New Horizons

Since forming as a bunch of rag-tag high school kids back in 2002, Bergen County, New Jersey's post-hardcore lads have been on one epic 11-year journey. The band was started by vocalist Buddy Nielsen after he posted an advertisement on the internet seeking to recruit bandmates. Their rise in the thriving screamo/emo scenes of the early to mid-'00s saw the band's profile skyrocket after the release of their debut EP From The Depths of Dreams. They were unlike any other band at the time given their aggressive style influenced by punk, hardcore, emo, and Neilsen's talented voice and lyrics that were heavily influenced by emotion, poetry, literature, religion, philosophy and spirituality.

While only two members of its foundation remain today in drummer Dan Trapp and Buddy Nielsen, the two have found new life through their latest record Renacer and through the addition of the new members to Senses Fail. Their latest album released in March this year, Renacer is a Spanish word deriving the meaning of 'rebirth', a fitting name given the band's current state. Renacer is the first album written by Senses Fail without founding lead guitarist and chief songwriter Garrett Zablocki, who now has his own solo project, Stereo Stargazer.

For Buddy Nielsen life has never been better. The frontman now juggles a job with the band's label Vagrant Records and is writing the music he always wanted to. “I have a close relationship with the people on the label,” he begins. “I started working at other record labels and basically they needed someone to do some specific things and I had the know-how and they gave me shot and I'm now taking on more responsibility.” The major change with the new record is the band's progression from post-hardcore to a straight up hardcore, if not a melodic-hardcore sound. The album is by far the band's heaviest to date, and has seen them stray away from their roots. Neilsen attributes this major change to the new songwriters in the band. “[It's] the fact we have different songwriters now; honestly that's the main reason,” Neilson says rather satisfied before he adds “and I wanted to go in a new direction to be honest.”

The frontman says his new positive outlook on life reflects through the new record and in a sense represents a new frontier for him. Neilsen has battled depression and anxiety attacks throughout his life and they have been at the forefront of his lyrics in past releases. 2006's Still Searching in particular showcased his struggles. Look no further than tracks like Can't Be Saved where he laments “I'm stuck in a coma/Stuck in a never ending sleep”, and in Shark Attack: “I've spent the last year paying a stranger to listen to childhood thoughts about the love I am missing”, detailing his battle while on antidepressants. The singer says he is far removed from that negativity, anxiety and stress these days. “I'm not very negative anymore, there's not much to be bummed about,” Neilsen explains. “So that's why life is good now; I'm definitely a new person I would say so.”

While reflecting on his journey through his personal life and with the band, Neilsen is adamant Senses Fail remains his livelihood and what has kept him motivated. “Yeah it's cool, I'm a completely different person to when I started [but I'm] just basically still in high school, really. Music is me – I mean it's hard too – [but] it would be so hard to let go of the band because I feel like I'd be letting go of a big part of myself, I don't know, I just love playing music.”

The band's first single off their latest album entitled Mi Amor also features an entire verse sang and written in Spanish. While the frontman has no Spanish heritage himself, he did it because he wanted to pay homage to a select group of loyal fans. “We have a really big Spanish following in America and I just wanted to do something different,” he explains. The video clip for the track has also garnered a lot of attention online, with many fans trying to decipher what the message of the video clip is. It shows the story of a young female, who falls in love with a teddy bear (yes a teddy bear), while the speculation online was rife Neilsen admits it was some light-hearted humour. “I think the video came out really cool,” he laughs. “There's no real message, I mean it's supposed to kinda be a joke but yeah people have been trying to read into it, but it was supposed to be a joke, it was supposed to be funny.”

Neilsen has been branching out with his musical expansions, where he started a hardcore band called Bayonet in 2009, but that has since been put on the backburner – given the direction Senses Fail are heading in now. “Yeah I don't think I'll be doing [Bayonet] anymore,” he says. “I mean I'd like to do some other stuff, I'd like to do some heavier stuff and some more experimental things. I don't know, maybe we'll do it with Senses Fail or maybe I'll do it with another band, but at the moment I don't have anything else I'm working on but I'm always interested in doing other things.”

Neilsen sounds fresh and filled with exuberance during our conversation. He finds himself with some down time between tours, speaking from his house in LA, having finished the European tour in support of Renacer. Those dates allowed the band to play their newer songs to a live audience outside of the US and he says they were generally well received. He says he is stoked to be coming back down to Australia, for the first time in three years. “Man I love Australia, so I'm excited to get back,” he says with gusto. “Unfortunately, it's so quick. We're just in and out; I wish I could stay a bit longer and enjoy it a bit more.”