Muen Magazine

August 27, 2010

PROSEVERE

Gary Segars (Vocals)

Memphis, Tennessee

Myspace.com/prosevere

By: Shauna O’Donnell

HEY GUYS THIS IS SHAUNA O’DONNELL AND YOU ARE LISTENING TO MUEN TALK. I HAVE GARY THE VOCALIST OF PROSEVERE ON THE PHONE TODAY.

MUEN: HI GARY, THANKS FOR BEING ON THE SHOW.

Of course, no problem, thanks for having me.

MUEN: NO PROBLEM, GLAD TO HAVE YOU. YOU GUYS ARE FROM MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE.

Correct

MUEN: I HEAR BANDS THERE ARE REALLY GOOD TO EACH OTHER, LIKE YOU PUT UP EACH OTHERS FLYERS AND HELP EACH OTHER OUT.

We do, there are a few select bands that really go out and work hard. Our biggest thing is to get out of the city of course, but when we are in town we make sure that everyone has the right amount of support. There is not a huge scene here and you don’t want anybody falling back.

MUEN: THERE ISN’T A BIG ROCK SCENE THERE.

It used to be really big and then we lost our active rock station. Now all we have are two classic rock stations. The Clear Channel owns one and the other is some other national company so there isn’t a lot of local presence. If you want to make a name for yourself, you have to get out of the city, but you can never ignore your hometown.

MUEN: TELL ME ABOUT THE NAME OF THE BAND. HOW DID IT COME ABOUT AND WHO CAME UP WITH IT?

That was actually our bass player. The name came from the word persevere. It was actually just a play on words. We saw that Korn did whatever they did and the same with Limp Bizkit. It was just a play on words to come up with something that was “us.” We have all been doing this for over a decade. It was something that represented what we are about. We persevered through a lot of bullshit and now we’re coming to fruition from it. We probably had 25-30 different name ideas and that was the one that kind of stuck out to all of us.

MUEN: I LIKE THE NAME.

I’m glad you do.

MUEN: IN 2008 AN EP WAS RELEASED INDEPENDENTLY TITLED VERSUS. UPON ITS RELEASE YOU TOURED EXTENSIVELY WITH THE LIKES OF SAVING ABEL AND EGYPT CENTRAL. WHERE HAVE YOU TOURED?

It has only been the Southeast region. We have been from Chicago to St. Louis, down to New Orleans all the way into Florida. Not a whole lot or as much as we want to, but we all still have day jobs at the moment. We get out a lot more than most local bands I guess you could say.

MUEN: YOU WORKED WITH SOME GREAT PEOPLE ON THAT EP.

Oh yeah, Dan Martinie was one of the producers on it. He had just got out of college at Belmont University. We had heard some of his stuff and he didn’t really do a lot of riff rock. He worked more with hardcore bands like Sophia and Parallels that my little brother is actually in. His stuff was more screaming, but he had an ear for what we wanted to accomplish with the songs. We decided after going over the few different guys that he was the guy that we wanted to work with. We got him to work on it and then it was mastered by Brad Blackwood at Euphonic Mastering. Brad has worked with Saving Abel, ZZ Top and Smashing Pumpkins. He has done mastering for everybody. He is a big, big name.

MUEN: THERE ARE FOUR OF YOU IN THE BAND, HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED BRINGING IN A FIFTH MEMBER?

We have discussed it a few times. When Jeff left Egypt Central a couple years ago, we talked to him a little about coming in because he wanted to stay a little more regional. He didn’t want to be on the road as much at first because he just kind of got burned out on it for a little while. We played with him a couple times and there were a couple other guys that we talked to, but unless you have that chemistry it will never work out with songwriting and everything else. We stick with the four piece.

MUEN: WELL MAYBE SOMEDAY DOWN THE LINE YOU WILL RUN INTO SOMEONE WHO WILL FIT.

Oh yeah, if the producer who is working on our new record ever decides to go out on the road, he will be the fifth member. He was pretty much already a member of the band anyway.

MUEN: YOU HAVE TAKEN YOUR SINGLE “SHOTS” TO THE AIRWAVES RIGHT?

Yes

MUEN: IS THAT THE ONLY SONG OR HAVE YOU TAKEN OTHERS?

We had a song called “The Question” that came out before “Shots.” “The Question” is still a fan favorite and one of the heavier tracks on that record. It is very heavy and very melodic at the same time. People seem to get what it’s about. That song is about deciding what you want to do in life. For me, when our last band split up, Eric our guitar player and I were trying to figure out if we wanted to keep playing music. We’re getting older and I have a daughter at home that is five this year. It was time to decide if we were going to do it for a living or if it was still going to be a hobby. We wrote the song and figured out that this is probably what we want to do and I think other people connect with that. Sometimes you get stuck in a rut and you’re not sure exactly what you want to do with your life and you need something like that to pick you up.

MUEN: ABSOLUTELY, I AGREE. YOU GUYS JUST FINISHED RECORDING A FULL LENGTH ALBUM IS THAT RIGHT?

Well not a full length, it is actually an EP. We are still working on the full length, but we are releasing this for label shopping, which is a fun, wonderful experience if you’ve never done it. It’s getting out making contacts and using the ones you already have. It’s interesting, time consuming and stressful, but at the end of it, it is worth all of the blood, sweat and tears you put into it.

MUEN: YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO TAKE REJECTION WELL.

Oh yeah, it is something that you get used to. You have to think about all the different things. Take a band like Shinedown who just went platinum on this last record, so they sold a million records in the U.S. You look at that like it’s a huge deal, that’s one million people that bought that record out of billions of people that live here. It’s just remarkable how we look at success in life. You have to be able to take the bad with the good.

MUEN: ALONG THE WAY YOU HAVE BEEN GETTING ADVICE FROM MEMBERS OF SHINEDOWN AND 12 STONES. WHAT KIND OF ADVICE HAVE THEY GIVEN YOU?

The guys in Shinedown have helped us out quite a bit with knowing how to talk to press and make ourselves look a little more hyped. They have helped us out with different songs and the song’s structure. Anything that you can think of that a band would need, Zach Myers from Shinedown has always been insanely helpful. He’s from Memphis and we all grew up in the same neighborhood. He and I played in a band together six years ago. It’s a little weird to see him doing that and me still doing this. He has been extremely helpful and any time that he has, he helps us out as much as he can. The guys from 12 Stones are the same way. Justin Rymer used to be in a band called Breaking Point and he is the guitar player for 12 Stones now. Those guys have been all over the map and they know what it’s like to have to go out and label shop. Right now they are actually label shopping as well because they just split with Wind Up Records. It’s good to know people that have been through it before that can help you learn from their experiences.

MUEN: I LOVE THE GUYS FROM 12 STONES, THEY ARE ALL SWEETHEARTS.

Oh yeah, they all know how to party, they are a lot better at it then we are. I think that’s the thing people forget, guys in bands are just regular people too. We have jobs, of course our job may be playing on stage, but at the end of the day everybody is pretty much the same.

MUEN: SPEAKING OF JOBS, YOU STILL HAVE A FULL TIME JOB.

Oh yeah and it sucks!

MUEN: THAT HAS TO BE HARD. DO YOUR JOBS UNDERSTAND THAT YOU HAVE TO PLAY SHOWS?

They are, but I think the most important thing is that they understand it is kind of a secondary thing. If you find a job that is not supportive of what you want to do with your life, it makes it ten times harder and you are never going to be able to fit in there anyway. If your heart is not in what you do, it’s difficult. If you can find a job that you don’t have to put everything into, it makes it a lot easier. I’ve been lucky, I’ve been at the same place for six years and I have time off whenever I need it.

MUEN: THAT’S GREAT; I WANTED TO GET BACK TO THE EP REALLY QUICK. HOW MANY SONGS ARE ON IT?

This new one will be five songs.

MUEN: HAVE YOU TITLED IT YET?

It is called Burn the City. That was actually a track that was written with our producer back in March. We had four other songs that we had already completed and this one came out of nowhere. It’s really difficult being in a city that’s not as supportive as other cities that you travel around to. It’s weird because our crowd in Memphis, while we love our friends and everyone that comes out to support us, the city as a whole is not supportive of the rock scene. It is very important to us to make sure that rock doesn’t just die here. All of us, Sore Eyes, Joan Red, Egypt Central and bands like that whenever we are here try to make sure that this city remembers that we are all from here and we’re not just gone all the time. We want other bands to pop up and we want a scene here. It’s important to us. Burn the City is more or less about burning ideas of rejection from the city that you are from that aren’t as supportive.

MUEN: WHEN WILL IT RELEASE?

That is a very good question. It will be done mastering next week and the single goes out to radio on October 1^st. It won’t be a Nashville release yet, we will do radio first and by the first of the year the new single will be nationwide. Regardless of whether we get picked up by a label or not we are in the position to be able to go out and do it ourselves.

MUEN: YOU WILL BE SHOPPING FOR A LABEL; WILL YOU TRY FOR MAJOR OR INDIE?

Both, what we want is somebody that we feel will compliment the band. Someone we can work with, share the same ideas with and not someone who will make us a “one hit wonder.” We want somebody that we feel we can do a whole career with. We aren’t interested in doing this for a few years and then quitting. This is really all that we’ve got, this is our lives and this is what we do. We want somebody that will be there long term, even if the first record doesn’t hit right off the bat, we want to make sure they are behind us and believe in what we’re doing.

MUEN: WHO WORKED ON THE ALBUM WITH YOU PRODUCTION WISE?

On this one it was Jay Hall. He is the engineer for Skidd Mills. Skidd has done all sorts of people and Jay has worked with him on Taddy Porter, Saving Abel, 12 Stones and Egypt Central. There is a band coming out now that is not so much rock, but really fun to listen to called The Delta Saints. They are beyond incredible. He is phenomenal; I couldn’t envision us doing this with anyone else.

MUEN: HAVE YOU PLAYED ANY OF THE NEW SONGS LIVE YET?

Yes, we did a few dates over the summer trying out the songs. We got a really good response.

MUEN: WHAT ARE THE PLANS AS FAR TOUR SUPPORT FOR THE NEW EP?

We are almost booked up all the way through December now. We are working with a band called Nonpoint. We are going to try and hop on a few dates with them after October. The Miracle Tour ends the first weekend of October and then they are starting a new run. We are talking to their booking agent quite a bit and he is interested in the songs, so we are going to go out and do a few dates with them. We will try it out and see if it works. We have a few dates with Saving Abel and we are talking to Flyleaf’s agent who wants us out on a couple of dates in October. Once the single goes nationwide then we will start bringing what we do out a little further than the region we are in right now.

MUEN: IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAVE A PLAN, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND YOU HAVE A LOT OF SUPPORT.

Oh yeah, without support from everybody else we would still be playing music, but it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.

MUEN: YOU GUYS HAVE MASTERED SOCIAL NETWORKING, WHICH IS DEFINITELY A HUGE HELP. DO YOU GUYS SHARE THAT DUTY OR IS IT JUST ONE OF YOU?

We share it somewhat, but I’m a computer nerd, that’s my job here at home. I’m on the computer probably 75% of my day. Without social networking I’d be lost. I do the majority of it, but the rest of the band helps out quite a bit, but for the most part I’m handling almost everything.

MUEN: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE INTERVIEW. BEFORE I LET YOU GO WAS THERE ANYTHING YOU’D LIKE TO ADD OR SAY?

Listen to the music, spread the word any way you can, the most important thing is word of mouth. To anyone that is listening I’d like to say thank you so much for paying attention and we will see you guys very, very soon!