Over the course of my years I have seen many bands, including ones that I have never heard of before. I go to all shows with an open mind because you never know who you are going to find. This band made me want to close my open mind immediately and put up a sign that said out to lunch! For a band that was hyped up on KMFDM’s Facebook page for so many weeks before the tour kicked off, this band really fell flat. The guitarist had a strange bootleg drag queen on heroine look to him and and I wasn’t even sure the samples guy was in the band or not, he looked more like a stage hand that was still standing on the stage when the lights went down. The lead singer came out waving a flag with the bands name on it but he just looked more like a raving frat boy who was lost. To top off this group of misfit boys’ performance, there was no vocals coming through the PA for all of the songs except for the last two, and when they finally did get the vocals coming trough you couldn’t hear the guitar. In between their half played songs the audience stood with a stunned silence that just made you feel bad for the band.

After this uneventful lead up to an amazing show that KMFDM put on special for the Seattle concert goers who managed to take off work and find a babysitter just to be there in the middle of the week. KMFDM is a band that has been around for a very long time but if you see their stage show, the only thing that shows their age would be their receding hairlines. Plenty of energy, plenty of dancing and they just about played every song that a hardcore fan would hope that they would play including several tracks off of their new album WTF?! When you go see a band that has the album portfolio that KMFDM has it can be tricky to satisfy the hardcore fans and the ones that have just heard you recently, but they were smart enough to play tracks that covered their whole career. In all, KMFDM puts on a show that is worth going to see even if you have only heard a few songs; the only thing they should change is the way they pick their opening bands.

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KARACELL: We are here with St1tch from Ventana. How are you doing today?

ST1TCH: Good, I’m Good.

KARACELL: That’s good, so let’s start off with talking about your Mid West summer tour are you excited?

ST1TCH: Yea of course, my touring with Ventana only happens when I’m off with Mushroomhead. We are touring with friends of ours called Circus of Dead Squirrels. The whole point of the tour is to help create awareness of all the things wrong in the world and we’re actually donating the proceeds to ASPCA and Red Cross. We are open about speaking our minds, with things we don’t agree with in the world, we aren’t singing about our ex-girlfriends, we actually write about real truths and real problems in the world trying to get people to get more involved because these days they don’t care about anything but themselves. The whole point of the Operation Humanity Tour, there was a small piece of the ticket price that goes to a good cause. So it’s really exciting as far as putting our money where our mouth is so to speak, we don’t just preach about it or complain about things, actually going out there, performing for people and changing things as we go.

KARACELL: That’s actually really cool. You’re making me skip around on my notes but I was checking out the video you have up, there are a lot of political undertones. Are you trying to make people take action politically?

ST1TCH: It’s more about trying to get people to take charge of their own lives in general. I go out nowadays, I’m 31, I don’t think that I’m old fashioned but I was raised right and I’ll go out and hold doors open for people, I’ll say excuse me when I walk past somebody and now 90% of them are programmed to be rude assholes. It is disheartening to see the way what humanity is heading to. Kids are growing up more brattier and more mean than ever, they’re growing up with these cellphones they need to be attached to 24/7 and there’s just no good moral decency anymore. This is what we are trying to push for in the band. We are not an Anti-American band, each one of us is trying to present the positive. Tragedies do happen and there are things that are more important than what Lindsey Lohan is doing. We are trying to preach the value of morals and not just be another band. It’s just something that we believe in that makes me happy at the end of the day, to know that we have a band that’s trying to make a difference.

KARACELL: How do you think that the imagery of the band ties in to what you are trying to do?

ST1TCH: Being that I come from the band Mushroomhead, the theatrical theme comes natural. With this band, that was the last thing that I wanted to do. But before we finished the album we weren’t wearing costumes we were wearing what we wanted, but then we came up with a cool concept and it was kind of like post apocalyptic. Me and Dan were just sitting around and we were like the band is more hard edge now lets make it more theatrical. It’s more of what the world is going to look like if there was an “apocalypse,” we’re not one of those bands that are into 2012 but with the way things are going, I think that something is bound to happen. The world is getting so messed up it just needs a reset and it’s probably going to happen sooner than we think so lets change it before it’s too late. The image that we have with the gas mask is presenting the aftermath of the apocalypse. The image is going to get more extreme, we’re writing another record right now and it’s kind of the answer to the last record we put out. I’m big on horror movies and imagery in general, I know that’s part of the game and being in a band is having a good stage show and a good concept with the visuals running live and it tells what the story is about. It’s a little more beyond with what Mushroomhead does; it’s a little more of what I wanted to do.

KARACELL: Speaking of the music, I’m looking at a copy of the Demo that came out in 2005 and it seems there has been a constant evolution of the music you guys are playing, was that intentional?

ST1TCH: It’s actually kind of funny that you have one of those old demos. The band started in 2004, and just because you write a song doesn’t mean that it’s any good yet or that it is where you want to be. We put out demos locally, started building a fan base and the band back then isn’t what it is now. We had a different singer then, it was a totally different band. I had a vision of what I wanted it to be and it took a few years to get it to that position, to actually find a singer that could write that kind of stuff and to find the right members that wanted to do that kind of thing. There were a few bands that I grew up listening to and it seems like a whole different band when you listen to their old stuff. But things evolve and things change and I’m glad that we waited because now the production value went up and the songs are all a little more rounded and seem to make a little more sense than when we started out, things were all over the place scattered it really wasn’t there yet. When it finally was there, we were ready to put an album out.

KARACELL: Yes, it was completely different. If you told me it was the same band I would be like no, no way.

ST1TCH: It’s funny too because some of the same songs that are on that demo are on the album but the names are different the lyrics are different and production wise the songs have changed but the initial writing is still there, if you listen to it, you can figure out which songs are which.

KARACELL: Album wise what can we expect? Are you coming out with a new album in the fall?

ST1TCH: Well, I’m so busy touring with this band and Mushroomhead, time frames don’t work like that. The new album is already written, it’s already demoed out 18 songs as of right now and we are doing a double disc for this next one. So much music has been flowing ever since the last one but expect it to be along the same themes but pushing farther. We’re going to be more bold about things and not hold back and not be afraid to offend people and things of that nature, there’s nothing cookie-cutter at all with this next one. Very happy more so that the songs are even heavier than the first record, way more electronic influence we all grew up loving Manson, Nine Inch Nails, White Zombie, KMFDM, and all the old early 90s stuff. It has a little flavor from that era present on this one and then there’s also a modern mix of stuff you hear now but it has more riffing and adding an old school mentality as well and the hybrid of that is actually creating a really, really cool organic nasty sound. It’s really getting exciting even in demo form, its just awesome. I think it’s going to be a really good one. We’re hoping to have it out by January 2012 but don’t quote me on that.

KARACELL: If we even make it to January 2012.

ST1TCH: Yes (laughs).

KARACELL: I think that you answered all my questions before I could ask them, but those are my favorite kind of interviews.

ST1TCH: Well I’ve done a lot of interviews and I’m a talker so I just kind of go on rants and I do that to a lot of people and they’re like “well you answered all my questions.”

KARACELL: Thank you so much for doing this interview. Hopefully when you’re done touring the East Coast and Midwest you can come over to the West Coast and we can see you play.

ST1TCH: We’re working on that but the hard part is funding. Basically, my Mushroomhead paycheck is funding for Ventana right now because it’s not to the point where it’s making a bunch of money. Kids are only coming out in the hundreds and it’s still a baby band, it’s still growing and hard to get too far away because we make the most money staying on the East Coast and Mid West area but we will actually be going out on tour with Mushroomhead this fall so I think we’ll be getting farther out and might actually make it to those areas.

KARACELL: Awesome. Well, when you do come to the West Coast we’ll definitely hit you up and we can do another interview.

ST1TCH: Yes, absolutely.

KARACELL: Thank you so much for doing this. If you want to check out more stuff on Ventana, there website is now up and running at http://ventanaband.com.

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