Stray from the Path Interview

Ok for starters, who are you and what do you play in the band?

my name is Tom, i play guitar in Stray.

In your opinion, what is hardcore? and what does it mean to you?

Hardcore to me was an outlet for kids like myself to channel their creativity, belong to something positive and be in an environment where anybody can accomplish something. I mean Stray started in a garage like any band and our first show was at Castle Golf in long island. Now we are on the Never say die tour playing to 400 - 800 kids a night and have our records in stores next to Stone Temple Pilots. Hardcore made it possible for me to accomplish that. Hardcore has always been about believing in something that you thought mattered, and staying true to that no matter what. Just because music is in the "Scene" does not make it hardcore. If that were true, then you can say brokencyde was hardcore. They are everything that is disgusting with the scene, and those fucking idiots are taking advantage of the scene and it makes me sick.

What do you think of the scene now days?

Its getting much better. There was a time where it was shot to shit and we couldn't play a city without a fight. Everybody forgot, or didn't know in the first place what these shows are about. But its starting to be sick now. I don't think there was a single fight on the tour we are on so far, except for these 2 hillbillies yelling at eachother in nashville.

Either as a band or speaking just for yourself. What is your inspiration?
What keeps you going in the hardcore scene?

I personally do not like struggling to come up with my rent money every month because I like to play my guitar. But making a song with your friends and seeing some kids that can get inspired by something myself or someone in my band has created, its a feeling that is indescribable. I keep going because I feel that my band can be successful by getting our music out to a wide audience, and be able to get by in life. I think that all the hard times myself and my band mates experience will pay off one day. To borrow a line from Airheads, I think we are all pissed off and screwed up enough that we can write a song that can live on forever.

Enough about the scene. For up and coming bands, what is the best touring,
recording, live show advice you could give them?

Stop with the press kit nonsense. The only way that you can get anywhere is by touring your ass off. You need to stick through terrible tours, being depressingly broke and dealing with shitty situations. And when you play live, just put your everything on stage. Passion will speak before anything.

What concerns you politically at the moment?

Honestly, what I have been thinking about more often that usual is that I don't know what to believe. I feel that I am always being lied to by someone. Even the people who say they are serving a good purpose making some documentary, I still feel like they are bending shit to benefit themselves.

Is this interview straight forward enough for you yet? ha

Yes, but i like it haha

Anyway. It's no secret now that you get compared to Rage Against the Machine A lot.
So obviously there has to be some inspiration coming from Rage in your music.
How big of a part has Rage played in your life growing up as a music fan and then
starting Stray?

Yeah we get it allllll the time now. Which is cool, but we don't want to put ourselves up at the top with a band like that. I get worried because I don't want people to expect a certain something from us like they expect from RATM. The most thing we have in common is that we are honest people that want to make an impact. The first real album I heard was Evil Empire on casset, and I used to listen to people of the sun over and over again. When I started playing guitar, I found out that he used a alan key to make that noise, and I was shocked. I looked into the shit that Tom morello used and its so sick. People think hes "all pedals" which is fucking retarded. Like us, hes just another person fed up with the same shit that everyone else does, and he just makes his own shit. He can play almost anything that anybody else can play, but I don't know a single person that plays like him. That inspired me the most, is that Tom morello didn't give a shit about what was cool, he made his guitar sound like a Cow in the song mic check, he thought it was awesome, and thats all that mattered.

What do you think Stray from the Path has to offer the hardcore scene?
or what do you hope you have to offer?

Something new. And we have been getting a lot of that recently. Kids have been coming up to us, who have never seen us before and say shit like "I never have seen anything like that before" which is unreal to us. Our music is serious and we want it to make people feel good and hear something thats not like anything else.

When you started Stray did you ever see it coming to the point that it has?

Nope haha. I was talking with our buddy frank from the world we knew, who we are on tour with. We grew up in the same town, and our bands started around the same time. We were in alabama playing a show to almost a thousand people, and I said "did you think 6 years ago we would be here together?" shit was cool.