Times change and we have, as of today, ditched Band of the Day. Instead, we welcome Another Now who are quite appropriately named to be our very first Headline Act!
Simple things first – where are you guys from and how did you meet?
We’re a group of guys from around the Eindhoven area in The Netherlands, who found each other through Facebook musician groups. Miquell (guitar, backing vocals) had been trying to get a metalcore band off the ground for years, with different people coming and going, before finally the stars aligned and the beginnings of our current line up suddenly came together.
How long have you been playing as a band?
The first formation dates back to January 2018. We used the whole year of 2018 to write songs and getting to know each other as band members. January 2019 is what we consider as our ‘first year’. It already has been three years since our first formation.
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
We started with the name ‘In Another Now’, which comes from the track ‘In Another Now’ by the band ‘While She Sleeps’. A great song with nice transitions and especially a good track title. The title spoke to us because it’s very multi-interpretable and sounds cool. In 2018, we deeply focused on the meaning of our name, so we decided to shorten it to ‘Another Now’, which stands for the pursuit towards a better and more balanced world.
What are your influences?
What influences us most is just simply the act of making music itself. We like to start with nothing but a couple of guys in a room, a guitar, a microphone and a laptop to record on, and then we just throw ideas on top of each other until we get something that triggers an emotional response.
If we can get one of us to go “ooh shit! That’s fire, let me try something now!” or just laugh hysterically, we know we’re making something special.
We’re all very different people when it comes to our musical tastes, but what we have in common most is a deep appreciation of bands like Crystal Lake, Northlane and Deftones. Aside from that we go all across the board with our influences, from jazz to hardstyle techno, from hiphop to black metal.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
I guess what kind of makes us unique as a band is the broad range of influences, tastes and talents we all bring to the table.
We have a lead vocalist who has the chameleon vocal folds of a million metal singers in one, going from the highest screams to the deepest low guttural roars. Combine this with a singer/bass player who spends every waking hour writing electronic beats and catchy choruses, a lightning fast shred guitarist, a human drum machine, an ambient-guitar-loop-hit-song-wizard, and a thirst to conquer the world, and you might end up with Another Now.
In the end we just try to keep it interesting.
If you like what we do, consider joining us on Patreon for as little as £1 per month!
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
Our previous releases bear a huge spectrum of strong emotions. Writing lyrics is like a therapy session, a free space to spit out all negative things and highlighting our lessons, in order to continue with a clear and healthy mind. It is like washing away all the anger inside, like in our track ‘Program’.
At the moment we’re putting together our first full length album, which lyrically revolves around the theme of mental health problems. This is a subject our main lyricist and vocalist Stef explored in his working life as a social worker in mental health care, and has a lot of passion for.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
The thing we love when we go to a show is when a band radiates a lot of energy through movement and dedication in their performance and convinces you to join the mosh pits. We also want to simulate such an atmosphere. Guitar spins, jumping around, interactions with the audience and stage dives from our lead vocalist Stef are the most common things for us while playing live shows and what we love to do. Also, we have our own light shows, programmed to our music, creating the experience to its fullest. We played a lot of shows in our short timespan as an active band, but it is never enough. We hope to resume our live shows in 2021.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
One of our favourite moments was when we opened for Ice Nine Kills in Amsterdam’s Melkweg. A packed show and the crowd was wild! At some point our vocalist Stef was yelling he wanted as many people as possible to crowd surf. People were crowd surfing and stage diving during the whole song and Stef also decided to join in on the fun, crowd surfing with the mic.
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
Our live set-up consists of seven-strings guitars; Miquell (Kiesel) Max (Orsmby) and Rik’s five-string bass from Ibanez. Respectively the guitarists play on pre-programmed Kemper Profilers while the bassist is relying on Dark Glass for his source tone. To compliment the heaviness our drummer Guyon uses a Yamaha drum kit, Zildjian Cymbals and Pro Mark drumsticks. To top of the show, we have a wall of sound coming from the backing track to really push the air in the room.
What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?
Recently we released our new track “Outflow”.
“Outflow” tells the story of us trying to find inspiration and happiness again, both as individuals and as a band, since 2020 and the pandemic have thrown so much shit at us since the release of our last EP Distance at the start of the year. At times we feel like we’re on top the world, and the very next moment we completely want to quit doing music all together, even though we all know deep down there’s nothing we’d rather be doing, or are even capable of doing.
The chronicles of all the highs and lows we go through, in search of that next hit of dopamine and happiness, we translated into this story of a singular person dealing with bipolar disorder.
Musically it’s just that kind of rollercoaster ride that you can expect from an Another Now track. It’s got the fast and complex pounding drums, relentless screamed vocals, anthemic choruses and chunky riffs, all bound together by ethereal synth pads, and at times we throw in some electronic beats or a nasty half-time mosh pit moment.
Don’t fancy Patreon? Buy us a one-off beverage!
What are your plans for the next 6 months or so?
We are currently in the studio tracking for a big release, to come in 2021! The next few months we will be shooting a couple music videos and getting our content ready for the big drop!
If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
It is hard to choose one band as headliner, but it would definitely be Northlane or Crystal Lake. And we would like to add our fellow Dutchies The Royal to this line-up. We opened our second show for them back in 2019. We love those guys and there’s always a good vibe. We love their music and they know how to put on a live performance.
Check out this month’s Headline Act Playlist on Spotify and YouTube
Another Now: facebook | twitter | instagram | bandcamp | spotify
