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.
Hidden In Plain View is a post-hardcore five-piece from New Jersey. Following two full-length records and four EPs on labels such as LLR Records, Drive-Thru Records and Rise Records. The band now looks prepared to release the follow up to 2015’s “Animal” EP. They’ve got a new album out this Friday, and frontman Joe Reo agreed to sit down for a round of Roll of the Dice. We rolled an EIGHT.
1) Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. We rolled an eight for this interview which, given the veteran status of Hidden in Plain View, will probably not be enough. But let’s start with the most obvious, and most important, what took so long to get this recent spate new music?
We appreciate the chance to talk, thank you for the interview.
It’s a great question and one that it is a long story. We had these songs finished for quite some time, well before the beginning of the Covid pandemic. We took our time reaching out to labels, looking for someone who would be interested in helping us push this music out to folks who know us and to folks who don’t. We thought it would be easy since the songs were finished and ready to go but we were wrong. It turns out the industry really has changed and not only are there not a lot of labels out there anymore, the ones we did speak with liked the songs but already had a full plate of artists. There was one label we spoke with before the pandemic who had a really exciting idea. We verbally agreed to work with them but they basically became unresponsive which is why we decided to move on without them. In hindsight we should have known they would be flakey. We are very happy working with Head Bitch Music, they are like an all in one music service and they help with digital distribution as well as licensing and publishing. Hidden has had some really loyal people working for us since we started, and to this day they help us a ton. Shout out to FATA Booking and Artist Management.
2) Obviously between the 2015 release of Animal and today, we have seen so many things we never expected to see. How has… welp, everything in the global and local sphere played into your songwriting, if at all?
Rob really is our lyrical mastermind. He gets all the credit for the lyrics I get to sing, scream, and yell. I’ve never felt too comfortable speaking on behalf of his lyrics and where they come from but I can tell you the global landscape sure has made us pretty pissed off. It has found its way into moments of these songs for sure lyrically as well. It would be kind of crazy and unrealistic if it didn’t. So much has happened to all of us and so much of it out of our hands and not by our choice that anger and resentment are kind of the first things we feel. That does make writing hard hitting songs a lot easier. The fact is this stuff has been going on long before the start of the pandemic. The groundwork for the landscape we live in has been laid long before Covid. That is about as in depth as I feel comfortable speaking on that. We certainly have a lot more to say and write and Rob is quite a gifted sound engineer and producer with a beautiful studio in New Jersey, but the current difficulty of being a responsible adult in 2022 makes it tough for us to cut time out to get back in the studio. We will though, and there will be more after this group of songs is finished. We have more to lay on folks.
3) What stood out most to you with this recording compared to 2015’s Animal?
Well, with Animal we were shaking off some rust and getting the feeling of what we were since our last release in 2007. Animal came out in 2015 so that was a lot of time. After the split we moved on from HIPV in our daily lives almost completely until 2013 and when we returned to the creative part a year or so after (meaning we weren’t just playing reunion shows) there was a huge freakin void to fill. We knew what we used to do and we kind of knew what could do, but what did we want? We turned out the three song release with Rise Records. Three songs was a start but not enough in our opinion. We found not only could we still put out some good stuff, we actually got better as musicians. These current songs don’t really pick up where Animal left off, they come from someplace different. We found that we could bend some songwriting rules and free ourselves from our own expectations. Writing and recording these new songs felt more and more like the freedom we gave ourselves during Life In Dreaming. We tried stuff, it worked, we got excited and continued to push ourselves. For me personally, I pushed myself vocally more on these songs than I can remember. When we tracked vocals, it was only me and Rob in the studio. He pushed me when I wasn’t sure where to take it and I took myself out of booth mentally and found a place where I could really sound how I imagined. Personally I love how my voice sounds on these new songs.
4) As a Morris County kid myself, I’m sure I’m more than a little biased, but what is it about Northern NJ in the late 90s and early 00s that churned out so many fantastic bands within the scene?
You know it’s funny, music is filled with so many “you had to be there” moments. North Jersey was one of those special scenes for sure. Once a few of the local bands landed real record contracts it seemed to really fly off the handle too. There was Skate n Surf and Bamboozle Festival that really helped showcase so many bands like HIPV too.
When I first started going to shows I was probably 17. You had to be 17 to drive in Jersey. My friends and I would go to local VFW halls, firehouses, and even small Jersey venues to see kids our age (or a few years older) play in bands, and we really looked up to them. They wrote their own songs and those songs meant something. They were played with attitude and emotion, it captured us immediately. At first we were there to see punk/ska bands like Catch 22. Rob and I were into punk/ska in high school and even playing together in a punk/ska band during our junior and senior year. It was Less Than Jake, Rancid, and Blink 182 type bands that tore the roof off for us. The thing was there were like 5 or 6+ bands on these local shows. We would be there to see Catch 22 but we caught Bigwig, Humble Beginnings, and others that would come through on national tours and play on these shows. There were so many bands and just as quickly as punk/ska was cool, we found other cool bands like The Get Up Kids, At The Drive In, Promise Ring, and Jimmy Eat World. Really I think the North Jersey scene learned a lot from what was happening in places like New Brunswick too. There were great bands making a splash with tiny basement shows. Kids that weren’t in bands that wanted to be involved put on shows, promoted them, wrote and distributed zines, started their own record labels, put out CD compilations, etc and before you knew it there four or five shows happening every Friday and Saturday and you couldn’t make it to all of them. It was a special place at a special time. We definitely were influenced by some much, so fast, and we were addicted to all of it. We made so many friends and really belonged somewhere. It was so healthy.
5) Speaking of that Wayne Firehouse era of Jersey, what were the local bands that inspired and influenced you but never really got the national exposure of a Midtown, Bigwig or Gaslight Anthem?
That’s funny that you mention the Wayne Firehouse. That was a legendary place and we played our first official show there. When I tell you the scene was small back then, it was. We played that show with a band called Outline which was one of Jack Antonoff’s first bands. Wayne also had Skater’s World, it was literally a rollerskating rink that set up a stage on the rink and had bands. It held a lot of people and I remember it clearly being a ton of fun too.
As far as Jersey bands that influenced us without the national exposure, that’s a good question. I loved this band called Shady View Terrace, they blew me away. I loved watching bands like Folly, Face First, Bigwig, Thursday, Welcome Home Travis, Royden Stork. Whether these bands influenced us musically or not, we had a ton of fun sharing shows, hanging out, and playing along with them.
As for more well known bands, yeah there was Thursday, Lifetime, Saves The Day, Bouncing Souls, My Chem, and label mates like Early November, Senses Fail, and Midtown. Gaslight came a little later but we knew those guys from shows too. Crazy, right?
6) There’s been so many changes in the scene over the last 20 odd years since HIPV formed, what are some of the biggest changes, both positive and concerning, you’ve come across in your time within the scene?
I feel so detached from anything that resembled what I knew as a scene. I feel like one does exist somewhere, somehow but I think it is a mixture of shows and social media and streaming services. Who knows what else? Are there local scenes? I sure hope so. For us it was diners, local shows, angelfire websites, MySpace, and independent music stores. Without sounding like the old guy yelling at a cloud I think the use of social media and algorithms really really sucks. Sure anyone can put music up on a streaming service but getting in front of an audience is more about dollar signs, algorithms, and playlists. We try our best to play the game and fight the fight but I find our music mostly reaches the people who engage with us on Facebook and Instagram. I could be wrong, I have no way of knowing. I loved when there was a few places to get your punk news, it was so simple. Welp! I probably I sound grumpy and old about it at this point. I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you to the people like you for what you do. That’s Good Enough For Me is one of those places where great music and people are waiting to be found.
On a positive note, I do like the cool content bands put out nowadays. It’s like pushing songs out one by one gets old so there is this demand for bands to use other types of creativity and I love that.
7) 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?
I really love Social Animals, they just released a full length. Also the new Fairweather is pretty awesome. Finally I have to recognize the music Transviolet continues to put out. I feel they never stop writing and dropping songs. I love that.
8) Beyond Furnace Fest, what’s next for the members of Hidden in Plain View?
We are figuring that out right now. We definitely plan to get out and do some shows. We just aren’t sure if that will be in the supporting role or headlining. I would tell folks to keep checking our socials and be on the lookout for shows soon. Whatever we do decide to do we promise that it will be worth it for everyone.
Hidden in Plain View is next set to play Furnace Fest this September in Alabama, with a new single due on 15 July. Keep yours eyes on TGEFM for more HIPV news as it becomes available.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
