An Interview With Tony Housh Of Seasons After

Seasons-After

Wichita, Kansas band Seasons After made their last stop on their six week South For The Win-Tour in Jacksonville, Florida at The Crazy Horse Complex. Lead vocalist Tony Housh sat down and spoke with me for a few minutes before the show kicked off.

Side Stage Magazine: Can you give me a brief history about your band?

Tony Housh: This band has been around since 2006. I was not originally the first vocalist for it. It played around for a couple of years. They did their first album which was called “Through tomorrow”. Great album, I was a fan of it. I knew the band. They weren’t just a band I had heard of. I actually knew the guys and would do gigs together from time to time. So I already knew of them. They ended up putting “Cry Little Sister” out and that song did very well for them. In 2010, early 2010 I’d say June/July, I got a phone call and began prepping and have been a part of it since October 2010. Since then, in 2011 we went to make the record that we’re finishing up on tonight. This is our last date for the push on that record. We started writing on it in 2011 and we thought we were going to release it in summer of 2011. It did not release until September of 2014. We ended up with some legalities and crazy stuff that you probably hear that everybody deals with at some point if they stick around long enough. It’s coming up on its 10th anniversary. I’ve fronted the band for 6 years now. You know, it’s been through a lot of different changes and a lot of different growth periods where now we used to have to sign the dotted line and ask for money and go to people and ask them to do the service for us whether it was writing, recording, producing and videos. Now, we don’t have to do any of that. We own it all. We built it into our own record label so to speak. We have top 40 singles we’ve done on our own without record labels. We shoot our videos. We write our music. We record our music, produce it, and track it. We do everything ourselves. The band has been around for quite a while and has been through every transition as far as local to national, to national that has attention, to national now, to a national where we own everything we do. That’s where we’re at. We’re about to do our 3rd album.

So you are going home after this?

We are going home until January. Actually, the album is already written. Realistically around the beginning of February we are going to get back together. We’ve been out since September with a few breaks here and there, but not much. We are going to take some time off and put fires out at home. Deal with life at home. We are going to record the album and get ourselves back out on road and push something to radio and do it all over again. Except this time, we are more prepared and even smarter. We understand more about what we are doing in the business aspect of it. So, we are really excited about this next album. It’s a different kind of album because we’re not scared anymore. We had to go through that dealing with labels and who would accept this and that. We had to be very cautious in the way we were handling things because we didn’t have anybody at our backs. We had to do it ourselves. Now, we’ve own our little spot. It’s not much, but it’s ours. And now we get to do what we want it to do 100%. We are really excited about this next record for sure. 

When do you expect it to come out?

I wouldn’t put a date on it, but I would say next spring, maybe summer. I know we won’t delay it too terribly much because keeping your momentum as you work is what it’s all about. It won’t be too terribly long. I know we have begun cutting an acoustic record and basically it would be an acoustic album of the last album. We began recording it so we’ll see if we get it done, just time sake. We kind of want to drop that out, something to buffer in there. A different side of the last album that will drop this next one and move forward. 

So, this new album, are you producing it yourself?

We are. We’ve already locked in. In fact, there’s one facet of it that we left to someone else this last time that we are going to take on the whole thing next time. It was the mixing of it. We just weren’t quite there yet as far as the knowledge on that stuff, it takes a long time. Now, on this next one, we are going to go ahead and try to do the whole thing and see what we can make happen with it. I’m pretty stoked. Especially when you don’t have other people’s fingers involved in what you were doing and that’s what we fought for. That’s what took almost three years. It’s not that we don’t want to work with anyone. It wasn’t that. It’s just we don’t want to be forced to be something we’re not. It’s not that we don’t want to do co-writes and things like that with others, but you know we’re writers and as a writer it’s hard to let someone hand you a song and say do this. It doesn’t really compute very well with us. Others may be okay with that. This band does have the “Cry” cover that did well. It wasn’t written by the band. We have another song not written by the band that kept the band alive, but we want to do that for ourselves. I can imagine most bands would want to do that, but it’s difficult. We’ve been carving our way into that area so we can be ourselves. That’s what matters. Even if it doesn’t pay well, at least you’re being true to what you love. That’s what we fought for. This next phase is exciting for us. 

I know you are producing the next record yourselves, but if there was a producer you could work with, who would it be?

I would not make that decision. The guy that mixed for us the last time, Mark Lewis down at Audio Hammer Studios here in Florida, he’s killer. It would be awesome to work with him. That’s not my area. I trust others. We have one individual in the group, Dawson, which does all our production. He knows things about things that I don’t even know exist. So, what he says goes because I trust what he says. But, it would be cool to work with Mark. 

Do you guys have any tours planned for next year? 

There are quite a few things we are putting together, but our focus after tonight, after a 20 hour drive home and then I’m flying home from there, we are going to focus on getting this record tracked and getting this acoustic thing done hopefully. It’s not 100%, but it’s really a time deal. We learned a lot about the business and now we have our own teams, we have our own people. The same people that worked for other  record labels, we’ve been able to get them to come on board and now work with us.  So now we have all these things, we’ve learned how to survive in the system a little bit. So now we can do it smarter. So that’s our focus is to go home, get the record cut, and get our business get into better organization. This thing, the RV, I call it a spaceship because we travel everywhere in it. It kind of takes care of us. We got it in April, so it’s been on the road for 8 months. We were on the road in another one before this one that didn’t last. This thing needs to go also because it needs some work as well. We need to get some things set for the next big turnaround. That’s what we are really after for this next January and February for sure. 

Do you have a message for the fans?

Our message is and has been, and I know you hear this a lot, but with us, because we’ve had to go through so much craziness for a while. We wouldn’t even play our own music, we couldn’t even do music as individuals. We’ve had to really fight to get everything revived, to get it all moving again. It wasn’t an easy process. It was a process of literally years and years of Dawson learning things about audio engineering and all the thing. I’m telling you, plane flights, and trips back, 8-10 hour drives on the weekends, times when everybody thought this band was not doing anything. This went on for years. We worked in the back. I drove a truck. Jimmy hung drywall. We all continued to do what we had to do to get going. The message of this band and it will definitely show up on the next record is put your fucking fist up and swing for something if you really believe in it. Money is very important obviously. There are so many people that don’t understand that it takes a lot more than money just to make things go. It takes dedication, and for us, literally years of nothing. Just working and never even knowing that I would be able to sit here with you tonight and know I was at the end of this whole thing that began 5 years ago with attorneys and crazy shit. We fought for that. We believe in that. We believe in people just sticking together. Who cares what somebody thinks about what you for what you do because I get judged for what I do by people close to me that may not agree with my choice and what I do. But, if it makes you happy, go for it. There are so many people that have fear, because I’ve had it, but you never going to know if you don’t try. That’s what we do. We try to push, try to encourage. We tell people if you believe in something, go for it. Make sure you don’t suck at it but other than that, if you believe in it, go for it. That’s a real message with us. You will definitely hear throughout the next record about fighting and standing up and beating things to death. Sometimes, you may not be able to win just because you are badass, but you can win if you just don’t fucking quit. Persistence is a bitch. Rock and roll!

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