Growing out of a re-blooming Orange County emo scene and a supposed national “emo revival” taking hold in blogs, Aliso Viejo outfit Pedestrian have been one of the latest local bands to take advantage of the genre's upswing. In recent months, ths local band has graduated from playing tiny garage shows, to DIY spaces and opening for one of their biggest influences, Portland band Braveyoung. With their heavily anticipated EP Everyone I Know Who Skis Is Dead the band its planning on branching out and taking their band much more seriously after getting great reactions live and attention from small DIY labels.
Since the beginning, the band have gradually started leaning more toward post-rock influences and with their latest release, they've pushed their own boundaries and moved their sound further into the experimental realm. Building their sound one instrument at a time the band carefully crafts their songs away from catchy melodies and into unusual melancholic guitar chords stacked with entrancing guitar riffs. With more experience under their belts and their signature brand of songs occasionally reaching the ten minute mark, the band plans on taking the project more seriously as they grow out of adolescence.
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On the significance of the “emo revival”
It's a little hard to answer this question without sounding cheesy or pretentious. Apparently there is an 'emo revival', but we believe good emo is just being rediscovered. The term 'emo' is such an umbrella term that it's really hard to pinpoint what the genre really is. It is definitely awesome though that many people are getting into music that actually has some depth and evokes emotion, rather than listening to most of the songs on the radio.
On the recording process
We tracked everything in one day at our friend Gootch's private studio in La Habra. It took about 8 hours and we played some of the songs up to 16 times. Though we probably couldn't have done it without the El Pollo Loco break, Red Bull, and Mountain Dew. We had never recorded in a studio and we were really happy and surprised with how good the rough mixes came out. We then played a local show at The Los Rios Rock School in San Jaun, where Stefan Macarewich, of The Gromble, approached us. He wanted to see if we needed any recording/mixing help and from there he took over the project. Without him, the EP would not be what it is now. He truly perfected our sound we and are incredibly grateful for both him and Gootch. We really couldn't have done it without them.
On the name “Everyone I Know Who Skis Is Dead”
A large part of our friendship is spent watching and quoting television shows and movies. The title comes from a quote from “The Office.” (Hopefully we don't get sued.) It was just really random honestly. There was so much put into the recording and mixing of the music, that once it came down to naming the EP it was almost a joke to us. And since most our songs are pretty serious, we wanted to lighten up the mood a little bit with the title of the EP to show we're not just these super depressing serious guys.
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