A Dirty Dozen with WOUNDED TOUCH – AUGUST 2024

According to a recent press release: “Even since their infancy, the Michigan outfit Wounded Touch have used musical guerilla campaign tactics to make their way onto the likes of The Fest, Furnace Fest ’21 and ’23 official pre-shows, SXSW, tour the United Kingdom, and sell out the first pressing of their debut LP while fighting for every inch of ground not given. Bringing influence through the scope of the nostalgic 2000s metalcore / mathcore sound, the band aims to always keep their heads down, remain humble, and push forward through any means necessary if it means continuing to be loud, noisy, and frantic on as many stages as possible. Smartpunk Records’ metal powerhouses Wounded Touch embrace elements of 2000’s metalcore and mathcore in their short but densely-packed, majorly heavy single “Submitted For (Dis)Approval.” The band recorded the upcoming split EP Traumatic Entanglement with Matt Marquez from Norma Jean and they share the tracklist with fellow metal band FallFiftyFeet.” We get the band to collectively discuss new music, influences, and more.

1. Tell us a little about your latest release.  What might a fan or listener not grab the first or second time they listen through?  Are there any hidden nuggets you put in the material or that only diehard fans might find?

Our half of the split was written succinctly, in two different tunings but ending and beginning with the same chords and thirds so as to function as “sister” songs, something that was initially unintentional with the split’s cover that ended up coinciding nicely.

2. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician?

Other local bands and local scenes played a huge part in each of our musical upbringings because it legitimizes and contextualizes aggressive music in a way that larger scale artists can’t, and it’s inevitable that I think you say to yourself “I can do that.”

3. Building on that, is there a specific song, album, performer, or live show that guided your musical taste?

In regards to that example, The Black Dahlia Murder and For the Fallen Dreams seemed to be big examples of that for most of us in high school.

4. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be, and why?

We’d all likely give a significantly different answer for this individually, but Greg Pusciato has been one consistently mentioned.

5. What is your favorite activity when out of the studio and/or not on tour?  What do you like to do to unwind?

As a band of fully employed career guys and dads, music really is the way we get to unwind on our downtime usually.

6. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before? What is the one comparison a reviewer or fan has made that made you cringe or you disagreed with?

Imagine a band that sounds like they’re from the early 2000s writing a bunch of singles that could have been featured on Atticus, Ozzfest, or Hydra Head Records sampler discs.

7. When your band is hanging out together, who cooks, who gets the drinks in, and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?

Nick cooks if it’s not Kyle’s mom, Jeremy and Kyle would be the most likely to enjoy some adult beverages, and that acoustic guitar stays in the case and gets moved outside.

8. When was the last time you were starstruck and who was it?

Hanging backstage at Furnace Fest ‘23 and watching Hopesfall side stage.

9. What is the best part of being a musician? If you could no longer be a musician for whatever reason, what would be your dream job?

Having an excuse to make productive use of the feelings most people have to bottle inside or swallow down and turn it into something with meaning. Running a record shop / video rental store.

10. What is one question you have always wanted an interviewer to ask – and what is the answer? Conversely, what question are you tired of answering?

“What is one movie the band always collectively talks about wanting to watch together?” And we’d say “Event Horizon or The Thing.” Consistently being asked “what do you have going on next?” Because shit, we never know until the last minute.

11. Looking back over your career, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep or you would like to have a “do over,” even if it didn’t change your current situation?

We played it very safe with our music until our first LP and we should have been confident enough in ourselves to take more of the chances that ended up helping us open more doors later on.

12. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?

Being a fly on the wall for St. Anger in person, just to see how much of the documentary was real and if it was mostly real, how much worse it was off camera.

WOUNDED TOUCH LINKS:

FACEBOOK

X – TWITTER

INSTAGRAM

Category: Interviews