IN THIS MOMENT Guitarist Says Losing Management And Bandmembers Was 'Meant To Be'

Bob Zerull of Zoiks! Online recently conducted an interview with guitarist Chris Howorth of Southern California's IN THIS MOMENT. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Zoiks! Online: First I want to say congratulations on the new album, "Blood". For how good it is and second for how well it's doing. At what point in the process did you know you were onto something special?

Chris Howorth: Well, thank you for that. We feel the same way about it. Honestly, it was kind of weird, because I don't know how much you know, but right before we went in to do the album… three months before, our manager dropped us and then a month later two of the guys in the band quit. We were like, "What are we going to do?" Really questioning ourselves, Maria [Brink, vocals] and I. But we rallied; we were trying to find new management while we were writing songs in my bedroom, trying to write some stuff that would be awesome. At a certain point, our friend Kevin [Churko, producer], who did the album with us, said… and this was like three or four months before we went in to do the record, he was like, "Come into the studio for a week. We're going to do a couple songs and this will help us show everybody what we're doing," because he believed in the band. Pretty much after we did "Blood", we were like, "What the hell is this?" We'd never done anything like it. We thought that it was something special. Once we sent it out all these managers that we'd been talking to… they didn't necessarily want to manage us, they were just like, "We'll see how it goes." Once they heard the song, they were like, "We want to manage you guys." We finally picked our manager that way. Once that happened, we realized that this was special. Everything that happened to us, with the management leaving us, and the guys leaving, was meant to be, because it opened us up to make the album that was made and to be where we are now. From that point on, it was, like, "This is going to be our best album ever."

Zoiks! Online: That was going to be my next question. When the two guys left, did you know you had it in you? How close to not continuing on where you?

Chris Howorth: I remember when I was on the phone with Jeff [Fabb], I had a moment where I was like, "I can't do this anymore." I've been that guy in the band since I was the kid, finding people and firing people and trying to make it. No matter what band I was in, I was that guy. It was a serious roller coaster of emotions. One minute you're on top of the world, the next minute you're depressed. It was maybe like forty minutes of tears and what are we gonna do, then it was like, "Fuck this." I'm not going to lie and say that we felt 100 percent from that moment on, because we definitely had our ups and downs. Once we heard the songs going and got the new management, we started to realize that this is the best thing that could have happened to us and we have to forge forward.

Zoiks! Online: Maria had been joining SHINEDOWN on stage [during the Rockstar Enery Drink Uproar Festival]. How did that come about?

Chris Howorth: Dude, SHINEDOWN… we'd never toured with them before. They're on our same management. Before this tour even started, we did a month-long tour with them headlining and ADELITAS WAY and we were opening the show. The first day Brent [Smith, SHINEDOWN singer] found us and was the most gracious man in the world. "Anything you need, come to me, I'm a huge fan of the record." We started noticing they were watching us every day. Barry [Kerch], the drummer, came up and was like, "I'm a huge fan. I love you guys." All this stuff and we were just blown away. We couldn't believe these guys were being so cool and helpful to us. Brent had the idea, "Hey, I think it'd be cool if you came up and sang with us." Maria obviously said, "Hell, yes" as fast as she could. Those guys being who they are, which is completely awesome people, plus they're fans of the band, and they like us as people, too, and they're trying to help us, and it's humbling and awesome.

Read the entire interview at Zoiks! Online. The chat is also available for streaming in audio format.

Photo credit: Robert John Kley