the band members of smile empty soul:
Sean Danielsen Derek Gledhill Ryan Martin
Smile Empty Soul info genre: alternative rock origin : Santa Clarita, CA links website smileemptysoul.com
Instead of drugs, it could be something else that you live for as a person -- your own personal high." - Sean Danielsen
In an era where heavy music has become more than stereotypical, the Santa Clarita California trio known as Smile Empty Soul comes off as a breath of fresh air... a revelation, actually.
"Just because we have heavy songs doesn't mean they are typical headbanger songs", says Sean Danielsen, Smile Empty Soul's 21-year-old singer, guitarist, and lyricist.
"We want our songs to be real songs first -- something that will work on just an acoustic guitar.
We may like different styles, but the one thing we are all influenced by is a good song. We like heavy stuff.
Nirvana is something we all agree on, but we also like the Beatles -- that stuff is timeless.
A great song never gets old, no matter what the trends are. I even like James Taylor and music like that."
The diverse trio of Smile Empty Soul came together four years ago in the California bedroom community of Santa Clarita.
Although the members attended rival high schools, they were united by a "mutual love of music."
Drummer Derek Gledhill played in bands throughout his high school years, bassist Ryan Martin was in his first band at the age of 12, and Danielsen began playing in a rock band at age 11.
Smile Empty Soul slowly evolved and perfected its sound, regularly playing the two small clubs in Santa Clarita and making the trek to the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.
Their demo came to the attention of Todd Parker, an A&R man for ThroBack Records, and the band eventually hooked up with producer/songwriter John Lewis Parker. Parker worked with the band for almost 2 years, signing them to his ThroBack label before their subsequent deal with Lava Records.
The band's music is full of memorable hooks and melodies, while Danielsen's lyrics eloquently speak to a new generation of disenfranchised youth as well as -- or better than -- any group's words have in years. "Everyone goes through depressed times in their lives," says the charismatic singer, whose lyrics often explode with anger and angst. "I'm actually a fairly happy guy, especially right now. But no matter how happy I am, there are still a lot of problems in everyday life -- and I just want to write about those things because it helps me. And hopefully, people can relate and it might help them, too."
Not that there's a lack of humor behind the heavy emotion -- Danielsen's publishing company is named God Hates Me Music -- but his anger also seems like a natural progression. Like most such things, his resentment of authority figures and societal hypocrisy can be traced back to childhood. At the age of 7, his "very religious" mother and stepfather took him to live in an abandoned summer camp in Maine. "It was strange because we were basically alone for three years; I didn't see any other children or, really, anybody else in all that time," he recalls. "We were living in the middle of the forest, and in the winter, we had snow blowing inside and no indoor ventilation. Of course, now I'm against the whole idea of organized religion." He eventually moved back to California to live with his dad, but those childhood memories are reflected today in songs like "Every Sunday" and "The Other Side."
Other tunes hit closer to his current home, including "Bottom of a Bottle," the first single, and "Nowhere Kids," a genuine modern successor to anthems like the Who's "My Generation," the Replacements' "Bastards of Young," and Black Sabbath's "Children of the Grave." Says the lyricist: "I was just writing about our friends back in Santa Clarita. Nobody there thinks about their future. When most of my friends graduated from high school, they didn't do anything. They didn't go to college. Some of them got lousy jobs and are just barely surviving. And those same kids, all they do is get fucked-up. That's all they wait for; they live for that. But there can be another side to it. Instead of drugs, it could be something else that you live for as a person -- your own personal high. I didn't intend 'Bottom of a Bottle' of to be a party song. Basically, everyone has something that makes them feel alive and that's what the song is about."

FEATURE - Meet The New Nowhere Kids 11/16/2003 By Lyndsey Parker
The band name says it all: Smile Empty Soul. With their self-titled debut, this alt-rock trio from Santa Clarita, California (the edge-of-L.A. desert town that served as the backdrop for cult vampire flick The Lost Boys) have created a masterwork of brooding moodiness, all fired up with the angst and anger of surly suburbia. Song titles like "Nowhere Kids," "This Is War," "Therapy," "With This Knife," and "All My Problems" all point to a distinctly Cobainian influence, but this type of ennui is universal, appealing to disenfranchised youth of every generation and genre. And really, when the band came to LAUNCH's studios for an exclusive interview and performance session, they turned out to be surprisingly well-adjusted and upbeat--which is especially commendable in the case of frontman Sean Danielson, who had quite an unusual upbringing (read on for more on that).
During the aforementioned interview with LAUNCH editor Lyndsey Parker, Danielson discussed not only his childhood but other serious subjects like religion, war, politics, suicide, drugs, the music business...you know, typical rock 'n' roll stuff. But overall, it was a fun discussion, not a downer experience at all. Check out what Danielson had to say below...
LAUNCH: How autobiographical are your lyrics?
SEAN: Our lyrics are very personal for me, because they draw on experiences in my life and things I've been through and felt. They are directly from my head, pretty much.
LAUNCH: Would you say there's one unifying theme or message throughout your lyrics?
SEAN: No, I would think that the only thing that binds them all together is my head!
LAUNCH: Is it difficult or painful for you to sing about personal matters onstage, revisiting those memories night after night?
SEAN: It's pretty easy to sing them night after night, even though they are pretty emotional, because after a while you're not really necessarily revisiting those places, you're kind of just pouring your heart out into the song and the performance. And also the kids are giving you back so much positive feedback that it really makes it worth it.
LAUNCH: Do you have stories about things that fans have said to you, in person or in letters or emails?
SEAN: We get tons of letters from fans, and the fans always run up to us and tell us how much our songs mean to them. And in the letters that they give me, a lot of times they are talking about how they wanted to commit suicide, or they were thinking about it, and our songs really helped them to not do that and pull through the situation. So that really makes me feel good, that our music had a positive effect on somebody.
LAUNCH: Can you explain what your single "Bottom Of A Bottle" is about, with its chorus of "I do it for the drugs"?
SEAN: "Bottom Of A Bottle" is pretty much a song about whatever keeps you going through life, whatever your personal addiction is, because everybody has that real important thing that makes them want to keep going. The word "drugs" in that song represents whatever that is for you personally.
LAUNCH: Have you got any flak about that? Has the song been banned anywhere?
SEAN: There are some stations that wouldn't play it because of what it said, but it was a very small amount, like five stations, so it wasn't really that big of a deal. The biggest thing that happened with that song was that MTV and Fuse and MTV2 wouldn't actually say the word "drugs," so they made us do an edited version. But we wouldn't change the word itself. Like, if you want to edit me, fine, but I don't really want to edit myself, you know?
LAUNCH: Right. Well, that makes sense. Are you afraid about people misconstruing the song and thinking you're just a big party band?
SEAN: We were pretty reluctant to release that as a first single, because I think you might judge us and get the wrong idea based on just that one song. The song fits well with the rest of the record, but I think the rest of the record is much better, actually. I just think that before you judge our band, if you've only heard that one song, you should definitely listen to the whole record.
LAUNCH: Let's talk about some of the other songs on your album. A timely one is "This Is War," considering what's going on right now. Was that at all inspired by the war in Iraq?
SEAN: Yeah, "This Is War" was just basically a song I wrote right before--it was like a month before we went into Iraq, I think, and I was just being bombarded by all the news. I always watch the news anyway, so it wasn't something where I sat down and I was like, "Oh, I'm going to write a song about the situation," but it just kind of came out. It's basically about somebody joining the military in order to straighten out their life or get college paid for, whatever, and then being thrown into the middle of a war and having to be in a situation where they have to kill people, or be killed. I have a lot of friends that that happened to, and it's a pretty weird, scary situation.
LAUNCH: Was there any concern, either from you or from your label, about that song generating too much controversy, in light of the Dixie Chicks and other artists getting attacked for stating anti-war beliefs? It seems a lot of people are really reluctant to speak up in such a conservative climate.
SEAN: Yeah, but we actually wrote that song and recorded it and it was ready to go on the record before that really started happening. But even if it was after, I still would have gone through with it, because I don't really give a f--k about that.
LAUNCH: Do you consider Smile Empty Soul a political band in any way?
SEAN: No, I don't really consider ourselves a political band because, you know, a political band is like Rage Against The Machine. We're not as hardcore as that. I just talk about whatever I'm really feeling at the time, so once in a while it might be politics--but not in the same way as a real political band.
LAUNCH: Let talk about another song, ""Every Sunday," which I know has something to do with your childhood... "If music hadn't panned out for me, I would have no future whatsoever. I'd just be working at Mickey-D's or something."
SEAN: Yeah, "Every Sunday" is basically about just hypocritical churchgoers, because when I was young my mom used to drag me to church every week and I just noticed a lot of funny things going on. I thought it was weird that my parents couldn't even notice, you know? It just seemed like everyone was at church just to make themselves look a certain way, rather than because they wanted to be a good person or help people. It was more like wanted their own self-image to be great, and then on their "off-days" they were just as bad as anybody else--especially with the Catholic priest thing. I mean, look at that, you know? I think that's the worst thing you can do, is molest a little kid. It f--ks them up for the rest of their lives.
LAUNCH: Didn't you spend some time in a religious commune? Or you had some unusual experience growing up like in a Christian camp?
SEAN: Well, when I was 7 years old, me, my mom, my stepdad, and my little brother moved to Maine, and the economy is not so hot there, so the only place there to live was a summer camp that was a relative of my stepdad's. It wasn't a commune, although some people have said it is a commune. That's ridiculous. It was just not really a good place to be, because it didn't really have running water or insulation or heating, so it was pretty weird. We lived there for about three years and then we moved into the city in Maine, which wasn't so hot either because we moved into low-income housing projects. And I finally moved back to Los Angeles [Santa Clarita] when I was 15.
LAUNCH: How do the religious members of your family feel about some of the things that you write and sing about?
SEAN: When our record first came out, my mom's side of the family--which is the more religious side--they were a little shocked, I think, and maybe a little hurt by it in some spots. But they definitely have gotten over it and they are proud of me and stuff, so we have a good relationship still.
LAUNCH: Were you afraid to let them hear the album? Did you try to shield them from it?
SEAN: I wasn't really afraid that my mom or any of them would hear it. I was kind of just dreading the explaining they were going to try to make me do, because they'd hear something and be like, "What is this about?" And then I'd have to justify what I'm writing about. So I was dreading that, but you know, I knew it was going to happen.
LAUNCH: When you moved back to California, you were living with your dad. He's a musician, right? What is his opinion of your music?
SEAN: My dad is as proud as can be about what's going on with us, because when he was my age that's what he was trying to do--he played in bands his whole life and it's a really rough business and it's hard to get a break, even just to get a record deal. So he's very, very proud of me.
LAUNCH: Can you talk about your experiences gigging around L.A., when you were trying to get a break? I know they weren't the best of times for you guys.
SEAN: It was kind of a rough scene. It's not really based on the songs you write or how good your band is--not that we were that great or anything! It's just we were never given a break by any of the promoters because it's more of a popularity contest: The bands that were best friends with the promoters would get the best timeslots, and therefore build a fanbase because a lot of people would see them. Whereas we would be playing slots that were like, 7:45 on a Monday evening, and nobody would be there except our friends. It's really hard to build a following like that.
LAUNCH: So how did you build a following? Did you find some other way?
SEAN: We didn't make it through the traditional way of building a following and getting a label's interest through that. We made it through self-funding our own demo tapes and just passing them out to as many people as we could for free, just to get people to hear it. And we got a CD to our producer, John Parker, who produced our record and owns Throwback Records. He signed us.
LAUNCH: So is John Parker sort of like the fourth member of your band, or your mentor? How would you describe your relationship with him?
SEAN: John Parker is a really good guy and he knows music. And he'll shoot us straight about anything; if we play him a song, he'll say, "I don't know about this part, maybe you should rewrite it. It's strong here. It's weak here..." And we take his advice most of the time because we feel he knows what he's talking about. It's hard to judge your own songs, so if I write a song and I play it for him and he's like, "Well, all the lyrics are great except this part--you kind of lose focus here," for me, that's just constructive criticism and I'll take it back and rewrite it. I think he helped us a lot.
LAUNCH: When you moved out to California to live with your dad, was that when you first started getting into playing music?
SEAN: I started playing piano when I was 9. Actually, I was going to lessons with my mom, because my mom would take her guitar lesson right after my piano lesson, and I would always sit and just watch her guitar lesson. And I started picking out what they were talking about one day and I just picked up her guitar when we were at home and started teaching myself, and it clicked right away. I started learning very quickly and it was what I wanted to do from that moment on; it seemed so right for me. So I was involved in that since I was 10.
LAUNCH: What was growing up in Santa Clarita like? For some reason I keep thinking of that movie The Lost Boys, because it was filmed there.
SEAN: Was it? They film a lot of movies there.
LAUNCH: I think I read it actually in your press kit, where it was saying that Santa Clarita was sort of a dead end--that there's nothing to do but party and take drugs and be, well, lost boys.
SEAN: Yeah, Santa Clarita is pretty much just like that. It's actually getting pretty big now, but it's just a desert town where a bunch of upper-middle-class people moved so they could get to L.A. and back real quickly. And the kids are just at home all day by themselves, no supervision, and of course they all end up getting into drugs and whatever. By the time me and my friends were graduating high school, no one really gave a sh-t about what they were going to do as far as college goes, or career-wise. We all just kept looking for the nearest party and getting f--ked up. That's about it. That's how the town is.
LAUNCH: So what were you going to do if your music thing hadn't panned out? Was there any Plan B? What do you think you would be doing?
SEAN: Hmmm...if music hadn't panned out for me, I would have no future whatsoever. I'd just be working at Mickey-D's or something. [laughs]
LAUNCH: This is kind of a loaded question, but there are a lot of bands right now that do an angst-ridden thing, and at times it kind of rings hollow, like they're doing it just because it's fashionable. It doesn't sound very deep to me. What do you think sets you guys apart from those bands, to show people that where you are coming from is genuine and sincere?
SEAN: Well, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel or anything. It's not like we sound so amazing and different from everybody else. We're just a band that focuses on writing good songs in a rock genre, and I think what sets us apart is definitely the directness of the lyrics, because we go straight at whatever we're talking about. I definitely try to attack what I'm talking about, if I'm attacking something. Or if I'm not attacking it, whatever it is I'm doing, I'm definitely doing it direct--whereas lot of bands just kind of skirt around what they're talking about. So I think if you can relate to any of the things I'm talking about, you get it right away.
LAUNCH: Can you talk about some of your musical influences, especially lyrically?
SEAN: My biggest lyrical influence is John Lennon. My biggest musical influences are the whole '90s grunge scene, like Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana, all those bands. I was also a really huge metalhead, too--like Pantera, Korn, and the Deftones are still my favorite bands.
LAUNCH: Can you describe your live show at all? Do you rock out really hard and over-the-top?
SEAN: Our live show is pretty much what we did here today [at LAUNCH's studios]: Just us, three guys playing our songs as best we can. But usually the room would be packed with kids that are right there with us, so that's what makes a live show to me: the kids.
LAUNCH: So your live show isn't a flashy kind of thing.
SEAN: Our live show is definitely not flashy. No pyrotechnics!
LAUNCH: You were quoted in a magazine article as saying you didn't want to be a huge rock star--that it's not really something you dreamed about, unlike a lot of people who go into music and start bands. Do you really not want to be famous?
SEAN: Nah, I'd rather be able to just be normal, but be able to do music for a living. That's always been my dream, is just do music for a living and be able to hang out and walk around just like everybody else.

Bottom Of A Bottle Lyrics

Been scared and lonely I've asked myself is something wrong with you My girlfriend told me I need some time alone to deal with issues

But something makes me carry on It's difficult to understand Why I always wanna fly

I do it for the drugs I do it just to feel alive I do it for the love That I get from the bottom of a bottle

You always call me And ask me how I make it through the day I'm always fallin' I guess it's just God's way of making me pay

But something makes me carry on It's difficult to understand, why I always wanna fly

I do it for the drugs I do it just to feel alive I do it for the love That I get from the bottom of a bottle I do it for the drugs I do it just to feel alive I do it for the love That I get from the bottom of a bottle

When I, I wonder why I try And I, I wonder why I bother And I, I wonder why I cry Why I, I go through all this trouble

I do it for the drugs I do it just to feel alive I do it for the love That I get from the bottom of a bottle I do it for the drugs I do it just to feel alive I do it for the love That I get from the bottom of a bottle

silhouettes
silhouettes above the cradle hold me down they won't let me go the wrong way my mother taught me all the fables, told me how in the end all the sinners have to pay but... [Chorus:] i don't wanna live like my mother i don't wanna let fear rule my life and i don't wanna live like my father i don't wanna give up before i die he worked so hard his bones are breaking he wore them down but long ago he lost the feeling his good intentions leave me shaking, show me how i don't ever want to end up like he did and... [Chorus] when i have kids i won't put any chains on their wrists, i won't i'll tell them this there's nothing in this world that you can't be if you want it enough [Chorus x2]
nowhere kids
in the land of dirt and plaster lies an army of a thousand nowhere kids losing ground and falling faster into a life that no one should have to live we are the people that you hate we are the bastards that you created (the fucking bastards that you created) a generation with no place a generation of all your sons and daughters behind the fake family image behind the smile of a thousand moms and dads inside the cage that we've been given i see an image of the future that we don't have [chorus] and what did you expect ... a perfect child raised by tv sets ... abandoned every mile we never get respect ... never a fair trial no one gives a shit ... as long as we smile
this is war
i'm just a normal man i wouldn't hurt nothing at all but here we are our leaders have a plan i'd only kill if it's for them now here we are i drove in a car and flew in a plane to come to your house and kick your door in now it's down to this, it's just you and me i'll blow your fucking head off for my country i go to church and tithe i go to work in a suit and tie but this is war i'm really not sure why but the tv says that you are wrong now here we are [chorus] my feet hurt from the sand but still i march on gun in hand cause this is war this isn't what i planned i wanted to be so much more but this is war [chorus]
therapy
too many weeds in the flowers too many pills in the pharmacy now too many bugs in the shower there's too much shit in the air we breathe now there's too much anger inside me there's too much scarring when i bleed there's too much therapy i need there is no god that i have seen there's too much doubt in my mom's words there's too much fear in the way she sees life i wonder if i'm just like her i wonder if i can make myself right you try to help you listen well you cannot change the way i see
for you
waited for you i died inside my own head and i'd die again for you i'm faded and tired completely uninspired and i'd die again for you so kill me with the love that you won't give to me and pack the wound with salt i want to feel it bleed i'm searching for reasons to keep away the demons and i'd die again for you i wish you were near me could feel it when you hear me say i'd die again for you so kill me with the love that you won't give to me and pack the wound with salt i want to feel it bleed you wanted me to crawl so now i'm on my knees why's it always have to be me that's always left out to burn and i'll never learn
stand there with your ball and chain bitch about what you've created all caught up in the masquerade you've already been paid and made it so don't pretend to know what it's like to feel the things that we must live through you only see with your dying eyes there's only one thing i will ask of you can you take this life can you make it right do you have the words to say to make it all go away you act so wise and so refined u can keep your lies cos i'm never gonna go your way promises of a better life but what's wrong with the one i'm leading everyone has a different fight a different wound that keeps them bleeding so what's wrong with a little fun everybody needs to find their something is this how your gonna treat your son fuck 'em up and give em nothing [chorus] everybody needs to find their own way through life everybody needs to find their own way

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