Shouting Match

Interview With The Murder of Me

From Issue 1.2, November/December 2004

Fact number one:  The Murder of Me is not an emo band.  So, please no emo lingo around the band.  That sort of talk would hurt singer Gabe’s ears.

“I don’t like the word emo.  It sounds too trendy,” he said.

Fact number two:  The Murder of Me plays to kill.  Really, they are an audio assault to reckon with.

“We go crazy onstage-not like other bands that just stand there,” said guitarist Luis.  See that picture up above?  That blur is the band (if that’s any indication of their energy levels.) 

This band’s music is as intense as it is melodic. 

While many shutter at the mention of “melodic” music as the mark of “selling out,” this band makes it work.  Instead of sounding like wallflowers yelling meaningless sentiments, this band is strikingly creative in their blend of music.

So, how should The Murder of Me be explained in categorical terms?

“We started out as a punk band,” explained Gabe, “but now everybody has their own influences.  Now, we say that we sound like a punk-core band.  Dude, I’m so gonna copyright that if it doesn’t exist.”

“Is that even a genre,” Luis wandered.

Sure.  Why not?

After all, it is hard to place a band such as The Murder of Me into a specific music category because they are not like anyone-not even the contemporary bands they tend to list as their influences (among those bands are Thrice and Thursday.)

While the vocals are an assault of guttural screams and sung with haphazard decisiveness (like many screamo bands), the guitar riffs and drumbeats are meticulous blends of  intricate musical genius.    This band packs a punch of talent in all of their songs.

Thus, The Murder of Me has a harder edge than their radio popular peers in the so-called screamo/ “punk-core” genre.  While the band may want to stay away from the trendy emo scene, their music is an obvious evolution of emo (just as emo was an evolution of punk) when people put some creative thought in their work.

The lyrics are not the tiresome collusion of love and heartache.  Instead, the band members write lyrics  in mockery of those subjects.

“I like to write very sarcastically, so I make fun of love and death and all of the stuff people take so seriously.  That’s how I express myself, but it still comes out very ‘emo,’” laughed Gabe.

Formerly called Me vs. Nixxon, the change in singers, was cause for the band’s name change. 

After the departure of their original singer, Gabe (the band’s former guitarist) switched to vocals.  Ruben is on drums, Luis and Adrian are guitarists and Alex plays bass.

The first show The Murder of Me played was in a battle of the bands event which Killspeed Entertainment (a talent management company) promoted.  The Murder of Me tied for first place and signed a 4-year contract with Killspeed.

“They liked us.  Then they asked us to sign our souls away, and we agreed,” said Gabe jokingly.

Currently, The Murder of Me has a demo out entitled, “The Abuse of Power.  “It’s just kind of saying don’t let people push you around,” said Gabe of the demo’s title.  “I have this saying:  The abuse of power is due to lack of resistance.  That’s kind of where that came from.”

“It was our first time paying for recording.  So, we didn’t want to do a lot of takes.  So, we came up with hand signals,” said Ruben who commented the hardest part of recording was paying $25 per hour.

 Obviously, this band  is definitely not lacking any sort of resistance to falling in line with the monotony of. an industry oversaturated with trendy fads.

“Something always happens to Gabe.  His strings will pop (when he played guitar), his wireless will go out, his strap would break.  He is cursed by the llorona,” said Luis.

“True.  I’m cursed,” said Gabe.

Oh, come on now!  If he was really cursed, The Murder of Me would sound like just another random, “emo” band. 

Clearly, they do not.  Perhaps, he should chalk up the bad luck to all of that high energy at The Murder of Me’s highly intense concerts.