Such Gold

Rochester, New York's Such Gold are a band of two sides, mashing together their appreciation of pop punk and melodic hardcore to create cohesive, energetic and emotionally affecting music. Their long-awaited debut album, ‘Misadventures’, was released earlier this year, raising the bar and enjoying an enthusiastic critical reception. Drummer Devan Bentley recently spoke to Kill Your Stereo about ‘Misadventures’ and their upcoming Australian tour as part of Soundwave 2013.

First up, tell me a bit about yourself and your role in the band?

I am Devan [Bentley] and I am the drummer.

In your eyes, what is ‘Misadventures’ about?

We view it as our band’s career, as a misadventure. We set out to go on tour and something goes wrong and it turns into something completely different, but we all come together as a band and we push on. There’s a lot of different concepts lyrically on the record but I’m not the best person to be talking about that (laughs).

What were the goals and musical inspirations for writing the album?

For a full-length, we all wanted to write a pretty energy-packed record. Inspirations, like band inspirations?

Yeah, exactly.

Bands like A Whilhelm Scream, Propagandhi, that’d probably be it.

The album had some notably heavier moments like the ending of ‘Storyteller’. Will the band continue to embrace its hardcore roots in the future?

Yeah, I think so. We don’t really try to be in touch with our hardcore roots. I think we each collectively know each other more, and on this record we were comfortable with letting all of our influences bleed through and not just our pop punk influences. We all listen to different kinds of hardcore. We listen to stoner rock, stoner metal. We listen to really chilled emo music. We kept it so that it would fit into Such Gold’s sound but with all of our musical influences.

Steve Evetts was an interesting choice for producing the album when you consider his broad metal heritage. What made you decide to work with him?

I think at the time he had just finished up with The Wonder Years, and those guys are friends of ours. I think he might’ve heard of our band through them, maybe. He heard our band and heard that we were making a full-length record and he contacted us. The minute he did that we were right away decided that he was the one that he wanted to work with. He’s worked with so many bands that we love and listen to like Every Time I Die, Kid Dynamite, Lifetime, Saves The Day, [The] Dillinger Escape Plan. We knew he did a great job on those records and captured the sound perfectly, packed the records full with energy, and that’s what he did with ‘Misadventures’.

Are you happy with your new home at Razor & Tie Entertainment?

Yes, absolutely. They did a great job on this record and continually are doing a great job helping us. They’re working hard for us and they’re getting stuff done. We had our vinyl on time. That is something I feel doesn’t always happen with labels. That was something we were kind of unsure of. It was nice to have all of our CDs and records delivered to our door in time for release. They’re definitely on top it. They’re a great, solid team of people that get what we’re about and what we’re doing and totally support us. They’re helping us grown and know that we’re a small punk band. They know we’re not selling 30,000 copies of our record or something. They know the sized band we are and they’re always there for us to help us grow.

The band will be returning to Australia next year for Soundwave 2013. What do you miss most about being here?

It’s so beautiful there. What do I miss most… I don’t know. I miss the beautiful weather, the beautiful scenery I saw while driving, meeting people there. Everyone is happy, fun and nice people. I’m excited to go back and be with all the friends that we met last time we were there. I’m excited to get some English brekkie, I guess.

Are you excited to play to larger crowds in a festival environment this time around?

Yeah, definitely. Of course, we’d like to play to more people. It’s fun to play to a big crowd, I think. We’ll see how well we go over, I guess. I’m really excited to be a part of that tour. There’s a lot of awesome bands on it. We’re playing with some pretty big acts and it’s pretty exciting to be a part of it.

Will you guys be playing any smaller club shows while you’re here?

We haven’t been contacted or let known that we are, ‘cause I think that Soundwave Festival picks the bands that they put together for the sidewaves. We haven’t been picked for anything but I really hope that we do get picked for one of the smaller shows. Obviously the smaller shows are a little bit more intimate, a little bit more fun, a little bit more fitting for the band. I like to play smaller clubs because it’s a bit cooler that way, pile-ons, stagediving that wouldn’t happen in a smaller place. I hope we get to play smaller shows when we’re over there.

As a drummer, who are some of your musical heroes?

Well actually, just recently, being on tour with Strung Out. Jordan Burns is a top-of-the-line punk drummer. He’s definitely been a big influence on me. As a young kid I was of course influenced by Travis Barker, he was a big influence. I think the drummer of At The Drive-In, Tony [Hajjar], he also played in Sparta. He’s definitely a drummer I take a lot of influence from. He’s very in-the-pocket and hard-hitting. Any drummer that has form and hits hard and is a clean player and is fun to watch playing drums. I’ve started to take influence from all drummers that I watch and their different techniques. John Bonham obviously, when I was growing up he was like “the” drummer for me.

Tell me about the craziest thing the band has ever done?

Shit, I don’t know. I can’t even think of one thing that’s crazy that we’ve done. I’m drawing a blank. I’m trying to think (pauses). We played some shows in Costa Rica, that was pretty crazy. That was fun. We played with Bane and Strung Out at this huge festival. We climbed a volcano down to the top of it. That’s not crazy, that sucks, that’s an awful story. I wish I could think of something really cool to tell you.

What does the future hold for Such Gold?

We’re gonna finish up on some touring in the US and then we’re gonna finish the Strung Out and [The] Swellers. Once we’re finished with those tours we’re taking two months off and then we’re trying to book a world tour supporting ‘Misadventures’. We’re gonna do some stuff in the UK and Europe just before Soundwave. Hopefully we’ll go to Japan after that, to come home and just gear up for spring and something in the summer. I guess we’re crossing our fingers for Warped Tour. We’re just trying to keep busy and play the record out for people.