1st 3 – You mentioned an EP coming out later this year, is that written already?

That one is done, recorded and everything is done for it. We’re just getting the fine ends tidied up. We’re currently in practise writing the follow-up for that one, and we have two and a half songs out of five done for that one. We’re trying to keep the ball rolling with the creative juices flowing. Worst-case Ontario, Trailer Park Boys reference, if everything does get crappy again, we still have some content rolling out. We have a lot of new merch coming out, we just got basketball shorts done, we have zip-up hoodies about to drop, we have a bunch of new t-shirt designs. We have merch going that way, we have content going that way, so we can try to keep our ball rolling.

1st 3 – Are you as a band involved in the design of the merch?

I usually one of the people gunning for merch, I get ideas, or we’ll feed off what people say to us. Everywhere we go, we get people going, ‘Oh Scranton, do you guys work at The Office, do you guys work at Dunder Mifflin?’ I was looking at The Office logo, the Dunder Mifflin one, so we have the parody of the Dunder Mifflin logo as ‘Traverse the Abyss Scranton Metal’, that gets eaten up. A lot of the designs we’ll pitch, like, ‘Halloween’s coming up, what would you guys want to do?’ So, we’ll spitball and try to get everybody’s ideas on it but texture wise we’ll try to ensure that the shirts are soft, if there are shorts make sure that they have pockets. It’s a group thing but usually I’m the one making sure that it’s getting printed and mailed out.

1st 3 – Do you take the lead in the band, as a semi-manager role?

Yes and no, it’s very democratic. Everybody’s voice is heard, and their vote on stuff is spoken about but I would say that me and Iron Mike, our guitar player, are the El Presidentes of the group. It’s definitely a collective thing but me and Mike have the most input and drive. It’s a weird balance because Jamie is more honed in on the writing aspect and how we can enhance the songs, that’s where him and Mike will bond. Mike is good with the monetary stuff and how we’re dividing it, but everybody gets to pitch in. I’m more involved with the social media stuff, looking at what is really booming right now, like the bleach tie dye shirts are what is jumping so we should go with these. Me and Mike are like the dynamic duo or the toxic twins, we feed off each other, we are the light and the darkness.

1st 3 – Assuming that things do open up, who else would you like to support?

If we could do this year’s Knotfest, that would be perfect. Slipknot would be one, same with Trivium, Megadeth would be really cool. We have played with quite a list of bands so far – we did Upon a Burning Body, we did Miss May I, we did Like Moths to Flames, so there is a list of nationals that we got to play with. I would definitely like to support Trivium, Lamb of God, Slipknot – those are the big ones up there. As for a tour, I think that it would be awesome to get on a leg of a Motionless in White tour – we’re both from Scranton and we both do metalcore so it would be kind of cool, plus they have a huge following. We played with them when they did a hometown show, this was at the back of 2018. We were the direct support slot for them. I know what it could do if we were on one of their runs.

1st 3 – Can you tell us about your tattoos – I’m assuming the ‘Time Flies’ one is after your song of the same name?

 Yes, it was around the same time. On my hand is the ‘Time Flies’ clock to remind me to get off my ass and live, make life happen. The microphone and stuff from pop culture is on my arm, it’s stuff I grew up with, so this arm is for my mom. I have Sauron from The Lord of the Rings, the Dark Mark from Harry Potter, Darth Vader, The Nightmare Before Christmas. My other arm is all ocean themed – there’s the angler fish, squid, shark, diver’s helmet on the hand, and that’s basically what my dad has across his whole belly, so one arm’s mom and one arm’s dad. On the mom arm, there are music notes all vaguely shaded in the negative spaces, so it’s music and mom, childhood. Then dad on the other arm. My legs are bare compared to the arms, but I have Crash Bandicoot and Pokemon, so that’s video games. I grew up playing games and now I do Twitch streaming so now I make a couple of dollars playing games and that’s my de-stressor. I watch movies but a lot of the time I need something interactive, so I like a lot of story-based video games, where it’s a story but you have to interact and play it out, so that’s one of my outlets. Then there are miscellaneous tattoos on the other leg – we’ve got the voodoo doll, we’ve got Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants, because my daughter loves Spongebob. I feel like that’s a personal reflection of myself. I’m either really happy or I’m like, everything sucks. Me and the wifey grew up on Spongebob too. The adult humour that’s laid out throughout that show is incredible and there’s stuff I laughed at as a kid and now re-watching it as an adult, some of the adult puns are stuff, it’s stupid stuff but it kills me. I’m a bit kid at heart, just like my mom. My feet are tattooed too. I cover myself with things to make me feel good about myself.

1st 3 – Finally, what has been the highlight of Traverse the Abyss so far?

Gig wise, almost any time the crowd is vibing with you, even if it’s a small crowd, that’s always an amazing feeling. The highlight would still be the Motionless in White show because it was the first time of getting to perform in front of a thousand plus people. They were vibing with it, so it wasn’t like they were bored – the moshpit was huge, there was non-stop crowd surfing. We sold all of our merch that night. Yes, that felt right. Then it was, how do I get to make this an all the time deal. Song wise, I’m really glad that everyone is vibing with the theme of Only Human, and the opposite of that, I’m glad to see how much success being silly is doing. Even today, I’m going to be cutting a couple of promos and they’re going to be stupid silly and I keep rolling with that. We did one for the Attila show, and I was right her in my back yard with a beach backdrop that we got from the dollar store, it was a dollar. It was 8am and I put that up and filled a margarita glass with lemonade, and I was like, this is the day drinking tour. It’s cool because even stuff like that on TikTok is blowing up because you people can be silly and visual. Text is only so much, there’s no emotion behind it, when you put something on paper, ok people will get it but when they see it with people waving their hands and moving in and out, you get a bit more personality out of it. So, I’m glad that people are picking up on the silliness and vibing with that, and with the serious too. We have the most fun making our content for the band.