LMP Interview w/ Josh Miller (Drums) by Nathaniel Lay

Have you heard of THOSE WHO FEAR yet? They’re the latest addition to the Facedown Records roster, and they will will hit your speakers this February with Unholy Anger, the full length follow up to their self-released Legacy EP. During an in depth interview with Josh Miller (drums) for another magazine, we had so much left over content that we could not just let go to waste! Here are the words that will not appear in print anywhere else…

How did the band form? From where are you guys hailing?

We come from Pennsylvania. We all come from Pittsburgh, except our guitar player, Trevor, who is from Orlando. The band actually formed during 2006/2007. They started off more so as a regional, tri-state act, weekend warrior kind of thing, playing just the neighboring states. Not doing too much touring until 2009. That’s when they became more of a national touring band. Maybe not quite that level, but branching out and trying to get too many states as possible.

How is the scene in PA? How did it affect the making of your band and your music?

It’s sort of a tough city to come up in as a metal band. It’s not like the Hollywood of the West Coast, where you can play a show at any venue and have some guy that owns a label there. It’s not really a music industry, based city. Kids like what they like. If you’re not right there, you’re not going to get played there. It’s a harsh city. It’s hard to become a popular band of the city. So our music is really aggressive and really heavy, after the kids of where we’re from. Most of the city is a hard, blue collar, working city, and that’s how we try to put out our music.

What bands inspire Those Who Fear?

All kinds of bands, even the kinds we may not even sound like. We listen to a lot of Bury Your Dead, Emmure, Acacia Strain…any thing that is really heavy could fall into the category. There are some of our other favorite bands that aren’t quite that style, like Trivium and Distburbed, that still may do something on their records to inspire something we later try in our style.

With your genre, having the Christian element there especially, there are a lot of fans that will go to bands and tell them how a specific album or song may have helped them in life, maybe even kept them from doing something drastic. It gave them hope, understanding, compassion, or something else along those lines. Have you guys experienced anything like that yet?

For sure. Even back during the earlier years, we would have people come to us and tell us how they waited all week to hear us play, and we talk to them, they’d tell us how some lyrics helped them. Or if not that, at least how they can relate to the songs and connect. And that means a lot to us. It’s very flattering to have the kids care about the music so much.

When reading up on you guys, it was noted that you’re a band with a message. Being with Facedown Records, that is to be expected. But I wanted to hear your specific view on it, and how you would define your presence.

We are a Christian band. We all have that common ground, where we base our lives on that, Christianity, and Jesus Christ. We try to show that through our music without watering down. We want it raw and straight forward. There’s an option to the kids where this may not be for them, but that’s OK. I’m free to listen to a band that says they hate God, but I want to know why. So we do the same thing in our music. We tell them why we believe in what we do, which can expose the kids to something they’ve never heard. It can give them hope, and we want them to know Jesus loves them.

How does your message maybe affect your touring, such as how you act as a band in public, or present yourselves on stage, et cetera?

We like to pray off stage, but not because we’re embarrassed to do so. We prayed on stage for three years. But like tours we’re doing now, you only have so much time allotted for you to play. So we like to do it before we go on stage, so if anything does go wrong, we have those extra minutes to fix our show. Because that’s our ticket to show people who we are and what believe. It’s really hard to get that all out while you’re on tour. But at our merch table, we do have a ton of bibles that we give out free to kids who are interested. So we do things like that at our shows.