What else can I say? Hardcore, melodic but yet emotional! Just recently their songs have been getting regular plays to date in the VM UNDERGROUND online radio show! I had to get behind the scenes with this New York based unit!
VMU: Hey guys how are you?
CIS: Pretty good man, we just played a huge show at The Downtown in Farmingdale, New York. and brought 150+ fans through the door. Now we're doing some more writing before we go in to record our full length CD.
VMU: Could you tell us where your from and who's the current line up?
CIS: 4 out of 5 of us grew up and currently live in Ronkonkoma, New York and all went to the same high school. Vinny was a tougher issue. We had to search high and low for the right singer and we found that in vinny, who lives in Selden, New York, about 15 minutes from the rest of the band. On guitars are: Brian Branch and Kevin Corey, On Bass: Anthony Olivieri, on Drums: Shaun Seifert, on Vox: Vinny Verzino
VMU: How long you guys been together and how many releases have you put out?
CIS: The musicians of the band were together since July 03 and began writing right away. We found Vinny the voice of the band nine months later in late April 04. He was like our musical child...(9 months ya know?). We've put out one demo so far with 3 of our songs.
VMU: Were the recordings done digital or analog and who produced? (if comp what programs)
CIS: We recorded the three track demo digitally at Sapone Productions, but the band produced it itself.
VMU: Could you tell us in detail what gear you use?
CIS:
Both Brian and Kevin play out of Marshall JCM2000 TSL100 half stacks. Brian uses
an ESP FM400 and Kevin uses a Epiphone Les Paul. We both use Morely Bad Horsie
2 Wahs, the Boss Acoustic Simulator, along with the Boss Chromatic Tuner.
Anthony uses a Hartke half stack and an Ibanez 5 string bass.
Shaun just recently bought a DW 7 piece Maple set, with black hardware, and
currently uses Zildjian Titanium cymbals 16", 17", 18" and an 18" China. He also
uses a DW 9002 double bass pedal and Danny Carey signature drum sticks. Vinny
uses a Shure SM58 wireless mic.
"Writing about important things is something that lacks in most artists music." - CIS
VMU: Do you guys prefer live or studio recording?
CIS: Live is fun and more spontaneous, you'll catch us playing the songs with a little more flavor sometimes, but we only like to put out our best and due to that we've learned to really enjoy playing in the studio and working out all the kinks that come along with playing some technically challenging music, with time signature changes, and tempo changes and solos.
VMU: How do you guys feel about the mainstream music scene?
CIS: The main stream music scene is either more "poppy" then us or heavier than us, so right now the music scene kinda sucks for us. But with that said we all really like some of the bands that have recently made it big and hope to follow in their footsteps soon.
VMU: How do you feel about bands that express their beliefs in music? (religious or political)
CIS: Writing about important things is something that lacks in most artists music. On nearly any radio station there is someone singing about meaningless crap with no emotion. We like to take pride in writing about serious topics, good and bad.
VMU: What do you guys express in your lyrics?
CIS: We write about war, politics, love, hate, being yourself...etc. Although we don't have thousands of fans yet, we feel it's important to make a point and take a stand on things we believe or don't believe in. We write about very specific topics to us, but in a way that people can adapt the lyrics to just about anything that is going on in their lives. We've often been told by many fans that they can relate to our lyrics in their own way.
VMU: Who are your musical influences?
CIS: Well, everyone in the band is pretty much influenced heavily by someone different. As far as Vinny goes, he grew up listening to singers like Elvis, Andrea Bocelli, Jim Morrison and Eddie Vetter. Brian is influenced by bands like Metallica, Sevendust and Pantera where as Kevin is influenced by Metallica, Guns N Roses and Creed. Anthony's influences consist of musicians like Victor Wooten, Flea and Joco. And on drums, Shaun is influenced by drummers like Daney Carey of Tool and well known jazz drummer Dave Weckl.
VMU: Any bad experiances playing live?
CIS: Sure, every band has had bad shows, or equipment failure, or countless other things that have gone wrong while they were playing a show, but you just have to move on and make the best of the show, and look forward to the shows that you have coming up. You can't dwell on the bad shows of the past. Although every show is a learning experience, both the good ones and the bad.
VMU: Did you guys record 1 on 1 or live?
CIS: When we go into the studio we do it 1 at a time. We try to do everything the right way and try not cut corners.
VMU: Whats the music scene like in your home town?
CIS: Most of the bands/fans here are into the hardcore/metalcore scene. Since we don't scream and we have a singer who is trained in singing, a lot of the other bands and fans don't like us and outright disrespect us. It's weird, most of the band likes bands like Killswitch Engage and Lamb of God and others just like them, and we even play some of those songs while just messing around. We just want the respect for what we are doing, cuz we always give it to them. There are lots of fans out there we just need to convert them to our style of music.
VMU: How many times a month do you guys practice and does it work well for you?
CIS: We keep a strict schedule of Sunday Monday Wednesday of 4-6 hours per practice. We just recently added a business/promotion day on Fridays, where we will go to local hotspot and promote, schedule shows and try to make new fans by handing out demos. The schedule can sometimes seem overbearing but we are willing to do everything in our power to make it in the music industry.
VMU: What are in the works for CIS? Any tours or new recordings?
CIS: We'll we're currently working on the preproduction of our first full album and hope to tour on it throughout the spring and summer if possible. We're all getting 9-5 jobs to pay for equipment, recording, a van and a trailer. We realize how much time and money go into a band that will be successful and we are all willing to put everything on the line and make the band number one in our lives.
VMU: What drives you to do what you do? Do you feel most bands are in music scene for the wrong reasons?
CIS: Well we all know that we love music and couldn't be happy in life unless we played music for the rest of our lives. We eat sleep live and breathe our music. I see a lot of bands forming and playing their first show within weeks. I know that some bands can be that talented but nowadays it seems like if you play anything with a "chug chug" you'll get 50 fans or more. Although we may not be the most talented band in the world we try to show musical talent through our style of music which has been describe as "Melodic Metal". We try to incorporate technicality and originality in our music. In the end, I think our goal in music is just different than most other bands. We really try to be a diverse band, and i think that most bands just prefer to write all heavy songs, which is cool, but that just isn't our style.
VMU: Thanks guys for your time!! Any last words?
CIS: Yea, we'd just like to thank everyone who believes in us, and continues to supports us at all our shows. It's people like you VM that can give a band like us a break and get some much needed exposure. If anyone is interested in C.I.S. you can get more info at www.castinshadows.com or www.myspace.com/castinshadows
VM UNDERGROUND
DEC 19 2004