WITH SAILS AHEAD
Answered by Sierra Binondo
Q1. Could you please provide some background information on the band for readers who may not be familiar with you?
Our band With Sails Ahead is a post-hardcore band from New Jersey. We’ve been playing music and touring together since 2017. Our influences range from math rock to progressive metal. Our guitarist Josef Warner-Reyes self produced and engineered our upcoming album ‘Infinite Void’, from which we’ve now released two singles, “Darting Eyes” and now “Swear Words”.
Q2. What made you want to pursue making music?
We all grew up loving guitar-driven music very much and playing in bands. For me personally, I knew I wanted to play in bands when I heard VersaEmerge for the first time in 2009. My bandmates absolutely love prog rock like Rush and Karnivool, or metal like Avenged Sevenfold.
Q3. What are some of the band’s primary influences?
Our #1 primary influence and our namesake is Lower Definition. So we'll always tie our work back to that group. I wanted to start With Sails Ahead because of that band. But we would also say Chon, Protest the Hero, and Tricot.
Q4. How would you say the sound of the band or even yourselves personally and/or professionally have evolved since you started the band?
Our sound has morphed pretty drastically over the years. At the very beginning, when we didn't have the line-up we have now, it was very metalcore/melodic-hardcore inspired. Once we solidified our current line-up, that's when we started to develop the proggier side of our music. That part of our sound will always remain, but people are going to hear a wide spectrum of what we can do on ‘Infinite Void’, and we’re hoping to explore all of those sounds moving forward. When it comes to songwriting, Josef has written the bulk of our material, but now we’re shifting into a more evenly collaborative dynamic. Now, one of us will finish an idea or the skeleton of a song idea, and then the five of us will each add our own parts to it.
Q5. What are your ambitions for the band?
We want to tour internationally and make records together for a living, or for as long as we can. It has always been our vision, but we are self-funding everything we do, so when you balance that with cost of living expenses it feels like an unattainable goal. We want to make EPs, LPs, collaborate with friends, see the world, have our music in shows and video games we love— the sky’s the limit.
Q6. Talk to us about the recent single “Swear Words”—what’s it about, what can listeners who haven’t heard it expect, etc.?
“Swear Words” is a more melodic follow-up to our single “Darting Eyes”. It still has memorable guitar parts, but it’s a lot more pulled back than the songs we’ve released in the last three years. I started the song idea but once I got most of the song down, my bandmates helped me finish it and clean it up. It’s shamelessly a very Lower Definition-inspired track, but it’s also very pop-inspired. I wrote the lyrics three years ago about someone that I was in love with for a very long time. I have had very bad anxiety my entire life. So it was a tribute to him; how he loved me even though I was a chronic worrier. He constantly had to talk me off of a ledge whenever something went wrong. And I just wanted him to know it didn’t go unnoticed.
Q7. I read on your website you have a full-length planned for the spring of this year. What can you tell us about that without spoiling anything?
‘Infinite Void’ is our first full-length ever, and it has 13 songs. We tracked the entire record in Josef’s bedroom, save for a few reamping sessions elsewhere. We had August Axcelson (Freeze MF, ASkySoBlack, Kaonashi, Regrown) mix and Kris Crummett (Hail the Sun, Issues, Lower Definition) master it. It has features by our friends pulses. and our friend Kevin from the band Poeta. Every track sounds like a With Sails Ahead song, but they’re all totally unique from one another.
The common thread throughout the record’s lyrics is facing the “infinite void” that is our uncertain futures and the personal journey that you experience as a result. We’re all living in such a weird (I’d personally say terrible) timeline and tomorrow is neither certain nor promised. Still, we wake up each day and face it.
It took us so long to get this record done and it feels so good to finally be able to openly talk about it.
Q8. Should we be looking for a tour in support of that record?
1000%. We're going out this May with a band we have not toured with yet. We’re coming back to cities we love to play (Orlando, Nashville, all of Texas) and hitting some places we’ve never played before, too. After that run, we’re hoping to play as many shows as possible.
Q9. Speaking of tours, what are some of the most memorable shows or tours you’ve been a part of?
We have a recurring tour that we do with our best friends pulses. called Woodland Creatures. All of those runs have been incredible and memorable; it’s really hard to just pick one, but I think a huge Life Moment for all of us happened on WC3. The final show was with I Met a Yeti, Letters to Part and Holodeck at Will’s Pub in Orlando, which has become like a home away from home for all of us. We learned that there were so many people there to see the show that the line to get in was wrapped around the block. We’ve been touring with pulses. since 2019, so that was such an insane and validating experience.
Q10. Several years ago (actually an uncomfortably long time ago at this point is probably a better way to put it haha) a friend and I drove down to Asbury Park from Maine in a blizzard to see the Bouncing Souls and the World/Inferno Friendship Society at a venue whose name escapes me (I think it was by the beach). In talking to a few people after the show, the general sentiment was the local scene was pretty vibrant for not just punk but for alternative music in general. What’s the scene like these days?
That’s awesome! To be completely honest, the Asbury music scene is not what it was. Several venues have shut down, meanwhile the town is being overdeveloped with ugly condos and high rises. It feels like there's virtually no support for music to thrive. I think there are three venues left that are actually booking local artists. A lot of people have given up on trying to actively gig in Asbury, but hopefully something can change. I heard a rumor that a venue is opening up on Cookman Ave in an old gym so, fingers crossed. Shoutout to Salty’s Beach Bar, which is a venue in a town over called Belmar, which has really opened up to the community and become the new spot for shows across multiple genres.
Q11. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions! Any parting words for our readers?
Thank you for reading this interview! Please support our band in this upcoming album release, anything helps. Pre-order ‘Infinite Void’ if you can, but if you can’t, literally just interacting with us on social media and posting our music helps us an incredible amount. We hope you’ll look forward to all of the new music we’re dropping this year and that we’ll see you at a show!
Stream "Swear Words": https://withsailsahead.ffm.to/swearwords
Pre-save 'Infinite Void': https://withsailsahead.ffm.to/infinitevoid
Pre-order 'Infinite Void': https://withsailsahead.com/merch
