Interviews

American Steel

Interview with Rory Henderson on Dec 7, 2007 by

Although American Steel reunited this past summer, they technically never broke up. They just changed their name to Communiqué and wrote songs with a different sound. I sat down outside the Metro in Chicago with lead singer Rory Henderson as he explained the change-over and related some tales of touring way back when. American Steel recently released Destroy Their Future and are currently on tour with The Lawrence Arms/The Falcon/Sundowner.

By: Michelle Stoffel

You guys formed in 1995 as American Steel...

Rory Henderson: I'm not sure about that date. I think that's what our one sheet says, and I was like, "I don't know if that's correct." That might be right, it's hard to say. I think we played our first show in '97 or '96, it's hard to tell. That's like prehistory for us; it's hard keep track of it.

And then broke up and formed Communiqué...

RH: We did. We had every intention of staying broken up. We just never really know what the fuck we're doing. A lot of people ask us, "So was it some plan or something like that?" No, we just take things pretty much from the hip. It would have been disingenuous to say we played our last show, if we thought we would've played again. But you know, it was just sort of like, let's just stop and do this.

So this is what I read, that the album [Jagged Thoughts] was so different that you decided to rename yourselves.

RH: Sort of. Our first record was self-titled, our second record was Rogue's March and our third record was Jagged Thoughts and when that came out, I was pretty surprised by how much people reacted to it, like it was too different it wasn't punk enough or this or that. It really took us by surprise. We knew it wasn't going to sound exactly like the last record, the first two records didn't sound the same either. I guess I was just a little naïve about how people react to things. You like something or you don't like something and that's fair enough, but the reaction was pretty strong. There are a lot of people that liked it. I think we got a lot of new fans because of it, but we also probably pissed off a lot of fans. I should also say that we were really tired. We had been slogging really hard, booking our own tours and touring 10 months out of the year, sleeping on floors. We were happy doing it, but after five years we were really tired. It never let up.

Basically we already learned that we couldn't drag people along, we dragged people through Jagged Thoughts we couldn't drag people through this. We can't pull them along with us. So we talked about it, maybe we should just start a new band and play new songs. Keep it sequestered so the people who really like those first records could hold on to them and have them sort of bound in that way and we could move on for ourselves, in a selfish way, and be unencumbered by a name. It seemed like the best move at the time but it certainly was a confusing move. I definitely wouldn't do anything differently but it has caused a lot of confusion.

So then what made you decide to reform as American Steel?

RH: Again we were tired. We were tired of slogging with Communiqué. I was starting to write songs that didn't make sense again. It was almost this full circle thing. So I started this side project with a roadie and a few of my other friends, a punk band, and I'd been writing some songs, and I thought they were too good for a side project band. Anyway the thing we were talking about was that we said we would never play together again unless there was a new record. That was the only reason. Unless we're vital and energetic, we're not gonna rehash old stuff. As long as we can offer something new that we really like then we're not gonna do it. I had all these songs and we talked about it, and we're like, "Let's just fucking do that, dude."

How would you say the new album differs from your older stuff?

RH: The first thing I'd say is each album comes from a different place. Naturally what you're thinking of, where you're at, is gonna influence what you write about and how you write. Like with Rogue's March we found out that Ryan had cancer and it was a pretty gnarly time and Ryan told us that he wanted to do another record. He had a 50/50 chance of surviving so he was like, "I wanna do this." Apparently it was good for his treatment, cause his doctor said you should have things to look forward to, to get excited about, to be positive about, so a lot of that record was about Ryan's cancer-not the songs themselves, but the whole energy behind it.

The next record was just sort of...well, I won't go into it. I would say also, it's been five years so we're better musicians technically speaking. I also have a different opinion about songwriting. But as to describe how it's different, when someone asked me about it, at first I said, "Well it's almost a mix of all three albums, you can decide percentage-wise how much a mix of all three albums, but then also something new. A lot of people take that ‘something new' to be similar to Communiqué. But the songs were never intended for Communiqué they were always intended for American Steel. But if people hear Communiqué in American Steel, that's natural cause it's the same songwriter but it's also kind of funny to me because when we started Communiqué people would say, "I hear American Steel in Communiqué." It's this weird little rat wheel that we're on. The simplest way to say it, it's the same songwriter is the same people, it's gonna tend to sound pretty similar.

You said your opinion on songwriting changed, could you elaborate on that...

RH: Yeah, I think opinion might have been the wrong word, my perspective on songwriting. For this record, I was just gonna be very stream of thought about it, the lyrics, the structure of songs. Some of the songs are kind of weird. That might sound self-important, I just mean they're kind of weird for me. I never would have done some of the songs the way I did them now in just like, I don't fucking care. This is what makes sense. I'm not going to have any pressure trying to make it a perfectly balanced and structured song or anything like that. The main thing was that perfectionism was out the window. I'm willing to make a mistake and take a risk and just, go with my gut. I usually do that but on some songs I'll just edit the fuck out of myself and it gets in this weird circle and the writing process lasts way too long. You can still end up with a good song, but I came to realize that a lot of my favorite songs, you can tell they were written really fast. Some of my favorite songs that I've done have been that way, so it's like, let's just do all of them that way. Just write ‘em fast, don't think about it to much, just go to the studio and do it.

How do you end up releasing this album on Fat Wreck?

RH: We've been friends with all the people that work there for a long time. We actually did a 7" on their Fat Club years ago. We're friends and hang out at parties together. They come to our shows-sometimes there were more people from their label at our shows than our label. So, like, we always just had a really positive vibe with them and when we were looking for labels we had a few people in mind that we liked and trusted. That was our only criteria: we have to like the people and trust that they're not gonna misunderstand us or fuck us up. And Mike had heard we were gonna do a record and just asked us about it. It was really fast. I think we were hanging out at a bar and he says, "Hey you doing a record?-Yeah-Maybe Fat will do it.-Maybe so."

Is that how you got hooked up with this crazy tour, because you're all friends?

RH: Yeah well, we've been friends-Lawrence Arms and us did a tour together in 2001 and we did another when we were Communiqué-so yeah we've been friends for years. We have the same booking agent too. When we were trying to figure out a tour for our first record, we knew we didn't want to headline. So the Lawrence Arms were like, "You wanna go on tour?" So it ended up being very serendipitous; there was a certain poetry to it. We've been such bros, I don't think I'd really want to tour with anybody else on our first tour playing again.

How do you feel punk music has changed since you first started?

RH: It's totally different. The logistics are totally different just on technology. There were no cell phones; there was no internet; I mean, you had a band web site but nobody looked at it. I think there was only porn up until 2001 or whatever. So it's totally different like that. We would book our early tours beforehand, and we would book the next tour while we were on the road. We would do it from payphones and we would jerry rig red boxes or whatever to steal phones. Maybe bands still do that kind of stuff today. It was definitely a lot more of an adventure. Our first tour we just threw ourselves out there. We had no idea what we were doing, I was like 17 or 18. We booked the tour ourselves with some numbers some of the other bands on tour in our town had given us and it was like outdoor shows and house parties and basements. You would play three shows a week cause that's all you could get. You had like a seven inch and a hand silk-screened shirt that looked like shit and all the seven inches warped when they got around any heat over 80 degrees and all the t-shirts washed off after like two washes. From my own personal perspective, of course it's really different but I think it's different as much as I can be objective about it.

Do you have any favorite shows that stand out?

RH: There's a lot of both. The horrible ones, you can laugh about them later obviously. A lot of good ones, definitely a lot of good ones in Chicago and at home. My favorite ones are just random ones you think are gonna be awful. When we played Grand Rapids and we were supposed to have a day off, but the guy we were staying with was like, we'll get a show at this ice cream store and we're like, "Ok, cool man." So our band went out flyering all day and we showed up and there was like 200 kids packed in this ice cream store. We had never been there before and they had probably never heard of us before but like they were just there and down and we're like, "Yeah, we're gonna fucking rock your faces now; give me a scoop of pecan." I like that shit that just happens, you don't expect much and some sort of weirdness happens and you just go, "That was actually really fun. That was great."

So what are the future plans?

RH: Scattered shows...a few Social Distortion shows in December. Hopefully tour again pretty soon-February, March.

Do you have any plans for Communiqué, or are you gonna try to maintain both at the same time?

RH: Definitely gonna try to do both at the same time, but it's like a holding pattern. But at the same time, I don't know, I'm writing tons of songs for something, I don't know what they are. Maybe Communiqué, maybe not, the lines are getting very blurred. I'm also in a hardcore band and I'm also gonna do a record by myself so it's a little crazy.

Thanks to Vanessa and Ian for setting this up and big thanks to Scott Healy for helping me navigate the Metro and Rory for talking to me and teaching me a little linguistics.

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