Editor’s Note: It was an absolutely pleasant surprise to have guitarist Austin Ingerman of New Years Day personally reach out to Madness To Creation wanting to interview. On June 5th, he will be releasing a single from his brand new solo project and he also wanted to discuss about mental health awareness, Covid-19 and anything regarding his solo projects and New Years Day. Madness To Creation has been fortunate enough to cover this band on two separate occasions, once at the Warped Tour and once when they were headlining at Wooly’s in Des Moines, Iowa. Fans can find Austin Ingerman at the following locations:
www.facebook.com/austin.ingerman
www.instagram.com/austiningerman
www.twitter.com/AustinIngerman
Madness To Creation: Austin, I have to say that it’s super humbling for you to reach out, so thank you so much! How have you been coping with the Covid-19 pandemic?
Austin: First of all, I’m honored to get to talk with you, and thanks for getting back to me, this is definitely strange times, for me the big thing that I try to focus on to get through it is the little things. For me, I like to work out a lot, and I try to focus on all of the positive things that I can do to get better that I normally wouldn’t be able to do out on the road. I practice guitar as much as I can, writing a lot of music, and really just focus on the little things that make you happy. I think that is really the important thing right now is to not get too caught up in the news, and not get too caught up in the big picture of things, which is really undetermined right now because of all that is going to do is stress you out, so I think that it’s really important to focus on the little things. What is going to make you happy right now, what is going to make you happy today, whether it’s cooking your favorite meal or going on a bike ride, or just really thinking within a small mindset. I think doing that is a lot healthier for the mind as opposed to letting the media and the news stress you out.
Madness To Creation: You mentioned working out, are there any particular regiments that you do?
Austin: Yeah, a few years back I started doing P90X, not sure if you’ve heard of that, it’s by a company called Beach Body and I started frequently doing that a few years back, I actually have the app on my phone, so I do a combination of that and they released P90X 3, which is a 30 minute workout, and it’s just like a lot of body weight type moves, mixed with weight training. I’m actually staying down at my parents’ place visiting family in Pensacola, Florida right now, so we have a weight set in the garage, so I just try to go out there and get a 30-minute routine to an hour every day. It really makes me feel better throughout the whole rest of the day, it clears the mind and it’s definitely an important thing for sure.
Madness To Creation: Do you feel that your mental health and weight training impacts your songwriting when you craft your songs on the guitar?
Austin: Absolutely, I really do, cause a lot of the times, I’ll wake up in the morning with a cup of coffee and start writing songs, but songwriting is one of those things where you definitely have to go to and come back, it’s all about perspective, you have to get a fresh mindset, so I kind of like to work on it for a few hours, I might go outside and workout, and just do something else to kind of get my mind off of it and come back to it, and you’ll be surprised at the ideas that might just flow through your head or pop into your head. Sometimes it happens while you’re taking a step away from it too, you might be mowing the grass and all of a sudden, an idea pops into your head or you’ll be in the middle of a workout and you’re like, “Oh, I gotta go record this idea”.
Madness To Creation: How has the rest of New Years Day been coping through this pandemic and what adjustments have you and the band had to make through all this?
Austin: (at time of interview) Yeah, so I’ve been talking with Frankie, our bass player, it was his birthday yesterday, so I talked to him for a little while yesterday. Everybody is doing good, it’s just one of those weird things where we don’t know what’s really in store for us right now as far as when we can hit the road again, just like everybody else, we’re kind of in limbo with that. We have been talking about writing some new stuff, but everybody’s doing good, everybody is just taking the time to visit family and friends, those things are a lot of things we don’t really get to do a lot when we’re on the road because the past couple of years for New Years Day, it’s been pretty nonstop. I think last year we were doing press last February for the new album, we were in Australia in March, the Falling In Reverse tour in April, and we did two headliner tours, it was just back to back to back. You can always make positives out of any situation, and it’s not a good thing on what’s going on in the world right now, but there are things that you can do to make the most out of it.
Madness To Creation: You mentioned writing a little bit ago, does the band have anything in the works yet?
Austin: We have a couple of things, we’ve been throwing around some ideas, we haven’t dug super deep into it yet, we’ve just been talking about the overall direction and things like that, but I like to take my laptop with me on the road, and some of the ideas, I’ve had for awhile, some of the ideas are new, but we haven’t gotten super deep into it yet, I assume between now and the rest of the year, we’ll probably definitely be working on some stuff.
Madness To Creation: Speaking of writing, in your solo project you have a new single called “Everything Is Okay” coming out June 5th, what can New Years Day fans expect from it, and how did the idea for the song come about, was it middle of the night or something that you’ve been thinking about? I dig the positive vibes of the song by the way.
Austin: As you can tell, it’s quite the departure from the New Years Day style, but for myself, I listen to a lot of different kinds of music, I was born and raised here in Florida on the beach and stuff like that, so a lot of Beach Boys and Boston or more kind of like world music and stuff like that, so I listen to all kinds of stuff. So, one day I might be working on the heaviest of metal tracks and the next day, I’m working on a song like “Everything Is Okay”, so my tastes are pretty eclectic, but that was a song I wrote a few years back with some friends and a couple of nights ago, I was having a couple of drinks with my family and it was my dad who was like, “you know what man, you gotta do something with that song and it’s perfect for the times that we’re going through right now”, and so I had the files from a couple of years ago and so I decided to hit up my friend who’s a producer in Vegas named Chris Collier, who produces for Dave Coverdale of Whitesnake and he did the latest Whitesnake record and Lynch Mob, all the George Lynch stuff and he’s just an amazing mixer and producer, so I redid all of the guitar parts in my parents’ living room and I sent Chris the files out in Vegas and he mastered it and I just felt that it was just a perfect song for the times and as I’ve said, it’s definitely quite the departure from the New Years Day style, so we’ll kind of see, hopefully the reception will be pretty good from it. I just felt from a lyrical standpoint, it was very big for the time and I just needed to get it out there.
(Fans can pre-save “Everything Is Okay” here.)
Madness To Creation: How much do you miss the live stage?
Austin: I definitely miss the times. I think any other musician would agree that that is one of the reasons we do what we do, for me that’s what it’s all about, it’s the energy that you get playing off the crowd, there’s really no other feeling like it, it’s that natural high that adrenaline rush that you get from playing. It’s definitely addicting but you kind of take it for granted when you’re doing show after show after show, and a lot of other bands and artists are coming off tours during this quarantine and they’re really realizing that, they’re like, “wow, we took that for granted”, and everybody is missing it and I just think that when this quarantine is all over with, the live concerts are going to be better than ever and I think that everybody is going to show up, so hopefully in that sense it can create a positive rush, but I just think that like everyone else, I miss it.
Madness To Creation: Based on what we’ve been saying, do you see New Years Day trying something different like a pop or world music sound?
Austin: Yeah, well you never know, our last record “Unbreakable” definitely touches on some different influences, I know that Ash was big on wanting to combine the metal and the pop together, especially on a track like “Shut Up”, it’s definitely mixes the pop and metal thing together. You never know, I think that New Years Day has its staple sound that we probably won’t stray too far from, but I can’t say for sure, it all depends on where she wants to take it really.
Madness To Creation: Have you had to adjust how to handle the social media differently?
Austin: We definitely have, there’s been a lot of people posting a lot of stuff nowadays, it’s a little bit of an adjustment, I’m working on my YouTube channel right now, in order to just to try to stay relevant and to stay active with people and interact with the fans as much as I can, I definitely want to create as much music as possible during this down time and kind of show people things that come from me and stuff like that, it’s definitely been a little bit of an adjustment, but there’s so many people posting.
Madness To Creation: A couple of fun questions for you, take us into the very first New Years Day gig you were involved with? What was that like?
Austin: My very first New Years Day gig was that I think that it was a headliner show and I want to say it was in like Colorado or something like that, I think Colorado Springs, maybe it was in Arizona, it was an amazing time. It was when I was playing, I definitely knew that I would fit right in, it was a pretty seamless gig, everything went good, we had a good turnout, and that was actually the Halestorm/In This Moment run, I believe it was in August of 2018, and that was just an unbelievable tour. Halestorm and In This Moment are top notch, everybody from the band to the crew, everybody in those bands are absolutely top notch, but the first show was great, completely seamless, it’s been nonstop ever since then.
Madness To Creation: The one song that gets to me every time is “Aftermath” by The Ghost Inside, the emotions are overwhelming to me in that song, what song or album gets you emotional no matter how many times you hear it?
Austin: I’ve seen that video and that gets me emotional too, it’s definitely an emotional video for sure, for me I would have to pick a Boston song, I would have to go with “Don’t Look Back” and also “Kokomo” by The Beach Boys just because those two songs I could listen to no matter what kind of mood that I’m in and it already puts me in a good mood, no matter what those two songs always make my day for sure.
Madness To Creation: Given their musicianship, how did Boston not become the biggest band in history?
Austin: Oh, I know. Tom Schultz of Boston is an absolute genius, just the songwriting and the harmony, just the way that it sounds and given it was all recorded in the basement, especially in the 70’s when you couldn’t plug the guitar straight into your computer, I mean you really had to do everything on tape and do it the hard way, it’s crazy, it’s crazy how he did that.
Madness To Creation: If New Years Day could cover one Boston song, what would it be?
Austin: That would be cool to hear Ash sing some Boston. I think that you would have to go with “More Than A Feeling”, that would be cool, maybe a more rocked out “More Than A Feeling” on seven-string guitar. *laughs*
Madness To Creation: Is there anything else that you’re working on with your solo project?
Austin: Absolutely, I’m getting ready to release the single “Everything Is Okay” right now, and next week James Renshaw, drummer and I are going up to a studio in Alabama to track drums for the final three songs for my instrumental record, so that’s going to come up later on this year, sometime in the late summer/early fall, I’ll be releasing my debut instrumental record, I’m really excited about that too, and that’s going to be completely different than “Everything Is Okay”, so that’ll be the other side of the coin there, I’m definitely looking forward to that. There’s a lot of stuff that I’m still working on so it should be kind of a continuous thing for awhile.
Madness To Creation: What else would you like to add in regards to New Years Day, your solo project or if you want to plug your YouTube channel, you can certainly do that.
Austin: Absolutely, my new single “Everything Is Okay” is going to be out June 5th, make sure to follow me on Instagram @austiningermen, and follow me on Spotify as well. I’m going to be announcing giveaways, and launching a pre-save campaign too, so you’ll be able to pre-save it on Spotify very soon, so just be on the lookout for that, and I’ll be constantly posting about more news or new music or anything New Years Day, so most of it comes from it on Instagram, so follow me on Instagram, and YouTube is the same thing, just my first and last name as well as my website.
And there you have it! Fans can find New Years Day at the following locations:
- Photo Credit: Amber Lyons Photography
