Interviews: Neeraj Kane (Holy Roman Empire, Suicide File, Hope Conspiracy)

I recently spoke to guitarist Neeraj Kane about his current project, Holy Roman Empire. Kane is a veteran of a number of notable hardcore acts including The Hope Conspiracy and The Suicide File, but this band, which includes guitarist Jay Jancetic (ex-Arma Angelus, Stabbed By Words), bassist Geoff Reu (Killing Tree), drummer Tony Tintari (ex-Rise Against, Shai Hulud) and vocalist Emily Schambra (Long Distance Runner) is a little different from any of his past projects.

The band released their debut EP, Lost in Landscapes last year. Neeraj gave me some insight into his band, and how the world of punk and hardcore sometimes bleeds into his "other" life as a teacher.

You can click Read More for the interview.

You've had a long history in pretty aggressive hardcore bands likeThe Hope Conspiracy
and The Suicide File, but Holy Roman Empire is pretty different. Why the new
direction?

Well, I
guess as a band, we just ended up playing the style that we are playing now
(which is still evolving in my opinion).
I don’t think any of us went into it saying we want the band to sound
like this or like that, it just kind of evolved to what it is now. Almost every member of the band has
been in aggressive punk/hardcore bands, but when we started this, all we knew
was that we wanted it to be different than our previous endeavors but how
different was never really talked about.

We
would just come to our practices with riffs that were not really heavy hardcore
or punk rather more melodic and power pop or rock (whatever you want to call
it), and we just went with it. One
thing we did know about our direction was that we still wanted to be different
and unique and still take the ideas we all had from our old bands about pushing
the envelope musically and continue that philosophy in this band as well when
it came to songwriting. We also
know collectively that we want to make an impact on the current musical
landscape whether it is underground or in the mainstream.

I
mean from my standpoint yeah the music is pretty different from my previous
bands, but I always wanted to do something different musically, it does not
mean that I am not into aggressive music anymore because I am, as are most of
the other members, but we just wanted to create music that also reflected the
other types of music that had huge influences on our lives, and many of those
were not just punk and hardcore bands.
But the bottom line is that we wanted to create music that was moving,
powerful; yeah it is musically different, but the ethos or the idea behind Holy
Roman Empire is the same when it comes down to it.

How did
the band get together?

Jay, Geoff
and I had been playing together for a few months, and we were looking for a
drummer. I had heard that Tony
wasn’t playing for Shai Hulud anymore and he was back in Chicago. All of us had been big fans of Tony’s
drumming, and I personally thought that his style would be perfect for some of
ideas that we had. So I decided to
give him a call and see if he wanted to play with us and just to see if would
be into some of the stuff that we had been working on.

Tony agreed
and the chemistry was pretty much instant. So we decided to get a practice space and just started
working with different ideas. We
wrote and reworked songs for almost a year before we actually got Emily. When she joined we started recording a
demo, then wrote songs for an EP and we finally started playing shows after a
year and half of initially starting the band.

It felt
like the EP was written before Emily joined the band, but The new songs are
really cohesive and seem to really reflect the participation of the entire
band.

The songs
off the demo were written before Emily was in the band, and we re-recorded two
of the songs from our demo for the EP, as well. When she joined we started to
include her into the initial song writing process, and started changing the way
we were thinking about song structures.
Most of the songs on the EP are a product of that change in writing, but
our new songs have really come into their own- we’re much more focused and
collaborative in our song structure and writing now.

How does
songwriting work in the band?

Pretty much
someone comes to practice with a riff and we just work on it. Sometimes Geoff and Tony might
have a rhythm part and Jay or I might just write a riff on the spot off their
bass and drum line. I hate to use
the word "jam," but we "jam" on a lot of the riffs that someone brings to the
table. Sometimes Emily might have
vocal ideas and we might just work off that. After a rough skeleton is done, usually we record it and
give it to Emily to work her magic.
Other times various members might sit down with Emily one-on-one to go
over melodies and harmonies with just guitars to come up with vocal lines. It’s a very collaborative process,
there is no single songwriter; everyone contributes and everyone has their
specific specialty in the song writing process. We are extremely democratic, and honest. If riff just is not working or the
majority of the band is just not feeling the riff, that opinion is voiced and
the idea is tossed or put on the backburner to be reworked at a later time.

I had a student come into class one time with a portable stereo and play a CD of one of my old bands. Apparently after I left, all these students found out what bands I had played in and even filled in for and all that. I would have students come in with hardcore or punk shirts of my friends bands or band I had toured with, and I would just play dumb and not say anything.

With HRE
your main focus, what do you hope the band can achieve?

HRE as a
band was started with the intention of going full force. It is not a project
and never was. We just want to
play music all the time and for as many people as we can. From the get go
everyone had agreed that we wanted to make amazing music that is different from
a lot of the music that is being played on the radio and everywhere else. As a
band we want to bring the intensity of the bands we used to play in and were
influenced by to a larger audience than just the punk/hardcore scene. But the bottom line will always be that
we want to have fun and really make music that’s interesting and innovative in
some way, shape or form. We feel an urgency to really rise above the status quo
with our music and live performances.

Emily
recently did some pretty high profile recording with Rise Against, and the
members of that band are huge backers (based on my conversations with them) how
do you feel about the future and the well-deserved attention this will bring?

The guys in
Rise Against are close friends of ours and support us tremendously. We all think its great, and if it draws
more attention to our band then that’s awesome. We are really grateful that we have such an awesome
band/friends in our corner. With having Emily sing on their record it has really
shown us that they really want us to succeed as a band, and that means a lot to
us.

We cannot
really predict the future, all we can do is see what happens, and keep doing
what we are doing as a band, and if this helps, then great. I mean we will always be grateful for
their help, their friendship and support.

I
understand you teach full-time, if you don’t mind me asking, how does that fit
into your life which has been pretty intertwined with music over the past few
years.

Music has
been and is my priority. I started
teaching because I wasn’t in a band at the time, and I didn’t know what I was
going to do musically. I needed to
pay bills so instead of working as a waiter or some shitty temp job, I decided
to actually get a job doing something that I went to school for (I think I
lucked out in that sense). It fits in my life as my day job until HRE gets to
the point that we can be on the road more consistently.

Teaching is
not something I plan to do long term. But right now I look at it as my day job,
that just so happens to be a job where I can give something back to society and
pay my bills while HRE is in the early stages. HRE is my priority and right now everything revolves around
that and having a lot of breaks being a teacher definitely helps and has helped
with the early stages of HRE.

Speaking of songwriting, Emily has an amazing
range, and it's noticeably larger than songs in a hardcore band, I'm wondering
how it's been adapting to a "singer" rather than a screamer.

I
mean we are really lucky that we have a singer like, Emily. She is so naturally talented. However as far as the melodies are
concerned she comes up with most of them. We might offer some ideas here or
there but for the most part it is her. She may ask us for some help in regards
to some parts and that’s where we will give her some suggestions, however when
it comes to dynamics; that is where some of our past experiences come into
play.

For
some choruses or bridges where it needs to be very energetic we might draw from
our past experiences and that’s where Emily might increase her vocals dynamics
thus adding to the energy but that’s about it. So in regards to adapting; there
really wasn’t any, besides some vocal dynamic things here and there. Everything else just sort of fell into
place, and the chemistry was instant.
However I am sure if you were to ask Emily she would also be able to go
into more detail on how she feels she adapted to us, and our playing styles.

As far as labels, there are a lot of places
you could go with HRE, I was wondering if you had any labels you'd love to work
with.

I
mean there are a lot of labels we would love to work with, it is just a matter
of one that is interested in us, and believes in us as a band, and believes in
and will stand behind the music that we make. Also a label that knows that we probably would not look good
in cowboy boots, shitty moustaches, eye liner (well except Emily) or whatever
the new trend is (ha-ha). I think
personally an ideal label as far as an indie is concerned would be Epitaph.

I have always been a fan of a lot of
their bands and the way they run their label, I think their ethic is
awesome. There are a lot of labels
that we are into, but in the end that specific label for us has to be into HRE
and the music we make. We don’t
think there is really one label we can say is "for us". We simply want someone
to be genuinely interested in what we are about and can back us being on the
road constantly and can push what we’re about to "the kids".

On that subject, if you could pick an ideal
touring lineup, who would that be?

That’s
a good question; I would love to go out with Rise Against at some point. I mean
they are close friends or ours and really support us. We also just finished a week and half stint with Maps And
Atlases from Chicago, they are amazing and would love to go out with them for a
longer period of time.

Basically
we would love to tour with bands that don’t necessarily sound the same as
us. A lot of package tours these
days have bands that sound very similar, if I was a person attending some of
these shows I would be bored.

Again
we’d love to hit the road with the Rise dudes. Or even Lawrence Arms or
Pelican. We’re good friends with those guys and they are all GREAT Chicago
bands. We’d like to see diversity in these tours again. A Morrissey tour would
be amazing as well… at least for me.

A lot of people write-off female-fronted
bands more quicklty than they ought to, do you find an odd response from old
fans, new fans based on the lineup and sound?

Yes
most definitely. I thought the hardcore punk scene would be more open-minded
than a few years ago, but it still not as open minded as I thought. I mean we haven’t gotten anything
really negative, but still you get the one comment that like, "what the fuck
man, these guys don’t sound anything like their old bands. And oh, they also
have a broad/chick singer. What the fuck!"

You realize that sexism and macho attitudes
still are prevalent in the hardcore/punk scene.

A
comment like this you just dismiss, and realize that sexism and macho attitudes
still are prevalent in the hardcore/punk scene. However from new fans there might
be the occasional comment like "I am not into female singers but this band is
good". So I guess as far as a
reaction on the fact that we are female fronted band is mixed, but all we are
trying to do is rise above all the mediocrity out there and in our case we hope
we are doing it with a female fronting our band.
That’s
all. It was not like we set out to
have a female or male fronted band. It was just whoever fit, and it happened to
be Emily. She just blew us away, and continues to do so.

It’s

very tough because again we do see a TON of comments such as "you know, I don’t
usually like girl singers, but you guys are really damn good". It’s good they
like us, but that’s tough to swallow sometimes. How do you respond to that?
"Hey, thanks! I don’t usually like sexist people who have a narrow mind, but
you’re all right!" its like why
must one preface a comment or review with a statement/or disclaimer like that.

Does music bleed into your day job at all? Do
kids even know about your "other" life?

Well,
my day job for now it is in the inner city, so the musical culture there is
predominately hip hop and top forty, which is cool because they have got me
into some amazing stuff. For example I love Mike Jonz, Paul Wall and Bun B. I also think Justin Timberlake solo
record is amazing!

Anyways
so my students know about my "other" life and they’re just like "yeah dude you
play in a rock band" so they really have no idea what its really about what it
all entails. But when I did my
student teaching it was in a suburban school where things are a bit
different. An area where I have
heard that the football teams come out on the field to AFI. But there I tried
to keep it under wraps for awhile until some of the students did google me
because they saw me at a pretty big "concert" and they found out I was friends
with some of their favorite bands and that’s where the googling started.

I had a student come into class one time
with a portable stereo and play a CD of one of my old bands. Apparently after I
left, all these students found out what bands I had played in and even filled
in for and all that. I would have students come in with hardcore or punk shirts
of my friends bands or band I had toured with, and I would just play dumb and
not say anything.

However
when they googled me it was over. I got all the questions: "Do you know this
band? Do you know this person", "Your band was one of my favorite bands." However it was on the tail end of me
being there so I did not really have to deal with it that directly.