In the highly competitive genre of heavy metal music, it would be a band’s wildest fantasy to be offered a record contract mere hours after releasing their first song. However, for Albany’s latest head-banging sensation this became a reality.
Originating as strictly a studio project between two friends, Animal is now a full-fledged, 5-piece band that’s quickly becoming nationally recognized within the developing subgenre of metal known as down-tempo.
This past fall they released their debut EP “Instinct” through We Are Triumphant Records and have just finished up their first small tour alongside Albany locals The Alaskan and Virginia’s RVNT.
All of the progress they’ve made has happened incredibly quickly considering that just the idea of Animal was created less than a year ago by vocalist Sean Loucks and guitarist John Folino after the disbandment of their old band Know Your Strength.
After deciding that they wanted to continue making music, Loucks and Folino wrote, recorded, and released Animal’s first single “Dark Room” all within the time span of two days. Then, just a couple hours after they posted it online they received an email from We Are Triumphant’s owner Greg Long asking them to join the We Are Triumphant roster.
Loucks and Folino sat down to explain the past, present and future of Animal before they performed to a rowdy crowd of over 200 people in Albany last Friday.
“We just wanted to make music as far as making everything moveable. Only two steps and breakdowns,” said Loucks with a laugh.
In this case, “two steps” and “breakdowns” are each types of rhythmic patterns found in metal music that incite various styles of “moshing” or “hardcore dancing” from the crowd. These are both common traits within the down-tempo genre.
“We agreed in the beginning to make it just a studio band. It was just gonna be us two writing music,” said Loucks.
“We were just trying to see how people liked it and if people liked it a lot we’d eventually become a full band,” said Folino.
However, after they received the offer from Long they had to quickly put together a full band in order to sign the contract. The other three members- drummer Nick Manzella, guitarist Anthony Salvaggio, and bassist Brandon Jared-all played in another Albany local band at the time called The Less We Know.
“I didn’t know any of [those] members before Animal,” said Loucks.
“I knew them but I wasn’t like good friends with them or anything,” added Folino.
On top of that the band had only practiced together twice before their first show when they opened for Black Tongue, Gideon, and Villains this past August. But despite their lack of experience together Loucks was surprised at how well they performed.
“We just came out and crushed it. We did very well for only playing together twice,” he said.
The band didn’t play another show until their “Instinct” CD release show in November in which they, again, opened for Villains. However, their music began to pick up momentum online as We Are Triumphant pushed their band out of the local realm.
“That label has the most die-hard fans ever. If any heavy band joins that label then [the fans] are into it,” said Loucks. “If we did this all on our own we wouldn’t have the fanbase that we have now,” he said.
To put it into perspective, Animal have over 17,000 YouTube views on their lyric video for the song “Worthless” that they released just four months ago. Their tour-mates The Alaskan, a local Albany band who’ve been around for over twice as long as Animal, have just over 2,000 YouTube views on a video they put out over eight months ago.
Numbers such as these exhibit the promotional capabilities We Are Triumphant possesses that have allowed Animal to transcend the local scene without even having to physically put themselves in front of audiences.
And with the hype they’ve been receiving via online platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, multiple different tour opportunities have begun to open up for Animal.
“We have Canada offers, West coast offers, offers from all over the place,” said Loucks.
“But at this point we’re kind of waiting for the best choice,” said Folino.
“You always want to go with something that’s going to help you,” added Loucks.
They made it clear that Animal aren’t just taking every opportunity that comes their way. They have to make the best business decision as well. Considering that each member currently works a full-time job, it’s difficult to work around everyone’s schedule and Animal want to make sure that they’re getting the most out of each tour.
But despite the many positive ways social media has impacted them, it’s also opens them up to widespread criticism via internet comment threads. Incessant trash-talking and senseless negativity is especially prevalent throughout the metal community, particularly within niche genres such as down-tempo. And Animal feel as though Louck’s vocals and the band’s overall sound have been subject to lazy comparisons and empty-headed bashing due to the similarities between themselves and Sworn In, the current figureheads of down-tempo.
“My vocals might be comparable to another band’s, say Sworn In. I know everybody says that,” said Loucks. “[But] I think I’m a lot different. Our lyrics themselves are completely more manic than any band I’ve ever heard and I think that’s a huge difference,” he said.
“It’s like there’s all these diehard Sworn In fans saying ‘oh here comes another band…gotta hate them now….just cause,’” joked Folino. “If another band was as big as [Sworn In] we’d be compared to them. It’s just cause they’re the hugest in the genre,” he said.
Loucks and Folino also described the differences between their live performance and those of other down-tempo bands such as Sworn In, Villains, and Barrier.
“Another thing is, when we play live we have a better hardcore style. We’re jumping in the air and doing spins. You don’t see that with down-tempo bands other than us,” he said.
“We’re just really weird,” said Folino with a laugh. “You’d have to see it,” he said.
And fortunately more people will be seeing it. Their next show will be their biggest one yet, as they’re opening for Sworn In, The Plot In You, I Declare War, and Gift Giver at Bogies on April 17th. A couple days after that they’ll be doing a few dates with Idaho’s Extortionist and they promise to have either a new single or a full-length out by this Fall.
“We’ll see what we can sneak out,” Loucks said with a smirk.
Check out Animal on:
https://www.facebook.com/animalNY
-Eli Enis
