All photo credit: justin.m.a.photo
The members of thisislandearth will be some of the first to tell you that genre labels don’t stick like they used to. The Charlotte four-piece pull from late ‘90s/early 2000s post-hardcore, mathrock, and traditional screamo, but wear those influences loose enough that they often land as the heaviest or the softest act on a given bill, depending on the night.
The band has been quietly building a following across both Carolinas for several years, cutting their teeth in Rock Hill before COVID forced a reset and a lineup change (like many bands). Since relocating their center of gravity to Charlotte, they’ve been grinding Wednesday practices at the Morningstar on Heroines Boulevard despite being scattered from Lake Norman to Columbia.
Now they’re finishing up their second EP, which pushes their sound heavier where it needs to be, softer where it feels right, and with unexpected twists for good measure.
What have y’all been listening to lately?
Kaleb (vocals/guitar): I’m in a mode right now where I’m listening to a lot of new stuff that I don’t even really know what it is. I’m going on these crazy Spotify rabbit holes. I like the new Don Toliver, that’s good. Tiffany Day. I’ve been listening to a lot of rap and EDM lately.
Kevin (guitar/screams): I’m at work right now and got my speaker going in the back. I got recommended through the Spotify algorithm this band called Colour, and I just listened to their whole discography. It’s like TTNG kind of stuff. It’s cool. “Conversation” is such a good track.
Who was the first band or artist you remember discovering on your own and obsessing over?
Kaleb: Daft Punk. I know, we’re a rock band, and we’re saying rap music and Daft Punk. [laughs] But I love it. I got exposed to a lot of music through my mom. She had me when she was pretty young, so she turned me on to Nirvana at a really young age, and that’s why I started playing guitar.
And then I discovered a lot of the emo stuff on my own, through friend groups. Those were the peak Warped Tour days of 95 degrees, wearing skinny jeans, and all you’ve had to drink is three Monsters. I saw I See Stars because a friend I had a crush on really liked them.
Kevin: Daft Punk for me too, honestly. When I was a kid, I got my first iPod touch, had Pandora, and liked house music. And then Skrillex was a thing. A lot of YouTube rabbit holes, and Grooveshark was a big one. My brother had an iPod that I stole, and I listened to everything he had on it: bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, and Nirvana.
But at that same time, I broke out and got really into Franz Ferdinand. Just a YouTube rabbit hole thing. Not really a band I listen to now, but I was obsessed with them at the time. And I still love them. They have a very warm place in my heart.
What is the band’s origin story? How did you all come together?
Kaleb: Kevin and I have been best friends since high school. When we graduated and went to college, we kind of went our separate ways for a little bit. I’d been trying to put together bands that would just fall apart before even booking a show for maybe three years by then. Then I was in my English class, and our bass player, Jerry, was in there too. I mentioned I was thinking about picking up a guitar, and Jerry overheard and said he’d come.
When he sat down and started playing bass, he blew me away. Flea is his favorite bass player, and he really emulates that with all the slaps and runs. I said, “Do you want to be in a band?” right there, and he said sure.
So Jerry and I spent about a year trying to find a drummer. We’d already had two come through who said they played at church. So we’d put them behind the kit and do middle school covers like Green Day or Nirvana just to test the waters, and they were just not it. Then we met this guy, Dalton, who didn’t even go to York Tech but would come hang out in the library to play Xbox. He blew us away, too. We said, “You’re going to be our drummer,” and he said, “Yeah, okay.” And we’ve been together ever since.
It was me, Jerry, and Dalton for probably three years. But our songs were getting more complicated, and it was getting harder for me to sing the melodies I wanted while playing guitar the way I was playing. So I asked if we could get a second guitar player, and it was Kevin. He started coming to band practice, hanging out, and eventually it was like, if you’re going to be here, you’ve got to do something. So he started playing guitar. Kevin’s been in this lineup for about four years now.
We started playing shows as a three-piece, mainly at the Courtroom in Rock Hill, in late 2018 and into 2019. We started picking up a little steam and had shows booked in Charlotte for the first time. And then COVID happened, and we basically had to start over. When we came back, we had Kevin, and that’s been the band ever since.
You’re originally from Rock Hill, but the band is spread out now across the Carolinas. How do you make that work?
Kaleb: Everybody’s moved all over. I live in Cornelius up near Lake Norman. Kevin lives in Columbia. Our bass player lives in York, and our drummer lives out near McConnells. I’m the only one who moved further north. Everybody else went further south or west and left Rock Hill.
We practice every Wednesday at the Morningstar on Heroines Boulevard. Kevin has the furthest drive, so when we have gigs, he drives to Heroines, and then I drive us both the rest of the way wherever we’re going. Dalton and Jerry ride separately with their gear. Kevin and I are the road dogs.
Kevin: Once a week is actually more than a lot of bands, we’re finding out. I thought everybody practiced like three times a week, but I guess as you get older it’s hard to make the time. Almost all of us are married; some of us have kids. There have definitely been practices where it’s like, “I can’t make it, my kid is sick.” But we all make the sacrifices to keep things going.
With you and Kevin both sharing guitar and vocal duties, how does that dynamic show up in songwriting and live performance?
Kaleb: We write all together. Normally, I’ll bring a riff skeleton to band practice, and everybody starts putting their layers on it. We’ve written enough songs together that we know what’s going to sound right. Kevin and I don’t do a lot of the stereotypical rhythm-lead stuff; we both play parts, if that makes sense. A lot of people hear “rhythm guitar” and think just power chords while the other person plays octaves or bellowing leads, and we try to avoid that as much as we can.
Kevin just recently started doing more vocals. On the first EP, there was really only one song where he did screams, “Carnivorous Nocturnal Activities.” But on the new one, I think he’s on almost every single song.
Kevin: The voice has never been my strongest instrument. Anybody who went to high school with me kind of knows that. We did screaming lessons, and we got it. I’m doing it now.
Kaleb: We actually did theater together in high school. That’s how we became friends. We were in a lot of musicals together.
Kevin: We did The Little Mermaid, and I was Prince Eric.
Kaleb: My biggest role was Corny Collins in Hairspray. I still had long hair, so I had to stuff it down the back of my sports coat and slick it back with gel. I wasn’t cutting my hair for a high school play. It’s important to have those boundaries.
What stands out as the biggest difference between the first EP and the one coming out?
Kaleb: This one is definitely more aggressive in some ways and less so in others. We pushed the boundaries in both directions, getting a little heavier and a little softer. There’s a song called “Equivalent Exchange” that I think is going to be the closer on the record, and it’s more or less us trying to write a pop song in our style. We broadened the sound spectrum instead of just doing more of the same.
There’s also a song called “Frizzy Hair Weather”; we like to keep the emo tradition of naming songs the most ridiculous things. That one’s one of our oldest songs. And I got to do a deep death metal growl on it, which is not really that type of song at all, so we’ll see how that flies. We’re not transitioning into a death metal band, but there’s a taste of it. We played it live at the Milestone, and people liked it.
Kevin: Somebody at that show said, “You guys just do whatever you want.” And we were like, yeah.
When are you hoping to release the EP?
Kaleb: Probably July or August. We just got a fourth mix back, sent our notes, and we think those are the final tweaks. Then it goes to mastering, and after that it’s up to us to figure out the rollout. That’s the sucky part of doing this. We should have everything back within three weeks.
We’re also waiting on the cover art. We work with an artist in Orlando named Greg Duffy, he’s @creaturerevenge on Instagram. He works at Universal and does a lot of art for them. The creature on the front of our first EP is basically an unofficially unofficial Creature from the Black Lagoon, since it came from the hand of a Universal artist. He made us one that was legally distinct: the creature from the Green Lagoon.
The new artwork will be kind of like a colored version of the illustrations from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. The freaky ones, like the lady with the bugs crawling out of her head. We’re very influenced by horror. If you ever pull up our lyrics on Spotify, you can hear all the horror stuff. There’s actually a song on the new EP about Frankenstein. We hit all the spooky notes.
We released the first EP on Halloween, which was perfect given all the horror motifs in our artwork and lyrics. This time we’re open to whatever makes sense for the rollout.
Who are some of your favorite local or regional musicians?
Kaleb: We’ve played Winston-Salem a lot, and DunkTank has helped us out a lot. They’re a one-person black metal act that projects homemade movies behind them the whole time, it’s awesome. They sing songs about their cats and stuff. Really good. They’re on hiatus right now, but I can’t wait for them to come back.
We’re really good friends with the Horse Island guys. They have a great sound, kind of pop-punk in the way Saves the Day is, not in the Sum 41 way. More indie rock leaning, like Piebald or Saves the Day. I like them a lot.
Girl Brutal just announced the band is over and it’s going to be just the DJ stuff now, which is also cool. Jackson Fig, they’re really good. We used to practice in the same storage unit, so we were neighbors. Johnstown Flood is a Charlotte one for us since that’s where we saw them. Stress Fractures, too, that was a cool little gig. And Knee High, that’s our friend Maya. Great rapper.
Any final thoughts or anything you want to make sure people know?
Kaleb: Honestly, fuck genres. Don’t stay in your lane; do whatever you want. That’s the lesson. Go with your gut, go with what you want to do. If you want to have a twinkly emo riff in your hardcore song, do it. If you want to rip off American Football for three songs, do it. Don’t let anybody tell you what music you should make.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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