By Nicole Scarbossa and Marina Foo
Their songs spewing discontent and misery, most screamo bands are left unnoticed by the masses, but continue to drudge on hoping that one day success will come. Most quit, others toil in obscurity, while a select few actually make it. The Reason are one of these bands, but the only way they could really get noticed was by breaking genre stereotypes; they gave up the angst.
Their first album, Ravenna, fit the mould of what every screamo band has done before. Three years older and considerably more mature, the Reason have released their biggest accomplishment, their second album, Things Couldn’t Be Better. The album is a big departure from their previous endeavors, complimented by keyboards and catchy, upbeat tracks, contrasting their previous, darker, morose tones.
“When we were writing stuff for the record, we wanted to write what naturally came out of how we were feeling and stuff like that,” says lead singer Adam White. “As for the lack of screaming, it was just more not being upset about anything [and] being really positive about everything.”
Leaving the scream behind, the Reason’s new album is looking promising. In the countless bulletins and blogs on their site, fans are enamoured with the idea that they can download the album.
“I think it’s great,” says White. “It’s just going to get your stuff out to more people. You can’t force everybody to go and buy it when it’s so easy to download stuff. I mean, I download stuff. The music industry needs to figure out a new way to make money, I guess. I’m not going to stop someone from wanting to hear our band.”
With hundreds of thousands of hits on MySpace, the band is far from going unheard or unseen. Their new video for “This is just the beginning,” directed by Canadian music video mogul Michael Turell, is circulating on YouTube, much to the band’s elation. With acts like Billy Talent and Alexisonfire on his resume, White and the rest of the band are proud to have Turrell in their corner.
“We called him and sent him a song and he really wanted to do it, no matter what it took,” says White. “That’s kind of how we were for everything for this record. Just people wanted to work with us. People who cared about it as much as us.”
With a new video in hand, a new album and an Internet fanbase, the Reason have grown considerably in the past four years. They view the period as a learning experience.
“A lot of people we had grown up with had done university now and have careers and families and stuff like that,” says White. “We’ve been working just as long to do this as those people did with their careers and this album is like our university degree in a way.”
Things Couldn’t Be Better seems like an audacious title for a sophomore album, but White concludes it’s more a comment on where the band is at the moment.
“It’s like a question: ‘Hi, how are you doing?’” explains White. “‘Great. Things couldn’t be better.’”