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Well-known punk band tours in support of new album

By Matthew Godbey

'I wish I would have gotten into jiu-jitsu and fighting. I would have done that throughout high school and become an Ultimate Fighter," laughs Buddy Nielsen. "That would be one thing that I think would be awesome ... to go five rounds with someone and then knock their head off."

Nielsen has time to contemplate his missed martial arts opportunities for the moment. He's relaxing at his home in New Jersey while awaiting a nationwide tour with his band Senses Fail and the release of its fourth album, "Life Is Not a Waiting Room" (Vagrant Records, 2008), in the coming days.

"We've done this (tour) so many times that it's kind of second nature for us now," says Nielsen. "By the time we finish making a record and are stressed out from writing we're like, 'Man, I wanna be on tour!' "

The 24-year-old singer has been fronting the emo-core band since he was 18 and knows the cyclic nature of touring, writing, recording, touring, writing ... can be trying at best, but he also knows that his chances of becoming a welterweight champion aren't exactly likely either. So, for now, being a rock star will have to do.

Although, the compromise doesn't seem to trouble Nielsen. His genuine and humble personality reveals itself immediately and, almost, a little surprisingly. As the leader of one of emo-punk/hardcore's most well-known groups, there's room to land assumptions about Nielsen being a less down-to-earth character.

Those assumptions, however, are shot down before touching the ground. Nielsen jokes and laughs and reveals that the secret to staying young and rebellious is through drinking beer and that his most memorable touring experience was signing an artificial leg for a most loyal fan. The jokes and laughs seem to flow freely until it comes to his music and the punk/hardcore seen overall. Then, Nielsen is no longer joking.

"It's a subculture," says Nielsen about his emo and punk/rock roots. "It's supposed to be this homegrown, local music scene and not this boy-bandish thing which has become popular in what I think most mainstream American's think when you say 'emo'. I think that the main thing about punk rock is celebrating the fact that you're different from everybody and that's cool. Punk rock was supposed to piss people off, period, not being a boy band."

It's true that emo has been weakened in popular culture and depicted as a far flung offshoot of punk music and culture, but in the 1980s emo sprung from the bowels of punk/rock subculture as a way to express something more than the boundaries of hardcore punk would allow. Bands like Rites of Spring and Embrace lead the first emo wave and the genre has progressively softened its melodies and sound ever since.

Senses Fail straddles that line between punk/rock, hardcore and emo that sometimes finds the quartet taking hits from critics and hardcore purists alike. Despite the criticisms, Nielsen maintains that he and his band make the music they want to make, when they want to make it. No apologies. No pretension.

The band's new album is an extension of that mood with its brawny musicianship and a revolving vocal style that shifts from hardcore to emo with seamless fluidity. Musically, Senses Fail's precision is air tight and Nielsen makes tiny explorations with his vocal style that press the group into new ground without sounding insincere.

"The music, I don't think it's different but I think it has grown. Eventually, we want to write a complete metal record ... but finding the balance is the hard part. It depends where we're at with the band, if it feels right," explains Nielsen. "We're not the band that says, '%#@$ man, we're not cool or critically acclaimed by some magazine; we have to change'. We don't take ourselves too seriously. We don't think we have to be cooler than everybody else or that we're going to save the world. We're just Senses Fail, the band."

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