It’s a formidable statement of intent that Indio, California, desert rockers House of Broken Promises made with their Small Stone debut full-length, Using the Useless. Basically, it went like this: if you’ve got balls, they’re gonna rock ’em right off. No tricks, no bullshit, no extended prog solos to show off musicianship — just heavy rock and roll, all the time. Do one thing, do it loud.

After they made themselves known with the Death in Pretty Wrapping demo and a split with Germany‘s Duster69, there was little doubt Using the Useless would destroy in classic fashion. The band’s lineage traces back to Unida, one of the many acts in the Kyuss family tree, fronted by vocalist John Garcia. Screwed by their label and more or less shut down for good, Unida slowly dissolved as Garcia set about becoming a family and working man (nothing against it; we all have to choose our priorities and a good many times real life wins), leaving bassist Eddie Plasciencia, guitarist Arthur Seay and drummer Mike Cancino bandless. It wasn’t long before Plasciencia took the vocal spot in addition to playing bass and House of Broken Promises was established.

They recorded Using the Useless in Seay‘s own BitterSand Recording studio, and are set to play this year’s Small Stone showcase at SXSW and the Roadburn Afterburner event in The Netherlands as part of a European tour with Texas heavyweights Dixie Witch. In the following interview, an excited Seay discusses the formation of the band, the secrets of the riff, and just whose dog that was in the video they filmed for the song “The Hurt (Paid My Dues).”

Q&A, always, is after the jump. Please enjoy.

It’s still new, obviously, but have you gotten a sense of the response to the album? Everything I’ve seen has been really positive.

Yeah, all the press has been really positive. So far I think three websites have put us in their Top 20 of 2009! Alongside Slayer, Mastodon, Lamb of God, etc. We also received “Album of the Month” on Cutting EdgeRock.com. All the responses from everyone have been great. Jason Ellis from Sirius/XM radio has added us to full rotation on Faction 28, that’s his show, and has been talking about us a lot on there so that definitely fucking doesn’t hurt! That definitely feels good. I worked myself to the bone writing, engineering, producing blah blah blah on this record and it was well worth it. We just got confirmation that MTVs Headbangers Ball is going to premiere the video for “The Hurt (Paid My Dues)” shot by Rick Kosick (Jackass fame), so that fucking rocks! Were shooting another video right now for “Obey the Snake” and that video is going to be sick! It’s pretty much a $250,000 video for about a grand. I do audio, lighting and video shit so one of the companies I work for, CYM Lighting, hooked us up with about $250 grand worth of lighting and production for this new video. And it looks sick!! Shot in HD and full of hot babes shaking their money makers!! We’re going to push and support this record as hard as we can in all aspects!

At what point did you decide to pick up House of Broken Promises from Unida? I remember hearing the demo a few years back, but how has the sound developed from your perspective?

Well Unida wasn’t really doing shit. John was getting more and more part time singer, he got married and had a child which of course makes things a little harder but not impossible, but he focused more on his vet work than the music side. And I’m all music and art 24/7. That’s all I want to do is write, record, tour, record tour, produce, tour, ha ha! So Mike and I set out to start something new and positive, musically and emotionally. That’s when Eddie moved back to the desert and we started jamming with him. We all knew each other from high school marching band! I played sax, Eddie clarinet and Mike of course drums. We had a shredder metal band back then, too. So eventually we found a singer and wrote a whole record and recorded it. But that didn’t really work out with that singer he was good but just not the right fit. I really dig those songs musically but lyrically and his style wasn’t vibing. Plus he didn’t have the drive to succeed. We had a whole European tour being booked, yadda yadda, and the dude didn’t want to leave his waiter job to tour in Europe for a month! Really? Are you fucking kidding me! We were definitely over the whole “Singer Syndrome” from vocalists! Anyway, that’s pretty much when we said let’s just do it ourselves and Eddie stepped up and myself and Mike and we all started singing and doing our thing! Our sound definitely has come into itself. Using the Useless has a good variety of tunes on it, from more metal tracks like “Torn” to the classic AC/DC rock of “Obey the Snake.” I write all kinds of different shit! I’m even working on some pop tunes for a female singer. That’s one of the reasons why I built my studio so I can do what I want when I want!

Are there any differences in the approach of two bands, or is the songwriting pretty much the same, just with Eddie on vocals?

Writing is pretty similar to a point. I’ll have all the riffs for a song pretty much how it might be arranged and then we’ll jam it out together and arrange it. Or when we rehearse, I’ll strap on my guitar and the first riff that comes from the Riff God flows through me we’ll just start jamming that shit and have a whole song done in one rehearsal! It all depends. Each song is born a different way. Eddie will bring in a sick bass line and I’ll have a riff and they’ll work together and POW!! Shitting out another hit!! LOL!!

When you were starting out, did you contemplate finding another singer to replace John, or did you know right away that Eddie would sing lead?

We just sought out to start a new band that was true to us and be a positive hard working band to get back and go beyond what we accomplished with Unida. We tried a couple of singers but like I said earlier it didn’t fit and we said, “Fuck it! Hey Eddie, you can sing, go for it!” And I definitely made it a point to sing myself and that grew into a part of our sound. Like on “Psycho Plex” or “The Hurt,” we do a lot of call and answer shit on that chorus. So being it’s just the three of us we all do our part to fill it up and make it huge and it seems to be coming across well.

One of the things I like best about Using the Useless is there’s absolutely no bullshit about it. The songs are straightforward and kick ass without any frills or too many extras. What’s the writing process like? Do you think of the songs in terms of verses and choruses while you’re writing, or does the structure just come together?

It’s all about the riffs!! Riff riff riff!! That riff will be the verse, that riff will be the chorus, but the first thing is you have to have that badass riff! There’s not that many memorable riffs these days. It’s like when you hear Black Sabbath or AC/DC or Led Zeppelin, you hear that riff and you know who the fuck that is! Once we have the riffs well start putting all the tasty flavors together and cook ‘em up in the 120 degree heat of the desert sun in summer.

What was the recording like? Did the album come out the way you wanted it to be?

Yeah, it was a whole process from building the studio to recording the record. I got sick of dealing with other studios and engineers and their problems and/or addictions and said, “Fuck it, I need my own studio!” I love recording and want to produce other projects as well. I saved all my money from working with Slipknot (I bass teched for Paul Gray) and started building my studio. And that was a whole undertaking in itself. But the studio came out sick and Using the Useless was the big cherry popper! I engineered and produced the record and a good friend of mine, Mark Armentrout, and I mixed it. It was a blast to do but it was a shit load of work on my ass and it definitely drove me crazy too! I get real anal about shit but I do know when to say fuck it also. It was great ‘cause I could experiment and try different things and not have to worry about how much the studio was costing us, only thing we had to worry about was our own time frame.

How has desert rock changed in your opinion over this decade?

Desert rock, stoner rock, stoner metal? Well, in some degrees it’s made the mainstream with Queens of the Stone Age and Wolfmother, The Sword. And more props to them because it helps us out with our world takeover!

Whose dog is it in the video for “The Hurt?” In that scene where it gets spooked and runs off, what actually happened there?

We shot that video out in Niland, CA, about one hour from my studio in Indio. It’s called Slab City. It’s also where Salvation Mountain is located. It was a military base back in the day where Patton trained the tank corps. All that is left are big cement slabs and all these people that want to be left alone and off the grid and crack heads and tweekers live out there in broken down buses and trailers. It’s pretty much Mad Max out there. When you first enter the area there are nice RVs and trailers. People live out there and camp, but the farther you go in the crazier it gets!

The old man in the video was one of the “Slabbers,” we called them, that lived out there and he came over and was totally cool and we put him and his dogs in the video. His name was Ed and those shots with the dogs were their real reaction to us rocking out!

You guys are playing the Roadburn Afterburner in 2010. Is that going to be part of a European tour, or are you just flying over for that? Anyone you’re looking forward to seeing at the fest?

Yeah it’s going to be about a month tour with our brothers Dixie Witch. We’re hitting all the European countries. There’s going to be a lot of desert brothers out at the fest so it’s gonna be really cool.

Any other plans or closing words you want to mention?

We’re also going to be playing at SXSW at the Small Stone showcase which is sponsored by Converse and Thrasher magazine. Gonna have a skate ramp and all that shit going on. Gonna be a blast and we’re going to blow the fucking place away!!

Just check us out at all the ego sites: myspace.com/houseofbrokenpromises, facebook.com/hobpmusic, blah, blah. We are going to be touring and supporting this record and taking it to the people. Well be playing at Jason Ellis’ Ellismania in Vegas in April. He does MMA fights as well. Should be a blast! Rikki Rachtman (Headbangers Ball host back in the day) will be fighting someone too, and we’ll rip the place a couple new asses! Thank you for your support!

House of Broken Promises on MySpace

Small Stone Records

Tags: California, House of Broken Promises, Indio, Small Stone

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 11:16 am and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.