\u2018Comeback\u2019<\/a>, where he sings about praying and waiting for a sign from his guides to help him proceed.<\/p>\nHow would you describe your sound to someone who hasn\u2019t heard you yet?<\/p>\n
We like to tell people we could have played Ozzfest or Warped Tour back in the day. We like to straddle that line. More specifically, we\u2019re Taproot versus Finch.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a real late nineties and early two thousands flavour to what you do, with echoes of Finch, Taproot, Deftones and Thursday. What is it about that era that pulls you in?<\/p>\n
Call it nostalgia, but it\u2019s the exact era and music I grew up with. I\u2019ll never forget the day I came home with Taproot\u2018s album Gift. Or how much I needed the album Welcome as a teenager when it came out. In a lot of ways it\u2019s paying homage. It\u2019s the music I always wanted to make but didn\u2019t know how to, or didn\u2019t have the resources for. But it\u2019s also important to us because that was a different era for live music, concerts and festivals. Bands weren\u2019t using tracks the way they do now. A lot of it was what you see is what you get, and that\u2019s very much who we are and what we\u2019re going to try to preserve. We\u2019re a throwback in that way.<\/p>\n
Your video for \u2018Drain\u2019 is out now. What is the song about, and how did the video come together?<\/p>\n
When it comes down to it, \u2018Drain\u2019 is about growth. One of the hardest realisations of adulthood is understanding that not everyone grows at the same pace, and sometimes people stop growing altogether. Over time that creates distance in relationships and forces you to confront a difficult truth: you can\u2019t do the work for someone else. No matter how much you care about them, growth requires honesty, sacrifice and a willingness to change, and not everyone is ready for that when you need them to be.<\/p>\n
We had access to some incredible locations for the shoot, but the standout was the basement of an abandoned bar that looked like something straight out of a dungeon, complete with a prison cell and corroded drains with water still running through them. We kept joking that we were literally standing at the end of the drain. It was really special because we got to work with our friend Zosia West from Reign of Z, who stars as the video\u2019s dungeon demon. We wanted to visually represent the internal conflict at the heart of the song. Her character embodies the push and pull between growth and stagnation, forcing the protagonist to confront a simple but uncomfortable reality: evolve or stay trapped in your own prison.<\/p>\n
Your latest single, \u2018Failure\/Defines\u2019, is out now. What can people expect from it?<\/p>\n
\u2018Failure\/Defines\u2019 reveals another side of the band\u2019s evolution. If \u2018Drain\u2019 introduced the heaviest, most aggressive side of this new chapter, \u2018Failure\/Defines\u2019 expands the picture. It\u2019s still heavy, but it leans harder into melody, atmosphere and some of the post-hardcore influences that have always been part of our DNA. The three singles we\u2019re releasing this summer each occupy a different place on the spectrum, and this one sits right in the middle. It\u2019s a good representation of where GUIDES is creatively right now.<\/p>\n
What does your songwriting process usually look like?<\/p>\n
All the songs start with me demoing instrumentals. I\u2019m primarily a keyboard player, so a lot of the demos are built out with MIDI instruments, which believe it or not is really helpful as songs get sequenced and keys or tempos need shifting. I\u2019ll share drafts of the instrumentals with the group for a sanity check and a green light. Then I lay in scratch vocals with a draft of lyrics that\u2019s usually pretty close to final. We bring the songs into the room and start jamming them, and that\u2019s really where everyone adds their personal flavour and style. From there we start the feedback loop with our producer, Zac \u2018ZROKK\u2019 Diebels. As we found, the writing process continues all the way through tracking. There are always adjustments to make on the fly, whether it\u2019s lyrics or guitar parts.<\/p>\n
What can people expect from a GUIDES live set?<\/p>\n
High energy. Authentic. Real. We\u2019re a throwback. We don\u2019t use many tracks at all. It\u2019s pretty much what you see is what you get, and that\u2019s on purpose. Our sound is built around the impact of big dynamic shifts. We feel that payoff is greater and more powerful with the tension, simplicity and energy of just the live instruments. It\u2019s what we grew up with. It just feels more natural that way. The tradeoff is that we\u2019re more exposed, and sometimes the result is more raw and imperfect. But that\u2019s live music. You can stay home and listen to the record if that\u2019s what you want to hear.<\/p>\n
What has it been like coming up in the Pittsburgh scene?<\/p>\n
The Pittsburgh scene has been immensely good to us. I don\u2019t think anyone would deny it\u2019s primarily dominated by pop punk. Everything else is represented, don\u2019t get me wrong, but pop punk is essentially the mainstream of it. So it\u2019s maybe a little harder for a band like us to win people over. That said, we were embraced early on outside of our niche, because it was important to us to build community beyond just what was happening in hard rock and metal. And really, that\u2019s the point of the scene. The best part of this whole thing has been the people we\u2019ve been able to meet and connect with. It\u2019s been beautiful, to be real. The love and support we feel is tangible, and watching the crowds grow over time has been the best feeling in the world.<\/p>\n
What is next for GUIDES across the rest of 2026?<\/p>\n
After \u2018Failure\/Defines\u2019 we have one more single coming in July. There will also be a music video for \u2018Failure\/Defines\u2019 on the way. We\u2019ll be playing regional shows in support of the new singles, including 11 July in Erie, Pennsylvania and 18 July in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with more to be announced. We also plan to return to the studio at the end of the summer to complete work on what will build into an EP.<\/p>\n
Can you tell us a funny, emotional or dramatic story from your time as a band?<\/p>\n
Ha, I\u2019ll save the drama for the VH1 Behind the Music special someday. There\u2019s been plenty of it already. I was in a very serious car accident two weeks before we opened for Sevendust. I was lucky to walk away, and very fortunate to be able to perform. Somebody was watching over me and wanted me on that stage that night. There\u2019s a reason I\u2019m still here, and I don\u2019t take that for granted anymore. I wasn\u2019t right physically or mentally at that point. I was concussed. But opening for Sevendust in a sold-out theatre is still the highlight of our career, and nothing was going to stop me from putting on the performance of a lifetime. And we did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a whole generation of heavy music that lived in the space between Ozzfest and Warped Tour, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[103338,103339,103340,52369,103341,73,75,74,103342,103343],"class_list":["post-240453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-alternative-metal","tag-deftones","tag-finch","tag-guides","tag-jonathan-joseph","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-post-hardcore","tag-taproot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}