For Wisconsin’s After Hour Animals, everything is bigger. The music, which lies in various rock and metal subgenres that could be classified as many – or any. The ambition, that shows in how the band have reigned in a passionate fanbase early on. And their mentality, which shows in releasing an EP and string of singles over the last couple years, the same thing that’s propelled them to a pretty solid 10K+ monthly listenership on Spotify despite not being a household name – yet.
Their newest single, “Lose My Head”, dropped on September 24th – and we think you’ll dig what this band has going on. Accessible enough to be the next hit #OctaneCore band, but heavy enough to appeal to those who like heavier music, it’s a pretty solid introduction to the band as well. Speaking of which, all the members of After Hour Animals do stuff other than music (shocking, I know), and one of their biggest collective interests? Video games. The band stopped by to discuss some of their favorite video games that have had a huge impact on their lives. Join us below.
“Lose My Head is about the constant struggle of wanting to let people in, but not being able to let go of past heartache. As you grow older love develops a new meaning, and you have to learn to balance love with the other aspects of your life such as work, fun, friends, and family. Oftentimes it feels as if we don’t have enough time in the day to fit it all in, which leads to stress and avoiding relationships completely. From personal experience, this has led to me abusing substances to block out the anxiety completely which only makes things worse. At the end of the day we need to all find the perfect balance in order to be happy.” – Nik Voyn, vocalist of After Hour Animals
Nik (vocalist) – For me it’s The Legend Of Zelda series, specifically Ocarina Of Time, and Majora’s Mask. These games are 2000% the reason I love to write music. The soundtracks on top of the amazing story made for a couple of perfect games in my opinion. Since then my favorite has been Breathe Of The Wild. It was the same thing, but even better. This game not only immersed me into the beautiful world and lore, but reminded me how music completely controls every feeling you have throughout game play.
Caylin (drums)- Super Mario Bros. 3 pretty much shaped my entire life.
It’s about a guy (me) chasing after something and having to go through many hardships just to get what he truly wants (the princess). On the other hand, there are new levels and new games that keep coming about to where he has to continually conquer more and more levels just to get what he wants is basically how I’ve based my life! It’s a never ending battle that I choose to keep battling to get what I want!
Armon (vocalist) – I’d have to say the God Of War games had a big impact on me. The story telling and just how epic the games were made me hooked from the start. Growing up I loved Greek mythology and that made me fall for those games even more.
Brandon (bass and guitar) – A video game that shaped me would have to be most of the Legend Of Zelda franchise, as in-depth those games go it was so fun to explore those worlds and how they tie together multiple games within that world, truly a part of my life growing up.
Bao (guitar) – My favorite game growing up was Pokémon. I liked how they had a bunch of them: red, blue, yellow etc. Collecting different Pokémon and evolving and traveling in the games was so satisfying and it was something I wish I could do as a kid. Kinda the same with the band and tour life. We travel to different places, play with different bands and eat and drink from all over the world growing and evolving at each stop.
Jasen (guitar) – Thinking back to when I was younger I’d definitely say that the Halo games were the ones that had the biggest impact on me. My friends and I would would get together, set up a bunch of different TV and Xboxes and have big LAN (local area network) parties. We would try to beat it on the hardest difficulty and get all the achievements. In order to do that, we’d all have our own personal objectives that we would have to do while simultaneously working as a team, which I think is something that you can incorporate into a lot of things in the real world. Being in a band is a perfect example of that- all playing our separate instruments but collectively all playing the same song.
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