Our Time With You.....
Marcus Harrington - vocals
Carlos Salazar - guitar
Junior Antunez - guitar
Chuck Ford - bass
John Salazar - drums
Far more than just another debut by just another new
band, Our Time With You... the stunning first album from
Chicago heavy rock quintet Relative Ash, is an
emotion-packed collection that celebrates life, mourns
death, and deftly considers nearly everything else in
between.
Beginning with pre-production in early December,
1999,the five members of Relative Ash spent two months
at Longview Farms Studio in suburban Massachusetts
working on Our Time With You.... The band teamed with
renowned producer Steve Thompson (KoRn, Metallica,
Guns 'N Roses) and the combination proved magical, a
true labor of love for all involved.
"We had a choice between Steve and a bunch of other
producers," says singer Marcus Harrington. "But we went
with him because it was clear he was the one who would
get us down on tape the right way. It was a great
experience; he brought the best of all of us out. We all
really came together with Steve. We all put our heart and
soul into it. We didn't settle for a 9, we went for 10 or 11
every time."
"Steve knows so well how to capture emotions and
tones," adds guitarist Carlos Salazar. "Both being very
important to this band. We tried a lot of different things in
the studio and at the end of the day it was always our
best work that naturally rose to the top."
The eleven heart-stopping songs found on Our Time
With You... explore with disarming honesty such topics
(all usually avoided by most hard rock bands) as the
worsening AIDS crisis; both the death and birth of loved
ones, and being a socially conscious human being in a
time that's more generally associated in pop music with
man's inhumanity to man.
"We usually would have music first, then the lyrics would
come later," says Marcus. "While the other guys were
rehearsing the songs and putting them together, I'd sit
there for a couple days and just listen to them, and think
of lyric ideas as they were doing the songs. Then I'd take
it all home in my head and write the lyrics. Some were
taken from personal poems that I had written. I want every
word I sing to have some thought behind it, just like Kurt
Cobain did. I tend to get up and down, good news-bad
news a lot. A lot of this is heavy and personal, but it also
has a lot of positive energy behind it."
Musical inspiration came to Marcus following the passing
of his father, a tragic event that nonetheless had the effect
of bringing the young man's previously unknown artistic
gifts to the surface.
"My dad had died when I was 19," recalls Marcus. "And
that's what made me start writing my thoughts on paper,
and getting it out that way. Then I started putting it to
music when I was almost 21. Different people deal with
loss in different ways, and writing these songs is my
way."
But he and the band take it much farther than just writing
and recording the songs, as anyone lucky enough to
catch one of the Relative Ash's amazing live shows will
attest.
"I wrote a song about the AIDS walk in Chicago that I
walk in every year," says Marcus. "It's called "6 Miles To
Learn." We start talking about it on stage to the people
when we play that song, actually ask people in the crowd
if they've lost anybody or know anybody who's suffering
from AIDS, and actually ask them to raise their hands.
That's hard for people to do but they do it. They raise
their hands and we play it for them."
Relative Ash formed on Chicago's South Side in the late
1990's when five young friends discovered they had much
more in common than their mutual hometown.
"I was writing songs, and I ran into this guitar player
Carlos...him and his brother John and myself just crossed
paths," recalls Marcus. "And we decided to put a band
together. Chuck our bass player came along; he's a friend.
And then my buddy Junior, who lives down the street
from me all my life, was in another band and he decided to
come with us. This was late 1996, early '97. That's when
we started putting our songs together and playing shows,
playing anywhere and everywhere we could."
Relative Ash quickly developed a reputation for their
brutally honest style of modern rock, and within two years
of forming was headlining a sold-out Metro club in
Chicago, almost unheard of for a local unsigned band. A
3-song cassette ("5:30," "Bounce," "Charmed") was
recorded in one day and given to friends. The band then
gained their first National exposure, and subsequently
came to the attention of Island Records, when they were
added to the 1999 X Games tour, a first big test for the
band.
"We went on at 12 noon everyday, we always opened up,
the first band," remembers Marcus. "So when we played
we had to throw down so hard that people actually turned
around and paid attention. There was so much else going
on, and here's this band no one has ever heard before. We
really had to throw down."
Relative Ash has already shared the stage with such acts
as Kittie, Sevendust, Coal Chamber, Ultraspank and
Chevelle, and will spend the Summer of 2000 as part of the
inaugural "Tattoo the Earth" tour with Slipknot, Slayer,
Sepultura, Coal Chamber, Hed(pe) and more - not too bad
for young band promoting its debut album.
"Our Time With You... is our first album, and it represents
our whole life up to now," says Marcus. "The people that
are gone now, and the people that are still with us; our
fans, our family that supported us, and the people yet to
come. It's about our time with those people who
influenced this album."
"When a loved one passes on, where does their soul
roam?
Their love, passion, strength and sensitivity - where will
they rest?
We all want to think that these emotions shine bright at
the birth of our son or daughter...
But sometimes one must suffer great loss, and truly, truly
miss...
Questions kill the romance, so just remember how
beautiful that person is the last time you held them...
And live knowing now that they are all Relative Ash..."
