die” because one day I was driving in my car, the song came on and I thought just how bad ass of a rock song that it would be. I called up our guitarist Cody Cupp and we had been talking about doing a new cover for a little while. I showed him that song and he actually didn’t seem that interested at first, but he listened to it a few times and called me back later and said he thought it was amazing and had a great idea for it. That’s the point where he did a rough track of it, we bounced it back and forth between the band all putting our spins on it and then took it to the studio. We knew that the band Our Last Night had also covered this track and put it out a bit before we did, so we purposefully chose to not listen to their version under any circumstances until we had finished our version of it so as to avoid any kind of overlapping of ideas.

Q) As “No Time To Die” was featured in the latest James Bond movie, do you happen to have a favorite James Bond film?

A) I have been a huge James Bond fan since I was a kid. I am still a huge fan to this day and have seen every one of them. It’s always been a dream of mine to write a song for a bond film or to work on set one day. I can’t really choose an all-time favorite because they’re all great in their own way, but just for the sheer fact that it’s the first one I saw and because I played the video game of it more than any other, I’d have to say Golden Eye.

Q) The cover you did for “Happier” by Marshmello ft. Bastille is one of my favorites! Have you thought about potentially releasing more covers in the future?

A) Glad that it’s your favorite. It’s personally my favorite cover that we’ve done as well. So, we have thought about releasing more covers but at the same time we really think our time is best dedicated to our original music. We love doing covers and adding our spin on them and those covers have been some of our biggest releases to date, but that’s just not who we are. I think more than anything each of us strive to be great song-writers and that’s just not something fulfil in ourselves by doing covers.

Q) With live music currently on hold, have you done any virtual shows for your fans?

A) So, currently we have not done any virtual shows for our fans and that’s something I wish we were able to do often. With us having just dealt with a major member change we are still in the phase of building our set all over from the ground up, reestablishing our sound, practicing and writing all our songs so we’re not fully ready to perform speaking honestly. We want to make sure that when we come back out that we do it all right and better than we’ve ever been.

Q) During this time, what is one thing you miss most about performing live?

A) I, honestly, miss every single thing about it. See we hadn’t played a show in well over seven months before COVID happened. So, we we’re already itching for it. We had lost our lead singer, our lead guitarist, our bassist, and eventually our drummer. We we’re in the process of rebuilding and then things started to kind of go downhill and we thought the remaining members of the band we’re going to split, and everyone do their own thing but out of nowhere we get a message from this guy Derick who plays in a band that I used to help manage and he opens up the idea of him, their bassist and their drummer joining up with our band so we started writing together. Then boom! COVID hit. So, we’re all dying to play again and miss it all. Even the anxiety of waiting to play. One thing I miss most though is the fans, the kids that come out and are right up front and they’re singing along to songs that I wrote about myself and my life. Seeing people relate and feel these songs means everything to me.

Q) What do you hope fans take away from listening to your music?

A) I don’t necessarily want fans to take anything away from listening to our music. We’re not here to try and impress people, to be their mentors or anything like that. We inadvertently tried that for too long. We just write this music because it’s what we love to do. If someone clicks on our single or puts on a record of our music and gets away for a bit from this world and feels some moment of peace, then our job is done.

Q) Who are you currently listening to?

A) I currently am listening to a lot of artists, but if I was going to name a few people recently it’d have to be a bunch of my friends that are putting out killer music right now – Lowborn, Derrick Ryan, Hunna Fling, Curses, Softspoken, A War Within.

Q) What would you like to say to your fans and supporters of your music?

A) I’d just like to say to our fans and supporters thank you for always sticking with us through all the member changes. The diehards know I was the screamer before and we had a separate singer. He quit and I stepped up to become the lead singer at that point and we stopped being a metalcore band and went more Alt Rock. Most bands don’t make it through changes like that, especially a developing band. But since then we have had our biggest two years of growth ever as a band. For that I am forever grateful to our supporters because we legitimately would not have kept going if you all didn’t want to see us keep putting out content.

All Questions Answered By Vocalist Aiden Shaw