IE: Hey Jose, thanks for taking the time to do this. Let's start off by getting people who may not know the name Mizery yet up to speed. I would say over the past year or year and a half the band has gotten a good buzz building. Try and give us a quick rundown on things from the time you guys changed the band name from Halftime to Mizery.

Jose: Let me start off by apologizing for the crazy delay with the interview. Things have been hectic on our end but we're ready to go now! I've known our guitarist Taylor since middle school and that dude has always been a shredder. He moved away to Tucson, AZ, when we were in 10th grade and came back about 5 years ago an even better guitarist and motivated to start a band. I was into audio production so I helped him record some demo tracks. One of which would become the title track to "Survive The Vibe". I got bored one day and decided to throw vocals on it, not really knowing what I was doing and he ended up really liking it. It took us a couple years to find people who were interested in playing the kind of NYHC we both loved in San Diego. We finally did and became Halftime (named after the Nas song, not that thing in between the Superbowl). We went through several member changes and kind of stopped playing after Taylor joined Downpresser. That's how we met Cayle who at the time was just gonna help us record the 7" before we found another drummer. He ended up loving the music, joined the band, and then we recruited our friend Mike to slap the bass. That's how Mizery became a thing.

IE: Would you say that once you went from being Halftime to Mizery it was like a new beginning or a new band or was it simply just a name change?

Jose: It was a culmination of a lot of things. The fact we didn't really sound the same, we had all new members, and the name Halftime just didn't really match our sound. We decided to just start out fresh. At the time we had a good amount of fans on Facebook for Halftime. So we decided to just call it a name change to keep the likes but in all honestly it was basically a new band.

IE: I've read before that you chose the name Mizery because you all were fans of the old NYHC band Dmize and you specifically used the Z instead of the S in the name sort of like paying respect to them. As a younger kid how influential was the NYHC scene on you and your friends?  How did you first find out about hardcore and in particular NYHC?

Jose: So yeah, you nailed it. Taylor Young who has recorded everything we've done so far actually suggested it to us, and it kind of stuck. Before we even had agreed on the name, he had already named our masters under Mizery. How I got into NYHC is kind of different. Like I had mentioned before there actually weren't a lot of people my age into that sound growing up. Most people were into the either metalcore (which is huge in San Diego), or the more melodic stuff that was going on the time, like Carry On or Sinking Ships. That era of hardcore never really captured my attention so I gravitated more to old school thrash and crossover and a whole lot of New York hip hop. That's how I discovered my first NYHC band Biohazard, through Onyx.

IE: Your sound definitely has some bounce in your beats. When I hear it I kind of think Leeway, Crown Of Thornz, kinda Cro-Mags influenced. When you guys all came together to form what is now Mizery what kind of ideas did you all kick around as far as the sound you wanted to have?  About how many practices into being a band did it take until you thought you had figured out the formula of what would be your sound?

Jose: Well Taylor writes most of the music and I chime in with Ideas for structure and different parts here and there. We basically map the songs out and just tell Cayle to do his thing. There honestly wasn't much thought put into it haha. We just knew we wanted to sound like Crown Of Thornz and Merauder. It was just us, no formula.

IE: You guys also claim a blues influence as well. Where did that come from and can you point to any particular parts in songs where you think it may stand out more so than others?

Jose: It comes from Taylor's background as a guitarist, being taught to play blues from his grandpa. Naturally Taylor brings that out in his song writing but mostly I think it comes out in his solos, like in “Burn”, that's all Blues scale. We claim a lot of different influences, it's important that you listen to more than just hardcore. I try to avoid it all together when I'm writing songs.

IE: Your “Survive The Vibe” EP came out well over a year ago now. Looking back at it now with some time to think back about it if you could go back and have some do overs with it what would you go back and tinker with if anything?

Jose: I'm really proud of how the record came out, song writing and lyrically I wouldn't change a thing. I just wish we would of used more chorus on the guitar like we originally wanted to. That's definitely gonna come out on this next one.

IE: What was the idea behind the title “Survive The Vibe” and how the cover artwork ties in to it as well. What's the message you are trying to get out with it as it definitely is different and unique with a lot going on when you sit there and look at it for a while.

Jose: The title of the record came about from a Japanese mistranslation of what? I don't know but we liked the sound of it and started making up our own definitions for it. The artwork is of the Hindu goddess of destruction, change, power, and creation, Kali. That alone should tell you why we chose it. She's the destroyer of evil forces, a lot of the lyrics on the record (if not all) deal with death and loss of some sort, and she represents moving forward surviving those challenges and those bad vibes. Also we love Prince, and from the start we wanted the record to be purple.

IE: You guys also bring some Hare Krishna influences to the table as well. Care to speak on that some?

Jose: The Krishna Influence on our lyrics are so in your face from the very first line. No one in the band would consider themselves a follower of the Krishna Conciseness but I have always liked studying religion, especially the eastern ones. Being a big Cro Mags fan I decided to purchase and read the Bhagavad Gita. It definitely had a big influence on the ideas for this record. I wanted to be influenced by the same things those great bands back in the day were influenced by. I do follow some of the Ideas being straight edge and vegan, and I might very well go full on later in life, but for now I'm not chanting the mantra anytime soon. Hare Hare. .

IE: This past August you guys went out on the Life And Death Tour with Turnstile, Bane, Backtrack and Forced Order across the US. Obviously a great way to get your music out to a lot of new fans that may have never heard of your band before. It's easy to think that being in a band and touring across the US is all fun all the time but let’s be real here as this is hardcore and not sold out big arena touring with crazy perks etc. It can often be far from a cake walk with certain things. With all that said what were some of the hardships or things you and your fellow band members had to sacrifice to make the whole thing happen?

Jose: Well we did the tour very last minute as a favor to our friend and all around badass guy James Vitalo (singer of Backtrack) who also happens to be our agent. We had to get two fill ins, one which happened a week before the tour started after our drummer broke his hand. So we didn't really sound to our full potential that entire tour. Half of us were dead broke and had to basically force James to give us 50 more dollars a day, which I thought would of hurt our relationship with him, but we all ended up being cool at the end. Me and Taylor had to cancel plans and have our girlfriends be mad at us for leaving them with such short notice. Long drives and shitty gas station food, and I could go on forever. It all boils down to those 15-20 minutes we get on stage every night, seeing all these people scream these words I wrote in my face and people just having an all around good time, makes up for all of it.

IE: You guys were a late add on to that tour after Scott Vogel from Terror couldn't make the trip due to hurting his back. How many times did you guys thank him or joke around with him because his injury really opened a great opportunity for Mizery?

Jose: I don't think we ever formally thanked him, but we had a quick conversation about both being fans of each others music so that was cool. I still get scared to say hi to him sometimes. He's royalty around these parts.

MIZERY IN SALT LAKE CITY, UT 2015. PHOTO BY: MATTHEW WINDSOR

IE: Tell us about this new album that your putting out with Flatspot Records. Initially the ads I saw were saying "early 2016" as the release but I have heard it could be more of a spring release. Where is everything at right now as far as the recording, mastering, and production of the album and please tell us what people can expect as far as the music and lyrics.

Jose: Now it's looking more like a summer release actually, everybody had been taking time to deal with their personal problems and lives that have gotten so out of control because of what we give up to be in a hardcore band. We jumped the gun setting a date so early on in the writing process, but we decided to take our time and put out a better record than just throwing a bunch of stuff together to fit a deadline. We are going in the studio February 15, and plan on getting it mixed and mastered by the end of that month, artwork is coming along, the wheels are finally moving on this. Musically there is more of a focus on sounding different than any other band out right now. There is a lot of new bands doing the same thing we did on STV right now. We are way passed that. Lyrically, there's less Krishna influence and more love songs haha.

IE: What are some of the new songs on it that you are itching to get out there for people to hear? Can we expect a “Survive The Vibe” Part 2 to an extent or have you incorporated more of your influences and added on to your sound in any areas?

Jose: Definitely not a Part 2 in anyway. We changed some stuff up, and hope people are with us on this one. STV was just a taste of how weird you can get with hardcore. We got stuff that's more crossover. We got a song that sounds like it could have been done by District 9, some lighter sounds and some over the top heavy ones too. It'll be a fun listen for sure.

IE: Thanks for your time Jose, that's all I got. Is there anything else you wanted to add before we finished up here?

Jose: I think we got it all, again sorry for the wait, “Absolute Light” dropping soon, we're finally heading out to Europe in May, hopefully Japan and Australia after that. Peace, one love.

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