Hailing from Fulton, right outside Syracuse, Another Breath brought a melodic-minded style of hardcore in the 2000s.
In terms of discography, the group released two studio albums and one EP during their run together. Touring throughout that time, Another Breath found a loyal following in different territories in Europe, something not every American band of their size could claim.
After releasing their second album, The God Complex, Another Breath split up, reuniting once in 2018 at Lost Horizon in Syracuse.
I spoke with Another Breath vocalist Ted Winkworth and got the band's story the way he remembers it.
How did you come to discover hardcore and why do you think it resonated so deeply with you?
I didn’t like hardcore at all when I first heard it. I was ok with screaming so long as there was some singing and melody but I wasn’t into full-on screaming.
Eventually, after being exposed to a lot of hardcore and metalcore through the Syracuse music scene I started to get it. I fell in love with the desperation and the chaotic energy of hardcore shows.
What were some of the bands that you saw live when you first started going to hardcore shows? There have been so many sick bands and shows in the Syracuse region throughout the years.
In the early 2000s, I saw bands like The Suicide File, Modern Life is War, The First Step, Blacklisted, Pissed Jeans, Coliseum, and Ceremony at floor shows at our local community center. And I got to see bands like Ed Gein, The Disaster, Engineer, Black SS, Achilles, How We Are, Forfeit, and I Object! every other week.
I had no idea who some of those bands were at the time and I’d kill to go back and experience those shows again with context. Still, they fucked my whole life up in the best way. That’s all thanks to Ryan Hex (Hex Records) who booked those shows and represents everything good about the hardcore community.
I know you were friends since childhood, but how did Another Breath start? What do you remember about the early conversations you all had during the formation stage about the style and direction of the band?
We were all in shitty pop-punk bands when we were in high school just kind of emulating Green Day and blink-182. We formed a band called This Neverender that was meant to be about taking music seriously and trying to go on tour. But we had no idea what we were doing. Like, I think we did a Weezer cover at our first practice. And we did that for about a year.
Eventually, we changed the name to Another Breath, solidified the lineup, and decided to try to aim for something like Rise Against meets American Nightmare without forgetting our roots with Green Day (which is where we got the idea to tune E flat).
What goes through your mind if someone brings up the Another Breath demo to you? How do you feel about those songs and recording today?
You’re the first person whose brought it up to me in over a decade. What’s going through my mind right now is that those songs were rough. We had a This Neverender demo that was more rough. I just think it was a time when we were figuring out how to write songs and what our style was going to be.
I can’t believe Rivalry gave us a shot based on those songs. Thank, Kyle. You’re an absolute fucking unit.
Yes, Another Breath was part of the Rivalry Records roster, a label that was hugely influential in the 2000s hardcore scene. How did you hook up with them?
We seriously won the lottery getting hooked up with them. It was luck. Full on. But for our part, we recorded a demo and took it on the road trying to shop it. We made a deal with each other that we would be the tightest band at every show or we’d practice between shows. And we tried to be the band with the most energy every night. And as luck would have it, some of the dudes from Killing the Dream saw us playing and connected with what we were doing.
We also played a show with Our Turn in our hometown. They told Kyle to check us out. I think the selling point is that Not Now, Not Ever was the demo we were shopping. I actually just found a writeup Kyle did at his old blog and it’s cool to see it from his perspective.
We worked our asses off to create that record. Also, for clarity Kyle actually only put the CD out. Jan at Assault Records did the vinyl because we’d already been in talks with him. At that point, we couldn’t have known CDs were going to fade the way they did.
The Not Now, Not Ever EP dropped in 2004. Did you notice your shows getting crazier with crowd participation when it came out?
Right after it came out, Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed) made it his record of the week and we all fucking lost it. We thought it was so cool. But our shows never got too crazy. Our hometown shows were outrageous. But save a few places in Cali and the Midwest, we didn’t get a huge response.
Kyle called me one day and told me that we weren’t the most popular band on Rivalry by far but that the people who liked our band loved our band deeply. And to be honest, that has meant the most to me. At that time "Racing a Fading Image," "Clio," "Passing the Torch," and "17 Minutes" were the songs people wanted to hear.
I always loved “Clio” from that record, which seems like a very personal song for you?
I loved that song too. For me nailed what we were going for originally. It’s a pop-punk song with a catchy little guitar hook. It’s got personal lyrics. It’s angry. And it really draws musically from pieces of the Rochester punk scene that we grew up on (The Disaster, Hedaya, Marathon).
It’s about a girl. All of the “fuck you, you hurt me” songs on that record and Mill City are about the same girl. She was the first big love in my life and we had broken up right before we started writing that record.
What were some of the out-of-state bands Another Breath were playing with often that you guys got close with?
We got super close with Dangers, Ruiner, No Trigger, Victims, From the Ground Up, My Revenge, This is Hell, and Make Do and Mend. There are plenty of others. Tour is like hardcore summer camp. You go on the road and see your friends for the summer and have a fucking blast and then part ways until it's time to do it again.
What cities did you guys always seem to do well in?
We had such a strange mix of cities. We developed little families away from home in places like Burlington, Richmond, Boston, Dearborn, Baltimore, Daytona, Lemoyne, PA, Cedar Rapids, and Berkeley. It was never like we were “doing well” as a band though. It always felt like somehow we had just made a bunch of friends and they came out to the show when we rolled through town. I liked that.
As far as doing well as a band in the traditional sense where you build a fanbase, our shows in Europe, specifically festivals we played in Germany, Belgium, and France were some of the wildest.
Mill City came out in 2006 and was again recorded by Kurt Ballou. Did you feel more comfortable in the studio that time? How did you find the experience of recording vocals with Kurt? Did he push you?
I was really disappointed by how vocals turned out on Mill City. I don’t usually look back and wish I could change things I did artistically but I really wish we could go back in time and change how we approached that record in so many ways.
Kurt is awesome. I loved working with him. I was such a stubborn fuck and thought I was a genius and nobody in the band could get through to me when I needed to do things differently. But Kurt has this very kind but also, “I’m in Converge and you’re a pipsqueak” kind of energy about him that I responded to (to be clear: he never said that. I just thought it constantly).
He helped me fix some shitty structures and didn’t push me at all on days when my voice was blown. Mill City was a really important lesson for me though — I needed long breaks between studio days so my voice could recover. It’s why I tracked my vocals at MoreSound in Syracuse for The God Complex after the rest of the guys tracked drums and strings with Kurt in Salem.
Compared to the material on Not Now, Now Ever, there’s more stylistic variety on Mill City. How conscious were you guys about that during the writing process?
I don’t remember a lot about how or why we approached Mill City the way we did except to say it was important to us that if anyone tried to get under the hood and figure out who we were ripping off, they’d have to really reach into a lot of different styles.
When we were in the van we’d listen to Third Eye Blind, No Warning, Converge, Thrice, Comeback Kid, American Nightmare, MLIW, Tragedy, Hot Water Music, Saves the Day, Coalesce, Blood for Blood, Verse, Dawes, Johnny Cash, Champion, Misfits, Britney Spears, Rancid, and Down on a typical playlist.
On those long drives, the more curveballs someone put on a playlist the better. It kept music from getting stale. So for us it became really important to not just become pigeon holed as a youth crew type band who everyone thought was straight edge. We wanted all of those other influences incorporated. And after a short fast loud EP we wanted to show that we could deliver a quality LP.
But we ended up having a bit of an identity crisis with the different styles. When it was done, we couldn’t bring ourselves to kill our darlings and shave off the songs that didn't fit. I think that record would have landed so much differently if we had cut 6 or 7 songs and delivered the ones that we felt the most resonance with. Some of our best songs are on Mill City but it also has some of our worst.
How much touring did you do in support of Mill City? Did you feel things changing in the hardcore scene during that period?
We toured our asses off for that record. After NNNE, we had started doing bigger US tours, we had some traction on the West Coast, and we had a good reputation in Europe. We wanted to really grow the band with Mill City.
During that time, I think the door had opened for more emotional hardcore. Modern Life is War, The Hope Conspiracy, Blacklisted, and American Nightmare were all being received really well which is something I never could have predicted a few years before. There was room for weird shit that wasn’t just about being angry and straight edge and we wanted to be a part of that wave.
And let me be really clear that I think the straight edge bands of the day ruled and the ideology was important to me. But the scene also felt so saturated with songs that had a double-time verse, a two-step beat, and a heavy breakdown with some broody lyrics about how everyone who isn’t edge is going to die or whatever. And for a minute, it felt like a band could write that same song over and over and kids would eat it up. We were just wary of getting lost in that style.
Why did it take three years for the band to release its next record, 2009’s The God Complex? Also, that one came out on Timm McIntosh’s Panic Records after you had a great run on Rivalry Records.
I think I quit the band a couple of times between Mill City and The God Complex. Touring was getting harder and the band felt like it was on a plateau. Real life was kind of setting in for me and I had to make harder choices about my career. And I was personally starting to feel less of a connection with the scene after a few run-ins with guys who represented a crew hardcore mentality that I felt was toxic to the family I wanted to be a part of.
Kyle and Zach were dialing back what Rivalry was doing and Timm at Panic made us an offer. We were honestly heartbroken to not be able to put this record out with Rivalry but it was also what opened the door to start a relationship with Panic and Timm that turned out to be such a wonderful thing for us. It’s the whole one door closes another opens thing. It brought us closer to Seattle
Prepping for this interview, I put The God Complex on after not listening to it for many years and I had forgotten how much it “rocks” at times. The songs are also among Another Breath’s catchiest.
OK. So I’ll admit some of the god stuff in the lyrics is a little too on-the-nose but motherfuck it is the heartbreak of my life that this record didn’t get more traction. Like I said earlier, it’s what we wanted to do with Mill City. We wanted a longer record with a cohesive lyrical arc that was rooted in what we considered to be rock and roll and danced around genres.
We’d reached some kind of musical maturity when that record came out. Jon did most of the writing of the music and he’d really taken a lot of influence from bands like Hot Snakes and Coliseum that were very guitar driven, a bit simpler, and riff heavy.
I think as a band and as people we knew who we were at that point. And we were ready to lean into something we’d always said - we were a rock and roll band first. We drew heavily from hardcore and got embraced by that scene but our aim was always to write heavy rock and roll music. We didn’t care if nobody liked it (and a lot of people seemingly didn’t) but it allowed us to just be authentic. It is hands down my favorite record we put out.
Your lyrics on that album are brutal in their honesty. The title track being an obvious example of that. Did you ever hear anything from your family about your lyrics? Any conversations had?
I was going through a lot when I wrote that record and had a pretty big falling out with my dad as a result. He died a few years ago and when I went to see him in the hospital he’d barely look at me.
My family has never really been in-the-know about my life so I don’t think he even knew the record existed but I'd also said most of that stuff to his face while I was writing the record. I truly wanted him to find some sort of recovery or peace and certainly didn’t want him to learn about my perspective by accidentally hearing one of those songs. He never found it though. He just got pissed off and sort of disowned me.
Interestingly, his wife said something to me about how he wasn’t alone when he died and how she was there holding his hand. Something about the way she said it seemed to be saying that she heard the song and he didn’t die alone with the TV on. But the heartbreaking thing is, even with her in the room, I think he still did.
The touring for The God Complex would be the band’s last runs. How well were you guys getting along on the road? Did you feel any burnout by that point?
We were still getting along fairly well but our friendship had been pretty much replaced with band business. Scott and I had been fighting for years over every little decision and it felt like our friendship was all but lost (the band ending allowed us to be friends again and he stood in my wedding a couple of years ago). And my ego was pretty out of control. I was awful to be around, I’m sure.
I think it was also pretty disappointing to realize that after NNNE we were on this trajectory that ultimately never got traction. Don’t get me wrong, we played amazing shows and made amazing friends and what we got to do was the joy of a lifetime.
But some nights after 6 years as a band we’d show up to the show at a bowling alley where they were cleaning up after an 8-year-old's birthday party and it just felt like the dream was dying.
How did Another Breath come to the decision to break up instead of just taking some time off from recording/playing shows? Was it amicable or were there members against it?
I don’t remember the timeline but I had a job that I actually really loved doing drug and alcohol prevention at a college. It was a different venue to have a message in a way that felt like was also propelling my life forward where the band was unfortunately feeling like something that had run its course. My boss had been really cool about letting me leave for tour but when we booked Europe that summer she told me I needed to do my job or be in my band because it wasn’t working to do both.
So those guys went, Jon did vocals, and our dear friend Mike "The Animal" Sarnowski filled in on guitar. Later that fall, we played some shows over a weekend that felt awful. And worse, I blanked out on the lyrics to "Sin Eater" and sat there dumbly while Steve tried to mouth the words to me - I still couldn’t tell you how or why it happened but it felt like a sign that I wasn’t invested like I had been.
Afterward, I told the guys I think I’m done and they all agreed it’s time. We talked a little about what the band meant, told each other I love you, and basically said we’re not breaking up but we’re taking an indefinite hiatus.
READ MORE: Stephen St. Germain (The First Step, Union of Faith, Peace) Talks About His Life in Hardcore
Describe the vibe for those final Another Breath shows. What are some of the highlights?
There aren't words to describe the joy I felt at those shows. Playing at the Fulton Polish home was really special. It’s where our high school bands first started. And here we were a decade later with friends from all over the US and Europe coming to see us off. And all of the silliness that we had always been about was in full force at those shows. There were pool noodles and confetti and people stage diving on boogie boards. That’s what our band was about.
I understand tough-guy hardcore. I get crews. I mean it. I understand being angry. But our band was about celebrating youth and innocence and fun. And that hyper-violent stuff really made it hard to enjoy that. For these shows we just got to be giant kids with all of our summer camp friends from the last decade from literally all over the world.
Fucking Victims came to the US and built a tour around that show so they could play with us. Absolute legends. And too many people to name traveled from all over to shout those songs with us. But it felt like we knew everyone in the room by name. I always loved that about our band. Everyone at our shows felt like friends. Those shows are some of the best memories of my life.
The band reunited in 2018 for a show in Syracuse. How did that come together and how do you feel about the band’s performance?
Strong Hearts Cafe, a vegan restaurant owned by two of our good friends was doing a 10 year anniversary celebration and they asked Earth Crisis to play. When Earth Crisis had a conflict, they called us and If Hope Dies.
In all fairness, it should have been the vegan straight edge band who put Syracuse on the map playing the vegan straight edge restaurant’s anniversary. But we were really honored to be asked. I started running a few miles a day for about 6 months to get ready for that show.
I hadn’t screamed in about 10 years and was genuinely scared. Steve puked after a song and a half two days prior at practice. We thought it was going to be a disaster. But all things considered, it went super well. We weren’t as tight as we were 10 years ago but for having 48 hours of practice together in the same room, it was miraculous. And the crowd carried the songs. Half the room was shouting every word. I absolutely loved it.
Is the door open for another reunion? Would you be game to ever record new music with the band?
Under the right circumstances, I think we’d play again. I have no idea what those circumstances are but if Strong Hearts worked, something else could work. But it would be for the sake of having fun and screwing off with friends. I think we all have different creative outlets now.
Jon is still doing music and I’m working on a book and the other guys have found new passions. I’m content to see where those new roads lead and let AB remain a really great memory.
What would you say is the Another Breath’s popular song and why do you think it connected with people the way it did?
Spotify says it’s "Racing a Fading Image," and to be fair, that’s the song that kids most consistently lost it to. It’s an opening track, it opens with a Youth Crew singalong, and it’s super angry. It checks the boxes.
But honestly, over the years "Diesel & Gunpowder" was the most requested and the one that I most consistently had to wrestle the audience to get my mic back. That one hit a nerve for people.
Listen, I don’t think any of us got into hardcore because everything at home and in our heads was going really well. It’s a community built around people that were hurting deeply in so many different ways. And I think a lot of people, myself included, took a lot of comfort in screaming those words together and knowing we weren’t alone.
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Tagged: 2000s hardcore week, another breath
