{"id":19856,"date":"2014-01-20T07:30:37","date_gmt":"2014-01-19T20:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=19856"},"modified":"2014-01-19T13:38:53","modified_gmt":"2014-01-19T02:38:53","slug":"valentino-arteaga-of-of-mice-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2014\/01\/valentino-arteaga-of-of-mice-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Valentino Arteaga of Of Mice & Men"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>\u201cWith this album we really wanted to take the time, we took almost nine months of the year out from touring to really put emphasis on this record, and this was the first time that we\u2019d had this amount of time, so getting all our ideas together, and wanting to do something different was definitely at the top of our list\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

From press release: Of Mice & Men announced their third studio album Restoring Force<\/em> will be released on Friday 24 January on Rise Records. The album is the follow up to the band\u2019s 2011\u2019s acclaimed release The Flood<\/em>, which solidified the California-based five-piece as a leading force in modern heavy music. Restoring Force<\/em> was recorded at House of Loud in New Jersey and produced by David Bendeth (Paramore, Papa Roach, A Day To Remember, Breaking Benjamin). The band has brought their memorable live show to audiences around the world having sold out multiple headlining tours.<\/p>\n

While in Orange County rehearsing in the studio we had a great chat to Tino from Of Mice & Men about the new album \u2018Restoring Force\u2019 and its creation, as well as their growing fanbase in Australia and what the future holds for the band\u2026<\/p>\n

You\u2019re about to release \u2018Restoring Force\u2019, in creating it did you intentionally set out to do anything differently compared to \u2018The Flood\u2019?<\/strong>
\nOh most definitely, that was the first thing when thinking about doing the new album, given the way that Of Mice & Men has evolved over the years, you can kind of hear the change in each album, and I wouldn\u2019t necessarily call it maturing, just trying different things and trying to find the sound that can really embody what Of Mice & Men is about. With this album we really wanted to take the time, we took almost nine months of the year out from touring to really put emphasis on this record, and this was the first time that we\u2019d had this amount of time, so getting all our ideas together, and wanting to do something different was definitely at the top of our list, while still remaining true to the sound that Of Mice & Men has had over the years. It was finding a way and challenging ourselves to doing it in a way that we wouldn\u2019t have expected.<\/p>\n

What does the title represent to you?<\/strong>
\nTo me personally this album was almost like a restoring force for this band, we had just come off the road and it was time to get all of our material together that we had written on the road, as well as getting some new ideas flowing for this record as it\u2019s hard to write material on the road a lot of the time, but it really helped us find ur balance with our new member Aaron Pauley, and he\u2019s bass and vocals and the band had been ran into the road promoting the re-issue of The Flood and we really wanted to, I guess we didn\u2019t really know how we were going to do things, and this was our first time recording with David Bendeth and he helped us realise that this album needs to mean more to us than anything in the world, and that this album is going to live on and that\u2019s kind of when we realized the importance of what we were making and that became a restoring force for us, it brought balance back to the band. We had lost a member, the last record we put out was just the four of us, and there was no clean singing or anything like that, it was just a barrage or heavy music that we really felt like we weren\u2019t able to explore on the original release of The Flood. So, finding a balance and as we went on with the recording of this record it became our restoring force and that\u2019s kinda how the name came about, and that can even continue on to anything that brings back balance.<\/p>\n

Now this will be hard, but can you to give us one word that you feel sums up the album as a whole?<\/strong>
\nHmm\u2026 *pause* ambitious. We want people to hear this record, it\u2019s a record that we feel like we\u2019d put it on for our grandma, or we\u2019d put it on for anybody that would be willing to listen, it\u2019s musicians creating music that we want as many people to hear as possible, and so making an album and titling it \u2018Restoring Force\u2019 and it being that restoring force and hoping that this record that could be somebody else\u2019s restoring force, we really want to put it out to everybody and take it as far as we can, so I feel like Of Mice & Men has never sounded the way we have on this record and it shows that we\u2019re not stopping anytime soon and if you expected to hear the same record from us again or lump us into some sort of subgenre, you\u2019ve got another thing coming, cause we\u2019ve got huge ambitions, we\u2019re a band that hasn\u2019t stopped in any face of adversity at all, so we\u2019re gonna keep going and this record is a testament to that. The next record is going to be even better *laughs* we can\u2019t wait to start recording the next one.<\/p>\n

You haven\u2019t even released this one yet\u2026 *laughs*<\/strong>
\nI know *laughs* that what we were saying, we had some time off for the holidays and we\u2019ve got this one and we\u2019re like, when\u2019s the next time we\u2019re going to get into the studio, we\u2019ve got to get these ideas out. We\u2019re hungry you know, and hopefully that\u2019s how this record sounds to people when they pop it in their car stereo or on their computer, from the first track \u2018Public Service Announcement\u2019 to the last track \u2018Space Enough To Grow\u2019 you\u2019re kind of taken through this rollercoaster of what Of Mice & Men is today.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Obviously the lead up to a release will stir some emotions, how do you prepare for an album release, nerves, excitement?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s a little bit of everything, it\u2019s a whole lot of planning, and a lot of waiting and a lot of anxious feelings and the way that we\u2019ve rolled out some of these tracks and our singles and coming up to the album release, it\u2019s all been strategically planned from us with writing and we released \u2018You\u2019re Not Alone\u2019 to test our fanbase and see how ready they were for us to hear Of Mice & Men do something a little different from what they would have expected, and it\u2019s kind of like waiting around thinking this isn\u2019t even the best song on the record, just wait until you hear the rest of it and we feel like every single song on this record could stand alone as a single or as a song that shows where Of Mice & Men is now and that\u2019s a really cool feeling and that contributes to feeling excited and anxious as the album is about to come out. It\u2019s definitely a process that we\u2019re familiar with but definitely it\u2019s not too difficult for us to deal with because our album is going to speak for itself and we\u2019re not trying to convince anybody otherwise because you\u2019re going to listen to it and feel how you want about it, and we wanted to make songs that are going to make people feel pissed off, and we wanted to make songs that are going to make people feel happy and feel like they\u2019re not neglected. They should be feeling something when they listen to music, it shouldn\u2019t just be \u2018oh this is cool\u2019 or \u2018oh yeah, this band is cool\u2019 or \u2018that\u2019s a really fun and cool part\u2019 it\u2019s got to be the message that the music carries and all that has to be right on par with that. For us there\u2019s no other reason to do it, I know it comes different for other acts. There\u2019s room for everybody in music and that\u2019s the best part of it, it\u2019t just how you interpret it yourself, so music is important to us and always has been, being huge fans of music ourselves, and being excited about bands. Dave Grohl had just sent us a message, he heard we were signing a huge bunch of pre order posters and he sent us \u2018Hey Of Mice & Men, have fun signing all those pre order posters\u2019 and we were like oh my god, that\u2019s Dave Grohl, that\u2019s so exciting, it\u2019s the Foo Fighters or Nirvana, and his music means something to us, and all music means something to somebody somewhere and we just hope ours can mean something to more people, that\u2019s what we\u2019re hoping to do with \u2018Restoring Force\u2019.<\/p>\n

On that, you were back in Australia twice in 2013 and most recently this past October which I saw in Sydney and blew the crowds away once again, how have you seen your fan base here grow over your last couple of visits?<\/strong>
\nThat was an awesome tour, that show was nuts *laughs* it was amazing. It\u2019s actually been crazy because when we first went out there with Amity Affliction it was pretty different we were still kind of a new band and it was our first time into the country and we were still new at touring internationally as well, so there was definitely some obstacles that we had to get over with the crowds and understanding that every country that we play in gives us a different type of response. We love the people of Australia, they\u2019ve always been kind and wonderful to us and it was kind of like the people that knew us from the first time, it was like \u2018man we can\u2019t believe we have some fans out here\u2019 and then Soundwave took our breath away and we thought \u2018holy crap, we have some fans out here\u2019 that show was HUGE and everybody was loving it, and to then come back on the Bring Me The Horizon tour and just be in front of that many people and have so many people hanging out outside asking if they could get a photograph, we couldn\u2019t even walk through half of these airports when we were coming into the country. The fact that this band can grow at such an expediential rate every time that we\u2019ve been there, that\u2019s amazing to all of us, so we\u2019re thankful to all of the fans that let our band mean that much to them, that\u2019s important to us as this is what we love to do and this is the music that we love to create and the fact that so many people understand what we\u2019re doing and the music that we make and they can connect with it, some even way stronger than we can begin to imagine. That\u2019s the beauty of music and it\u2019s really cool and it\u2019s actually been really exciting in Australia to see that cause we\u2019ve only been there a couple of times and it\u2019s been a huge step each time, so this next time I think we\u2019ll probably be playing to 100,000 people if my math is correct, we\u2019ll have the number one album and we\u2019ll play to sold out stadiums of people. If my calculations are correct. *laughs*<\/p>\n

Of course I need to ask the question of if we\u2019ll see you back in Australia any time soon?<\/strong>
\nAs of right now unfortunately no, but we\u2019ve been bugging our booking agent and it\u2019s a country we love to go to, so I mean it\u2019s definitely not out of the question, but right now it\u2019s not on the books. Hopefully before the end of the year but we\u2019re definitely bringing \u2018Restoring Force\u2019 to the country, and it actually comes out there first, that\u2019s how much love we have for the country. *laughs*<\/p>\n

Touring wise, what does 2014 have in store for the band?<\/strong>
\nFor this upcoming tour, the tour starts in Florida so we\u2019re rehearsing out here at our home in California, we\u2019ve got a pretty big music conference to go to next weekend and then the tour just starts immediately, I think we\u2019re in The United States for four days, then we fly to Mexico, do Mexico City show that I believe is sold out, then back to The States, then we do Canada. Our schedule is pretty much just go, go, go, pretty much until the next time we\u2019re in Australia. While we\u2019re on these tours we\u2019ll hopefully be confirming our Australian dates and that will be no rest for us, Restoring Force is a bullet train coming for everybody.<\/p>\n

2014 has just begun, so let\u2019s predict the future, finish this sentence for me, in 2014 Of Mice & Men will\u2026<\/strong>
\n*pause* Dang\u2026 I\u2019m trying to think\u2026 Of Mice & Men will take this whole shit over. *laughs*<\/p>\n

And come back and play stadiums in Australia\u2026<\/strong>
\n*laughs* Yeah, we\u2019re coming back hopefully soon, so Restoring Force is about a week away, we\u2019re coming for everybody.<\/p>\n

Essential information<\/strong><\/h2>\n

From: <\/strong>Orange County, California, USA<\/p>\n

Band members:<\/strong>\u00a0 Austin Carlile \u2013 Vocals, Aaron Pauley – Bass\/Vocals, Valentino Arteaga \u2013 Drums, Philip Manansala \u2013 Guitar, Alan Ashby – Guitar<\/p>\n

Forthcoming Release:<\/strong> Restoring Force (Warner Music Australia \/ Rise Records) January 24, 2014<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong> \u00a0http:\/\/www.ofmiceandmenofficial.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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