Don’t let their name fool you…the demonic fury that this band creates is huge. Little Sister, from Cleveland, OH, make the blackened sound of death. If I had to label their sound, I would call it Septic Rage – with one listen you will be addicted to its fast-rotting melody. This makes sense, seeing that this band shares members with Cheap Tragedies & Masakari, so their epic bloodline runs deep. Little Sister are making mad moves this year – they’re just out of the studio, plus they recently inked a deal with the epic UK label Witch Hunter Records. CVLT Nation is really happy that some of the band took the time to do an interview with us. After the jump, enjoy this epic read from a killer band, & pretty rad people I might add…
Photo by Rob Reidy
What up Little Sister, how are things in your world?
Joe S.: Hi, things are well. We’re in recording mode at the moment.
Max: In my world things are incredibly hectic and overbooked this month but that’s better than being bored.
One of the first things that strikes me about your songs is that they all have a rad groove to them. Is it intentional, or something that just happens organically?
Max: I wish it was a more organic occurrence but it’s something that I push to have in our music. We all bring something to the songwriting and I think this is where you can see my personal influence. Typically Joe S writes a large portion of a song and we jam on it for a while and Joe Y looks to make room for some leads and Burrows tries to drum as fast as humanly possible and I try to add some swagger or groove in somewhere. It’s something that I look for in my favorite music and so it’s what I want to hear in the music that I make. I cut my teeth on music that has a lot of punchy ass moving boogie and while this band moves away from that in a lot of ways I still try to pepper some of it throughout the songs.
Photo by Ryan Kennedy
Another thing that comes to mind when listening to Little Sister is that it seems like you guys put the music first, without trying to fit into box like hardcore, black metal etc. What made you guys take this path?
Joe S.: We listen to and are influenced by quite a few different styles of music, so it ends up being less of a chosen path and just a natural way the music came to be. The only thing we set out to do when we started writing songs intially was to just create music that was heavy, fast, and very riff-oriented.
Max: It’s just how things evolve when you don’t over think them. We all have similar interests and that forms the backbone of what we do but then we all like some odd things and weirdo music and we’re not afraid to temper the songs with those influences. It makes for more interesting compositions and that makes playing more fun and so it sort of feeds back into the music. We’re all too busy to be involved in something that we don’t enjoy so we just play what interests us and try to take that as far as we can.
What are the emotions, things, people or events that inspire your lyrics?
Patrik: I’m generally dwelling on an idea that I want to develop into lyrics, and then I try to focus on a very specific aspect of whatever topic I’m thinking of and then write on that. I don’t really consider us a cause orientated band, but I do write about things that are important to me (and the rest of the guys) and some of things fall into the political or moral spectrum. I generally give what we call a ‘Punx Speech’ before certain songs because the lyrics might not be totally clear to a casual listener. For Little Sister a lot of those topics seem to fall into my disdain for religious based thought processes or simply just trying to deal with what life throws at you. (Quick side note, I once got dumped over an anti-religious punx speech)
Max: I just push Patrik to say things that will get him in trouble with girls.
Photos by Ryan Kennedy
What is the greatest joy that creating music brings you?
Joe S.: For me personally, creating music with like-minded individuals has been a focal point in my life since packing up and leaving my childhood home. For me, being a musician is a high priority in my life because it’s something I love being able to do, and it also certainly helps as a stress reliever. In Little Sister a few of us are working more often than not, so being able to come together and do what we do is a great reward for a lot of the immensely hard (and often way under-compensated) work that we do in order to simply survive.
Max: I’m not going to lie, I hate most of the work that goes into being in a band. It’s so much trouble to do what we do. All of the practice, the writing sessions, the scheduling, shirt making, recording, mixing, booking, hauling, missing sleep, etc., it’s a huge time drain on an already hectic life. If it wasn’t for the fact that I play with guys that can pull it together and make good music and put quality recordings together and get on stage and play like hell I wouldn’t be able to find the strength to do it. I mean to say that I love having accomplished the things that a band does. I take a lot of pride in being able to put these things together in spite of the dreadful work that it takes to get there. It’s rewarding in that way, to me. And I absolutely love playing live. Being on a stage is just the high point of every day that I get to be there.
On songs like “Northeastern Failures,” it’s totally raging in parts but then you have these emotional & melodic breakdowns…how important is emotion & melody to your songs?
Patrik: To me, hardcore (or whatever genre we are) is a very emotional style of music to begin with. I think we make it a point to try to not shy away from a little wider spectrum of emotions and sounds. That is to say, emotions rise and fall rather quickly, naturally our music being a refection of said emotion would follow that trend. So to answer your question; it is very important, but it comes naturally to us in the writing process.
Max: Emotion is important in music. Even in stupid songs you have to evoke some sort of feeling. I think a lot of heavy bands get caught up trying to pull up plain rage and anger and hatred and it gets to be redundant. We kind of approach it like you would if you were making a film, which is to say that we try to get at the things that make us angry, not just the anger itself (or whichever emotion). I like to think of a song’s composition like a story and therefore it has to have some depth and dynamic turns. Contrast is an important part of all art forms. Heavy riffs into heavy riffs can make both riffs seem flat but when you contrast something heavy with something light it really emphasizes that depth and can help to underscore your point.
Photo by Rob Reidy
What was the creative starting point for the creation of Repercussions?
Joe S.: The starting point for Repercussions was the starting point for the current incarnation of Little Sister. Before Repercussions, the band had a vastly different sound with a couple of different members. I joined just before two former members bailed out. I was sort of given the reigns to come up with some new and different material. We enlisted our lead guitarist Joe Y. (who also playes in Masakari) and our drummer Mike (who also plays in Cheap Tragedies with Max and I, and a few other bands as well) and we started writing songs that ended up being shaped into the Repercussions EP.
Max: Patrik and I were sort of fed up with the former line up and we brought in guys that could help us write some songs that were more in line with our own sorts of issues. The Repercussions recordings are where we ended up after a few months of work. We’re all pretty proud of those songs and we’re even more stoked on the new stuff that we’re demoing right now.
Is writing lyrics a collective effort, or does one person take the lead?
Joe S.: There are times where we’ll be talking about a particular issue and that sometimes becomes a starting point Patrik to go with, but for the most part he takes the lead. We’re all pretty like-minded when it comes to the lyrical content that’s produced, so it makes the process easy.
Does performing live bring you to a different state of mind & being?
Patrik: I would say that there is a level of transcendence that occurs when you play a show; you have worked so hard on getting the songs to be as good as they can be, you are working with everyone else in the band towards the same thing, the music is so loud, and you are totally consumed with what is going on in that very moment that you can get swept away by that feeling. For me, playing live is the single best thing about being in a band.
Joe S.: Performing live is one of the few times I get to disconnect myself with whatever else may be going on. It’s not so much a higher plane of consciousness or anything, it’s moreso a disconnect from everything else outside of that moment and place I’m performing in. In short, mega stress relief!
Max: I don’t know how to speak to any transcendent qualities of playing music but it sure does make me feel good. I’m proud of the band and of our abilities and I love to show it off.
Photo by Rob Reidy
What was the album you heard that made you say damn, I want to start a band?
Joe S.: Black Flag’s “Slip It In” when I was about 15 and just learning how to play guitar. To this day this remains my favorite Black Flag album.
Patrik: Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”. I remember being pretty young and tripping on the artwork. Then putting the record on and those songs just crushed me.
Max: It was DEVO and Blondie that first got me hooked on music but it was Ned’s Atomic Dustbin’s “God Fodder” that made me want to start playing music.
How would you describe your scene in Ohio? Who are some of your musical peers?
Joe S.: Ohio has a lot of great bands. New bands are popping up all of the time and honestly it often gets hard to keep up. Cleveland has some great bands like Grin and Bare It, Horrific Dick, and Heavy Thoughts to name a few. The Columbus area also has a few greats such as Black Dove, Nukkehammer, and Struck By Lightning, and Dayton of course has Mouth of the Architect. And there are always our other projects: Masakari, Cheap Tragedies, Wind of Death, Up To Us, and Field Trip.
What’s next for Little Sister?
Joe S.: We’re currently in the midst of recording demos for a handful of new songs we’ve written since the completion of the Repercussions EP. The demos will later be re-recorded with Bill Korecky, who recorded the Repercussions EP and also tons of amazing hardcore and metal records with the intention of it being a more widely distributed release. We’re also planning on playing some non-local shows when time between our sister bands touring allows.
Max: Yeah, next we’re looking for support to release some more music. We’re about halfway through demoing these songs and we’ll be contacting labels and reworking any of the music that we feel we need to and rerecording for the final project. I’m really excited to get back into Mars studio with Bill, he’s a great guy and a total pro. You gotta love a guy that knows his craft.
Any closing thoughts?
Thank you CVLT NATION and everyone for all of your support!
CVLT Nation would like to thank Little Sister for an epic interview!
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