Apparently Benny the Beaver is a magnet for rock magnificence. Even several weeks after the 2009 Oregon State University Battle of the Bands, I am impressed and rock-refreshed with the wealth and variety of musical talent that is currently being fostered within the halls of higher educational pursuits in the heart of Corvallis, Oregon. If you are ready for music that is hard enough to rumble your innards while smooth enough to draw fans from diverse musical tastes, as evidenced by the incredible crowd response at the aforementioned BOTB, then Honest to Empire will be a welcome addition to your rock library. Unless you are in the Corvallis or Portland area, you might not be seeing them live until other pursuits are accomplished (namely education) but keep your eye out for Honest to Empire as this is a group who is laying a foundation that could carry them far beyond the Willamette Valley (Oregon). Our thanks to Justin for giving his feedback for this Myspace interview.

HC What inspired the name of your band? How did your band come together?
HTE The story behind the name is interesting in that a friend of our first bassist came up with it. “Empire” was a word that was frequently thrown around while trying to come up with a name and Honest to Empire is something that just sort of came from that. We actually finally got a chance to meet the guy just this year.

HC How would you describe your musical style?
HTE I think we would all describe it as metal-infused hard rock. There are certainly a lot of bands out there that are heavier than us. We try to find a balance between heavy, driving rhythms and melody in both the vocals and guitar work.

HC What is unique about your band? What makes your band/sound different from other offerings?
HTE I think something to be said for our band is that we all come from different musical backgrounds. While there is a lot of overlap among the members, each one has their own set of bands that really inspire and influence them. That definitely comes through in the music. I suppose what makes our sound unique is that a lot of people (including ourselves) have trouble pinning down which band we most closely sound like, and that is a good thing.

HC You are currently based out of Corvallis, OR, are you all natives? All students at OSU? What do you enjoy most about the local scene?
HTE Yes, we are all students at OSU but we are native to the Portland area. I think what we enjoy most about the local scene is performing. There are so many opportunities to perform for school events and parties, and they are usually always great shows. The local music scene has also diversified in a stylistic sense in recent times, which is also very exciting. It’s even better because each band is friends with each other, which creates a very supportive environment.

HC I had the pleasure of seeing you live at the 2009 OSU: Battle of the Bands where you guys put on an awesome show. How did you get involved with the OSU:BOB? What do you plan to do with the momentum from this event?
HTE Thank you, we’re glad you enjoyed our performance. Each year every band interested in competing in the battle first has to pass a preliminary audition held in the winter. From there, time slots are assigned to each band for the battle in the spring. Our first tryout for the battle in 2006 was unsuccessful. After some lineup changes we passed the audition and played in the 2007 battle. In 2008, we won. That’s why we played last at this year’s show. The band that wins the previous year automatically secures the headlining spot but is ineligible for competition, which is a rule that has been a part of the battle ever since we’ve been students.

HC *Sidenote: I was surprised with how clearly Honest to Empire owned the stage, total crowd involvement and the atmosphere of the show that you didn’t even place. Is there something I don’t understand about the OSU:BOB, or do you feel that you got snubbed as well?
HTE Our band looks forward to the battle every year. It’s a chance for us and for many other local bands to perform for an extremely large audience. We use the momentum from the battle not only to get our music and name out there, but to make damn sure that everyone has a great time. It’s hands down our biggest show each year and it’s always a riot.

HC Is there a driving force behind the composition of your band and your method to writing music? Would you describe yourselves as a political, religious or any other central cause/theme?
HTE The foundation for each HTE song usually is the guitar. Ryan or myself (or both) will bring some riffs to the table, and from there the band will begin ordering the song structure and adding the rhythm section until we’re happy with what we have. Vocals are typically added at the end. There aren’t really any specific themes that govern the songwriting process. If I had to pick one, I would say everyday life (how general is that?) is a big theme. Obviously this can mean a lot of different things, but each song has a story.

HC Where can those interested best connect with you to find out about news, releases and tours?
HTE We have a Myspace page (www.myspace.com/honesttoempire), and are also on Facebook. We also have a website (htemusic.com) that we use as well. Myspace is probably the best bet.

HC Where are you at currently in terms of releasing anything and/or gearing up for a tour?
HTE We released our first EP, “On the Horizon,” back in June 2008. As busy college students, we currently have no aspirations for touring. We usually just rock the Corvallis scene, and Portland when we can. Right now we’re going through some lineup changes. We recently parted ways with our good friend and longtime drummer Charley McGowan, who is now drumming for Target for Tomorrow, a Corvallis ska band (check them out, they kick ass). Once we find a new drummer we are interested in recording a full-length album. We have probably 5 or 6 songs to go to fill an album so the focus right now is on writing.

HC Where are you currently grabbing inspiration and/or frustration from and how has this been affecting your music?
HTE Currently I think we have been grabbing more inspiration from the heavier side of things. This has manifested itself in a lot of driving, chugging guitar riffs and a lot of ideas in dropped tunings. We’ll see where it takes us.

HC What have been some of the most important lessons for you as aspiring-artists?
HTE We’ve gotten as far as we have simply from having fun. We write music and perform as a hobby, and also to have some fun with all our supportive friends and fans that come out to see us. An important lesson gained from the whole experience, I think, is to never lose sight of why we’re here in the first place, which is simply for the enjoyment of writing/creating/performing music. Once you lose sight of that, what do you have?

HC Are there any favorite/funny/scary memories from recent tours or shows that you’d like to share? Have you done much touring?
HTE On the favorite side of things, we had a pretty epic run in 2008 with some wicked shows. After winning the OSU Battle, we played on the Ernie Ball stage at the Portland stop of the Vans Warped Tour. We also opened for Floater (awesome) in Corvallis at the Platinum. Last fall we played at an epic block party in Corvallis to an overwhelmingly positive crowd response. This year’s battle was also insane, definitely the most crowdsurfing and moshing at an HTE show that we’ve ever seen. We were all amazed and blown away by how crazy it was.

On the scary/funny side, I will say that for two years in a row now at the battle, Roland’s keys have been basically silent in the monitors on this one part in a song in 7/8 timing where the band really needs to hear the keys to get our bearings. Both years it’s been pretty scary to almost lose it hard in the middle of a song with a few thousand people watching, but we’ve always recovered, thankfully.

You may have never heard of Maple Valley, Washington (I had to look it up) but you will soon be hearing a lot from their young and expanding talent. I was first introduced to We Move Mountains when I was doing some research on Rock For Reason, a local youth led group that seeks to raise awareness and support to bring clean water to Africa. While the music of WMM is definitely hard, it is far from defined by the hardcore tag alone, this is an eclectic blend of emotion, creativity and sheer brutality. Thanks to WMM for taking the time to conduct this Myspace interview…

HC What inspired the name of your band? How did your band come together?
WMM Well Bones(drummer) and I(Zesty/screamer) both picked up new instruments after the last band had fallen apart. We were tired of fooling around and not having any fun. In order to have a solid band name that we both enjoyed, time and a lot of poor names came up. We Move Mountains ended up sticking. We found it unique, fitting, and just badass! Then we picked up Keller and Barret from another fallen local band, The Wi-fi Brothers. Eventually, Barret parted ways to Afterwords, and we got Nate. Nate was a no-brainer choice, as he is amazing at every Zelda game. He ended up picking up the bass for us, and surpassed the expectations we had tenfold. Our most recent lineup change was Ethan. We knew him from a local Death Metal band, Aschemia. He had showed interest in joining before, and so when we felt I needed to choose between guitar and vocals, Ethan was another first choice. The current WMM is the best it has ever been. And here we are!

HC How would you describe your musical style?
WMM Oh man, this question is tough for us. We honestly just write until it sounds good. I’m not going to compare us to anything, because I feel have our own sound, but we’ve heard things like ” a cross between Fear Before The March of Flames/Heavy Heavy Low Low”. I’d say our music is catchy and all over the board. You never know what you’re going to get from us!

HC What is unique about your band? What makes your band/sound different from other offerings?
WMM We put our hearts into our music. That puts a band out of the crowd instantly and is the most important thing to us. Our influences have contributed a lot as well. Though there’s the number of bands we all listen to, our core influences are very diverse. Mine being The Mars Volta, Bones’ being Metallica, Keller’s being Blink-182 and so on. At a glance, I’m sure we’re just another band following the “core” fad, but if you really give us a listen, it’s much more than that.

HC You are currently based out of Maple Valley, WA, are you all natives? What do you enjoy most about the local scene?
WMM We are actually! I moved out of state for a while, but ended up coming back after a few years just in time for High School to start up. Maple Valley’s music scene isn’t there. Sure, there’s a few bands, but the supporters are limited to that and a few others. We like to head out to Tacoma to the Viaduct and Club Impact. We feel very at home at both places, and the environments of both are very family oriented, and more importantly, all about the music and helping the local scene!

HC Is there a driving force behind the composition of your band and your method to writing music? Would you describe yourselves as a political, religious or any other central cause/theme?
WMM As I said earlier, it comes from our hearts. I’ll start churning out lyrics like it’s nothing if I’m going through a rough time in my life. As for the instruments, once someone sparks, we all explode and will crank out a great song in a day or two. We like to write the guitar parts first, then add drums and vocals. None of our stuff is political, religious or any of that. Our stuff deals with hardships that everyone goes through, and looking at the flaws of ourselves and how we can better them.

HC Where can those interested best connect with you to find out about news, releases and tours?
WMM I don’t think we’ll ever jump onto the Twitterwagon. Twitter creeps us out. Texting and myspace is enough information as it is. Hourly updates on millions of people? Just creepy. Myspace is the best way to get in touch with us, whether it be on the bands page or one of our personals. We’re very friendly guys and love interacting with the fans we have, and letting them know how much they mean to us.

HC Where are you at currently in terms of releasing anything and/or gearing up for a tour?
WMM At this very moment, we’re recording round two of our full length. We had been planning a tour for this Summer, but it was way tougher than we expected and things fell through. We’re hoping to get out there sometime before the year’s over though. WMM is still young, being between 15-17, and although we’re trying to take big steps, sometimes we take a step back and realize how young we really are.

HC Where are you currently grabbing inspiration and/or frustration from and how has this been affecting your music?
WMM I don’t think we could narrow it down to any one thing. Every passing day affects our music. I wish I could answer this better…

HC What have been some of the most important lessons for you as aspiring-artists? WMM Give respect, get respect. That’s a huge one for us. And get a trailer as soon as you can!

HC Are there any favorite/funny/scary memories from recent tours or shows that you’d like to share? Have you done much touring?
WMM We still haven’t toured yet and haven’t experienced many shenanigans either. Bummer, eh?

HC We’ve recently become aware of the efforts of Rock For Reason and noticed that you’ve been playing at several their concerts, how did you get involved with RFR?
WMM Rock for Reason! Woowoo! Yeah, actually Keller and I are on the RFR Team. The whole thing is lead by our buddy, Cameron. We’ve been helping out since the very first show, and We Move Mountains was lucky enough to play it too! As part of the staff, and one of the local bands, we are lucky enough to get on most of the bills and play those AMAZING shows! I encourage everyone to check out RFR’s myspace, get informed, and help out any way you can!

*All pictures courtesy of We Move Mountains via Myspace profile

Sorry this is so late. Here at hurdcore we/I am a fan promoting local bands from a fans perspective. I try to post at least one band interview every week and fill in with events or other information that comes to my attention. With that said, here are my comments on the final four bands of the OSU:BOB ’09…

As the night pressed forward, we continued through the transitions of sundry musical genres. The first fall of darkness brought a new energy to the crowd as people dared to approach the stages in much thicker numbers all resolved to enjoy the full experience of the final four for the 2009 Oregon State University Battle of the Bands.

The recently re-launched Stateside Traffic took to the stage with the nights first piano driven offering. Perhaps the best purely pop composition, this may be the last band I’ve listened to that my wife said, “That sounds good,” and I have to agree, Stateside has a great sound for a pop band…I have to keep my cred right?!

Everyone has their prejudices and I am not exempt. I like my music hard and with very few exceptions within that genre, I like my vocals to be screamed. For me, New Mecca, is somewhat of a paradox as they may have been the band of the night with the most straight-forward hardest shreds and then…they sang. To be fair, they were brilliant for the style they offered and elicited a response from the crowd while also being the only band that had a number of people turn out with shirts of the band. If you like the combination of heavy riffs and singing with an edge, New Mecca will not disappoint.

With the powers of a good rock/pop base and a handsome lead, Blue Ember might have a combination of the right pieces to make a run at stardom. I note without shame that Blue Ember is a handsome man, but I would hate for that factoid alone to overshadow the backbone which is their well composed pop delivered with an entertaining alt/rock edge. The power of this combination was displayed best in their cover of Lady Gaga’s Just Dance where Ember’s instrumental crafts and diversity were on full display.

Perhaps helped in parts by being the last act of the night and the closing of the beer garden, Honest to Empire put on a show to remember with hard licks and rock charisma that owned the night. HTE straight out blistered on squirrel packed tracks such as Punisher and the crowd went insane hoisting members into a surfing frenzy. Security was pretty cool about it, assisting people to the ground safely and releasing most of them to attempt their feats once again. The final act of the night was capped off with a guest appearance from Benny the Beaver entertaining the crowd with a thrashing air guitar performance.

Hard at work in the studio to get a full release ready for the public, the online release of their latest track You Had Me @ Hello and fresh off their first local show, 66 Love Letters is declaring their intent to dominate the Portland (Oregon) hardcore scene. 66LL should be ready to impress the chicks, they’ve been practicing in a barn from day one! (ha ha…see notes below) If you like energetic, brutal licks and live in the Northwest, you are going to want to keep an eye on 66 Love Letters. Our thanks to Mike of 66LL for taking the time to interact with hurdcore.com via Myspace.

HC What inspired the name of your band? How did your band come together?
66LL Our band name came to be from the 66 Books of the Bible which are commonly know as Love letters.

HC How would you describe your musical style?
66LL Our musical style is definitely on the heavier side of rock, but we stay in the Hardcore/Alternative genre.

HC What is unique about your band? What makes your band/sound different from other offerings?
66LL We feel that our faith and our commitment to the reason for our band sets us apart from other bands that are similar to us. We strive to put our all into our musical sound, but also believe that the overall few of us as a band is important as well.

HC You are currently based out of Portland, Oregon, are you all natives? What do you enjoy most about the local scene?
66LL We are all from the Portland area, yet some of us have spent years of our lives out of Oregon, such as Indiana and Montana. Portland’s music scene is like a roller-coaster, but we really enjoy what Portland has to offer through its venues and fans.

HC Being a Christian hardcore band, have you found local churches to be supportive of your efforts? Do you view yourselves as missionaries? What has been the overall response to the relationship between your talents and the sharing of your message?
66LL We have been accepted as a Christian / Hardcore band by many churches and have been given the oppurtunity to perform, and then some churches are the opposite and don’t want anything to do with what we are about. We believe that what we are doing is to glorify God and not ourselves, and it means a lot to us when people realize that instead of just listening to our sound and assuming we are like everyone else.

HC On your recent video, it appears that you are practicing in an incredibly clean barn, or more specifically in the haymow, is this where you typically practice?
66LL Our barn has been our permanent practice pad for awhile now, and we try to keep it as clean as possible.

HC Your posts from this spring mention recording and a drummer change. Are you working towards a release for this year? Have you found a new drummer, how is that working out?
66LL We have been working with a drummer for a couple months now, and he is working out great. As far as a release for more music, we are really hopeing by the end of the year to have a good EP recorded for our fans.

HC Where can those interested best connect with you to find out about news, releases and tours?
66LL Our myspace is a great place to interact with us and to find out the latest news and info about our band. There are also sites like twitter.com/66loveletters and purevolume.com/66loveletters where you can find updates about us as well.

HC Where are you currently grabbing inspiration and/or frustration from and how has this been affecting your music?
66LL We all struggle with daily struggles and glorifying moments as well and we try to put those moments into every song. But when it comes down to it, we are all in this to glorify God and not ourselves, so we give Him all the credit.

HC What have been some of the most important lessons for you as aspiring-artists?
66LL Important lessons…well we know that recording without a drummer is harder than it sounds, and costs a lot more too. But we are a new band and have a lot more to learn and a lot more room to grow, but we feel we are all in this for the right reason and this band is going to take us very far.

HC Are there any favorite/funny/scary memories from recent tours that you’d like to share?
66LL Actually no, because we have not even had our first show.

HC Any words of encouragement for aspiring bands?
66LL Encouraging words… Don’t give up on your dreams, realize what you are doing and why you are doing it, and put your band in the hands of someone who can mold it and make it everything it’s supposed to be.

*All pictures courtesy of 66 Love Letters via Myspace profile

Doug Brogar performs his rock tribute chronicling the life of young Chuck Norris. You don’t want to miss this action!