New Tomorrow
Hope For The Youth
By: Bear Frazer
Last updated November 19th , 2009

New Tomorrow is ready to wake up the youth from commercial hypnosis. The San Luis Obispo, California-based quartet has earned quite a bit of recognition lately from rock heavyweights such as My Chemical Romance because their music packs a hardcore punch, much like one thrown by hometown mixed martial artist Chuck Liddell.

Then again, the recognition has been a long time coming. For the past several years, New Tomorrow have focused all their efforts entirely on building a rabid fan base, defining their sound and dropping gems like 2006's HellHiHelloHi and 2007's It's All Over But The Shouting. 

Now, the quartet (comprised of vocalist Brandon Wood, guitarist Adam Kratochvil, bassist Danny Derrick and drummer Kevin Menesez) is living up to their band name on their third offering We're Counting On The Youth. Throughout the collection, the crew speaks to a new generation of music heads through hardcore resonance and politically-driven themes. It's as if the group is reaching out to the scene kids in a plea for help and requesting for a positive change to take place. 

After all, with the recent economic crisis currently going on in the world today, it's hard for New Tomorrow not to count on the youth.

101D.com: You guys are from San Luis Obispo, but the only thing I know about that place is it's a college town and that's where Chuck Liddell calls home. So what's the music scene and the culture like in San Luis Obispo?

Danny Derrick: San Luis Obispo is a really nice college town on the central coast of California that has almost no crime. The music scene is a little weak due to the lack of all ages venues, but the local promoter, Eddy Numbskull, brings some good packaged tours through. Chuck actually goes to shows, and is a Lars and the Bastards fan. None of us are really into UFC, but if Chuck is fighting I find myself rooting for the guy.

101D.com: New Tomorrow is signed to Skeleton Crew Records, which is run by My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero. How did this come about? What's the story here?

Danny Derrick: A few years ago, we sent out about 70 paper press kits to labels, one of which was Pirates Press out of San Francisco. One of Frank's good friends was working there at the time and suggested he check us out. I guess he liked it and we we're informed that he had his own label and was down to sign us. We we're stoked that the only label that got back to us was owned by Frank. It's truly an honor to know that someone we looked up to was a fan of us. It's awesome to be performing and look over to see him singing along. Kind of unbelievable, really.
 
101D.com: What was the recording process like for We're Counting On The Youth?

Danny Derrick: We all recorded at different times all at Green Bean Studios in Sunland, CA. Kevin Penner's studio. Our drummer Kevin went down there first and spent four days on drums. He brought the rough tracks back for us to hear and practice to. We were stoked on the drum sound. Drums can make or break an album. A couple weeks later, Adam and I drove to the studio and tracked bass and guitar for about five days. We slept in the driveway of the studio. Bass and guitar we run through a Marshall JCM 800, one amp for all. About a week after that, Adam, Brandon and myself went back to track vocals, which took I think three days. Kevin did a great job all around as an engineer and mixer. We pretty much produced it ourselves.

101D.com: Alright. So the album title is We're Counting On The Youth. The website is WereCountingOnTheYouth.com. Just a hunch, but it seems like you guys are counting on the youth for something and you want people to know. With that said, why so much emphasis on the phrase and why are you guys counting on the youth?

Danny Derrick: Well, the lyrical content of the record is really politically geared, which paints a picture of how much work the next generation has cut out for them. The world is in a very sad state of affairs and if the youth of today doesn't step up to the plate and fix it, we're fucked. Basically.
 
101D.com: Do you feel the youth is in trouble or today's youth has it more difficult than we used to have it?

Danny Derrick: There are both pros and cons in front of them. They have excellent means of acquiring information and the world at their fingertips, thanks to the internet. But the human element of communication is deteriorating. Everything is much less personal and it's breeding a very passive aggressive culture of people who rarely keep their word. Back in the 1800's, if you sent a letter saying you'd be somewhere at a certain time, you either showed up or died trying. You couldn't send a text a few minutes prior saying something had come up and you couldn't make it. A man's word had value. Not so much any more.
 
101D.com: How does We're Counting On The Youth differ from your previous two full-length albums HellHiHelloHi and It's All Over But The Shouting?

Danny Derrick: It's the heaviest, fastest thing we've done. It's also the most uniformed and well-rounded. Shouting was recorded way to slow and lost a lot of the feeling of how those songs were played live. Hellohi also lacked in recording quality by comparison, but had some good songs. We rewrote three of them for WCOTY. 

101D.com: New Tomorrow shot a black and white video for "Does Anyone Have Directions To The Where-House Tonight." Why go in that direction for the video?

Danny Derrick: Well, a lot of the photography of us by Richard Fusillo and Shane Howell is black and white, so it seemed like a good idea to stick with that theme. Patrick Lawler, the videographer, was also given a lot of freedom and we trusted he'd make it look legit, which he did. We just all really like that song and figured that the hook in the chorus made it our number one choice. It's about going to shows in the bay area in the 90's and we wanted to capture that feeling of a basement/house show.

101D.com: Most people would describe this record, and your sound, as true, old hardcore music. What do you think about that?

Danny Derrick: We definitely have hardcore roots and will take that as a compliment, but we just think of ourselves as a punk band. Maybe a good label would be melodic hardcore. I don't know. Who cares really?




To purchase of check out We're Counting On The Youth, click here.

[Tags] Metal, Punk