Roll of the Dice: 8 questions with Gnawing

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RVA's alt-rock quartet Gnawing are releasing their full-length record Modern Survival Techniques today on Refresh Records (here). The band also recently finished up a brief run of tour dates with Fucked Up. Somewhere in between all of that, they found some time to chat with TGEFM and participate in the latest Roll of the Dice interview series.

Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Congrats in advance on the release of Modern Survival Techniques. What can you tell us about Gnawing for readers just discovering the band?

For new listeners at home, Gnawing is a loud guitar band that is composed of four friends who just like to play music together. It takes influence from a lot of different sounds and aesthetics from different eras of music, but ultimately it's just us sweating it out in our practice space, trying to make something we ourselves would listen to.

What album or band or significant singles made you go “Yeah, this is what I want to do”  Not just an influence but who or what was the catalyst?

At the beginning of this band, one record I kept coming back to was the Forming 7″ from Vitriol Records. That was sort of my guiding light for the first songs that ended up on the demo tape.

For Modern Survival Techniques the catalyst might have been falling back into a really deep In Utero phase. After the first record came out, we as a band were having so many discussions about what the next record would be like and I kept making reference to how bare bones the recording of In Utero was, and that became kind of an inspiration point for us. It falls into the classic “first record is overdub city, second record is stripped back” archetype…

What is it about music that you are most passionate about? What motivates you to keep writing?

Music is my favorite thing in the entire world. It is the most exciting form of art for me. I listen to music every single day and try to play at least a little every day, I just love it. My motivation to keep writing is to keep finding better and more interesting ways to express myself, in hopes of providing the slightest bit of relatability or comfort to someone who thinks they are the only one that feels a certain way, because that's what all of my favorite songs have done for me.

You recently hit the road with Fucked Up. What's the state of the live scene in light of the last few years?

We just got back from our nine days with them and it was the most fantastic time. They are the sweetest, most genuine people and made the trip such an easy going and fun time. The live scene is definitely getting back up to pre-pandemic levels of excitement and attendance, but being on tour and trying to be conscious of new symptoms and variants is definitely still a little stressful.

Looking back on those last few years, we are living in something of a  “just deal with COVID” world and everything about this timeline is some level of completely fucked, does that play into the   Beyond the lyrics, what impact, if any, does the current cultural and political landscape have on the band?

I think at this point, playing music for us has become such a comfort in such a harsh world that we want the comfort to project outwards too. The cultural and political landscape is violence and hatred at every level, and a lot of that ends up entering punk rock too. Our intention as a band is to be as kind and as positive as we can with everyone we come into contact with, but to also be outspoken about the things that are important to us. 

It feels very important for us to state out loud that our music is not for people that aren't rocking with safe abortion access for everyone, it's not for people that are rocking bullshit fascist cosplay, it's not for people who are transphobic or homophobic. Our music is not for racists or bigots. If you can rock with that, we're rockin' with you.

One of our obligatory questions in these interviews also tends to be the one I have found most important on a personal level. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should?

Okay, everyone should be rocking with- New You, Twin Drugs, Suzie True, Downhaul, Wish Kit, Rough Age, Mo Troper, Golden Apples, Faye, Late Bloomer, Alright, Totally Slow, Knifing Around, Strawberry Moon, Rikki Rakki, Work Wear, Planet Loser, Dark Thoughts, that should be enough to get you started…

Also it's a proven fact that none of you listen to enough ZZ Top.

Now that the world almost has its hands on Modern Survival Techniques, what's next for Gnawing?

We're taking a little time this summer to finish writing some new songs, hopefully get some recording done, but we still have some killer shows happening too. In June we're playing a Richmond Flying Squirrels (minor league baseball) game and then the next night we're supporting Bully at the Southern in Charlottesville, pretty excited about that weekend. We've got some other unannounced stuff over the summer and then FEST in October. It should be a good rest of the year for us.

What do you wish I asked about or that you had more of an opportunity to speak about during this interview?

While I understand the purpose of the pitch clock being introduced in the MLB and don't even really hate the execution of it, I just generally disagree with its existence.

Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A Pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.