If you search the Coalesce band page on Wikipedia you will directly receive an image of how intricate the history of this legendary American (Kansas) noisecore band really is. All of that does not matter anymore though, as since 2005 the band has been re-united in the most original line-up in years. Only James Dewees was not able to take time off from his job as live keyboardist with My Chemical Romance. The rest of the band is ready to release a new record and even tour the world afterwards. The story behind the good news is from guitarist Jes Steineger.
Hi! How are you guys doing right now? Busy, as always. We’ve each had a lot going on this spring.
First of all, can you tell me who is in Coalesce right now? What is the status of the band? Sean Ingram on vocals, Nathan Ellis on bass, Nathan Richardson on drums (whom we call Jr so as to distinguish him from the guy on bass), and me on guitar. This has been the line-up since spring 2005. I guess you could say the status of the band is “whenever we get a chance to play.”
Can you explain what the separate Coalesce members are doing right now? As I understand things, you have never broken up, is that right? Well, coalesce has certainly been known to separate, but we’ve considered ourselves an active group since spring 2005 (despite our lack of public appearances). Sean owns and manages a printing company named Blue Collar Press which keeps him on his toes. He recently had major repairs done to his house so he’s just now becoming accustomed to living at home again. He’s married and has three kids. Jr owns and manages a music shop where he gives drum lessons and employs other music teachers for the same purpose. We’re all hoping he will get a position as a music instructor at a local high school in the near future. He’s married and has two kids. Nellis recently took a promotion managing a health food store and does that über-full-time. He also plays in a few other bands, one of which, Able Baker Fox, operates on the coalesce “play whenever you can” model. And I’m a doctoral student at the University of Chicago working under Jean-Luc Marion in medieval/early modern philosophy and contemporary phenomenology. I work at a library for some extra loot and am also married with three kids. That’s what we are all doing right now: work, family, and coalesce whenever we can fit it in.
Whenever we can fit in? I should qualify what I mean by “whenever we can fit it in.” The qualification will hopefully also clarify where our heads are at with the new record. “Whenever we can fit it in” does not mean that coalesce is some kind of second rate concern of ours. In fact, it sort of means the opposite since the times that we do get together are such an appreciated respite from our normal schedules. Since none of us depend on coalesce for income, i.e. since we aren’t “professional” or “full-time” musicians, the band takes on a special hue for the four of us. It exists merely for the sake of our being together and playing music, rather than being together and playing music for a living. We’ve had the image of turn-of-the-century Americana as our model for the past 7 months or so of writing; of a time when music was organic to a network of people and their common relationships (socially, geographically, culturally); when music was still of and for the folk rather than the market brand “folk music.” It certainly seems that the market is the chief enemy of such an organic social model and so this will surely be an ongoing theme of lyrical reflection in the new songs. Our hope isn’t to somehow “escape” or “revolt against” the market (indeed, I think this is probably an impossibility for anyone at this stage – and calls for “revolution,” Marxist or otherwise, are pointless and well as incredibly banal). Instead I think it’s us reflecting on the market from within it; kicking the fuck out of it with the aggression of the new songs and their commitment to the authenticity of who we are as people. “Whenever we can fit it in” refers to the nausea caused by how much the market dictates our respective lives.
Can you provide some more details about the period before the hiatus, as well as how the hiatus ended in 2005? Well, I don't really know much about the 2002 thing, and Sean has never really said much to us about it, except that he regrets ever having done it. I take it as a symbol of how much he loved the band and didn't want to see it end. He has also gone on record as saying that many people wanted to see coalesce active again and that such interest was a strong catalyst for him to get it back together. I think Nellis and I see it as a kind of pink elephant in the room, and we don't ever really talk about it. I certainly have no say in the matter because my head was totally elsewhere when it was all going down; and during that time, I definitely never thought that I'd be doing coalesce ever again. I don't think Nellis and I care for any of the songs that were recorded during the 2002 thing, but it's not like we have to play them now or something. It would have been nice to play with James again, but I love Jr to death, so things have all worked out in the end.
When did you meet again? After the 2002 thing sort of died out in 2003, there were occasions when Nellis would invite my family over to his house for his daughter's birthday party. He would also invite Sean's family over, and so between 2003 and 2005, in the early summers, we were sort of patching things up on a friendship level. Coalesce really wasn't a blip on anyone's radar for those couple of years. Sean's business was becoming really established; Nathan and his family were becoming more and more settled in their home and work; and James was off on the East coast somewhere doing the music thing. I, too, had finally gained some stability, both in philosophical practice and domestic life. In spring 2005 I found out that I had been accepted into the graduate program at U of C, and at about that same time I got this random email from Dan Askew informing me of the Hellfest offer. Previously, whenever I would get an email of this sort I wouldn't even think twice it just wasn't a possibility for me. I just never wanted to do it again. But this time was different. I was getting ready to leave Kansas and thought it would be a great way to put a stamp of reconciliation on our friendships before I took off. I noticed that there were all these other reunions on the bill and I thought, "This would be hilarious: Coalesce, retro-style!" Haha... I was 28 and hadn't really played my guitar for a few years, so I was definitely thinking of the age thing. I thought it would be cool to do Hellfest as a way of really cutting loose after 5 years locked up in the academy and the prospect of 8 more years in Chicago...haha. We also wanted to then come back to Kansas and play a "last show" which would coincide with my leaving for Chicago. So I wrote Dan back and told him that we should all think it over and that we could talk about it at Nathan's daughter's upcoming birthday party. When we decided to do it, the problem immediately arose concerning how to even get in touch with James, much less get him to the Midwest for rehearsals. I didn't really want to do it without James, but it became clear rather quickly that he was just too busy. So we asked Jr, and he ended up being a perfect fit for the role.
After about three practices of preparation I started showing Nellis some new riffs and proposed starting a new band with a new name (so that we could sort of start afresh with Jr and not be held down by the old songs and all their baggage). So that was the plan all summer. We pretty much wrote the basic structures for the two songs on ‘Salt and Passage’ while rehearsing for the "final" shows, and planned on a continuing a new long distance project after I moved to Chicago. After Hellfest collapsed and we played three shows in its wake, it just became clear that no one would allow us to start a new band with virtually all the same coalesce members without heckling us at every future juncture to play coalesce songs. So we just decided to stick with the old bird and try and put new life in it.
Do you see eye to eye again about everything, because as I have always understood things, topics like money and religion were sometimes a big issue in breaking up the band, are those issues still around? How could friendship exist if everything was agreed upon? What would a friend, a spouse, a child, or a sibling be if it agreed with you about everything? Of course we don’t’ agree about everything. In fact, I’d say that everything is up for debate when we do something in coalesce. It wouldn’t even be coalesce if this wasn’t the case. I think our marriages have trained us in the art of diplomacy and so our battles are never as heated as they used to be. Money is certainly no longer an issue since each of us is self-sustaining; like I said, we don’t think of coalesce as some kind of income generator (although it is required that coalesce replace income when we take off work to do it – 11 kids is a lot of mouths to feed). I was the chief cause of religious grievances in the past, but I took 6 years away from coalesce to build some stability in that area, on my own, away from almost everyone. All that to say: disagreements still exist (and I hope they always will), but they don’t stand to threaten the release of our next record. We see eye-to-eye with regard to this next record necessarily being something special for each of us.
Ok, on to the re-release of Revolution in Just Listening. There is something ironic about re-releasing a record you once thought was your last effort ever, not? Coalesce has provided me with the most significant experiences of irony in my life, and I imagine this is the same for the other guys as well.
It’s even more ironic if you take into account that the title was never really serious, yet the record did mean some kind of a revolution to metallic hardcore. Is the accomplishment of the record something that has kept Coalesce alive even when you were on hiatus? I don’t think any of us have ever cared if coalesce was revolutionary or not. Maybe there was a time, when we were younger, when we thought that the band might be our bread and butter, when the prospect of being credited as “revolutionary” would have helped us further our dream. But surely that was a brief moment. I think there probably was a shift in the underground hardcore scene in the 90s, but we certainly weren’t the catalyst; and for all intents and purposes, I consider the post-Helmet generation of hardcore to be really disappointing. Maybe that’s why I try to shun any attempts at making us accomplices in that transition; as if to avoid having people tell me they think of us when they hear those bands! I think that what kept coalesce alive for Sean during the long hiatus was his love for playing our songs. I think the same goes for Nellis and James, too, but they had their respective outlets for playing music. And, now looking at the hiatus in retrospect, I’d say that I really messed up by dropping off the face of the planet when I left in ’99. Having our friendships sort of fall apart during that time probably reinforced for me the very idea of coalesce as constituted in those friendships. When I realized that I had done by leaving coalesce the way I did, the thought of ending the hiatus became synonymous with reconciliation. For all of us then, ending the hiatus had nothing to do with some sense of external accomplishment in the world’s eyes, but internal to the coalesce event.
As a band, are you happy with the re-release of 0:12? You often hear of re-releases being executed without the band’s consent, I just want to make sure Coalesce is really behind this one … (I hear there is some shit about re-re-repressed vinyl?) As a band, I think our heads are in the new record and so stuff like re-releases just sort of blow by without much thought. A label sends us an email asking if they can repress, we say yes without giving it any thought, and then we go back to writing. ‘Give Them Rope’ was re-packaged because Sean always had a bigger vision for the conceptual themes of that record than the original art provided for. I never have cared about re-mastering and the like because I never listen to my own records; and when I do listen to them I mix them according to my own e.q. specializations on my computer. So in the end, I think the only reason anything is ever re-released is because a label asks us if they can do so (in contrast to our telling the label, out of the blue, to do so). I think our plan is to veto any future attempts at re-releases, though. It just seems so silly. Let the original runs of vinyl be the hard copies and make the music available online indefinitely. None of us knew that Relapse was going to do a second run of the recent 012 repress, and we just noticed this week that they’re offering a second batch of colored vinyl. They probably took our okay for the first run to be sufficient for any additional pressings.
Did you feel the new artwork was necessary? I might be wrong, but I thought the red womb-picture was a hardcore classic! Did you feel the record needed renewed mastering? I mean, it was already a classic for a lot of people Since the record was being re-pressed and re-mastered, it made sense to Relapse to re-package it and take on a different theme. Sean is a huge fan of the Invisible Creature art firm and so when they agreed to do it, he jumped on the offer. I don’t think any of us really understood the point behind the re-mastering. But hey, now everyone has a couple options when downloading ‘012’ songs off of bit torrent.
With a lot of bands picking up the Coalesce-style of playing only in the last couple of years, it would seem that now would be the perfect time to regroup and re-conquer the scene. Do you share the sentiment that it is probably better for Coalesce to be active these days than in the beginning? I don’t think we ever conquered the scene so there’s no question of ever re-conquering it. And I don’t think any of us are intent on adding the role of conquistador to our daily lives. Does Coalesce even have a style? I guess we do. I can’t emphasize enough that Coalesce is not about competition or external scenes or other market-induced, pride-driven bullshit. We like to play music: some people like it, some people don’t, but it isn’t some sort of ambition in our lives to have people like our music or approve of it in some way. We like to play a kind of music that’s specific to our lives and the margins of our culture, and there are people who like to come out to our shows or buy some of our records and hear that music. That’s it.
Can you clarify “the Coalesce style” If coalesce does have a style, Nietzsche surely foresaw it: “Man hat, zur Ermoeglichung der Musik als Sonderkunst, eine Anzahl Sinne, vor Allem den Muskelsinn still gestellt (relativ wenigstens: denn in einem gewissen Grade redet noch aller Rhythmus zu unsern Muskeln): so dass der Mensch nicht mehr Alles, was er fuehlt, sofort leibhaft nachahmt und darstellt. Trotzdem ist Das der eigentlich dionysische Normalzustand, jedenfalls der Urzustand” (Götzen-Dämmerung, Streifzuege eines Unzeitgemaessen §10). Coalesce is about this “Urzustand”—cutting loose and creating music that appeals to the muscles on a primal level. Sean’s vocals, Nellis’ bass sound in a small room, Jr’s simplification of our rhythms into something memorable, the volume, the blood—all of it, it all appeals to the muscles of the person’s corporeality. No Eastern dualist bullshit here: Coalesce’s style is the testament of humanity as physical, concrete, of the earth. Perhaps that’s a “style,” but one thing’s for sure, it stands on its own as grounds for our doing it again.
Do you feel “old” when you play shows now? I mean, almost all of the old colleagues like Deadguy, Playing Enemy, etc. are gone, and the kids are getting younger and younger. Do you feel different than you did in the beginning? Yeah, I do feel older than I used to, for sure; but I think we have at least another five or so years in us. Who knows? I do think that bands like Deadguy and Bloodlet were our mentors rather than our peers; I take bands like Converge and Dillinger to be our contemporaries and they still seem to be rocking out just fine. It’s funny that you mention Deadguy, though, because Keith used to always joke with me in the later nineties about how old he was getting. Steve Austin would joke with me about his age from time to time, too. But really, it was all in jest because they were playing great shows and making great records (in Steve’s case, he still is).
Do you ever see Coalesce touring a lot again, or will it just be a short string of shows? We’re hoping to make 2009 a very public year for Coalesce with as much touring as we can pull together. We’ll never be the band that’s on tour for months at a time; none of us really want that and we couldn’t do it even if we did. I think we’re shooting for a combination of weekend warrior shows (some things never change), week-long spurts to different regions of the U.S., and two or three longer spurts for Europe, Japan, and Australia.
Can you perhaps give a more detailed account of the cancellation for the Hellfest gig? I do believe there are a throng of Europeans who were pretty bummed out after hearing that Yeah, that was a real bum deal. We really wanted to go. Quite a few people told us how bummed they were, too. But on the other hand, quite a few people were glad that we didn’t play such a huge show. Coalesce really is a small venue phenomenon I think. Nellis had just taken a promotion at his job and was required to be in Colorado that weekend for an annual nation-wide managers meeting. It was totally imperative that he go and we all understood. My first reaction was to call Ben from Dillinger and see if he would fill in for that one show since they were scheduled to play too. But then Sean got tied up in a spontaneous state tax audit on his business and I had something come up at school, and so it just seemed like Hellfest Europe wasn’t meant to be. We were all super bummed, but it wasn’t that devastating since we knew 2009 wasn’t that far off. We will make it overseas.
Another Euro-thing for Sean: can you tell me something about the vocals for the song ‘Queen of the Food Chain’ by the German band The Ocean? I heard in that in hindsight you did something completely different than they had intended, did you get that feedback as well? Sean Ingram:I don't really remember if they had intended anything for me other than doing that one song. Too much was happening in my personal life with family and kids to commit as much as I had originally wanted (and that they wanted). As far as delivery of the song goes, maybe they did an interview and said something to that effect, but I would be surprised if The Ocean expected to direct me. I sang their lyrics, but it would be absurd to want my input on a song and then say “Oh wait, I want you to do it like I do it.” That would defeat the purpose of inviting me to work on the project, reducing the whole exchange to a cash grab by using a name some kids might recognize when shopping for records. Shit, even The Used didn't ask me to work like that when I did those bits with Burt. So I'm thinking maybe you are referring to the fact that I didn't do as many songs as I had initially intended. I'm proud of that song. That big break, where the vocals let loose and let the riff communicate what it's trying to? God, I love that part. Oh, and as you can tell from my answer, I didn't get much feedback one way or another.
You must have written a lot of new Coalesce material by now, right? There has been word of a new album for some time now. Could you give any more information about any type of new release coming out soon? Music-wise, the songs are written. Sean is now working out his contributions. We plan to go into the studio in mid-July to record the rhythm tracks and we have no set schedule for when we will finish it. Right now, Coalesce is basically a collective mother hen sitting on its egg, patiently waiting for it to hatch. Once it hatches, we’ll make it public.
Have you ever considered doing a solo project? I have, but once Coalesce decided to start writing new material, I took the three songs I had written and rolled them into the new record. I have a totally different idea at this point about what I would want to do in the future, but there’s no time for any of that now. Nellis has a solo project of sorts in Jackie Carol. And Sean and Jr have never said anything about wanting to do a solo project, although Sean does work with other bands.
You have always had a very “broad” taste in music—very different from almost every other group I meet in hardcore or metal. Do you have an explanation for that? Was that ever a cause for friction in the band? I guess our tastes do span into genres far removed from hardcore and metal. I don’t think it’s necessarily a rare thing, but it is definitely a blessing to play in a band that sounds like Coalesce with a group of guys who encounter music for music’s sake. I think that when each of us hear a song, we can suspend our judgments about the music’s genre, about the people playing the music, about the ideology linked to the music, etc., and in that suspension decide whether the song and its enactment are exciting. Sometimes we agree with one another on whether a song is powerful, sometimes we don’t. I don’t have any explanation for why we each have the taste we do, but it provides for great debates when we’re travelling in a van together. And as this next record will hopefully reveal, it also has the capacity for changing the dynamics of a Coalesce song in curious ways. As I was saying above, though, if there were no disagreements in Coalesce then it wouldn’t be a community of persons but something more like … I don’t know, a fascist nation state?
With all the negative and positive experiences of being in a band, and keeping it alive for so many years, can you give a tip for starting bands? I’ve never thought about what I would tell someone asking for tips on starting a band. I play music because it tells me a lot about myself. It’s also a deeply fulfilling way of bonding with my friends. This is ultimately the only value I find in playing in a band. But I doubt that the young buck intent on being famous, “conquering the scene,” or pursuing some sort of monetary end that will make him or her into a household product name will find my assessment worthy as a “tip” for starting a band. The person who makes music solely for music’s sake is utterly distinct from the person who plays bitch to the market or a scene and their respective loyal masses. And surely the former will overcome any obstructions met en route to the manifestation of his or her art, while the latter would do us all a favour by abandoning the idea of starting a band. So I guess my tip depends on where you pitch your tent: to the artist—you don’t need my tips; to the bitch—quit.
What do you plan on doing immediately after this interview? I’ve been responding to this thing while on the clock, so I guess I better get back to work before my boss finds out what I’ve been doing.
Thanks a lot for the interview man! Any famous last words? This space is yours: Thanks a lot for sending us an interview, and we are really looking forward to seeing your continent within the next year.
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