"We all come vastly different backgrounds in the punk, hardcore, metal, and death metal scenes so I dont think anybody really knew how this would come out when we started writing together."
I'm chatting with Al Glassman, guitarist and co-founder of a new musical quartet out of Groveton, New Hampshire called Stepdäd. And as the umlauts in their band name suggests, their stuff rips. "As far as song writing goes in this band, I take a lot of influence from bands like Trap Them, Disfear, Rotting Out, Black Breath, Trash Talk, etc. We definitely landed somewhere in the realm of hardcore punk or metallic hardcore. Our singer brings more of a grindcore influence and you can hear it in his high vocals but he ended up going for more of a catchy vibe on this stuff."
Astute No Echo readers might recognize Al from his guitar work as a member of Job for a Cowboy, and before that, Despised Icon. Stepdäd also features drummer Ryan Fisher (ex-Off With Their Heads), bassist Brad Foster, and vocalist Adam Mason (Goratory).
Stepdäd will be releasing their debut EP, Cautiously Pessimistic, next month, but they've already released a couple of tracks from it to set the stage. "We wrote most of the record over the winter of this year and recorded with Shane Frisby at The Brick Hit House down in Massachusetts," says Al. "Shane used to play in bass in Cannae and I remember playing shows with them back in the early 2000s."
Since all of the guys in Stepdäd been playing in bands for so long now, I ask Al if they're approaching this one any differently than the ones before in terms of what they all wanted from it. "Oh, for sure. There are definitely no high expectations this time around as we are setting the bar pretty low. We are just stoked to be getting some music out and to start playing shows again.
"Speaking for Ryan and I, all the things we missed about music were from the days before we were doing big tours. I'm grateful for the years I spent doing that but a lot of our favorite memories were back on DIY runs playing VFW halls, houses, skateparks, wherever someone would have you. I feel like there were years where you weren't seeing much of that anymore but its coming back harder than ever right now and its great to see. I also missed having an actual band practice every week and writing as an actual group so its nice having that be a part of my life again. So many of the projects I've been involved in throughout the past years have been primarily studio projects and its just not the same vibe obviously."
Since I haven't covered many bands from there recently, I'm curious to hear how connected everyone is in the New Hampshire heavy music scenes. "It's a small scene up here in northern New Hampshire for sure so its pretty easy to get to know everyone if you make it out to just one show. We are labout 2 hours north of Manchester Concord area so there isn't much up here.
"Our buddy Jared from Alchemy, a great hardcore band out of Dover, New Hampshire area, kind of single handedly built a scene up here and started the New Hampshire Hardcore Fest. He's brought up Edict, Extinction AD, Come Mierda, Fishface, Gumskab and a ton of others over the past couple of years. It's pretty wild to see shows like that come through this area.
"We also have a venue called The Loading Dock that has been very welcoming to the hardcore and metal communities. We will be playing there in a couple months with Alchemy and are looking forward to what will be our first show "localish" to our hometown. There of course are always going to be drawbacks to the hardcore scene living in rural areas but its been a lot of fun watching the scene slowly grow here. It would be nice to be living in an area with more bands but we can officially call ourselves the heaviest band in Groveton since we are the only band in Groveton (laughs)."
Al is excited to play out with Stepdäd once the EP comes out, and he said you can contact them at [email protected] if you'd like to book them. "We've done this for years with prior bands and been through it so everyone's heads are in the right places and we are excited to see where things go. We have new tunes ready to record so hopefully we can just keep music coming out and keep having a good time with it."
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Cautiously Pessimistic will hit streaming music outlets on November 8th.
Stepdäd on social media: Instagram
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