It was a day like any other in the City Of Angels, only Alesana from Raleigh, NC were in town shooting a video, and literally getting wet for their art. Performing as a sprinkler system shot at them full blast soaking them to the skin, the band arrived at the Key Club that later that night, just in time for their show in support of Haste The Day. After Alesana’s intensive set, we spoke with two of the members about their soggy video experience, the re-release of their CD On Frail Wings Of Vanity And Wax on Fearless Records and a few other steamy topics of interest...

Introduce yourself, what you do in Alesana, and tell me the last song you played on your IPOD.

Dennis: I’m Dennis – I’m the front man aka the screamer – the guy that screams. It was a little Prayer For Cleansing – it was a band I grew up listening to. I think I was listening to Sonnet. If you’ve never heard Prayer For Cleansing, you should look them up. It’s good stuff.

Shawn: My name is Shawn. I’m the singer/guitarist in Alesana. And I think I listened to The Moon Is Down, the first record by Further Seems Forever just yesterday.

How has the tour with Haste The Day been going so far, and what have been some the highlights so far?

Shawn: The highlight has just been how great all the bands are as guys. Our big thing with touring is getting along with the other bands – like it’s a brotherhood – especially when you’ve got an eight-week tour and you can’t get along with the bands – it’s just gonna be a nightmare. All of the bands are just super rad dudes – it’s been a lot of fun.

Dennis: Yeah, it’s been a really rad tour. Cuz we’re when been touring so long for so many months – since August. And now we’re on the big tour and you see kids that have seen us before. You see a ton of kids just standing there for the first song – they’re just trying to figure you out. And afterwards come up and say, “I’ve never heard of you guys before! It was awesome!” It’s a lot more rewarding to see our fans and make new friends. It’s been cool.

How surprised are you guys to have over three million plays on your Myspace?

Shawn: Really, really surprised. It sort of happened overnight. Before we started touring, we used to bust our bust online and do everything we could. And we started touring, and all of a sudden we looked, and we had over three million plays. It just kind of happened and it was neat.

Tell me about the video shoot today. I guess you guys had water all over you?.

Shawn: The video shoot took about 10 hours and I’d say for 7 ½ of it, we were soaking wet. They just kept dousing water on us take after take. It started to get to the point where we would dread when we would hear “Camera’s On”, because that meant the sprinklers were on next. It was still a lot of fun. The crew was great.

Dennis: They’d say “Cue Sprinklers” and we’d say “Cue Hyperthermia.”

Shawn: We were actually thinking about changing our live show to just a bunch of sprinklers firing all over us – we got so used to playing soaking wet, so why not?

Dennis: It’s our first music video, and we were worried about being too stiff, because we really wanted to rock out like we do live. When the first take was us and they just cranked out the sprinklers and blasted us, it really made it very easy to jump into…

Shawn: …because if you didn’t move around, you would freeze!

Dennis: There was a lot of water and flowers and mud and slipping. It was hilarious!

You guys were on the MTV show My Super Sweet 16?

Shawn: That show is going to haunt us for the rest of our lives – I swear. Some girl named Dominique got picked to do the show. She lives in LA. She had somehow heard of our band, even though we were really young. She invited us to play the show. It never even got aired. Because we posted stuff about it on our Myspace, people still to this day ask us about it. It never even aired. It helped us get a lot of contacts actually.

Dennis: It was big. There were a lot of kids. It was her idea for her 16h birthday to have 16 bands play, and so it was a double decker deal. We were like the last four of the big eight and then there was an upstairs eight – and I felt bad for every one of those guys.

Shawn: That’s what was cool about it, because at that point of our career, we had no business being in a show that big. So it kind of really taught us how to handle shows that big.

What was the experience like playing Cornerstone?

Shawn: Cornerstone was another one of those shows that was just so big before we were even anywhere near that big.

Dennis: It was fun, because we had some friends at Tooth & Nail that had us come out there. It was another thing where we drove there and we had to wake up super early in the morning and play and everyone was tired. But to play in front of that many kids – it was fun. It was like our biggest show up to that point.

Are you guys a Christian band?

Dennis: We’re not a Christian band. We’re not a non-Christian band. We’re just a band.

Shawn: We’re a Christian-friendly band. We believe in positive lifestyles and choosing what you want to do and not being judged for it, no matter what you’re religious affiliation is.

Dennis: We’re a very strong anti-drug, anti-violence band. The other thing that we talk about a lot onstage is not being afraid to believe in whatever you want. Come out to the show – Christian or if you’re not – straightedge or if you’re not – just be there and respect everybody and have fun. It’s rock and roll. It’s music. Let’s have a blast!

So you guys are doing Warped Tour this year?

Shawn: Yeah, the first half.

Dennis: We’re really excited about it.

Are you going to be doing it in a van or a bus?.

Shawn: I think we just found out we might be doing it in a bus, sharing it with another band.

Dennis: I hope so. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.

So this current CD is a re-release. When will new material be coming out?.

Shawn: We should be getting back in the studio hopefully in the fall or early winter. We already have most of the material written for the next record. So we’re ready to go with that.

Dennis: The re-release has two acoustic versions of songs, four live videos, and another interview where we all look like idiots – it’s hysterical. It’s definitely worth getting even if you already have the CD.

Do you guys have any messages for your fans out here in the LA area?.

Shawn: Yeah! The sky’s the limit!

Dennis: Thank you so much for coming out and supporting us and hopefully we’ll see you at the Warped Tour the next time you see us in town. (Kenneth Morton)

Alesana links

Alesana Rock!r: The Official Home Page!
Alesana on Myspace: Their Official Myspace Page!
Fearless Records: Their current record label!
Tragic Hero Records: Their former record label!
The Highwire Daze Home Page: Return to the Main Page!

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