Formed in Long Island back in 2000 From Autumn To Ashes released their fourth album in 2007 in the shape of Holding A Wolf By The Ears. That particular CD was the first to feature the talents of Fran Mark on lead vocals following the departure of Benjamin Perri. Having recently completed a UK tour supporting Hundred Reasons I caught up with Mark to discuss the current state of the band, touring, writing new material and that all important question of what the name actually means. 

From Autumn To Ashes

You are currently touring your latest album, Holding A Wolf By The Ears, that came out last year.  How has the album been received? 

Fran Mark - Yeah, it was great actually.  I think because we dealt with so much inner turmoil in the band and a lot of people kind of just wrote it off and were expecting like, ‘well they’re just gonna tough out these problems and then eventually break up’, or something, and I don’t think anyone expected us to put out that record.  We toured since March of last year, so that’s almost coming up to a full solid year, we have never taken more than a week off or so.  Go home and rest up and then go right back out.  But yeah, everyone has been very responsive of it, so it has got me very excited to go write another one to tell you the truth. 

It is the first album you have been the main vocalist on, but you played the drums as well? 

FM - Yeah, so the last record was the first one, I did play drums and this touring cycle I have been singing.  But, I didn’t expect to be singing on the last one, all of it, you know,  it worked out great but I think moving forward now that we are writing music and everybody’s position in the band is definite, and they know what is expected of them, so it is a good feeling. 

Is it weird having someone else playing the drums behind you, do you turnaround and think you are not playing that right? 

FM - (Laughs) you would think so, but at first I was just so concerned with not screwing up my parts that I didn’t, sort of everything else disappears you know.  I think that was a sign that Jeff was playing really well, because I never looked back and said ‘what the hell are you doing’, it was always just right in the pocket and right on. 

Has he got a different style of playing to you? 

FM - He does, but I think that is interesting.  He’ll do things that I wouldn’t think of, or something that is just not in my repertoire of playing.  So it’s cool, I guess, he’ll take a different approach and something I would not have thought of. 

How are the vocals now split live? 

FM - It’s funny, now he’s doing a lot of backups from behind the drum set, as I used to do, but he does all the heavy screaming backups.   

So are you just doing the clean vocals, with the rougher vocals coming from elsewhere?   

FM - I am doing a lot of the rougher vocals too, but we’ve got everybody singing.  Brian sings a lot now too, the guitar player. 

Are you mainly doing the newer material live or are older songs also getting mixed in? 

FM - You know it always bothered me when a band released a new album, and you would go see them and they’ll play that whole album front to back, and maybe they will give you like one old song, or two old songs just towards the end of the set.  I think, the first tour we did when we released it we had four albums out and so we played like four songs from each album, you know, to make a sixteen song set.  Now it has been out a year we have started to play more stuff off the record.  But we still play, you know, two songs in our set tonight were written eight years ago.  So yeah, I think it makes for a cool show for people who have followed the band like the whole way. 

Also, tonight, being support rather than a main act. 

FM - Yeah, and that’s the people that I want to try and make happy, you know, those people have had loyalty to us and I want to do the same thing for them.  I am not going to just discount all those songs and never play them again, because I mean, I still think they are fun songs to play and I am still proud of them. 

You were originally scheduled to do a headline tour? 

FM - We were initially going to do a co-headline tour with the band The Bled, who are like really good friends of ours, and then they just had some scheduling conflicts and they couldn’t do it so we were going to do it on our own.  There were a lot of other tours going out around here at the same time and it was just, like, too much.  So it seemed, it was our booking agent’s idea, and it was a great idea, in my opinion because it has worked out very well so far.  We got to join forces with Hundred Reasons who are awesome guys.  We are sharing a bus with them and it’s cool, we hit it off with them right away, really cool guys.  We still play for forty minutes so it is a pretty full set, it’s not we’re just playing like five songs. 

You played Download festival last year.  How did you find it playing in front of, what was, a large audience in the second tent? 

FM - Yeah, I couldn’t believe that many people came in there, it was a really cool response.  It was excellent, especially as sometimes festivals can be really weird and awkward, like, that I really don’t like them a lot of times.  Not so much, but that one was great.   

So you prefer playing in clubs rather than at the outdoor festivals? 

FM -  I just prefer club shows because, for one, sometimes bands just sound to me like dreadful.  I mean it is part of being outdoors, it’s a part of like having to play in the middle of the afternoon with the sun shining.  Especially if you are playing heavy music, and like metal influenced music, to play in a field in the afternoon isn’t the same as playing in like a, you know, a dingy bar at night with everybody.  It takes away from the vibe a bit I think. 

You were actually better off in the second tent because it generally has better sound.    

FM - Yeah, it helps control the sound and keeps out some of the light.  But, yeah, the club show, it’s like, I like just having the crowd right there. 

You also know the people are there to see you at the clubs, rather than waiting for the next band. 

FM - But you know the festivals are great because when else are you going to be exposed to that many people, so they both have pros and cons I suppose. 

You said that you have been on the road a lot.  Do you like touring? 

FM -  I never understood that, like, some bands hate touring.  This is all I ever wanted to do you know, even when I am home and we have time off from touring I find that I still go travelling, you know, visit friends in other cities.  I don’t know, I start to feel uncomfortable if I sit in the same place too long, like I am not doing what I am supposed to be doing or something.  Touring has brought me to places that I would have never seen otherwise you know, it’s amazing when you stop and think about all the places we have gotten to go and play.  I mean sure it gets after months and months of it, it wears down, it is hard to stay healthy, and you’re either like in a van with ten guys or on a bus with 14 guys all sleeping on top of each other, so if one guy gets sick everybody gets it.  I’m much more cautious about that now I am singing more because you are screwed when you get sick, you know, you are completely at the mercy of your health. 

Is that a problem for you now that you are doing more vocals? 

FM -  It just took conditioning, at first it was, I mean it is a muscle like anything else you know.  So it is just a matter of building up a strength and conditioning and warming up too.  Because like any other, you know, if you are laying down just relaxing and you get up and try to run a 100 yard dash as fast as you can, you are going to probably pull some muscles and roll your ankle or something.  Same thing with singing, if you are sitting in the backstage having a beer and smoking cigarettes or something and then you just swagger out on stage and think you are going to have a show, like, you are going to blow your voice in the first song.  I mean some guys can do it, but, a lot of people pay money to come and see you, like you are going to get up there and play like, you got to take pride in your performance. 

I noticed from looking at your blog on your MySpace that you seem to go to a lot of gigs when you can.  Do you find that by touring you miss a lot of bands that you personally want to see? 

FM -  All the time, especially because we live in New York, so like every tour comes through New York, you know.  So many great bands are always playing there and I always miss some, some of my favourite bands I have never got to see play for that reason.  But that is a small price to pay.  I mean still you’d think that after you got off a long tour you would like never want to see a show at all, but a lot of times we do get home and I will go to a show the next night, if there is a good show happening.   

Actually, I think about it, it works both ways, because I have missed a lot of great shows in New York but there’s also been times when we have a night off and other bands are coming through that town.  So like I got to see Violent Femmes in London, I got to see Head Automatica in London, who are buddies of ours.  Actually this coming week we will have a night off in London when Darkest Hour playing, we are going to that show.  So it’s cool, you get to see shows in other parts of the world and meet up with friends that you have seen in other places. 

If you are in the crowd do you ever get recognised? 

FM - Um, depends on what kind of show it is.  If it is a band that is similar, you know, sometimes.  But, even at our regular shows we were never the type of guys to hide at the backstage all night and then come out and play and run back to the dressing room.  I think we’re out there hanging out all night so it’s not too weird for people to see us. 

You also recently did a one off gig at a record store in New York. 

FM - Yeah, it was an old independent record store in the area that I grew up in.  It was where I went often in my childhood to buy records, and now because a lot of the big record shops in the USA have gone out of business and it is tough to find a place to buy CDs.  This one indie store has still managed to always stay open, and that massive (fire), the whole place like burned like everything inside, all their inventory, everything burned.  So we did this show as a benefit to help cover the cost of rebuilding and helping them get back up and running. 

How did the show go? 

FM - It was great, it was really fun, and we recorded it and we are going to sell the CD to help, those proceeds will go towards the store. 

Will the CD only be sold locally, or is it going to be available everywhere? 

FM - At first it is only going to the people that were at the show that night, like you got a voucher and then you get a free copy of it.  But I know that in the coming months I think they are going to start selling it in other places, and we set aside some copies that we are going to sell through our website.  Because that stinks if, you know, just because you don’t live in New York you can’t get the CD, I wouldn’t like that to happen.  But I mean it is also cool because it makes it like this real cool collectors item so there won’t be, we are not making a ton of them but we would like to make it available to other people. 

The cover of the live record is quite vivid, is it your own artwork? 

FM - Yeah, for that and for our last record, prior to that we had other people do it.   

So you have only just started doing the artwork? 

FM -  Yeah, I mean I have always done drawings and stuff, but I just never, I felt weird about doing art for our band.  Because, you know, I feel like my style of art maybe when people see it they wouldn’t expect the type of music we play.  Like a lot, I like real cartoony type like fantasy scenes and funny characters like that, that doesn’t give too much of a metal.  So I felt weird putting that kind of stuff on the cover but then I just said well, why not, it’s nothing to be... I am not going to try to intentionally do some like bloody art with brass knuckles and switchblades and some like, you know, some typical like metalcore like silhouette of a girl crying or some bullshit like this.  That is not even art to me that is so like paint by numbers the way these guys are doing it these days, so I thought well maybe this is better because you would never expect that type of art on a record like our music. 

Do you do some other art apart from the album covers? 

FM -  Yeah, I’ve just, I have only shown stuff a couple of times, mostly out of not having enough time to do it, always being on tour and not having enough time to network with galleries and send stuff out.  But now I have started doing more shows and doing some album art for some other like local bands in New York have contacted me, I’ll do stuff for them.  Or if I have a painting done they like they can just use it.  For the most part I mean it is not something I am looking at, it’s just what I really like to do in my downtime you know, I never charge over, well too much money for it like.  Even my original drawings the most I would really sell them for is between £50 and £100. 

We touched on the cancelled tour.  Will this be rescheduled or are we likely to see you for festivals? 

FM -  For all the Europe shows that we had, we tried to reschedule all those on this trip, so once a Hundred Reasons is like done we are going over there and doing those and I think there was only maybe three or four cities that we were supposed to play in England that got cancelled for this tour.  So, it might be a little while though because I really want to, we have been trying to write new music so once this tour is done we would like to take a full two months and stay home and just write and see what we could come out with. 

Have you got any tracks ready for a new album yet? 

FM -  We have about three songs written.  I mean so far it is all like, it’s heavy man, it’s like all really fast, I’m excited about it.  It’s just fucking heavy, that’s all I can really say about it, it’s going to be cool. 

On The Fiction We Live there are some slower songs, however no such songs appear on Holding A Wolf By The Ears.  Was this a conscious decision? 

FM -  Yeah, because, sometimes, I mean I love metal music, like I love folk music and even like, you know my favourite releases from last year were like Iron & Wine and Bright Eyes and Blonde Redhead and all these bands that nobody would ever think I listen to.  So you would think that I want to put more mellow stuff into From Autumn To Ashes.  But that is actually not the case because I also really love like Slayer and stuff like that, and I have always just wanted to make like some real fast, like you know brutal hardcore that I don’t think there is too many, I think it all really got watered down and like I think, I don’t know, I want to make some real heavy stuff. 

Do you hear many of your influences coming through in your music?  Do you write thinking that you want to sound a certain way? 

FM -  I have been kind of, heavier stuff I have been listening to lately has been like, as far as hardcore, like there’s a band Deadguy from the USA and another band Integrity, that are like just brutal bands.  That’s what I have been influenced by lately, writing this new stuff. 

How is writing new material given the recent turmoil the band has been through, how many original band members are now left? 

FM -  It’s actually three now, our original bass player left the band and then we had a different guy, who was in the band for a full three years and he played on Abandon Your Friends and the last record.  And now he just recently left the band and we got the original guy back, so now we are back to three original members. 

With newer members is the way material is being written changing, does everyone get involved in the writing process?  

FM -  I think everyone is getting an equal say, for the first time ever in the history of our band, so it’s pretty cool.  It’s the first time we have gotten to write as five guys collaborating together and so we will see.  I don’t want to say it is going to be, the three songs we have right now how it is, I think it is the heaviest stuff we have ever written.  It is all on a par with like Deth Kult Social Club and the heavier end of the last record we put out.  But I highly doubt it will be that heavy from front to back, it will still be you know, some of those mellower influences that I have are always going to sneak in there.   

Hopefully we will see the new album later this year? 

FM -  Yeah, hopefully by the end of the summer. 

One thing that I have found impossible to track down is where the name From Autumn To Ashes comes from. 

FM -  I think what it really means is, cause Autumn I think is such a beautiful time of year.  In the North East of the United States the leaves start changing colours and in the New England area it’s like beautiful, like vibrant red and gold and such a beautiful time of year.  And then it gives way to three months of cold and snow and grey and like this desolate winter.  So From Autumn To Ashes refers to this beautiful pristine condition that’s perfect and you want to keep it that way forever, but you can’t do that with anything, not the seasons, not with anything in life, everything is temporary.  I think all beautiful things, unfortunately, move towards their end, but, you know, then maybe that end gives birth to a new beginning, you know, then you have spring come through and everything blossoms, and it’s all cycles so, yeah, From Autumn To Ashes.  It’s a sad name, you know, it does refers to decay and to, at the time that I coined it I was eighteen years old and I had my first real like crushing break up, and I was like oh, girls are evil.  But you know, but even in that situation it’s like every time you’ve ever had this like devastating heartbreak you think it is the end of the world, but then hopefully it gives way for you to meet somebody new who you really belong with and then you have that beautiful condition again.  Until that cycle keeps happening and then hopefully eventually, you know, it clicks. 

I never managed to find an explanation anywhere. 

FM -  I think that is probably, definitely, the most detailed explanation I have ever given. 

Lastly is there anything else you would like to add? 

FM -  I would like to sincerely thank everybody, we have been coming over here for, jeez, you know we came over here five years ago I think was the first time we came, and everybody has always been like very cool with us and very patient with all the line up changes and stuff we have had to deal with.  So just a big thanks, I’m glad we are able to keep coming back and more to come.

From Autumn To Ashes latest album, Holding A Wolf By The Ears is out now. You can check out the HRH review via the this link and to find out more about the band you can visit their official MySpace site @ www.myspace.com/fromautumntoashes