Interview with Bleeding Through bassist Ryan Wombacher and guitarist Jona Weinhofen

”This was a fucking bomb. For a few seconds this place was Armageddon. There was a firefight!” Bleeding Through shook the Kool Haus when they made their way up to Toronto with Bullet For My Valentine. PureGrainAudio caught up with Jona and Ryan on their tour bus and told us what was up.

Tour with Bullet for My Valentine, how is that going so far?
Jona: It’s good man, all the shows have been good turnouts and good reactions, especially for us and Cancer Bats have been a really cool band to be on the tour as well.

And this is their home city…
Jona: Yea that’s right, we’ve done a few tours with them so yea, they’re good mates.

Where did the tour start?
Ryan: I think Chicago. It’s like a 2 part tour. August 16th is the last show for this half. And that’s the last show for the Cancer Bats. And then The Black Tide jumps on and does the second half. That starts up again on…the 2nd day of the next month (September 2nd). We’re sort of doing a small outer circle, and then a shorter inner circle. It’s like 2 times around the US in a sense. This time we’re hitting some towns and then hitting everything else that we didn’t the first time.

So is that after your new CD comes out?
Ryan: Actually that’s on September 30th. This tour ends just a few days before the record comes out. I think it will be cool because this tour is kind of like a big advertisement for it. Then we will do some home shows and whatnot for the release.

Tell me a little bit about the album, I read it has an on-tour, on the road theme to it…
Ryan: Yea there is sort of a theme to it. It’s more along the lines of we’re all kind of grown up now so the things that bands sing about when they first start out are a bit different and now the lyrics are more about life experiences, being grown up and playing in a band and traveling. Some of it is negative, some of it is positive and it’s just more of what we experience as a band while being on the road in different countries and different cities and how it makes you feel.

Jona: Musically, I wouldn’t say that we have taken it in any new direction but we’ve kind of went all out and stepped it up on our musical skills. Just the way we wrote the album, it seemed like everything went a lot smoother. Working with Devon just kind of put that finishing touch on it.

You guys have had some confrontation with Trustkill on the re-release of your last album…
Ryan: Yea, that was put out against our say. We don’t even know what it looks like, I haven’t even seen what the CD looks like.

What is the deal with Trustkill re-releasing all these CDs…just like they did with Too Pure To Die?
Ryan: No clue, we have absolutely no clue.

Jona: I guess you could call it grasping at straws to put it brutally.

So are you looking to get on a different label?
Jona: I mean, not right away. We have this last record coming out on Trustkill and we’ve already had interests from a lot of labels so I guess we are just going to play it cool for a bit and see what kind of offers we get and then when we’re kind of closer to looking to record another album we’ll start seriously looking for something new.

What’s the response been like in Canada, how do you guys like it up here?
Ryan: It’s awesome. We have been up here a couple of times, last night was the first show on this tour and I think it’s safe to say that it has will be one of the best shows on this tour. The kids have been really good response-wise and I think everyone in the band wants to have some fun.

Jona: Montreal and Bleeding Through go well together. We always have good times.

Ryan: I don’t know man, this is probably our 5th tour up here that goes through Canada so we look forward to Canada every time.

In the beginning, before you started out as a musician, did you ever see yourself doing anything else?
Ryan: I’ve always wanted to do this, I mean when I was in high school I didn’t give a shit about high school. I did my homework but I got C’s and D’s. I didn’t care, I just wanted to skateboard and play in a band. I was playing in a band in my junior year of high school and that’s kind of where it started. I always wanted to play in a band full time but you just never know what is going to happen. You could stay a garage band, and I’m content with that, or you could step it up and go full time. I always wanted to make sure that this is what I was doing full time but the only other thing I could see myself doing is something mechanical. I like motorcycles, custom cars and that kind of stuff. That’s all I do when I’m home, just mess around with my bikes and fix stuff that’s not broken.

And what about you?
Jona: I kind of always figured I would do something in the entertainment industry. When I was younger I wasn’t necessarily sure it would have something to do with music but I kind of just fell into it. I started my first band and we kind of just had success and after a few years of doing that and realizing, hey we aren’t loosing money any more, it just became the obvious thing. This is what I am going to be doing.

You’ve done good, and I’m sure all those kids would love to be doing what you are doing.
Jona: Yea well, my advice to them is just work at it. I mean you never know if you’re going to be able to do it or not unless you actually take the risk and give it a shot.

Ryan: You’ll definitely go into debt at first. That’s why a lot of kids give up because they get to a certain age where they think they can’t do it anymore because they get pressured by their friends who A: either went to college or B: are successful in their 9-5 job and kind of give them shit like “hey man when are you going to grow up”. Even your parents you know? At first my parents didn’t understand what I did for a living and didn’t understand that you could make money and not be on the radio at the same time. But you’ll diffidently go into debt and be eating a lot of easy mac and a lot noodles at first and using a lot of money but for the most part that will be the lowest point of your music career when you first get started and that’s part of the journey and if you can’t get past that then there is no sense in you being in the music industry.

Has it all been worth it?
Ryan: Absolutely!

Jona: 100%.

Does Bleeding Through have any unfinished business, any goals that you still want to accomplish?
Ryan: I don’t know, we’ve done so much in the past year. Even since we got Jona in the band we have played Indonesia and Malaysia and I didn’t even think you know, hey maybe someday we will play there. I didn’t even know bands toured there, I didn’t know it was possible expense wise if you could do it.

Jona: I think as far as a goal for the band, it’s pretty safe to say that as long as we kind of don’t loose any success and we just kind of keep going the way we are that everyone is pretty content with that and I mean it’s a pretty general sense that the band wants to play as many of those obscure countries as we can. Like Ryan said, we’ve done Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, we’re doing Russia in December.

It’s all about new experiences.
Ryan: That’s right.

Last words for the people of Toronto.
Ryan: We’re looking forward to the show, probably just as much as they are. We love Canada, and we will be back soon.

Jona: See you guys in the pit.  [ END ]