Welcome back to part two of our interview with friends Alex and Nick of Cold World. Visit our store to order a limited CW T-shirt!
Can you talk about the demos you recorded a few years ago a little bit? Where does that tie into Pegasus?
Nick: I’m assuming you’re referring to the Cold World demos with me singing. That has nothing to do with Pegasus besides me realizing I can hold it down on vocals. I saw some people posting CW demos a while ago, so I downloaded them just to see what they have, and most of the tracks were just rough mixes with Dan’s vocals. We have whole separate sessions where the songs sound a little different and I sing the whole thing. People don’t really have them, as far as I know. I’d like to do something with them at some point, but who knows.
What are the five best CW shirt designs?
Nick: I really like the ones we recently did. The Showbiz & AG rip, and the Diamond D rip are very ill. We just did a hoodie with the Infamous logo on the front and it says Young Veteranz on the back. The Beatnuts shirt was cool. I just like all the 90′s rap ones!
Alex: Georgetown Hoyas longsleeve with Erik B. and Rakim on the back. Black Ice Grillz tee. Tapes shirt. Russian tattoo flash shirt. Soundgarden ripoff Scace designed.
The band has done some fancy things in the studio as far as hardcore acts go. Can you tell us what you’ve taken away from your studio time?
Alex: When the engineer or producer tell you something, challenge it. They don’t like to do stuff because a lot of them are very stuck in their ways. But if you want to get the sound that YOU want, not the sound that they want, you need to put your interest before their comfort. There really is no limit as to what can happen in the studio. Be patient. It takes time. Don’t do too much or you’ll end up sounding corny instead of cool.
Nick: The main thing I’ve learned is that you’re always going to have to compromise SOMETHING. For instance, working with Billy G. was cool but for some reason I wasn’t able to get all of the hip hop stuff done the right way with him. I was never really able to dial the parts in as much as I would have liked because he always thought he knew the best way to do them. However when we record at this little studio in Wilkes-Barre with our homie Joe Loftus we’ll do crazy stuff and he’s open to anything we want to try. The last recording session we did, we recorded the main guitar track with the microphone inside of an African drum! We did a really cool on-the-spot intro with Dan’s girlfriend Hannah, and even did a hip-hop song with her where she sang a verse and then Haroun does a verse responding to her, kind of like the Prodigy song “Trials of Love” on HNIC. But at the same time, Joe isn’t as privy to how to make a recording sound heavy like Don Fury or Billy G can. We want to record where Blacklisted has been recording next time.
Where’d they record? Who else has done joints there? Do you know if Wharton Tiers’ Fun City is still around?
Nick: They recorded at Studio 4 in Ardmore, Penn. They recorded a lot of crazy shit there, including all of the Ruffhouse Records stuff. I think Lauryn Hill is recording there now. Wharton Tiers is the dude who recorded Sonic Youth, right? I remember reading an article about him in a mag a year or two ago. I’m pretty sure he still has a studio. From what I remember from the article, he records analog only.
Alex: I’ve heard we are, but I wouldn’t know.
Nick: I have no clue. It seems to me like there’s a sect of followers for everything in Japan, so it’s no big accomplishment to have fans there. Like there’s probably still candy ravers in Japan. If we were actually big in Japan we would’ve been there by now. I’m a pessimist, I don’t think we’re big anywhere.
Name five people who like Cold World, and who they are.
Alex: Damian Abraham, aka Pink Eyes. Andy Nelson: Blacklisted, Paint it Black. Jude Farrell: Knows more people in more walks of life than anyone you’ll ever meet. John T. Cooper: I actually don’t know if he likes us, but he was an original member, so I’m including him. Brad Hyra and Tad Peyton: Roommates in Washington D.C.
Nick: I just found out that this dude who works at one of the groceries that I deliver to has a son in a metalcore band and he loves Cold World. Kurt Vile apparently likes us. I dunno man! The only person I want to like Cold World right now is Albite so he can write some new fucking riffs!
Life Of Agony or Merauder?
Nick: Life of Agony for sure. After hearing that Eddie Sutton demo, I can never sweat Merauder as much as the next man because I love it so much.
What’s that mean? Ha ha.
Nick: What I mean by that is I can’t jock Merauder as much as most kids do because I’m too hung up on how good Five Deadly Venoms would’ve been with Eddie singing. I like the Five Deadly Venoms album but I can NOT listen to the album versions of the songs that are on the demo because they just make me feel uncomfortable knowing that they’re 5,000 times better with Eddie. I fuck with the second LOA album and I really like the song “Weeds” from the third one.
Alex: LOA.
Is it challenging to teach the songs and lyrics you write to Dan, the singer?
Nick: It’s pretty rough. He’s no Beethoven, but he’s pretty good at mimicking something after he hears it a couple times and he tries really hard. What I love about Dan is he doesn’t sound like any other vocalist in hardcore right now. We’ve never had a problem with him learning the lyrics or anything like that. I couldn’t ask for anybody better to be our singer really.
Alex, where do you get your ideas for riffs?
Alex: You can get ideas anywhere. I listen to the radio a lot, and when I listen to a song, sometimes I try to finish a verse or a chorus differently than its written… If it’s something I really like I’ll continue and build off it and turn the radio off the rest of the way home trying to concentrate on the idea. I remember when I wrote “Low Places,” I was in the car and Metallica’s “Creeping Death” came on. I was about 15 minutes into a two-hour trip, and I had to not listen to anything the whole way home while I sang out the song in my head. When I got home, though, I just picked up the guitar and it was written, I just had to figure it out.
Nick, what do you do when you get an idea for a song, but you aren’t home to record it?
Nick: When I’m working I always have a printer with me to print out invoices, so I let out some of the paper, write it on there and keep it in my wallet. Me and Haroun were fucking around with some hip-hop shit so I have a little stack of rhymes on my dresser right now. That’s how i wrote the lyrics for Pegasus, too. When we were recording it, I was reading the lyrics off of receipt paper! Or a lot of times, when I’d be driving me delivery truck and I had an idea for a melody/lyrics, I’d record them on my phone a couple times until I got it right and kept it.
Alex: I tried to.. I really did, but then I found that I just straight up don’t like animals. I do like my dog, Ozzie, though.
You realize that Trumbull is publishing The Cold World Manual, right? Got anything to say about that?
Nick: HA! I would rather you didn’t. I’m sure it’s really dated. That’s something that should just be passed down from generation to generation. I want you to give it to your grandson one day.
If Cold World had formed in the ’70s, what would you have called the band?
Nick: That’s an Albite question, but I’ll say Street Muffin Divinity.
CW uses a lot of samples from rap records, but none from movies. What movie part would you sample for a CW song?
Nick: I really want to use this sample from “New Jersey Drive.” It’s from the end of the movie where he’s just like wrapping it up and it’s really ill. Hopefully I’ll remember to put it on the new record.