Bayside’s vocalist Anthony Raneri and the rest of the band are ready to move on from the tragic automobile accident that claimed the life of the beloved John “Beatz.” The Victory Records album The Walking Wounded is set to be released February 6, 2007. The album, about living through all of life’s rough patches, has one final song dedicated to the late friend and drummer. Though fan old or new, most will be sure to appreciate the tenderness and sincerity of Bayside’s sophomore Victory effort and the ever approaching future of the band and music rather than tragedies of the past.
My chat with Anthony follows below.
Your new album coming out February 2007, want to tell me a little about it?
Yeah, Feb. 6.
Yeah, The Walking Wounded. Tell me a little bit about it.
The title is just a reference on everything we’ve been through, in our band and everything we’ve been through in our lives. It’s a message: everybody goes through stuff and the walking wounded are just the survivors. Everyone is walking around with some kind of ailment, be it a mental thing or an experience they’re living with; they’re living through it. I was looking at the producers for this album…
Shep and Kenny, they’re a production team out of New York. They did the last record also. They produced Mandy Moore and Aaron Carter, right?
Yeah. Aaron Carter, Mandy Moore, LFO, Hall and Oates.
[Laughs] That’s awesome.
Yeah, it’s pretty awesome.
Why’d you choose them instead of someone known for doing alternative or rock music?
Well, we’re songwriters first and foremost before anything else, that is what it all boils down to. We wanted somebody we respected as songwriters; someone if they gave us their opinion on a part we wrote we’d go ‘wow, you know what you are talking about, we trust you,’ as opposed to somebody who a lot of bands in our little genre go with. A lot of those producers who everyone is using aren’t songwriters; they’re more concerned with how the kick drum sounds than how the chorus sounds and that is not what is important to us. They’re very professional people and you have to be with someone whose opinion you really respect when making an album.
So with Sirens and Walking Wounded , do you think these albums will stand out a lot more than bands with albums coming out at the same time? You guys came out when screamo and hardcore were getting really big. Do you think that made you stand out too?
It’s hard to say without scaring anyone.
[Laughs]
It’s extensive, that’s what we’re calling the production on this album. It’s very extensive; it’s very well thought out and there are a lot of things going on at one time, but at the same time it’s not messy. A lot of other bands who we are compared to, we try to stand apart from because a lot of their records are very minimal: two guitars, bass and drums and a vocal, which is very minimal. And if they try to do too much it just starts to sound messy. I think with this record we tried to make it have a lot going on and a lot to take in but it’s not experimental at all. We wanted to make something artistic and different without being weird.
