After the Fall

Describe your band, telling a little about it.

Our band's name is After the Fall.  We are a 4 piece hard rock band from Pittsburgh, PA.  The band itself has been around since 2004, with only the bassist and the drummer as the remaining founding members.  Since then, they've gone through some lineup changes over the years on vocals and guitar, but the current lineup has been in effect for about a half a year now.  The sound has changed a bit over the years as well, but it's never deviated too much from the hard rock/metal sound that they started with.

What are your names? / Who plays what?

Doug Carnahan- vocals/guitar

Matt Ferrante- drums

Steve Craven- bass

Zac Shepard- guitars

Have members played with any other bands?

We have all played in bands prior to playing in After the Fall.  Steve and Matt have been in a few bands together over the years, first Hybrid and then Super Xero, and presently After the Fall.  The guitar player, Zac, was in a band called Stratega before joining After the Fall.  I (Doug) was in a few bands prior to After the Fall as well, D.U.I. and A Guilty Revelation.  

Do you write your own music or perform covers?  Has it always been this way?

We've always performed original material for as long as I know of, with varying degrees of covers thrown in over the years.

What year did the band form? 

The band initially formed back in 2004.

Where is bands home? 

The 4 of us live all over western PA, but as a band we hail from Pittsburgh.

What inspires your music?  Our music is mostly inspired by real life situations, although there have been a few songs that I've written from more of a fictional standpoint.  As the band's lyricist, I've found that it's easiest for me to write about things that I know about firsthand, or have experienced firsthand.  A lot of people like to write about things that they've never personally experienced, I myself have found that my best work comes from feelings that I have had experience with throughout my lifetime.  

Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that?  We would ideally like to sign to a label at some point in our career, but we also don't want to rush it either.  With the current state of the music industry, the internet has made possible a lot of what you needed a label to do even just 10-15 years ago.  We can broadcast our music out there to everyone in the world, allow people to purchase it anywhere in the world, connect with fans, etc.  These are things that you needed a label to do for you, or help you with before, but now any band can do them.  A label still has a purpose, but now it's more for when you're ready for that stage of the game, that's when they step in (hopefully).  So, when the time comes that we require a label, we'd like to sign to one, as long as it's the right situation for us.

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics?  Do you start with the music or the lyrics?  I (Doug) write all of the lyrics for the band.  As far as composing goes, that comes from a few different places.  Either I'll write the majority of the song, the guitar parts, vocal melodies, arrange it, and then I'll bring it to the other guys for them to add their parts to.  Then there are times that either Zac or myself will have a riff to start with, then the entire band will just kind of build from that.  Those are the two most common ways that we've used to write most of our songs.  I'd say a good 99% of the time, the music comes first.  In order to write good lyrics, I want to hear what kind of theme the actual music itself has, then I write the lyrics accordingly.  Does the music sound sad?  Happy?  Angry?  Once I determine what kind of song it is that I'm dealing with, that's when I start working on the lyrics.  I think there have been a few songs where I might've started with a sort of phrase, or certain words, but that is definitely the minority of the time.

What ages are most of your concert attendants?  The people who attend are concerts are a variety of ages, which is what makes what we do great, because we get to see a 15 year old girl rocking out right next to a 35 year old guy!  These two people, who would normally have nothing in common, are here to share an experience, and it's the music that brings them together!  I've always believed that music has that sort of power to it, it can transcend borders, languages, even ages, to bring many people, from many different walks of life, together and give them something in common, even if only for that brief period of time!  But to get back to the original answer, we've seen people of all ages, nationalities, and genders attend our shows, and to be honest, we like it that way!

Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary?  We try to vary our set list from show to show.  We're starting to get to the point where we have a bit of a back catalog with our past two CDs that we've released, plus we're constantly working on new music, so with that, we try to keep our sets fresh at our live shows.  We're also constantly adding covers to our live set to keep it fresh and keep the audience guessing.  We've all never been fans of the bands who continuously play the same songs in their sets, year after year, which is why we are constantly working to keep our sound evolving and to keep our cover selection rotating.  We do have the staples to our set, both cover and originals, that are always going to be a part of most sets that we play, but even those only number a few songs, the majority of our set is always changing and evolving.

Where do you plan to play this year?

We have a lot of cool shows coming up!  We'll be playing at The Elbo Room in Chicago in June, we'll be out in Akron, Ohio the weekend after Easter, we've also got some cool local shows for this summer too.  As many people already know, Matt and Steve are the founders and the brains behind the Rock for Life concert series.  The concerts have been around since the early 2000s, but have grown considerably over the years.  The proceeds from these concerts go to help local children and families in need of assistance with medical costs.  They pick two kids each year and donate the proceeds of the concerts to the families after the year's over. 

What band merchandise do you have for sale?  Where can people buy your merchandise?  We sell all kinds of merchandise!  First off, we have two CDs that we have released over the past two years, our 2014 EP, and My Confession, a full length album.  Both are available through our Facebook page by messaging us, at our live shows, and the digital copies are available at most major online retailers, such as Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Spotify, and more by going to your favorite music retailer and searching the name of our band (After the Fall) and the album title that you're interested in.  We also have tee shirts for sale, which are also available by messaging us on Facebook, or at our live shows.  We also sell hooded sweatshirts as well.

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days?

How do you think the music industry have changed because of this?  I think that the music industry has changed quite a bit over the years since streaming and downloading have become people's main method of consuming music.  Personally, I think that streaming and downloading are great, I am a music streamer (I have a paid subscription) and downloading (purchased).  Now, I enjoyed CDs quite a lot, and was against the streaming model when it was first introduced.  However, over time, I've seen how it's a LOT more convenient, is cheaper, and gives you access to almost every song ever recorded.  So, as a consumer, I'm all about streaming.  As a musician, it's more of a slippery slope.  As a lot of people will already know, there's a fight going on between musicians and Congress over the current streaming model and it' payout structure.  As it stands, musicians (and not just independent ones either) are receiving very low payouts from these streaming services.  The current average rate is $.004 per stream.  Think about that, that's really not that much.  Now, all I've ever asked out of life is to be able to earn a modest income at doing something that I love.  Sure, being rich and famous would be nice, but it's not something that I necessarily "need".  One might argue that I don't need it, but at the current going rate from streaming, I couldn't even earn a modest living, unless I were to accrue astronomical amounts of plays.  I understand that there are a lot of people out there who don't believe that you should have to pay for music.  To that, I would say "That's fine, but you get what you don't pay for.  You like Kanye West, Drake, etc?  Because that's who you're going to be getting more of until average artists can start at least being able to eat and pay rent via their music."  There are also major upsides to being a musician in the post internet era.  One of them is obviously the easy publicity.  With the internet, now all you need are some good recordings and a Facebook or Reverbnation page and you're set.  You wanna get the word out about your new release?  Ad agencies of all kinds are just a click away, and they're not just for Hollywood hotshots either!  It's also easier to plan shows, and even tours now, because just as you're more easily accessible to the world, so are a lot of the venues!  You can contact a venue via email, plan and set up a show, and just arrive on the day of the show (there are other steps in between, obviously) all without even speaking to an human being on the phone.  If that's not easier than the old way, I don't know what is!  Lol!

Do you have any new material?

We're constantly working on new material!  We actually have a few new songs, one of which we've played out a few times now and people really seem to enjoy it!  We also have one more song that people haven't heard yet, but we'll probably be busting that one out at a show here soon, I'm sure!  Ideally, we'd like to have another album, or EP, out sometime in the near future, possibly even start working on it this year, if all goes well!  As many of you know, our last guitar player, Brandon, left us last year.  It was a very amicable split, but getting Zac in here and up to speed took us some time.  We wanted to come out swinging and not just rest on our laurels that we earned from Brandon's time in the band.  We knew that the writing process might take a little time to hit on, chemistry is very important in that process, and we also wanted it to flow organically, we don't believe in forcing songs.   Now that we're where we need to be with Zac, I think that people can expect to see, and hear, a lot more new material coming from us in the upcoming months!

Where can you be found, ie your websites/ social media sites?

www.facebook.com/afterthefallbandpa 

www.reverbnation.com/afterthefallband

www.twitter.com/AtFbandrocks

You can reach us by messaging us on any of those platforms.  For booking inquiries, please contactatfmatt@hotmail.com or duiband@gmail.com  You can also check out www.fuentertainmentrocks.com for more information on Rock for LIfe, and the local music scene here in Pittsburgh in general.  

What are your plans for the future?

Our plans for the future include trying to reach some new areas of the country and to expose as many people as we can to our music!  We also, as I said before, want to write and record some new music here very soon!  Those are the immediate plans, as for the long term, we just want to keep kicking as much ass as possible!

What do you think of my work?

I think what you're doing for your local music scene, and others, is great!  Keep up the great work, and thanks for having us!