INTERVIEW: THE WORLD OVER – July 2018

INTERVIEW BY: RACHEL CRAIG

The World Over stopped by Knoxville for the first time during their Warped Afterparty Tour to perform well-loved favorites from their Mountains EP, along with brand new songs from their upcoming album. Inviolate from Atlanta provided support for the show (including front woman Kadria’s stunning sword-balancing routine), along with Knoxville’s own industrial rock group Deconbrio and metal band If All Else Fails.  I had a chance to sit down with The World Over’s vocalist Tiaday Ball, drummer Alejandro Mercado, and fill-in guitarist Aldo Vidal about their current tour, upcoming album, and how they’re leaving an impact in their fans. (Bassist Juan Arguello and guitarist Ryan Knecht were unable to make it to the Knoxville show).

Rachel: You guys were on several dates of the final Vans Warped Tour this year. I’ll be covering the Charlotte date on July 30th. How was it and have you been there before?

Tiaday: This is our first time ever playing Warped Tour, but Alex and I had gone previously separate years before we even knew each other. I went in 2011, it was my first time to see bands, like I saw Of Mice & Men and Memphis May Fire, that was super awesome, that was really cool. But I also felt frustrated because I was like “I wish I was playing there on the stage” and so it was really cool to be able to finally play it, and on the last year.

Alejandro: Yeah, I used to go to Warped Tour with my brother, I can’t recall the exact years, but it was the time when Katy Perry was rocking the stage at Warped Tour, and Paramore as well. And it wasn’t the main stages. It was at a good time.

Aldo: Like Katy Perry with P.O.D.? She was a background vocalist!

Rachel: Right now, you’re on the Warped Afterparty Tour. How has that been going so far?

Tiaday: Can’t complain. It’s been interesting seeing what different states we do actually have some pull in or some fans in, because this is the first time that we’ve gone in a lot of these states. I mean, this is the first time we’ve played Tennessee. I remember in one of our last runs in last June, we were supposed to go to Nashville and something last-minute got canceled. So we’d always wanted to play like Tennessee and we’ve always heard there’s good music scenes out here. Just seeing the event page for tonight, it’s exciting. I think I’ve played with Inviolate before, but that was when I was in Eyes Set To Kill and she was opening for us.

Rachel: What are your plans after this tour?

Tiaday: Just things still being confirmed. We’re trying to release a new music video for a new single as well. It’s been a while since we’ve actually put out some original music that wasn’t some sort of cover or version of itself. The last thing we put out was Ventifact, the acoustic version of our last album, but that was just for the holidays. And then the last thing we released was a ‘Punk Goes Pop’ cover of “Find You” by Nick Jonas. So that was our recent things. We’re long overdue to put out some new stuff and original content, so that’s the plan and hopefully follow-up with another small tour.

Rachel: Think you’ll make a full album since you’ve mostly just released EPs so far?

Tiaday: It’s leading up to that. We recently just got done recording our full-length in Canada, so it’s just a matter of time.

Rachel: Speaking of the cover songs and the acoustic album, what inspired you to take a different direction for a little bit?

Tiaday: I think we just wanted to just put out something for the holidays as a gift to the fans, because we’ve been writing this new album – for the full-length – for a long time now and in between, we didn’t want to fall off the face of the earth. We also just wanted to keep providing stuff and since we did pretty well and got a pretty good reception from how Mountains turned out, we wanted to just kinda give a little something to the fans. It was also something we could actually play for our family for the holidays, because there’s no screaming in it.

Rachel: Tiaday, you have a YouTube channel where you’ve done a lot of vocal covers. Has that helped you connect with the fans and turned them into fans of The World Over?

Tiaday: I think it has helped a little bit. I try to do whatever I can in all different elements to try to promote the project. Because at the end of my cover videos, I always put links to bands and stuff because one of my more successful covers was “Payback” by Attila and a lot of people didn’t believe it was me. It’s like I either get really good reactions from it or really bad. They’re like, “well, if you turn down the volume so people can hear you…” It’s just the fact that literally Fronz and I have such a similar vocal style, I drowned the track to the bottom, it’s just my vocals and I get so much shit for it. So, sometimes I’ll be like “hey if you don’t believe that it’s me, here’s my band, check out The World Over.” And that’s when they’re like… oh crap, that actually is you. I don’t even look at comments anymore, unless they’re positive, it’s like, whatever. You’re going to have that but it’s still worth getting yourself out there because otherwise, some fans would have never heard of us. We actually had a superfan come out to Warped Tour, and she had a sign that said ‘The World Over saved me’ and it was one of the most touching moments. I cried on stage. But, she told us afterwards when she came to meet us later that she actually found us through my cover that I did with my friend K Enagonio, who’s also a YouTube screamer girl. She’s a fan of her, and we did a cover together and then she followed our stuff. Since then, she’s just been loving our music, which is just crazy.

Rachel: Does anyone else in the band have any outside music projects too?

Tiaday: [Alejandro] just played on EDC (Electric Daisy Carnival).

Alejandro: With street drum corps, other artists around Los Angeles, just drummin’, session work, all that good stuff. I teach privately as well. So I stay busy.

Rachel: Sounds like you’re a bunch of teachers. Went to music school, and Tiaday’s doing vocal covers.

Tiaday: [Alejandro] went to music school too, just a different one. Musicians Institute in Hollywood. So we’re all kinda trained so that we’re able to train others, I guess if nothing else worked out. We can always become teachers.

Aldo: It’s the best. I love teaching.

Alejandro: It’s actually pretty rewarding. I worked with a big group, an after-school program called LACER, which The World Over actually worked with as well. The kids in that program created tie-dye T-shirts that we have for sale and proceeds from those sales go straight back to their program to help them support the arts and keep their program rolling.

Tiaday: They didn’t have anything to tie-dye with so we brought like tie-dye materials because the schools there are just sometimes not in the best areas and they had created these after-school programs so that they can stay out of trouble, and so we wanted to bring something for them to do and stay creative instead of doing bad stuff. So the proceeds will help go towards giving some more art supplies so that they can keep creating.

Alejandro: It’s a great program for kids to, like Tiaday said, stay out of trouble and as a teacher, you get to also build these awesome relationships with these kids that you know, not everyone wants to learn but the kids who do learn, I’m still friends and still get messages from students from years back still just keeping tabs with me, like “hey man, I’m doing this, check this out.” I’m always saying “Let me know your progress, keep me up to date” and they’re friends for life.

Rachel: Anything you guys want to add about the rest of the tour?

Tiaday: Keep checking out for more dates on our social media, we’ve got Facebook – The World Over Official or Twitter – @TWO_Band. And if you want to check us out on Spotify too, that’d be great! Thank you for having us.

THE WORLD OVER LINKS:

OFFICIAL SITE

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

Category: Interviews, Photo Galleries