"Knelt Before Is for The Children:" An Interview with Mark Johnston, Don Rossington, Shannon Eoff & Derek Woodard (The Witzard Interview)
We've been chatting with Knelt Before founding member and mastermind Mark Johnston on Instagram Messenger these past few months even before they had released a lick of actual music. At this point, it's pretty safe to say we've heard various versions of the bulk of their discography as it stands today. Along with Johnston, Knelt Before's current line-up consists of Donald "Don" Rossington, Shannon Eoff, and Derek Woodard. Collectively, Knelt Before's members have either previously performed as or made music with LoveHateHero, Divide The Day, What Lies Within, Breakaway, Tall Dark Whimsy, A Prize Worth Killing, Second Coming, Dekisi, and XDADX.
Knelt Before, at its sheer genesis, is a group of middle-aged Punk vets, who have done this more than a time or two before. However, this time around, it's 100% Positive Mental Attitude (P.M.A.)-centric, curse-free, and kid-friendly through and through. Lest we forget, not entirely unlike Wu-Tang Clan before them, "Knelt Before is for the children!" Knelt Before recently dropped their tough-as-nails debut full-length, Be Nice, digitally, as well as on golden cassette tape and a special multi-colored 5-inch vinyl single for "Choices." It's all available now through Earchae Distribution/Wrecking Crew Records. We recently conducted a comprehensive full-band interview with Knelt Before's Mark, Don, Shannon & Derek. Check it out below the break lightly edited for general clarity.
I. Who are the members of Knelt Before and where might fans know each of you from previously?
Mark Johnston: I'm Mark Johnston. I'm the "singer" and sometimes guitar, bass, whatever... I was in bands throughout my teens and twenties ; What Lies Within (Goodlife Recordings,) Supernovice (Onset Records,) A Prize Worth Killing (Onset Records,) LoveHateHero (Ferret Music,) [and] Divide The Day (Pluto Records.)
Donald "Don" Rossington: Guitars. I was in Second Coming, a 90's Hardcore band in The Bay Area.
Shannon Eoff: I play drums and my last band was Tall Dark Whimsy.
Johnston: Derek [Woodard's] our lead guitarist. He will be known for this band. He's really good.
II. When, where, and how did Knelt Before initially form?
Johnston: Around the end of last year/beginning of this year, I put something out looking for people to do some good ol' fashioned Hardcore. I already had two dozen songs written and had demos recorded, just needed to find people. I got a lot of responses and being that this is the general Portland (Oregon) area, they all flaked; all but Don. Don & I bonded over Revelation Records, vegan food, both being in public service (Don's a teacher and I'm a volunteer combat/wildland firefighter,) and being old and Straight Edge. Over time, we had random people come and go and nothing [ever] materialized. I think the big drawback was that I didn't want cussing, Don & I were Straight Edge and people start to have a lot going in their [lives] after 30.
Around that time, Shannon's band, Tall Dark Whimsy, began to dissolve, as their singer was moving to Germany. I reached out to her—we had previously done some music together [as Dekisi,] but I got super-bummed when I had a friend in Kentucky record vocals on a song and totally butchered them, so I lost interest in the project and focused a lot on firefighting and she joined Tall Dark Whimsy. So, we just kinda lost touch. Shannon liked the idea of doing this project because it was pretty different from what she was used to doing, so it would be a fun challenge. Shannon knew Derek, so we brought him on and we worked on sprucing up my songs, recording them, and getting ourselves ready for shows and such. Two things learned—people are flakey at any age and band formations are pretty innocuous when you're middle-aged.
III. What is the intended meaning or significance behind the title of your debut full-length, Be Nice?
Eoff: Everyone's life is a struggle. Bad stuff happens to everyone. Some people sing about the negative to help relate and feel better. I want to do the same thing by focusing on the good stuff, but, also, explaining how to deal with bad situations. Life can hit hard, but you don't always have to hit back... it's okay to "be nice."
IV. What's the story behind the Be Nice cover artwork and image beneath the Knelt Before logo?
Johnston: Our logo was created by someone in Costa Rica. She ended up making a super [low-resolution] weird drawing of it and it took forever to fix the image. I made a few edits and, now, we have our logo. I love the 90’s graffiti-style artwork and I, especially, love when Hardcore bands incorporated it. So, I wanted to do a bit of an updated version of a 90’s graffiti-style logo. Right now, I'm working with a guy to help develop some of the characters from the logo for merch; we shall see, though.
Album cover—Smithsonian [Open Access] public domain photos! This one really struck me because the father looked as though he was being really tender with his child and I liked that. I have a really good relationship with my son, Atlas, and I don't think father-son positive relationships are highlighted enough. So, that's where that came from.
V. Who or what would you readily cite as some of your greatest sources of inspiration and influence while creating Be Nice?
Johnston: Don & I are big Revelation Records fans. I love Dag Nasty, [Gorilla Biscuits], Farside, By A Thread.... then, there's Ignite, Sick of It All, Snapcase, BoySetsFire.
Rossington: I'm influenced by Brian Baker, Dag Nasty, and The Smiths.
Eoff: My Top 3 drummers are Dave Grohl, Dom Howard, and John Bonham.
Derek Woodard: I like Paul Gilbert, Muhammed Suicmez (Necrophagist,) and all the modern YouTube and Instagram guitarists out there pushing boundaries—they really inspire me.
Johnston: I'd say Don and my influences ring truest, but Shannon & Derek really brought the flair and will have far more influence on subsequent releases.
VI. What did the writing, recording, production, creation, etc. processes behind Be Nice typically entail?
Johnston: I began writing these songs as XDADX making songs about my son, songs about important topics that I would want him to know while growing up, and awesome cover songs that my son did to work on public speaking/speech. As I made this more of a "band," Don got involved and we decided to record. I have a studio at my property, but I hadn't really built it up or purchased all of the components to properly record us, so that was a big motivator. Eventually, I got everything and began the recording process.
I really wanted collaboration and input, but since the music was 90% complete and everyone thought it was good [as-is] (minus some tweaking here and there,) we just went ahead and recorded. Typically, I would want to do a lot of pre-production to make the recording less painful, but schedule conflicts and post-COVID life made it difficult to get everyone in the room at the same time. It was, basically, me and one other person recording parts and, then, stitching everything together.
I tried mixing it myself, but after sitting with the songs for six months trying to get all the parts recorded on nights and weekends, I just wasn't up for it. Luckily, a new-found buddy of mine hooked me up with Joel Otte at STUDIOTTE to have the record mixed and mastered. I went largely off the advice of my buddy and I'm glad I did. He nailed it! But this was a combination of money and luck. Not how I'd want to do it ever again, but it worked and we came out with a good product that we're proud of. But it cost me a lot of money, so, please, buy it and help me recoup.
VII. How did you learn to sing in Japanese to properly deliver the lyrics for Be Nice stand-out "生きる しか ない (Live with Myself)?"
Johnston: I took Japanese for seven years throughout high school and college. I even went there on tour. I really admire Japanese people for their strict code of ethics and their thoroughly complicated language structure. I sought out help from a friend in Osaka to get the lyrics right. My version was very poor (grammatically) and she did a great job helping me fine-tune the lyrics. I hope to be able to do many more songs in other languages. I love how language can be such a unifier and writing songs in multiple languages helps people access your music in deeper and more meaningful ways.
VIII. What can you tell us about the limited gold cassette release of Be Nice? What does "2022 lovehateheromusic," as inscribed on the cassette tape itself mean?
Johnston: I wanted to do a pink cassette with a neon blue case and yellow writing. But given the subdued palette of the cover, I decided to do something simple, but still stands out. I'm saving the crazy neon one for a later release, so you know that's gonna be somewhere in the pipeline. "lovehateheromusic" was the publishing company I started when I was in LoveHateHero. I was never removed as owner of the publishing company when I left, so I just kept it. When I got publishing royalties for the albums I wasn't on, I collected the checks and donated them to various charities. The amounts weren't that great, but I felt unethical collecting money for something I wasn't a part of... but I, also, didn't have anyone's contact info and was too lazy to bother reaching out. Lazy or bitter. Probably bitter.
IX. How would you say Knelt Before's sound has grown and progressed since your earliest recordings, Demo2022?
Johnston: Starting out as a one-man show and, then, adding people with differing tastes and playing styles is always going to make things better. I have always been in bands where there's one person driving the writing and everyone gets upset if their opinion is, in their minds, denigrated. I didn't want to be the sole writing force behind this, but, since the bulk of the finished product was already done, I wanted to ensure that everyone had their say in edits, omissions, changes, etc. If I wanted my songs to be as I wrote them, I wouldn't seek others to edit/improve upon them.
Don helped bring me to some awesome 90’s Hardcore rhythms, Derek added some beautiful harmonies and guitar solos, and Shannon toned down the drum parts into more powerful, simpler beats. I'm really excited to write more music and continue to evolve our sound. I really admire Blur, Damon Albarn, [and] Graham Coxon for their ability to be so fluid throughout numerous genres and yet you still know who it is. I don't want us to be "a Hardcore band" or a "Pop-punk band." We're a band. We play music. Who knows where we'll go next?
X. We here at The Witzard personally love Knelt Before's cover of the bird and the bee's "Spark!" When might that sensational cover be widely released unto the masses?
Johnston: I love our cover of "Spark." I feel like I don't want to really put it out there until it does justice to the original. I think it still needs a bit more. We're doing a split in The New Year with a German band called A.X.I.D.S.—I am hoping it will make it onto the vinyl, but, at the very least, it'll make it onto the digital split. I think there will be quite a few covers in the pipeline. Inara George, Esthero, Jón Þór Birgissonand, and Jonah Matranga [Far, Onelinedrawing] are huge influences and just amazing singers and I would love to pay tribute to them. One way or another, I'd love to do "Spark," "Country Livin'" by Esthero, "Inní mér syngur vitleysingur" by Sigur Ros, and "Man of The Year" by Far. I know there are some songs everyone else wants to cover, too; ZAO is a popular one, so I may pepper these in, along with everyone else's favorites.
XI. How does it feel, after 20+ years spent within the scene, to be making Positive Mental Attitude (P.M.A.)-centric/clean music you can share with your own children, impressionable young fans, and even the kids of long-time fans?
Johnston: This has always been a big deal to me. I have never been a fan of cussing or negative ideas in my music. I grew up in the Orange County Hardcore scene and I was always scene-adjacent. I knew a lot of people in it, but I wasn't in it myself. People would drive down from Salt Lake City to a venue called Chain Reaction (back when it was called Public Storage) and fight people that were smoking outside the show. How are you supposed to spread your ideology (Straight Edge) by beating people up? Is someone going to be lying on the ground all bloody and think, "wow, I really need to re-think my life choices. Thank you for beating the poop out of me..."
Similarly, there was a smaller Straight Edge band... the singer turned 21, went to a strip club, drank, and asphyxiated and died. Terrible thing to have happened, but that, too, highlighted the hypocrisy of the scene. So, I stayed just outside of it, so I never had to sacrifice my morals or ideals for popularity. For the first album, LoveHateHero removed all of the cussing from the album to make it more accessible. I remember a tour we did—this one band had black amps, drums, cymbals, clothes... all of it. All I could think was, "we're touring the country with these (other) awesome bands and these knuckleheads are wearing all black, complaining about everything." I painted my amps and cabs white and wore a baby blue shirt with a unicorn and rainbow as much as I could on that tour.
Knelt Before is no different in my stance on my personal ideologies, how it relates or differs from various band members, and how we present ourselves. We are a group of individuals, who became friends through music with differing opinions. I want that to be what we project. No matter where your path in life leads or has [led] you, you can feel proud owning it because no one can take it away from you. That's the most P.M.A. thing there is—having a Positive Mental Attitude about your journey and not feeling shame about it. I am a goofy, probably autistic, altruistic dork. I can't take myself that seriously. I am not a “tough guy.” I'm not militant. I have my ways, you have yours. If we don't agree, we can still be friends.
XII. If Knelt Before represents your "second coming" within the music industry, what's different about making and releasing now than your earliest days on Ferret Music?
Rossington: If we were actually trying to make a living off of music now, I'd be terrified. When I was "in it," it bummed me out how much of our marketing and draw was based on our image. Now, it's even worse. I hate name-dropping. But I feel you have to do that way more to even be considered, let alone heard. Makes me feel dirty, haha. Additionally, labels literally told us that, if they signed us, we either had to tour extensively or make TikTok/Instagram videos almost daily to generate enough marketing to sustain us. Luckily, we don't need to wh*re ourselves out to survive. If we sell 10 albums, mission accomplished. We have humble aspirations, but we, also, have a great product. So, I know we will do relatively well, but I don't have to sacrifice my integrity to prove it. I am thankful for that.
XIII. Mark, we know you're still healing from an on-the-job injury as a firefighter (thank you for your service!) How much of Be Nice were you able to write and record during your recovery time?
Johnston: I fell from a second-story window, down a ladder, and destroyed my meniscus and A.C.L. [anterior cruciate ligament] back in March. So, I had a LOT of free time. Writing and recording has been a very good way to do some physical therapy and get out and about. My studio is in an outbuilding on my property so, when I could start hobbling, music was a good motivator to get out of bed and stop feeling sorry for myself.
While it was a really cool way to get an injury, (and a lot of fun doing it... and I will definitely do it again, if I need to,) I still worried about if I'd be able to return, if my job would be affected, the burden on my wife to have to look after me... but I used all that as a motivator to get up and start moving. I have a sweet Truth Custom Drums kit that I am terrible at (every guitarist wants to be a drummer...) and doing double-bass—even just playing it, has really helped my legs get back to where they need to be. I got surgery in June, and I am a few weeks away from being back to full duty. I can definitely attribute my recovery to Knelt Before and staying positive.
XIV. It's on your Demo2022 EP, but we just wanna have this in writing for the public record... when in the world are you gonna release a proper full-band version of our absolute favorite Knelt Before song, "Lost Friends?"
Eoff: Also, planned as part of the split with A.X.I.D.S.—we are going to each cover each other’s songs and, then, one of our own. We are doing "Axidus" by A.X.I.D.S., "Lost Friends" (which is changing to "Never Gone.")
Johnston: And, [HOPEFULLY], "Spark" by [the bird and the bee]. So, all your favorites on one incredible album!
XV. What's planned next for Knelt Before?
Rossington: We went into this project not really wanting to play shows or tour because of all the junk that comes along with it. We turned down offers to help put out the music because they wanted us to tour and promote it and we were like, "that's what The Internet is for..." but, now that we finished the album, that bug really bit us. We kinda 180'ed and, now, want to get out there and play shows and really push this thing because we're so proud of it. So, next, will be a lot of practicing, promoting the album, playing shows, recording and releasing the split, festivals, [and] travel... that being said, we're all older and have jobs, families, [and] responsibilities... so, we are going to play the long game on this one.