Interview with Local New Jersey Band: Captives

Recently, I interviewed Paul Chiesa from Captives, a local New Jersey hardcore/punk band. The music group came to fruition after the end of the popular NJ band, Fake Your Death. While the lineup that Fake Your Death ended with is now the current lineup for Captives, vocalist, Paul, explains why the band decided to give new meaning to the former macabre-styled name.

JD: Why did you guys decide to scrap Fake Your Death and start Captives?

Paul: There's a lot of reasons. One of the main reasons is that FYD went through so many lineup changes that well, it just wasn't FYD anymore. The vibe was gone. We started writing songs with our latest lineup and the songs that were coming out were not FYD because one of the key writer's had left the band. Also, the songs we were singing/playing didn't seem relevant anymore. We felt that it was time to move on from FYD (ironically, considering the premise of the name) and see what we were capable of outside of it.

JD: What is the overall goal of Captives?

Paul: As far as long term goals, I can't really tell you. I'm not too good at thinking that far into the future hah. But, in regards to short term goals that we have discussed as a band, I can tell you that we plan to go out for at least a week this summer to tour. Before we go out, however, we plan on finishing our full length that will debut on Eternal Hope Records. We're about halfway done with the writing process for the album and have half of the songs demoed out. We're pretty stoked on the new material. From a personal standpoint, Captives is pretty much my outlet for everything: my emotions, creativity, energy and motivation etc. I guess that's not really a goal, but that is the role Captives plays in my life.

JD: Since FYD was pretty well established in New Jersey was it difficult to end it, knowing you would have to start from square one all over again?

Paul: One may think that Captives is merely FYD with a new name because it is the same members of the late lineup, but that is not the case. We were ready to face this when deciding to break up the band. It seems like it is hard to gain acceptance from people who were into FYD, but hey I guess we have to start over as it is a new band.

JD: Musically, what is Captives going to do that Fake Your Death didn't?

Paul: We feel that the music Captives plays is a lot different than FYD. It's more honest, there's more energy, and the songs are better put together. There was a lot of novelty stuff going on in FYD, which isn't too surprising since we wrote a lot of that stuff while still in high school. FYD was all over the place where as Captives is more consistent and powerful. We write and rewrote the songs we have now a lot before deciding to perform or record them.

Captives is currently working on their debut E.P. that will be coming out on Eternal Hope Records. To check out some of the tracks from the E.P. goto: www.myspace.com/captivesofnj For Fake Your Death music goto: www.myspace.com/fakeyourdeath