{"id":34279,"date":"2018-03-23T07:00:29","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T20:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=34279"},"modified":"2018-03-23T07:00:30","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T20:00:30","slug":"jd-cronise-of-the-sword","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2018\/03\/jd-cronise-of-the-sword\/","title":{"rendered":"JD Cronise of The Sword"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201c\u2026I think these days I think I\u2019ve observed a lot more just because time has passed and I\u2019ve had time to do so and I\u2019ve just taken in and studied a lot more music and just the craft of song writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Release: Even at this point in their career, there can often be difficulty when it comes to describing The Sword, with woefully inadequate terms like \u201cretro\u201d and \u201cstoner\u201d appearing all too frequently. Like all of the band\u2019s work before it,\u00a0Used Future<\/em>\u00a0transcends such diminishing labels. This is 21st century rock n\u2019 roll in the tradition of the 20th century masters, imbued with a unique sound and vision \u2013 a bright spot in the modern musical landscape. Put simply, it\u2019s the sound of a seasoned band at the top of their game, the most recent incarnation of the ever-evolving musical entity known as The Sword.<\/p>\n

While at home we gave JD a call to talk about The Sword’s new album ‘Used Future’, song writing, touring, vinyl, advice, and much more.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been about two and a half years since we last chatted, so let\u2019s catch up. How have the last two and a half years been for you?<\/strong>
\nOh you know, ups and downs, living life, nothing too crazy but not bad.<\/p>\n

\u2018Used Future\u2019 is being released later this month, what are your feelings like leading up to release day?<\/strong>
\nKind of the usual pre album tension a little bit, not too much but it\u2019s really just wanting to get it out there and get on the road and play music for people.<\/p>\n

In the three years since \u2018High Country\u2019 what if anything did you do differently this time around for this new album?<\/strong>
\nI think some of the writing style was a little different, we kind of collaborated a little bit more long distance since I don\u2019t live in Austin, I mean I didn\u2019t live there when we made \u2018High Country\u2019 either, but a lot of \u2018High Country\u2019 I wrote on my own and the other guys contributed their own pieces. This one we kind of collaborated on a little bit more I guess even though we don\u2019t live together we have the internet sending parts and tracks back and forth. So that was something we hadn\u2019t really done, we\u2019ve done a little bit of it before but we did that quite a bit for this one.<\/p>\n

The album just has such a groove about it and feels like a classic rock record, the jams stand out, did you guys just get in there and play and press stop when it felt right on some tracks?<\/strong>
\nYeah, a little bit, there are definitely a couple of songs, a couple of the instrumentals on the album were sort of born out of rehearsal space jams, and even when we got in the studio not all of the songs were completely fleshed out, some of them were half songs and some were skeletons of songs. So yeah, a lot of it was kind of jammed out in the studio.<\/p>\n

How has your approach to song writing evolved over the years?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m not sure, I know that it has *laughs* but I think these days I think I\u2019ve observed a lot more just because time has passed and I\u2019ve had time to do so and I\u2019ve just taken in and studied a lot more music and just the craft of song writing. Go over different things when I set out to write a song now like I did back in the early days or even years ago. Just a matter of refining and evolving your craft and maturing I guess.<\/p>\n

Do you ever go back and listen to your first record and think what you could\u2019ve done differently now?<\/strong>
\nOh absolutely, for the most part when I do occasionally go back and revisit old stuff I\u2019m usually pleasantly impressed and like \u201coh that\u2019s pretty cool, that\u2019s good\u201d and tall those little parts that I\u2019m embarrassed about I know very well by this point but there\u2019s not too many of them. With most stuff at the time that\u2019s what I meant to do even if it\u2019s not what I would do now.<\/p>\n

So sometimes it can be easy to say what\u2019s changed over time within a band, but what would you say is the one thing that\u2019s stayed the same in your time with The Sword?<\/strong>
\nKyle\u2019s hair *laughs* it was a little shorter in the early days but it\u2019s been the way it is now for a very long time I\u2019d say that\u2019s the constant. He\u2019s the guy in the band that gets recognised the most, I\u2019m speaking of our guitarist Kyle because he is the only one who\u2019s hair length never changes, sometimes some of us might have a beard or a moustache, or long hair or short hair, something so people are never sure but Kyle 100% all of the time. To explain on that not just Kyle\u2019s hair, sort of our relationship to each other is kind of the constant, even though we don\u2019t really hang out in our off time like we did in the early days when we do get together it\u2019s always the same as it ever was.<\/p>\n

Was there one piece of advice you were given when you started making music that you still go back to to this day? <\/strong>
\nPiece of advice that I was given? Hmm\u2026 good question, I don\u2019t know that too many people were giving me advice is the think. Yeah there were some pieces of advice I was given and totally ignored or decided that I knew better. Yeah that\u2019s a good question, I can\u2019t think of one off the top of my head honestly. The thing that comes to mind was Mark Morton from Lamb of God telling me that I need to stand in the centre of the stage because back in the early days I stood to the side, and he said \u201cyou\u2019re the lead singer you need to stand in the centre\u201d and I did that for years and years and years and years and just recently in the past couple of years I\u2019ve become very uncomfortable with that and I\u2019ve gone back to being on the side of the stage but I finally figured I\u2019ve been doing this long enough that I\u2019ve gotten to the point where it\u2019s OK to ignore Mark Morton\u2019s advice. I have great respect for him don\u2019t get me wrong and for the kind of band that he has they need a guy in the middle kind of controlling the chaos and that sort of thing, that\u2019s their shtick. For us it\u2019s more about just watching us jam, I\u2019m not up there to be some sort of ring master or anything like that.<\/p>\n

This is the kind of record that needs to be heard on vinyl, of which you\u2019re releasing it on, but vinyl has had a huge resurgence, what are your thoughts on the current vinyl revolution?<\/strong>
\nI have no problem with it whatsoever, it\u2019s something that I\u2019m mildly surprised about and I didn\u2019t think it would get to this point and sustaining itself for this long and not really show many signs of leaving. It\u2019s cool, from a practical standpoint it is actually a pretty good medium for storing music as long as you treat the records nicely. I\u2019m a very visually oriented person and I love artwork and album artwork and it\u2019s obviously the best format to view an album cover n because it\u2019s the biggest and most tactile so yeah I think it\u2019s great.<\/p>\n

In terms of touring what does 2018 have in store for the band?<\/strong>
\nWell the spring we\u2019ll be touring the States pretty heavily, I think we\u2019re even going to continue that into the summer a little bit. We\u2019re trying to get down under maybe in the second half of the year at some point but we\u2019re not sure just yet.<\/p>\n

Of course you have been down here a couple of times, what are your thoughts on Australia, you love coming down here?<\/strong>
\nOh yeah, absolutely, what\u2019s not to love.<\/p>\n

Lastly let\u2019s look ahead to the future, finish this sentence for me, by the end of 2018 The Sword will\u2026<\/strong>
\nHave played a bunch of shows *laughs*. That\u2019s all I can hope for; I don\u2019t want to jinx anything. I will have seen a few faces and rocked them all.<\/p>\n

Bon Jovi reference, nice!<\/strong>
\nNot a million, but just a few. *laughs*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Essential Information<\/u><\/strong><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> USA<\/p>\n

Band members: <\/strong>John D Cronise [vocals, guitar], Kyle Shutt [guitar], Bryan Richie [bass], and Santiago Vela III [drums]<\/p>\n

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

Forthcoming release: <\/strong>Used Future \u2013 (March 23 \u2013 Spinefarm \/ Caroline Australia<\/strong>)<\/p>\n

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