Maintain Interview

Frankie: So who out of the band am I talking to and who are the rest of the members/whats their role?

Sean: Well I'm Sean I sing, the rest of guys are Peterson on guitar, Whitey on Bass, Kyle also on guitar, and Enrique on the drums.

Frankie: Where are you guys from and hows the scene there?

Sean: The band started with everyone living in Lowell, MA up in the Merrimack Valley, that speaks for itself. Great hardcore scene, awesome people, sweet shows, super supportive environment. I now live in Boston as does Whitey, and Chris is moving here. Calling ourselves from the Valley or Boston, it's not a big deal or an image/label thing. If anything it's just to clarify where we're from. I'm from the Cape, Whitey is from Syracuse, and Enrique is from Puerto Rico so we're all over the place.

Frankie: When did Maintain take shape and how did the name come about?

Sean: Maintain started in the spring/summer of 2005 with just Peterson and I working on songs, trying to develop a sound and piece together a band. This took for ever and almost a year later when we were about to record a demo and have our first show we still didn't have a name. Peterson came up with the name Maintain on a road trip to some show in CT and there was something about it we liked. I think that night I came up with the words for the song Maintain, it took on its own meaning for us, so it worked.


Frankie: Personally I think you guys have a great sound, to me it sounds kind of like(and I hate doing comparisons) bane meets have heart, but where does Maintain take influences from, and of your influences are any old school legends like Black Flag and Minor Threat?

Sean: Well, it's nice to be compared as a mix of one of my favorite hardcore bands ever and our friends who also totally rule but, Anyways, we take a lot of influence from mid-90's jams, in particularly Trial, Strife, Undertow, Outspoken, earlier Earth Crisis, Unbroken, anything along those lines which I think our newer material reflects way more than our demo. As far as Black Flag goes, I am one of ten million people proudly with a tattoo of the bars, I don't care how generic it is, they rule. Minor Threat, same thing minus the tattoo, those bands will always be the greatest to me and always be inspiring. Other classics include Youth of Today, Judge and even though Inside Out only released those six songs (find the live unreleased material, it rules) they are still one of the best to me.

Frankie: Now onto the new 7", Searching for balance. Where was it recorded and how do feel about the way it came out?

Sean: Searching for Balance was recorded at the Getaway Group recordings in Wakefield, MA by Jay Maas who is cranking out the hits Hammer Bros. ep, Shipwreck 7" and lp, Soul Control and I Rise material and a ton more. We worked with him for our demo last year and it was a rad experience so naturally that was the place to go. The record could definitely have come out better, definitely on our part. We didn't have the proper amount of time to prepare so I don't think everyone was 100% on all the songs. But yo it's hardcore and I just happen to be super picky about everything we do. It sounds rad, Jay and I were able to try some new things out with the mix and post production, so yeah we're pumped on it.


Frankie: As a partial buddhist myself, I was interested in the cover art with the buddha, and asian background setting, is the art just something to go along with the album name, or does it have some connection with the band/vocalists views?

Sean: To clarify, that's not the Buddha or a Buddha on the cover and I wouldn't want people to necessarily think that but it does appear in that way for a reason. We had some rough ideas involving Japanese art, particularly a lot of turn of the century wood block prints and how they depict nature. The idea of the individual whom I preferred to resemble a Buddhist monk was to have him existing in a volatile environment but be able to exist unharmed. The artist Ken Stewart took this and just totally went with it and did his thing. Personally I have with increasing voracity been studying Hinduism and Buddhism for a good while now and could go on for hours on the impact this knowledge has had on me. In short, many people in the band are engaged in some form of a spiritual consciousness that takes many different forms, we are by all means not a homogenous group of people.

Frankie: By being on Words of War Records, one can guess that the band is straight edge, but everyone's way of living straight edge is a little different, so where do you guys stand when comes to Straight Edge? (and are you posi as well?)

Sean: Actually we aren't all straight edge and I want to say it's really cool of Words of War to see the value in bands even if they don't fit the straight edge mold. Some of us are and I'm not going to give you run down of who is and who isn't because I don't feel the need to alienate anyone or fit any mold. I'd say just about all the great Straight Edge songs have been written so even if we were, that's not what I'm going to be talking about. Some of us you will see regularly x'd up and proud of our commitments but theirs other poisons in society to be combated and that's where you'll find us.


Frankie: How do you feel about the current state of the hardcore and straight edge scenes?

Sean: As far as hardcore goes, if I were to complain I'd be ungrateful because I'm lucky to see so many awesome shows in the area and all the great bands coming out of here. But I will gripe about straight edge kids showing their pride. C'mon! I'm always down to x up and pass the sharpie around the room so look for me at a show. How you gonna go see Have Heart and Verse playing these out of control shows together and not x up.

Frankie: I know you guys started playing quite a few shows lately, and are planning on playing a bunch-load more, but out of the ones you've already played, which ones have been your favorite, and who have you enjoyed sharing the stage with the most?

Sean: Best show to date was recently in Burlington, VT at an awesome club called 242 Main. We played with Unrestrained, I Adapt from Iceland, and My Revenge. Those bands rule, what they stand for is amazing, we played our best set ever in front of a small crowd that made us feel so at home. I didn't want to leave. Also, opening up for Bane in Cambridge was something I'll never forget. But honestly the bands we play with on a regular basis makes us an incredibly fortunate band at basically any show lately we're playing with our friends whose bands totally rip.

Frankie: Are there any bands these days that really capture your interest, that just have a great sound/and or message?

Sean: Absolutely. We played with Charge in February, that band blew me away. Unrestrained rule, Harder the Fight are the tightest band in the world, Gather a vegan sxe band from California unfortunately just broke up like two days before me doing this interview, tons of bands doing there thing all over the place.. too many to name.

Frankie: Is there anything you'd really want to change about the scene? Is there anything in the hardcore scene that really just grinds your gears?

Sean: I feel like hardcore is this really great forum to share and spread ideas. I've made friends that have changed my life and seen great bands with powerful messages but I feel like we could all work a little harder, talk more to one another to really advocate progressive ideas. But I understand for many people that's just not where there head is at and some don't give a shit. I don't want to tell people what to think I just want to work to create more of a collectivist network for ideas.


Frankie: Thanks for doing the interview, and answering my questions, are there any final words or shout outs/thank yous that you want to put out there?

Sean: Support our brother Josh Hynes. Paypal donations for legal council etc. to stepuptakeepyorepup@yahoo.com make sure you get that right, trick email address.