Misery Signals: Lightning Strikes Twice
As the camera follows vocalist Jesse Zaraska rushing through the venue he and band mates in MISERY SIGNALS were in jeopardy of not being able to play (due to him being late), we’re being narrated by bassist Kyle Johnson. Kyle talks of his lack of desire to continue on with the band after this run of commitments is finished, even going as far as to say “I couldn’t deal with this, with Jesse on a regular basis – nobody would want to deal with the stress that comes along with it. When we finish the tour on the 23rd in Toronto – that’s that, it’s over.”
The above scene is taken from Yesterday Was Everything, the documentary that followed hardcore meets metal visionaries MISERY SIGNALS through a run of 10 shows celebrating the original lineup playing their debut record in full, a decade after its inception. When you break down their career piece by piece, the fact the tour was put together in the first place is at least somewhat of a miracle. The formation of Jesse Zaraska, Ryan Morgan, Stuart Ross, Brendan Morgan, and Kyle Johnson hadn’t been seen since the removal of Zaraska in 2005, and for a long time: the bad blood seemed incurable.
It’s all the more astonishing then, that in the present day – we currently stand in the aftermath of a new, blistering MISERY SIGNALS record, only their second under the original lineup. You’re likely to question how exactly the five piece ended up here from such a distant position six years ago, and truth be told – even some members of the band might find it hard to pinpoint the exact reasoning. Kyle takes a second to reflect when asked what specifically convinced him to continue on after the comeback tour, and it becomes evident that there was no singular factor in play that changed his mind.
“I guess it’s not so much that there was one specific conversation that happened,” he states. “It was just the experiences I had on that [comeback] tour – especially towards the end of it. A lot of it had to do with remembering all the good that came from that lineup in the past, and with Jesse in particular, I had missed his passion, and how much effort he gave on stage and how much he loved doing what we were doing. I think I realised over time that I wanted that back, and that’s no knock on Karl [Schubach, former vocalist] he’s a great frontman, but he just didn’t have the same level of passion that Jesse did, not many people do.”
Kyle is right to laud over what the original inception of MISERY SIGNALS achieved. We had no idea at the time, but their 2004 debut opus Of Malice & The Magnum Heart would forge a musical styling that would become commonplace in alternative music for the foreseeable future. Themselves, UNEARTH, SHADOWS FALL, and KILLSWITCH ENGAGE stand today as some of the most significant forefathers in what would become metalcore. Though occasionally watered down and taken in disappointing directions since, Johnson and co’s first offering as a band stands as a classic time piece where hardcore and metal were blended, and the outcome was special.
Possibly the most interesting caveat of the often jagged MISERY SIGNALS journey, is that despite fences between the band being mended – there’s still work to do. On Yesterday Was Everything you get a sense of a lack of brotherhood and camaraderie between the five piece, only when they’re being filmed onstage is there any visual stimulus of unity. And as Kyle details the backstage vibe on that tour – you understand that what you saw was an apt portrayal of the mood within the band at the time.
“It took some time,” he says. “The first half of the tour for me was kind of figuring out where our relationship stood, especially with Jesse. We were just getting comfortable with each other again more than anything, and as the tour went on it started to all come back to us. By the conclusion of the tour, I can speak for all of us and say we felt completely different than we did at the beginning of it. It was about remembering how important we were to each other’s lives, instead of fighting it.”
He veers away from hiding any trepidation he and the band had when the recording process for new record Ultraviolet came around. Kyle even laughs while saying “Yeah, the entire time” when asked if there was ever an occasion that he was worried what it might look like with the band all in the studio together at the same time again, before expanding.
“There were moments [of fear] throughout the whole five years that it took to write the album. Because as much as we wanted things to be better and different than they used to be in those scenarios, people can only change so much. It was trying, it was difficult, there was lots of arguments, and fighting internally. I don’t know if I saw that coming initially when we decided to write another album, but once it started I was able to look back and realise that it was just wishful thinking that it was going to be easy.”
It’s fitting then that Ultraviolet very much sounds like what 2006’s Mirrors could have been had Jesse remained in the band. MISERY SIGNALS tensions as a band haven’t had too large of a face lift in the last 16 years (though definitely eased) and thankfully, neither has their music. The overarching story to the record is, for the first time, one largely of positivity though. Ultraviolet captures Jesse Zaraska at a time where he’s withholding less pent up rage, and more gratitude for life – in fact, they all are.
A lot can change in half a decade, and for that statement rings true for MISERY SIGNALS more than most. In 2014 the five piece were in the midst of an anniversary tour where most of them were happy for that to be the full stop on their career, six years later and the band have returned with a record fitting of their journey. Their musical attributes were already etched in stone, but Ultraviolet highlights their growth not just a collective of musicians, but as their growth as individuals, maybe that was the whole point all along.
Ultraviolet is out now via Basick Records.
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