Kill Your Name Q & A with Vocalist Sean Nelson‏

Broken Records Magazine’s Gerard Ucelli chats with Kill Your Name’s lead singer Sean Nelson.

BRM: Logan Mader formerly of Machine Head is now producing and managing you guys. How did you link up?

SN: It was a couple of years ago when he managed my band Aizen. He produced all of that stuff and that was when we started working together. He’s been pretty much on board with us ever since and that’s where it all started.

BRM: You just released the video for “December Bloom”. Tell us the story about the video.

SN: For the people that know me, I like to take the most tragic moments with my life. I use it as my art only because growing up I had this problem with a lot of bands I wanted to like. The problem was a lot of their songs were based off bullshit and fakeness. When I induce songs there were a lot of songs that got me through times in my life because I can relate to them. It’s always based on a show of heart no matter what genre you play or where you’re from. To me I relate the most to hardships with love. When I first saw the video for “December Bloom”, I almost cried because it hit so close to home. It was about a girl that I loved a lot in my life. She unexpectedly left me and I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was pretty tragic. The video itself is about that time in your life where you’re lonely and isolated. It comes down to choosing if you were to rise from your struggle or if you were to perish.

BRM: What were your first impressions of each other?

SF: It’s crazy because the band started the same way as the song came about. The only member of tis band that has been with me before is my main guitar player who is my cousin. He started the band with me. He’s actually in jail now due to problems that he had in the past, but he’s getting over very soon. It’s nothing major. I told him that if you were to do this band with me, you have to take care of everything first and he did. Everyone else I pretty much handpicked. The whole idea and concept of the band came about the same way as the song did. I contacted Tom who’s my drummer because I knew he was the drummer we needed. He actually used to drum for a local punk band. When I saw him play, I knew what I needed. My bassist is the raddest part of the story because she’s been my best friend forever. She’s the best at writing acoustic songs. She’s a great songwriter who understands choruses and melodies. I contacted her to play bass for me as well as contribute to songwriting.

BRM: How did you come up with your band name?

SN: It was about 6 months after my ex left me and all I was doing at the time was crying and writing songs. One of my friends called me and was like “we got to get you out of the house and go to this party”. He picked me up and my other friend in another band was there. As we were driving, I was upset and I wanted to go home. We were listening to a local band and I couldn’t remember the name but it was similar to Kill Your Name and my friend in the backseat was like “Kill your name, kill that bitch’s name”. That was meant to forget about her and we all started chanting that. A couple days later, those were the exact words I was thinking in my head. Then I got up and said f*** this.

BRM: What I find pretty cool is that you’re working on a festival for the San Diego scene called Hood Stock. Tell us more about that.

SN: I’m actually working on Hoodstock 6. This was started a long time ago. I was in a local band when it first started and San Diego was a very small as well as a unified scene. The scene itself has amazing bands in it, but it seems like throughout the years there’s been a lack of knowledge to support different bands. Hoodstock is about having bands play with each other that didn’t know existed. The intent is not to get money or get heard. It’s to know each other. I see all these new bands and they’re not even friends with each other on Facebook which is why whenever there’s a show there are only 20 people. My good friend Greg who’s a promoter around here decided to put on a big festival with 15 metal bands that didn’t know existed.

BRM: I already see that your music is getting on radio. Tell us about the first time you heard your music on a radio station.

SN: The first time I ever heard myself on a radio station, it was exciting. However, I get really uncomfortable when I listen to myself on the radio. It was cool, but for instance when I listened to “December Bloom”,for the first two weeks it was hard for me to hear it in my car. If I know my songs so disgustingly well from front to back, I don’t have to practice the song for weeks and still nail it. That’s the only time I like to listen to myself. When I hear it on the radio and hear the announcement of my band, I get an uncomfortable feeling. When my friend watched “December Bloom”, he told me I should be a screen actor. The problem with that is that I don’t remember anything that day specifically. Every word in that song represents what I lived through. The emotion and screaming that goes in that song is very pure. I replay everything I see in my head. I like to bring realism into the picture. When I hear it in radio, I just seemed uncomfortable.

BRM: If you were to create a Mount Rushmore of four of your biggest influences who would they be and why?

SN: The first person that comes to my mind is Trent Reznor. What he did for music and what he says represents realism. His image is not an act, it’s really who he is. The next one is Frank Sinatra. He’s one of my all-time idols. This is a really tough question and I don’t want to ruin. Alice In Chains is another one because of their realism in the songs. For me another band is Bullet For My Valentine because their passion influenced me in the past five years.