It’s Easter weekend, 2011 and I am in a reflective mood. Gonna start this out in a not unusual Morgan Y. Evans way and start with an apparently random series of facts and tangents that eventually gel into a thesis about today’s subject, To Hell And Back (and life in general). So…had nostalgic times with an old friend yesterday and also just came from a big family occasion with about seventy little kids running around searching for easter eggs in a pastoral setting (quite a chaotic zoo to rival any punk show. Those kids were crazy to find those little eggs!). This holiday rated G fun is contrasted with the seedier rock n roll side of my own life where the band Withered stayed in my apartment a few days ago. I didn’t meet them because I was half asleep when they came in but they did loud bong rips or something with my roommate (and surrogate Crusher editochist) Rob Stango which shook the adjacent walls of my small room. I had missed Withered’s set in my hometown that night since I’d been at a photo shoot for my band Antidote 8 that night with the talented Deena (from Deelusions.com) and also had sat in on a rare recording session with her dormant project The Widow Capet (which features her fiancé and my best friend Nate Kelley, primarily of Shabutie fame).

It may seem like I was just plugging randomly unconnected things in the paragraph above, but I have a point. Been thinking a lot lately about how if you are a musician and this lifestyle really matters to you enough, you make it gel with the rest of your life by hook or by crook. It’s not always easy, but you’ll keep going because it accentuates and underscores your existence, even when (and often especially when) hard times or tragedy befalls you (like when my boys in Nightmares For A Week got all their gear stolen while on tour last week! A hex on the villains responsible). Sometimes music leads you to happy pastures and other times music can get you through hellish scenarios (or make temporarily painful sacrifices worthwhile in the end…for the cause!). That said, it isn’t always easy to reconcile the “regular” parts of life with the highs and lows of seeking rock n roll glory (even on a DIY, lower expectation punk rock level where you often measure things by a more community yardstick than say…Kid Rock, haha).

While it is true that our main focus today, Albany/Buffalo, NY’s To Hell And Back have made one of the most fiery, determined, knock it out of the park punk n’ roll records of the year (entitled WILL WE BE TORN APART on Peterwalkee Records), there is also something in the very character itself of To Hell And Back that both ties together my above ranting and which was even further reason to devote a precious Crusher Magazine feature to this great band. The reason is…integrity.

Since the early mid-90’s I have had the pleasure of calling Matto LaQue a friend. The To Hell And Back bassist is one of the most tireless indie rock lifers I have ever met, well grounded in DIY ideals and running his own Peterwalkee Records for years (check out the label’s recent remastered release of The Figgs' SUCKING IN STEREO). His down to earth approach and talent has leant color to many Albany area bands over the years including Kitty Little, Might and now To Hell And Back, and it is a pleasure to know someone who so reconciles the rock n roll side of life with being a good person. It is hard to not feel like an alien as a musician sometimes, so it is cool to know someone like Matto I can point to who always seems to make music no matter what and who is an agreeable and relatively well adjusted human (who happens to freakin’ shred).

As it turns out, Matto’s band mates in To Hell And Back are righteous dudes as well and they all have many a fine story to tell, as you’d probably guess after even one listen of their colossal WILL WE BE TORN APART RELEASE. Raw yet worldly and at the same time fun, the album distills elements of punk, hardcore and classic rock to a boiling point that will get your ass moving and your fist pumping. I was blown away when I recently saw them demolish a stage during a blizzard plagued night opening a Revocation show I booked at The Basement. I had to get the 411 on WILL WE BE TORN APART, and what makes the band tick. Along the way you will learn a lot, including a tale of Peter Steele jamming with the band!

To Hell And Back are the real deal, the kind of band that will make you remember that life is worth the struggle.

To Hell and Back is:
Matto LaQue (Guitar/Vocals), Kurt Stegeman (Guitar/Vocals)
Scot Seguine (Bass/Vocals), Geoff Kelley (Drums)

Morgan Y. Evans: I loved seeing you guys live recently supporting WILL WE BE TORN APART. The record is varied but it all has punch and live you are this wall of energy. Also love the "black hole" themes. Can you talk about making the record?

Geoff Kelley (Drums): We had talked about making an EP or another 7", but we had been spinning our wheels and it really didn’t seem to me that it was going to ever happen. After the dust settled from Jim's departure and Scot joining, there seemed to be a renewed focus and we actually developed some momentum. We are a real melting pot of a band. Where Matto and Kurt have deep roots in punk and hardcore, Scot and I have played more metal. And I think you can really hear that in the overall sound of the album. It's probably the part I am most proud of. No formula, just whatever feels right.

Kurt Stegeman (Guitar/Vocals): By having such diverse musical tastes and influences, we were able to rip off countless bands and mash them all together to the point that our thievery is unrecognizable. Everyone in the band is involved in the song writing process and we each bring something different into the mix. The artwork and layout for the record was all Scot though.

Scot Seguine (Bass/Vocals): I read all of the pop-astrophysics books and magazines, never dipping deep enough into academia to actually break the seal and become truly knowledgeable, so I am always at the apex of being really excited about massive space walls and n-body simulations and being really depressed about the inevitability of living in a system that has an expiration date. We needed a cover and a title and Kurt happened to have written a song with the ultimate celestial nemesis as a metaphor and I wrote a song with an endless octopus as a metaphor, so naturally the layout ended up dealing with a literal octopus hole that devours all light and goodness and leaves only lens flares and particle systems and shitty moods. The lines of magnetism in the diagram are just for fun because nobody knows how magnets work.

Matto (Guitar/Vocals): The record was a real group effort. Some of the tunes on the record were songs we had been playing out for awhile and others were totally new. Once we decided that we were going to make this record we dug deep into the songs and worked them over till it all sounded like one cohesive record. I think we did a good job considering all the hurdles we had to jump through. Since I am currently living 4 hours way from the rest of the band I was pushing really hard to be allowed to record my stuff over the phone like H.R. (from Bad Brains) did when he was in jail. Sadly, my cell phone carrier sucks and dropped my calls during some killer leads, thus I was forced to drive to Albany to make the magic happen.

MYE: (laughing)What were the biggest challenges in getting this stuff tracked? I'm sure it must've been hard to settle on definitive takes since you have the uphill battle of trying to capture the live sound, but I think it is a really strong album.

Geoff: We did all the tracking ourselves, so thanks for the compliment. Technology really allows almost any dipshit with a computer and a mic to record. There is really a lot more to it than that. We really got lucky in some cases to get the sound we got and there was quite a bit of trial and error just to get what we got. Another challenge we had was that, because there is virtually the entire state of NY between Matto and the rest of us, there were a couple of songs that we recorded that not everyone knew before the day tracking was done.
Kurt (Guitar/Vocals): Like Geoff said, we recorded this record ourselves. We invested in some recording software and equipment and converted our practice space into a half-assed studio. We worked on writing and recording for over a year, which gave us time to not be rushed and feel like we were compromising anything due to studio time constraints. It is extremely liberating to know that you don't have to settle on a take that is "good enough" just because it may cost another $100 to keep recording for another hour. The main problem we faced was being too overcritical of what we were recording.

Scot (Bass/Vocals): The biggest challenge was vocals because unlike playing a guitar, flaws in your vocal performance have a biological and personal shortcoming as underlying causes, so listening back to bad vocal takes is like coming face to face with the shoddy manufacture of your own garbage throat.

Matto (Guitar/Vocals): I had to do most of my parts of the record in small chunks when I would come back to town for shows and practices. In some ways that was really frustrating because the only thing I could do for weeks on end was make comments about stuff via email and phones calls. I am super impressed with the recording quality these guys were able to get out of limited equipment and space. I also appreciate their patience in dealing with me as it was probably very obvious that the only thing I spent any time practicing was my guitar solos. Brett also did a great job mixing it with us at his studio (North Sea Productions) and Doug at Watchmen Studios did a real bang up job with the mastering.
MYE: Didn't you play with Drop Dead on a date for the recent touring you did? Was it insane? Details?

Matto: Yeah, we recently played Can’t Stand the North East Fest @ AS220 in Providence, RI. Drop Dead made a surprise appearance and bashed out a couple of tunes. It’s not the first time THAB has shared a bill with them. The first time I saw Drop Dead was back in 1992 in Albany and they blew me away! A few years later my buddy Devon Cahill joined the band so we have been friends with them for many years. There has been a long friendship and connection between Albany and Providence. A bunch of my other bands have played many shows with those guys and I have set up gigs for both Drop Dead and their other related bands on several occasions. They are a great band and swell bunch of fellas. It’s always nice to go to out of town and see some familiar faces!

MYE: Matto, for as long as I can remember you have been a D.I.Y. real sort of pioneer type from Kitty Little (where your guitar playing was so nuts ala Mascis or something) to your current time in To Hell and Back. You've always had this humility while being incredibly busy and accomplishing a lot rather than empty boasting and I admire that a lot. Can you talk about Peterwalkee Records and your role in the Albany scene over the years and what inspires you?

Matto: Ha ha! Pioneer I am not. Guy who wastes a lot of time on music, yes!
I was really into music when I was younger. I used to spend hours playing with my mother and fathers’ record collection. I was obsessed with records, in particular this one red vinyl Johnny Mathis Christmas LP. It would be the middle of June and I would be playing that fucking record all day! As I got older and started looking past radio pop, the first real “scene” I got into was Metal. I started buying metal tapes at Jamesway with my paper route money and hanging out with metal heads. From metal I eventually discovered punk rock and hardcore. I started going to punk shows when I was in Jr high school and I started my first band when I was 15 yrs old. The punk “scene” was the first place where I felt comfortable and felt like I could be myself and not have to take a lot of shit from people. I think, the open-mindedness of the punk scene really struck a chord with me. I have always liked a lot of different styles and genres of music and the punk scene, was a place where that was ok and you could do different stuff with you own music, shows were often very diverse and the range of bands was all over the place. Those core DIY values of creativity and trying to be sincere have always stuck with me and I try and continue to make music and deal with people under those types of ideals. For me it doesn’t matter if I am playing pop rock band, rock n roll stuff or fast hardcore, I try and handle myself with honesty. Musically everything I do has a strong punk influence in the sound. That’s how I like it, raw, lose, and fast! That and little patience and limited musical ability! I try to handle the label (Peterwalkee) on that same kind of level.

MYE: How did to Hell and Back come about?

Matto (Guitar/Vocals): To Hell and Back started back in 2001 after the end of Devoid of Faith. Nate and Jim wanted to do a band again but do something different, something more rock oriented. I had been playing second guitar (live) with DOF for last 2 years of the band so I got involved right away, any excuse to play the two scales I know over and over again and call it “soloing”. We brought in Rob to play drums and Ember joined to play keyboard. From there we wrote a bunch of tunes, played some shows and recorded a demo and two 7” records. About 2 years in Nate left the band. We were lucky to quickly fill the spot with Kurt who had been laying low since his band The Disenchanted had called it a day. From there we recorded our first full length record. Over time Ember and Rob left, with Rob being replaced by Geoff. The lineup of Matto, Kurt, Geoff and Jim kept plugging away playing shows and juggling adult responsibilities. Around 2008, Jim decided to leave the band to focus on his semi pro dirt biking and being a new Dad.
At that point we were left with the choice to end the band or continue on without Jim. We had spent most of that prior year writing much of the material that would end up on the new record, so we decided to soldier on and bring on our friend Scot to play bass. We made the decision to all take on the vocal duties as we needed to step it up in that department since Jim’s unique bellow would be hard to replace.
From there, we wrote and recorded the new record. We've been playing a lot of shows, doing our best to get out of town, meet new people and play loud sounds to their faces!

MYE: What was the mission statement of the band? Did you know the direction ahead of time you wanted to take?

Matto (Guitar/Vocals): The goal of the band was nothing more than to play rock songs or “try” and play rock songs. When you have a bunch of dudes that have been playing hardcore forever, it’s difficult for the music to not come out heavy and raw. Early on we sounded more like more Sheer Terror covering Ted Nugent than we did Thin Lizzy or UFO but that’s what we did and we were having fun. Over the course the past 10 yrs the band has made some minor changes in sound that reflect the member changes, but overall we are still doing what we set out to do, except now I know THREE scales in which to over use for guitar solos!

Kurt (Guitar/Vocals): I like the idea of having a mission statement, like we are a non-profit agency or something. Considering that we rarely make any money at this, we might actually qualify for non-profit status.

MYE: Back to the DIY punk thing and also Peterwalkee, Matto...you've done your own releases and stuff a long time where others have sort of struggled to adjust to more independent minded strategies when technology shifted to the mp3. you already had the indie ethic down! Was it hard adjusting at all in any ways, however? What do you think are good models of self promotion for bands who want to embrace independence but feel daunted? I think it comes down to passion and imagination and what your bar for "success" is.

Matto: As far as the label goes, I have been slowly (and at times very poorly) doing it over the years to release my own records when the situation called for it and to release other peoples music that I really enjoyed. I have done records for several Albany based bands as well bands outside of Albany/NY/USA. In the past few years I have tried to turn the label up a few notches and hope to work with bands from other states and aboard. The label is a direct reflection of my music tastes; it is diverse and has a real range in bands and sounds. That’s the way I like it and that’s the way I plan on keeping it. I might fare better in sales and popularity if I stuck with a more genre specific approach with the label but things are so genre specific, split up and divided these days I don’t like that shit. I don’t want the label to become some niche label that sticks to one thing and eventually starts putting out subpar records just to keep a theme or sound going. I will continue to focus on vinyl with the occasionally short run CD here and there. I don’t know that I have been “ahead of the curve” on anything. Like most folks I saw the death of CD’s coming so I started focusing on more vinyl releases. I try and do small runs (with digital download codes), sell them and repress if needed. Nothing sucks more than having a closet full of records. I think I have been doing pretty well since I haven’t had a real distributor since the early 2000s’. I am open to distribution but I am sick of not getting paid. Thankfully, things have been busy as of late, the THAB CD/LP just came out as well as the LIEUTENANT LP (Raging HC from Buffalo NY). I have things in the works for 2011. I hope we will see a record from Sokea Piste (from Finland), Chron Turbine (ex Rye Coalition), hopefully another Figgs LP and more!

MYE: Do you still have those breakthrough moments listening to music or are you jaded? I mean, not that we're old farts but it's interesting. I feel open minded but seasoned. I can remember getting a silver sparkle adorned tape cassette of your old band The Phleghm Chuckers (with Paul Heath from Dead Unicorn and Mike Wilcox) back in the early 90's at a punk show in Woodstock and loving all the experimental material and songs about aliens. But is it harder to have those "the first time I really grasped the awesomeness of ZEN ARCADE" type moments anymore? I feel mostly startled by some of the weirder Profound Lore bands still these days, so that keeps music fresh for me

Scot: Despite being an aging senior citizen, and despite living in an era where the Internet has seriously damaged the spirit of the hunt, I still regularly find stuff that blows my mind and makes me want to form new bands to exactly emulate it. Nothing can really emulate the feeling of being a blank slate and listening to dead horse or Godflesh for the first time, but I think if I listed my top 50 things to listen to right now, most of it would be stuff I discovered in my 30’s and the rest would be stuff that was on the radio when I was 8 years old. I actually don't listen to much of anything from my teens and twenties when I should have theoretically been discovering myself and freezing my terrible tastes in amber for all time, which is good because high school and college is the time of most people's lives when they think it's super profound and groundbreaking to swear at their parents or be all loud in a public place or wash themselves infrequently. Anyone who is stuck in those glory days is going to be the biggest shithead you are going to meet all day.

Geoff: Yeah, I kind of feel the same way Scot does. I tend to have more moments where I discover music that I should have discovered years before. So, I find myself wishing I could have seen bands before founding members died. It is sort of sad to think about. That's not to say that I am not into current bands. There are a lot of bands that I am really into that I get the sense feel like me...This whole heavy guitar rock resurgence would be nowhere if bands like us didn’t come stumble across old Thin Lizzy and Black Sabbath albums and think, "Shit, we could do this and it will be awesome".

Kurt: For me, I think it is more that now that I am older, my musical tastes have matured and I can really appreciate music for music’s sake, whether it’s a new band or something from 30 years ago that I am re-discovering. Even if I don’t care for the style or genre of music, I still appreciate the creativity and musicianship of anyone who puts their hearts into playing their chosen instrument and does it well. I think it is pretty sad that many people into HC, metal, punk, etc. are so narrow-minded about music and are so quick to dismiss bands that play something that sounds different than every other band in that particular scene. I would much rather listen to or watch a band that puts themselves out there and tries something new rather than a band that just poorly rehashes the same shit people have been hearing for the past 10-20 years.

Matto: I feel like I am still discovering records that floor me and make me want to go out there and do something creative. Like the rest of the guys said, a lot of it is older stuff I haven’t gotten to yet but there are still plenty of new records coming out that are great. The older you get, the harder it is to find a record that changes you like a “Zen Arcade” does. Still, sometimes you will find a record that resonates with you and whatever you’re doing or going through at the time. Often times you discover records like that when you’re young and are already going through some real changes so it harder to replicate that experience when you get older and have a better sense of yourself, but it still happens. That’s why music is great. From a “musician’s” perspective, I think the sign of a really good record is one that genuinely makes you mad because it’s so good.

MYE: Punk used to be more political in general and I still think the personal is political. You aren't a blatantly political band but have a good aesthetic/world outlook. I love your song name "Grassroots Brushfire". It made me think of the use of Facebook and Twitter in the Middle East and how one good side of technology growing is that while more people have ADD, at least it is harder to contain other lifestyles from being known about in many parts of the world (as China learned when they tried to suppress Google, for example. I am not against drinking a freaking' Coca Cola and have done my share of supporting big corporations (which I don't think are inherently evil) but...thoughts on any of this stuff? I feel like revolutions, both personal and on a larger scale, am still possible.

Kurt: Jim gets credit for that song title. I work in the IT field, so I fully support humanity's growing addiction to our future computer overlords as it ensures that I will be able to continue to pay my bills.

Scot: Once hardcore shows stopped being about tables full of flyers and people having sit-down workshops to discuss sexism and animal rights, I gave up thinking about it, but I do honestly believe with all my heart that a wide generation of Americans have had their brains irreparably broken by emotional detachment tethered to unstructured informational immersion. Never in all of humanity's long years have the aggressively ignorant felt so authoritative and advocated. By the time a dumb opinion hits your brain, there is already a YouTube video with 6 million views and a QR-code you can put on your Facebook page. Multiple nations that each contains over a billion residents are poised to join us in our gross, fallen lifestyle and there can be no favorable outcome.

Matto: Like Scot was saying, I sometimes miss the days when shows were about more than just the music, but like most things that got really out of control. I enjoy exchanging ideas and appreciate it when a band actually has something thoughtful to say. However I don’t miss the 20 minute in between song speeches from teenagers with constantly flip flopping politics, passing around lyric sheets screen printed on recycled toilet paper in soy based inks. I think the idea that Facebook was used a tool to start the revolution in Egypt is really wild. It’s interesting that a country of abused and oppressed people used a social media tool make radical change in their country while Americans use it as a tool to troll people’s personal lives, post food porn and complain about the weather.

MYE: The last few years the music scene has seen a good slew of "dueling guitar rock" type bands emerge again but some seem to be informed or influenced by punk rock. Are there any comparisons you've gotten to other bands you disagree with or a style you think you fit in with or is that too limiting?

Scot: I am not sure I agree with the premise that the dueling guitar / punk metal thing is a current or recent thing. When I first read the question I agreed for a second because it feels like the right opinion, but then I remembered that the gigantic wave of metalcore bands trying to sound like At The Gates and In Flames started like 10 years ago! And the ROCK SABBATH METALLLLL thing was kind of mid/early 2000s too with like Three Inches of Blood and The Darkness and everything in between those bands... Rock Band and Guitar Hero and Metalocalypse kept that on life support for a while, but I actually think there are a ton of bands who are doing exactly the opposite right now... like completely stupid mosh bands who literally only need the first 4 frets of their guitars to survive or accordion playing great depression jug gypsy bands or psychedelic freak-out bands where you can't tell where the guitars end and the vocals begin. We mostly get compared to bands I don't really listen to so it never bothers me, but in general I am glad when the cycle of people suddenly remembering Maiden and Queen and Thin Lizzy repeats itself and everything gets all layered and melodic for another ten or fifteen minutes.

Geoff: I love listening to people make comparisons. If they think we sound like Karp, great. If they think we sound like AC/DC, great, as long as they like it.
Kurt: And if they don't like it, they obviously have terrible musical taste and their opinions are meaningless to us.

Matto: Early on, we were more influenced by bands like TurboNegro, Rose Tattoo, Hellacopters and ZZ Top. I don’t know that we ever once really thought about the whole “dual lead power rock” resurgence thing. We spent most of our time playing punk shows and generally going over like a fart in church. If there was some kind of bandwagon to jump on, we had no idea and clearly missed the boat…or in this case the wagon.

MYE: We've all had bad days or "hell" times in our lives but what are some nutty stories the band or you guys have gotten through and learned or grown from? What are you happy about?
Kurt: There was that one time we got snowed in at that one club and ended up having to eat the sound guy, the opening band and half the crowd to survive....

Scot: I'll eat anything once so every meal is an educational experience in addition to being a nail in my coffin.

Matto: I am just pumped we got this record done and are playing out as much as possible. That’s awesome! As far as the band goes, we have had some hellish moments. Over the years we have played a lot of shows but whenever we play what would be considered a “big deal” show something always goes wrong. We played this one show with Fu Manchu, Valiant Thor, Seemless, and some other band that I forget. Because we were the opening band we got bum rushed into playing early, the sound was really awful and Kurt’s head died during the first song. All the bands insisted on back lining all their gear on stage so I literally had about 2 feet of space between my amp and the end of the stage which sucked. I almost plummeted off the stage several times. Needless to say we looked like a bunch of assholes. We played another show with Carnivore and I broke three strings after the second song and I didn’t bring a back up guitar so I spent the rest of the set standing on the side of the stage stringing up my guitar. That was really embarrassing. I haven’t learned anything from those experiences but Kurt obviously has since he often brings an extra head and a guitar to shows now. There was one cool thing about that Carnivore show though, during our sound check Pete Steele was sitting at the bar eating a rather large pile of what looked like fried chicken and french fries. While we were checking mics, Pete turned around and pointed directly at Jim and said “No one is allowed to play bass better than me!” He stood up and walked over to the stage and then asked us if we knew any Sabbath tunes. We actually did, so Pete joined us on stage and we ran through “Paranoid”. That was great. RIP Pete Steele. Oh, I also got arrested after a To Hell and Back show in Northampton, MA once but I will save that story for another time!