Interview: Band of the Week - Self Against City

Just a few weeks ago Self Against City's first album, Telling Secrets to Strangers, was released but the project has been brewing for quite some time. Completely written by lead singer and guitarist Jonathan Michael and guitarist, vocalist, and keyboard player Jack Matranga, calling the project a labor of love is not exaggerating one bit.

If there is one thing that came through loud and clear as I spoke on the phone with Jack, it was his love and passion for not only music, but the history of music and the performance of it. The band has seen its share of ups and downs, two members left just as they were getting ready to record the album, but they've also had breaks as well. They were discovered by Drive-thru records after uploading two demos to Pure Volume.

I sat down and talked to Jack Matranga not more than twenty-four hours after they had finished an incredibly crazy week shooting a video. They were at their first stop of a tour, they've been to launch for quite some time and we talked about the new album, Telling Secrets to Strangers, the new video, the fans, and of course, the music.

Tell me a little bit about Self Against City's history and how you formed?

Sure. It's actually a really, really long story. The band formed in Sacramento through a couple of other projects that was going on. Our original bass player and our singer, Jonathon [Michael] were in a band together, right outside of Sacramento actually, and they had a friend who was a drummer in a band about an hour north of here. Myself and Jeff [LaTour]were in a band together as well. We met through a radio DJ and we ended up just combining forces.

We were going strong for a couple of years, and Chris and Patrick, our original rhythm section, ended up quitting right when we finished with the album – that was pretty random. We ended up replacing them with a friend of ours from Florida named Blake, who is now playing bass, and a drummer from Sacramento who was in a local band for about four or five years that we looked up to. It was actually pretty random that we ended up getting Justin, their drummer, right when they broke up.

Article Author: Connie Phillips

Wife, mother, aspiring novelist, and music editor at BC Magazine, Connie Phillips spends most of her time in a fantasy land of her own creating. In reality, she writes about music, television, and the process of writing, when she's not cheering on her kids at equestrian events. …

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