This is not a side project. Red Sparowes
By: Emo Greg

This is not a side project. It’s hard to forget this band’s pedigree when we’re talking about members of Isis and Neurosis' video director, the thought of another side project comes to mind. This is not a side project. This is not another Isis record. What this is beauty in recording. Every song beautifully crafted and titled and fit into one unified idea. Red Sparowes is Bryant Clifford Meyer and Jeff Caxide of Isis fame and Josh Graham, the acclaimed video director and the man responsible for Neurosis’ visuals. Greg Burns, formerly of Halifax Pier and Dana Berkowitz, formerly of the Cignal fill out the band for the record. I managed to pull Josh away from a busy room for a few moments to talk about the new band, science, and the coming year.

EG: Ok, cool. I want to start off by saying that you guys are officially my 73rd favorite band of all time.
JG: <laughs>

EG: My first question is: What's with all the side projects? I mean obviously we have Isis, Neurosis, Halifax Pier, and the Cignal, which from I understand just broke up and played their last show?
JG: Yea, I'm not really aware of their schedule. That could be correct. Actually, Halifax Pier isn't together anymore either... We just wanted people to know that Greg of that band is in our band.

EG: So, basically you could play 7 degrees with pretty much any band in the scene.
JG: Yea.

EG: So, this isn't going to be anything like Damn Yankees then, is it?
JG: Oh god. <laughs> I hope not... This is definitely a full time band. We're not looking at it like a side project. We're pretty much constantly involved and participating in it, scheduling tours around our other bands and stuff like that.

EG: Whose idea was it to get together? Who got in touch with whom? Who were the reluctant parties? And who dropped out?
JG: The actual band is comprised of Cliff, Greg, and Myself. We're the core group. I met Isis when Isis and Neurosis played together at Beyond the Pale 2 or 3 years ago, probably 3, maybe 4. Isis moved to LA about a year and a half ago and we started playing. Cliff and I started playing together and we ran into Greg who was like an old friend of Jeff from Isis back in Connecticut. We started basically jamming and then it turned in an actual full time band. Jeff we knew was moving to North Carolina, so we knew he was a part time collaborator for the crew, as well as Dana, our drummer on the record. We think of the three of us as the core group and then we kind of play with whoever we want to play with.

EG: I understand that your song titles actually fit together as a paragraph, what's the deal with that?
JG: Basically, we wanted, because its instrumental music, we wanted to have more meaning to it than just instrumental tracks. We came up with a concept that's based around something that's scientifically happening to the planet right now. Throughout our known history, there's been 5 massive extinctions. Which have been caused by like comets causing ice age, each one causes a certain percentage of species on earth to die out, whether it's 30%, or 50%, or 80%. Right now, according to the scientists, the sixth event is happening right now, and it's the first one to be caused be a species which inhabits the planet, and that species is humanity. There's not really any political motivation or anything, just an observation of basically what's happening. The song titles sort of fit into a paragraph which is basically the beginning of that scenario.

EG: What's the Coming Year look like for you guys?
JG: We're doing some US dates, a couple of LA dates, and I believe we're doing South by Southwest in Austin. Either to be confirmed or not confirmed here pretty soon. Doing a week in the UK. And the last week of March We're doing Europe and the first week of April. Looking at a tentative US tour from either in June or July.

EG: What's one question you'd like to answer that no one has asked yet?
JG: I don't know, I really can't think of anything. I'm glad to have people asking about what the song titles mean and anything like that. I think that's the question that I'd like asked and everyone's asking. I don't think there's really anything left unsaid.