For Your Health Interview
A world in chaos, Phase III has started, ended, and come back around all over again. I’ve already run out of toilet paper but I’ve managed to wrestle command over a pack of feral rodents so I should be king of the hill in no time, and no longer bothered by such trivial amenities. For Your Health should be so lucky. A couple months ago I talked to Hayden (vocals). I was trying to pawn off a jewel encrusted scimitar that I found in the charred ruins of an Airbnb condo to them but the singer of the Columbus, Ohio band just wanted to talk about screamo and punk rock. In 2019 they released their debut EP Nosebleeds and then their split Death of Spring with the Pittsburgh band Shin Guard. Their songs are fast and loud. Check them out if you despise yourself.
Jesse: I went to your show in Montreal for Frail Body, and that was sick. Thanks for doing that. Sorry I missed your set.
Hayden: Yeah, no problem
Jesse: I went to the gig at the other side of the road. It was these weird metal bands but I thought it was your gig, and I was really confused as to why there was all these french guys with long hair and like Slayer shirts.
Hayden: Hahaha woah. That’s really funny
Jesse: Yeah, it was really embarrassing. It was a $20 door fee but I thought ‘I like these bands so I’m down’ and I went in, but after I saw the first 3 bands and I was like ‘This is not punk, where am I?’.
Hayden: Hahahahaha
Jesse: I felt like such a dork and then when I finally went across the street to the right show, Frail Body had just started playing so I thought ‘Oh fuck yeah. Wait, I missed For Your Health’.
Hayden: Oh yeah, they played last if I remember correctly. So you missed 4 bands.
Jesse: Yeah, it was a bit of a guffaw. Whatever. At least I saw Frail Body.
Hayden: Haha
Jesse: Where do you see screamo as participating in punk as a form of oppositional culture?
Hayden: I mean obviously it depends on the band, because some bands are more overtly political than others, and I think when you’re in a punk band, you do punk for a reason. Most people, at least that I know, that play punk music don’t just do it for the sonic reasons, they do it because they prescribe to a DIY ethos or leftism or what have you. And I think that that screamo is isn’t any different than regular punk or hardcore in that area of observation. I don’t know if that really answered your question, but I just feel that when it comes to punk ethos, and the politics in music, screamo is just follows along with punk, I guess.
Jesse: You mentioned that some bands are more political than others. Do you think that less political bands are participating less in that culture? As in participating less in a form of rebelliousness or opposition?
Hayden: I don’t know if you can really quantify that. I think that just doing something like screamo is counterculture, and I don’t necessarily think that everything needs to be a huge political statement. Like when you’re making the art itself, or in being in a band, it’s already a start. It shouldn’t stop there, but I think that if you’re doing something like being in a punk band you already have sort of the right direction.
Jesse: What have you been doing during quarantine?
Hayden: I’ve been watching a lot of movies and binging a bunch of media, trying to consume as much as possible I guess. Also we’re working on our next release, so some writing. Pretty much it’s just a cycle of wake up, play video games, and watch movies, and try to write, and then go to sleep. It’s just been months of that.
Jesse: Obviously you had to cancel this tour that you were coming back to Canada right? You don’t have anything planned?
Hayden: Yeah.
Jesse: That sucks. Bummer.
Hayden: Yeah, we were actually supposed to be in Canada twice this summer. For the beginning of our tour we were supposed to be in Vancouver, and then we had a month or two in between, and then we were supposed to come to Toronto. Everything is obviously scrapped.
Screamo has flourished online in the last few years. especially in Facebook groups and on Twitter. Do you think that quarantine is going to affect this at all?
Hayden: As in bring new people into the “screamo” community? I feel like being stuck at home definitely gets people a lot of time to delve into things that maybe they wouldn’t have found. I think there’s definitely an influx of people listening to you know, the music. At least that’s what it seems like from general internet observation.
How do you think this pandemic is going to affect the scene and moreover the culture of Punk rock in general?
Hayden: I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I honestly don’t know. I’m kind of scared for the future. You know, I think something that’s really important to the culture obviously is DIY shows, and right now no one really knows when shows will be able to come back, and even if and when they do, what they’ll be like. Especially if there’s social distancing measures implemented and everything. I don’t understand how it’ll be feasible for smaller bands to sort of play or go on tour. Says there’s a band that is playing in a 200 cap room but everybody has to stand 6 feet apart. So they have to lower the capacity to, I don’t know, like 40.
I just don’t understand how it will really be viable, and it just seems like it’ll be really hard to feel a sense of community without something like touring which is a part of who I am, and who we are as a band. Yeah, just we tour so much. Being home for this long has already been a really weird and kind of harrowing experience. Just because it feels like in the past two years we’ve been on the road more than we’ve been home. You know. So it’s like without shows, I don’t know what the future kind of looks like right now.
Jesse: I guess you can’t crowd kill when you’re 6 feet apart.
Hayden: Yeah, it’s kind of weird, I was just reading some stuff about the idea of how people won’t be able to be near the stage and also not near each other. So I just can’t imagine being at a show where people are super spaced out just standing still and wearing masks.
Jesse: You released a split with Shin Guard last year called ‘Death of Spring’ on Middle-Man Records. Is the cover art an homage to Rites of Spring?
Hayden: There’s no real reason for the art. Other than it’s just kind of what happened. Our friend Ryan from the band Closer designed it. And they offered the lightning storm design and we just thought it looked cool. There was no real reason for it.
Jesse: How does For Your Health fit into the culture of punk and screamo in Columbus, Ohio?
Hayden: Columbus’ scene is a little bit weird. It comes and goes. There’s not any bands like us. So we mostly hang out with a Hardcore bands. Other sort of punkish bands I don’t know. It has been weird trying to find a community at home. Honestly, it feels more like we have a deeper connection to neighboring places like Pittsburgh where Shin Guard are from. Honestly that’s where I think of as our home town, just because it’s where I feel like all of our friends are. All the bands that we work with and stuff. It just always feels like home when we go there, and it’s only a couple hours away. We’ve just never really felt that in Columbus.
Jesse: The only bands I think of when I think of Columbus are corny scene bands from 10 years ago.
Hayden: There’s honestly not that many punk bands of note from Columbus recently. I don’t know. It is interesting that there’s not really a demographic for what we do, and it’s always kind of felt like that. I think one of the reasons that we are able to play all the shows that we did is because I booked shows in my house. I had a house venue, so that really helped when we first started playing. But yeah, I don’t know about the rest of the people in the band but I really don’t feel a strong connection to our scene. I just feel more of a stronger bond with the places we go on tour.
Jesse: Most people would answer that with some bullshit about how their city is somehow special. Or some disingenuous crap like that. Respect.
Hayden: Haha I love Columbus. It’s just that the scene is a little bit weird.
Jesse: I was in Columbus once. I was 20, and I was in a Greyhound station and Iwatched this trucker dude in cargo shorts harass this Amish guy, just asking him questions.
Hayden: Oh no.
Jesse: Yeah, I felt so bad. He was just asking a million questions about what it’s like to be Amish.
Hayden: The Greyhound station is also just literally hell on earth. I imagine hell is a Greyhound station in Ohio.
Jesse: Yeah. I took a 4 day Greyhound trip. It was bad.
Hayden: Oh god.
Jesse: What have you been doing with your screamo money?
Hayden: Paying rent. Buying food. It really sucks because for a multitude of other reasons, For Your Health is like at least my main source of income. Also navigating the coronavirus thing while being in a band is just sort of weird. You use touring as a source of income because you need to. The three of us work in the food service when we’re home. So now with both of my jobs, I can’t do either of them. So I just feel super helpless and useless. The day before we were supposed to leave for our tour that obviously got canceled I was at work with the intention that it was the last day I went to work, and also there ended up being no tour. So for two months I’ve just been doing nothing.
Jesse: This questions stupid, it’s just ‘did you smoke crack at warped tour’?
Hayden: No. I didn’t. I honestly don’t even remember why I tweeted that.
Jesse: It was good.
Hayden: hahaha thanks.
Jesse: No of course.
Hayden: I’m straight edge.
Jesse: You’re straight edge?
Hayden: Yeah, did I not talk about it enough.
Jesse: I’m from New Zealand and there’s like 5 straight edge people there. So it’s always amazing to me. Do you see straight edge as being big in screamo?
Hayden: No. I don’t feel like it is really. A lot of people that are in screamo are just like hardcore people or whatever. And I feel like that’s the crossover. I mean, I do know a lot of straight edge or vegan straight edge people in screamo but I feel like straight edge isn’t that important to a lot of people that are purely interested in screamo stuff.
Jesse: Everyone likes Have Heart though, that’s the one thing about it.
Hayden: Yeah.
Jesse: Your song ‘Second Aid Kit’ is sick.
Hayden: I honestly don’t remember what that one is, because I forget all the names. Is that the one with the singing part?
Jesse: Yeah, it’s got a singing part. It’s got a chorus, or verse, or something.
Hayden: I hate that song.
Jesse: You hate that song? You know what, all music deserves to be cancelled is what I say. Fuck it all.
Hayden: Yeah that’s true. I mean, you kind of got your wish.
Jesse: Yeah, you know what? Good.
