Josh Eppard talks music and horror in this Exclusive Horrornews.net Interview w/ Mike Joy.
Approx. 60 minutes long
Kingston, NY – After his eight-year daily battle with opiates, Josh Eppard has kicked his addiction and will be releasing his long awaited second full-length album SICK KIDS under his solo moniker WEERD SCIENCE on May 17, 2011. He will be telling his story throughout Spring on The British Invasion Tour and all Summer long on Vans Warped Tour (tour dates below). MC Lars will be releasing this collection of rhymes, raps, and beats on his independent label Horris Records, nearly six years after Weerd Science’s debut album Friends and Nervous Breakdowns. Sick Kids was co-produced by Eppard and Dave Parker (ex-Coheed and Cambria), tracked at Applehead Studios in Woodstock, NY and Dark World Studios in Kingston, NY, and mixed by Chris Bittner (Coheed and Cambria, Bad Brains).
Sick Kids is a journey in the fragile mind of a drug addict – feelings of hurt, guilt, sadness, happiness, and twisted thoughts. During the making of Sick Kids, Eppard was back and forth with drugs - more back than forth. He explained, “Part of the guilt that haunted me daily was to look the people who were so excited to be making another Weerd Science record in the eyes and lie. I would convince them that I was sober and ready to work, but the truth is that I was shooting dope in the bathroom pretty much the entire session.” In no way does Sick Kids follow a specific theme, but the songs that have nothing to do with drugs were his way of running from the truth. Deep down inside, this album was his cry for help. Drugs didn’t necessarily enhance his creative mind, so he kept Sick Kids as-is. “It would’ve been vastly different if I was sober,” he continues. “It would also be an injustice to my struggle with addiction to gloss my performances.” Realizing when he was sober that the more good people he knew became distant during his addiction. “You open your eyes one day and ask yourself, 'Why am I in a car with two homeless guys and a hooker at 4am?' The people in your life who were honest and decent are gone,” he reflects. After two years of being clean, he no longer gets the urge like he used to, back when he had dreams of getting high and would have to wake up in the middle of the night to shake it off. “It’s such a great feeling to be beyond this… I know what it’s like to not want to live and literally hold a knife to your wrist and pray to God that this time you’ll have the courage to slice.”
As a drummer, Eppard has seen the ups and downs of the music industry first hand, which was even the topic of his Weerd Science debut Friends and Nervous Breakdowns (Equal Vision). He began his career drumming in the band 3 (Universal) in 1992 prior to joining Coheed and Cambria (Columbia) in 2001. After parting ways with the band in 2006 and taking time to clean up, Eppard’s love of drumming drew him back to his current band Terrible Things (Universal Motown). Opting to release his debut on an independent label, Eppard confides, “In my opinion, a label in this day and age can’t offer me anything as an artist. Labels fail more than they succeed. Why should I sign a deal where they have their hands in my touring revenue, merch, and my everything when all they can offer me is a fancy building and some free lunch every few months?”
Eppard wanted his fans to be directly involved with this album, so he created a KickStarter campaign, and within five days, he reached his goal of $4,000 dollars. Currently, he's surpassed his goal by nearly $2,000 and there is still seven days left. “Weerd Science can be as big as the world wants it to be,” he surmises. “I’m tired of boring music and I’m not following a system designed to limit what’s available to us as consumers.”
http://www.reybee.com/
http://www.weerdscience.net/site/
Approx. 60 minutes long
Kingston, NY – After his eight-year daily battle with opiates, Josh Eppard has kicked his addiction and will be releasing his long awaited second full-length album SICK KIDS under his solo moniker WEERD SCIENCE on May 17, 2011. He will be telling his story throughout Spring on The British Invasion Tour and all Summer long on Vans Warped Tour (tour dates below). MC Lars will be releasing this collection of rhymes, raps, and beats on his independent label Horris Records, nearly six years after Weerd Science’s debut album Friends and Nervous Breakdowns. Sick Kids was co-produced by Eppard and Dave Parker (ex-Coheed and Cambria), tracked at Applehead Studios in Woodstock, NY and Dark World Studios in Kingston, NY, and mixed by Chris Bittner (Coheed and Cambria, Bad Brains).
Sick Kids is a journey in the fragile mind of a drug addict – feelings of hurt, guilt, sadness, happiness, and twisted thoughts. During the making of Sick Kids, Eppard was back and forth with drugs - more back than forth. He explained, “Part of the guilt that haunted me daily was to look the people who were so excited to be making another Weerd Science record in the eyes and lie. I would convince them that I was sober and ready to work, but the truth is that I was shooting dope in the bathroom pretty much the entire session.” In no way does Sick Kids follow a specific theme, but the songs that have nothing to do with drugs were his way of running from the truth. Deep down inside, this album was his cry for help. Drugs didn’t necessarily enhance his creative mind, so he kept Sick Kids as-is. “It would’ve been vastly different if I was sober,” he continues. “It would also be an injustice to my struggle with addiction to gloss my performances.” Realizing when he was sober that the more good people he knew became distant during his addiction. “You open your eyes one day and ask yourself, 'Why am I in a car with two homeless guys and a hooker at 4am?' The people in your life who were honest and decent are gone,” he reflects. After two years of being clean, he no longer gets the urge like he used to, back when he had dreams of getting high and would have to wake up in the middle of the night to shake it off. “It’s such a great feeling to be beyond this… I know what it’s like to not want to live and literally hold a knife to your wrist and pray to God that this time you’ll have the courage to slice.”
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SICK KIDS album art Click for hi-res |
As a drummer, Eppard has seen the ups and downs of the music industry first hand, which was even the topic of his Weerd Science debut Friends and Nervous Breakdowns (Equal Vision). He began his career drumming in the band 3 (Universal) in 1992 prior to joining Coheed and Cambria (Columbia) in 2001. After parting ways with the band in 2006 and taking time to clean up, Eppard’s love of drumming drew him back to his current band Terrible Things (Universal Motown). Opting to release his debut on an independent label, Eppard confides, “In my opinion, a label in this day and age can’t offer me anything as an artist. Labels fail more than they succeed. Why should I sign a deal where they have their hands in my touring revenue, merch, and my everything when all they can offer me is a fancy building and some free lunch every few months?”
Eppard wanted his fans to be directly involved with this album, so he created a KickStarter campaign, and within five days, he reached his goal of $4,000 dollars. Currently, he's surpassed his goal by nearly $2,000 and there is still seven days left. “Weerd Science can be as big as the world wants it to be,” he surmises. “I’m tired of boring music and I’m not following a system designed to limit what’s available to us as consumers.”
http://www.reybee.com/
http://www.weerdscience.net/site/
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