Add Event My Events Log In

Upcoming Events

    We see you appreciate a good vintage. But there comes a time to try something new. Click here to head over to the redesigned Louisville.com. It's where you'll find all of our latest work. And plenty of the good ol' stuff, too, looking better than ever.

    Music

    Print this page

    Read our recent interview with Greyhaven here.

    I went to attend a house show with local band, Greyhaven, as the headliner. I caught up with a couple members of the band before the show to ask them a few questions about their album “Cult America,” their beginnings, lineup change, and their future.

    LC: Tell us your name and role in the band.

    Brent Mills: “I’m Brent and I do vocals.”

    Devin Harper: “I’m Devin and I play guitar.”

    LC:  Let’s start off with how Greyhaven started.

    Brent: “Greyhaven started as basically just us doing something from AVA (Aesthetics Versus Architecture). We were in this band before, with our old guitar player, Isaac, and our old vocalist, Blake. When we parted ways with Blake, we started Greyhaven and that’s pretty much what we did. We wrote songs that were previously for AVA but most of it was written after the fact.”

    LC: Speaking of Isaac, you guys just recently had a lineup change?

    Brent: “Yeah! Isaac left a couple months to pursue Knocked Loose as a full thing, which we completely understand. When you have two bands, eventually you’ll have to focus on one. I knew Devin back in high school and he’s been kind of asking about possibly starting to play with us but we wanted to keep it a four piece versus five. When Isaac left, the person to call immediately was Devin. We were like ‘Hey! Let’s f**king jam!’ It’s been perfect cause with Devin; he likes to write a lot more technical stuff.”

    LC: You’ve (Devin) had a lot of fun since you’ve joined Greyhaven?

    Devin: “Oh yeah! It’s a blast! Compared to most bands I’ve been in the past, this has been a lot of fun.”

    Brent: “Yeah! It’s been really fun!”

    LC: Who recorded the album and what inspires you?

    Brent: “Jordan Haynes recorded the album and he’s pretty much recorded everything we’ve produced. He’s the easiest person to work with. As far as inspirations go, we have a lot of different inspirations as individuals. As a whole, obviously southern metal music, like System of a Down, Every Time I Die, Norma Jean, bands like that. But we also like a lot of weird stuff collectively, so I don’t really know how to put that without saying, ‘Bands that we rip of are…’ [laughs]. I guess our biggest inspiration is just to do whatever we want to. I feel like with Cult America, we used all different types of sounds and noises to experiment with to build ourselves a platform to jump off of and further ourselves. And with Devin, he’s going to bring more progressive backgrounds, so that kind of ties in to that. He can tackle way more sounds freely without being constructed into a box.”

    LC: Speaking from that, with you [Devin] being a new addition, what elements do you hope to bring in and what inspires you?

    Devin: “I suppose overall, Between the Buried and Me is one of my biggest influences.”

    LC: I saw that they’re playing Bonnaroo!

    Devin: “I did too and it blows my mind! I can’t even imagine how that’s going to be. But back to the question, yeah, they’re one of the big ones. I like Every Time I Die a lot. They’re pretty much up there and also The Chariot. I like a lot of that, pretty much just a lot of noisy, wild, sporadic, and intense music. That’s kind of what I’m trying to bring into this band.”

    Brent: “That’s a lot of the stuff we like so it’s perfect.”

    LC: So how’s the response been to “Cult America” now that’s it’s been out for about a year now?

    Brent: “Yeah, Cult America’s been out for about a year and it’s been really cool. We don’t get a lot of the number game; we don’t get thousands of plays on YouTube or anything like that, but it’s like anyone who gets the album and listens to it has a pretty good response. So anybody that’s heard it and talks to us about it has been awesome. We’ve met a lot of really cool people through it and have gotten to do a lot of cool things with the record that I didn’t think would happen. It’s been way better than expect to be honest. Like as our first year as a band, we’ve done so much. It’s pretty cool. Like, I was in bands for three years and we didn’t do half the stuff that we’ve already done.”

    LC: You [Devin] were outside the band so were you a fan of the album?

    Devin: “Oh yeah! I liked it a lot. I’ve contacted them on numerous occasions to be a second guitarist [laughs].”

    Brent: “Yeah, he would message me and be like, ‘Hey, hey, let me join!’ I kept saying, ‘Man, we can’t. We have to be a four piece and have that kind of feel,’ cause Johnny [bassist] is such a prominent member. He’s so strong and having two guitar players would make it too complicated. Everyone’s always liked that raw feeling anyway and when you got two guitar players, you got another thing going on. We liked how loose it gets because Johnny fills whatever’s empty and his bass is full and heavy.”

    LC: Alright, on topic with adding a new member and writing more material, is there any news on a new album coming out this year or next?

    Brent: “We wrote two songs with Isaac before he left that we’ve been playing live, but we’ve been writing new songs with Devin. We have about four or five that we’re still working on. We don’t really know as far as when the next release is gonna be, but we have those two songs that we aren’t sure what to do with yet and we have the other songs that we know we’d put on the second record. We really want to take our time with it and really, really, flesh it out and make it something that we’re really happy with. So as far as new music goes, I do anticipate that we’ll release something soon, cause we want to do something with those songs, but I’m not exactly sure what yet.”

    LC: You guys have released two music videos so far: one for “Absolute American” and “Hollywood Catholic.” Are you guys planning to do any more music videos for “Cult America” or plan to just wait till the next album?

    Brent: “We’ve talked about doing a couple ideas with other songs. I personally want to do something Gran Torino and I had an idea for it, but I’ve seen a couple other music videos recently that have done similar stuff so I’m not as stoked on that anymore [laughs]. So I don’t know. We’ve had a couple things but we’ve been busy preparing for tour.”

    LC: Speaking of tour, what tours are coming up that people need to know about?

    Brent: “Yeah! We have one coming up in April and it’s fucking awesome. We’re going out with Rebuker and Household from like the 9th to the 27th and we’ll also be out from the 2nd to the 9th and I don’t think anybody is with us on that first week.”

    Devin: “I think it’s just us, yeah.”

    Brent: “Yeah, we’ll go out for a week ourselves and we’ll join the other bands and that’s going to be awesome. Then in May, we’re doing two or three dates with Ghost Key and whoever else. I’m not sure who else is on the bill.”

    LC: I saw Household play with To Die Alone and they were really amazing.

    Brent: “I’ve never seen them play but I’ve seen Rebuker like a day or two before we got offered the tour and they blew my mind. They were great! I’m stoked to watch them every night.”

    LC: That’s awesome! After these tours, any plans for the rest of the year?

    Brent: “We’re gonna try and book some more tour dates for sure. This is just brand new and we wanna do stuff in the summer.”

    Devin: “Travis [their manager] has been bringing up some ideas and dates that could bring in a lot of pretty cool things.”

    Brent: “Yeah, it’s a lot about people replying to emails and all that stuff’s a mess. Our goal for 2015 is to write as much as possible and tour as much as possible. We want to break more into the bar scene a lot more which is going to be interesting because we’ve never dived into that market yet [laughs], but older people really like us. We have a lot of older people come to our shows that really like our music.”

    LC: Like dads [laughs]?

    Brent: “Yeah! It’s cool cause it’s all those thirty something’s that like all the 90s stuff in Louisville that was going on. I guess we kind of put out that vibe a bit and that’s stuff I grew up with so I guess we fell into that a little bit. If my mom and dad can stand it and they can, then it’s all cool [laughs].”

    LC: Any last words for anyone reading this?

    Brent: “We’re always appreciative of anyone who takes anytime to give us any kind of attention. Even if it’s just checking us out on Facebook or listening to a song of ours or coming to a show or whatever, anytime someone takes the time to look us up, we’re really appreciative of it. So thank you and look out for us! We plan on putting out a lot but we’re pretty lazy people [laughs] so stuff doesn’t get out as quickly as we want, but we do have stuff planned and have great ambition. It’s just a matter of getting it done.”

    LC: Thanks guys for taking the time to talk!

    Brent: “Absolutely dude, thank you for being interest!”

    Devin: “Yeah dude, no problem!”

     

    Be sure to be on the lookout of Greyhaven’s shows and if you haven’t yet, listen and buy “Cult America!” Links to Greyhaven’s music, Facebook, YouTube, as well as other bands mentioned in the article are listed below.

     

    Greyhaven

    • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greyhavenband
    • iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/cult-america/id884412416
    • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLc1jORWjm8

    Rebuker

    (https://www.facebook.com/rebukermusic)

    Household

    (https://www.facebook.com/Householdmusic)

    Knocked Loose

    (https://www.facebook.com/KnockedLoose)

    AVA (Aesthetics Versus Architecture)

    (https://www.facebook.com/AestheticsVersusArchitecture)

    Slideshow: 
    Anthony Tran's picture

    About Anthony Tran

    I'm a freelance photographer and producer from Louisville, KY. I've lived here my whole life and am currently attending the University of Louisville. I love food, music, and taking pictures of both.

    More from author:      

    Share On:

    Most Read Stories