Interview with Set Your Goals by James Gobee

Interview with Set Your Goals
By James Gobee
Pictures by Dan Bassini

At one point in time they were known as the next pirates from the Bay Area. SET YOUR GOALS started out as a small band coming out of Orinda, CA and over the years the Northern Californian six-piece has come to grow into itself. The band uniquely blends pop punk and melodic hardcore in a way that appeals to the masses.

“When we formed as a full band early in 2004, we expected to put out a demo and play local hardcore shows. Maybe leave the Bay Area and do a West Coast tour if we were lucky,” straight edge vocalist Matt Wilson said. “We didn’t take it seriously at all for the first year or so, then when the demo went up online we got all these requests to play peoples’ cities so we started booking our own tours.”

Having friends that were in hardcore or metal bands made it easy for them to book shows and tour in the beginning.

The band’s first studio album Mutiny! was released July 11, 2006 on Eulogy Recordings and set the tone for things to come for SYG and all bands alike. The thing that they feel makes them different from bands that are similar is that they have a message to share.

Each one of the guys come from a hardcore punk background and all feel it’s important to have something more to say in their songs than just “you broke my heart” or “I have a crush on you.” This is what their song “This Song Is Definitely NOT About A Girl”, off of Mutiny!, is all about.

Tracks like “To Be Continued…” and “Echoes” have become fan favorites that hold crowd chants, breakdowns and a fast paced lyrical style that keeps things interesting.

The band made a music video for the song “Mutiny!” and it shows the guys wielding swords and wearing bandanas and eye patches, driving around in their white tour van decorated with appropriate skull and cross bones. The low budget video with a pirate theme certainly produces a chuckle. The band is shown performing the song in what looks to be a garage and are approached by two “Big Fat Record” label suits. They are presented with a contract to sign them as the next big thing and refuses. The song says, “Don’t sign our lives away to impure industries.” SET YOUR GOALS has remained true to their fans and humble even though their success has sky rocketed them to new heights.

Co-vocalist Jordan Brown said that the video and song chronicles what they were going through at the time with their label. It got to be so much for them that they almost broke-up. There is a line in “Mutiny!” that really hits home for Brown and it says, “There’s too much business in this, I’m going back to my garage.”

It seems that the boys have found a home at Epitaph Records as Epitaph helped put out their sophomore album, This Will Be the Death of Us, and now their highly anticipated junior album, Burning at Both Ends.

In the seven years that they have been together, they have come far from the Bay Area as a small pop core band and seem to even surprise them.

“When I think about how far we’ve come since we started and how many amazing things we’ve been afforded in the seven years that we’ve been a band, I’d say we feel accomplished, surprised, and appreciated,” Wilson said.

The album title, Burning at Both Ends, is representative of the bands lifestyle. Everyday they are working and struggling, putting their lives at home, finances and health on the line for the band. They are never caught taking a break and they feel that they can rarely catch one either so they feel that they are burning the candle at both ends at times. As each album slightly differs from the previous, Burning at Both Ends still remains similar in everything the band stands for.

“Our underlying attitude and ethics behind our lyrical messages have always remained the same,” Wilson said. “The inspiration still comes from wanting to create the best music we can. At the end of the day, what’s most important to us is that we’re happy with what we’ve created in the studio because we’re the ones who have to go out and play those songs each night for rest of our band’s existence!”

Last month Burning at Both Ends hit the shelves, which is packed with more chants, sick breakdowns and a cameo appearance from Andrew Neufeld from the Canadian hardcore band COMEBACK KID on the track “Illuminated Youth”.

“Each of the songs stand alone from the others, very different vibes. They are all under three minutes long and there are thirteen of them. There are some darker songs and some songs that aren’t gonna make any sense to people less we explain them more, but that’s always the most fun,” Brown admits. “When you can talk to someone at a show and share what something is about, when they attach themselves to [a song] as much as you did.  I don’t think the record is as instantly catchy but I do think it’s a grower. It will take a few listens to get, but for those who get it, I think and hope it will stick with them for years to come.”

The album is comprised of tracks that all have special meanings and appeal to the ear.

The track “Exit Summer” has already become a hit to those who have heard it. Wilson said that it’s a song about the low points that come with being in a full-time band, the struggle within and finding the power within yourself to find perspective to look past the “now” and realize how lucky they are to be given the opportunity to do what that they do.

“There are times on tour where we’re miserable and it can be very difficult to realize that someday we won’t be able to do this for a living, so the song was written as a sort of ‘carpe diem’ directed at ourselves,” Wilson said.

“Happy New Year 2010” is about one particular day, March 26, 2010, the worst day in Wilson’s life he said– the day his mother passed away. The song is full of feeling of how Wilson felt on that day. “It’s how even when you think things could be the best they’ve ever been, it can all come crashing down with a single phone call,” Wilson said. “Things could only go uphill from there and even though I knew that in the back of my mind, I just couldn’t see through the darkness at that point in time.”

On a tour now that has spanned through the UK and back to the States, the boys have been giving live audiences a taste of Burning at Both Ends.

Brown says that “Illuminated Youth”, “London Heathrow”, “Not As Bad” and “Product of the 80s” were some of his favorite songs that he sung on the album and in the band’s existence.

Even when touring around the world, traveling to places that they only dreamed of in the past, the boys manage to keep their heads about them and not let their success get the best of them. Just like every band, SET YOUR GOALS looks forward to going back to their hometown in the Bay Area, but as they are still young they get reminded of what they leave behind on tour each time. Wilson says that going home from tour is a reality check.

“It’s not difficult at all to keep myself grounded because when I’m home I see all my friends getting married, making real money, buying houses, and doing ‘grown up’ stuff like that,” Wilson said.

While all of his friends seem to be “growing up”, Wilson just hangs out with friends, sees movies, buys stuff he doesn’t need, etc. and admits that it’s like he’s stuck in teenager mode.

“It can actually get kind of discouraging sometimes because I know that if I cared enough about being financially secure, maintaining a stable relationship, or doing any of those other things that adults do, it’d mean I’d have to stop touring and settle down in life. There are times when I wish I did have some of that stuff going on in my life,” Wilson confesses. “Someday I’ll have to face the music, but right now touring the world is what makes me happy, even if it is stunting my growth in terms of entering the ‘adult’ world, so to speak.”

A little bit of Burning at Both Ends has already been shared out on the bands Facebook page, the Epitaph web site and other sites. SYG put out a video for the song “Certain” off the new album as of June 8.

The video shows the band, arriving in a DeLorean, as performers at a 1987 high school dance who end up battling a massive blob that the crowd turns into thanks to someone spiking the punch.

Burning at Both Ends is in stores now so get your copy and see why there has been so much anticipation for this album and catch them as they take the Vans Warped Tour 2011 from coast to coast!!

Popularity: unranked