Lessons is a metalcore band featuring members of Planet Earth, Take Cover and two thirds of Children 18:3. Sound cool? I think so. IATU’s Sean Huncherick was able to sit and talk with members JJ and Dave (singer of Children 18:3) at Audiofeed Festival this summer. Read on for an entertaining interview and then listen to the band’s debut EP on Spotify!

Sean Huncherick (IATU): First off, can you guys introduce yourselves?

Dave: This is JJ Snell, my name’s Dave. We play in a band called Lessons from Minnesota

Sean: And you guys are a group of musicians that are made up of people from different bands. Can you guys talk about what bands you were in before Lessons?

JJ: Yeah, it [Lessons] kind of culminated from three different bands out of four of us. David and Seth from a band called Children 18:3, Chad Snell who was in a band called Take Cover…

Dave: Which was a Jamestown Story.

JJ: All three of those bands are not metal in the least regard. And I came from a band called Planet Earth which was a little bit more metal, but [we] didn’t do a whole lot with it. We pretty much were just a local band. Back home, I play in a church worship team which is not metal. So the culmination of the four of us is really not metal at all.

Sean: If you want a church metal worship band, that’s cool too.

JJ: I mean why not, you know? Yeah.

Dave: We’re pretty easy dudes.

Sean: So you guys definitely did not come from metal bands beforehand. How did a metalcore band called Lessons come about?

JJ: It started as just like…I’m the youngest in the band at the age of 26 and we were just getting at this age where it’s like we’ve done the show thing, you know? Where you try to make it, you try to please ears, try to make something and get fans…I just wanted to steer clear of anything that would be disappointing to us in any regard. So if it was a band that we made that the fans didn’t like, I’d like it still. I never wanted to do anything that if we didn’t get to a certain level, we’d be disappointed. No matter what, if it was music for my mom, it would be a positive thing. It was just that idea of “Let’s just do it, to do it, and do it right.” When we started it, we all grew up listening to metal and stuff like that. Like some of the early bands…[Dave,] who did you listen to?

Dave: From the early 2000s? Zao and This is Solid State Volume II. Some of that stuff.

Sean: Zao, Sacrifice, Extol?

JJ: Yeah, that was the stuff we listened to and now that we’re getting older, we don’t want to try and get a sound that’s pleasing to anybody’s ears. We just want to do what we wanted to do and what we felt would be good music to play. So that’s kind of where it came from. It’s just always been in our roots to do some metal stuff. It just came together from there.

Sean: The band is called “Lessons,” so where did that name come from?

Dave: Well, the band is comprised of two sets of brothers: Seth and myself, and Chad and JJ Snell. In French “lessons” [said in exaggerated French accent] means “the sons,” so I feel like there’s the actual meaning of being sons, but then there’s the HXC, hardcore feel that comes with the American translation of the word “lessons” – keeping it straight up and trying to do the right thing. I feel like the hardcore community is all about that. It’s a dual meaning.

Sean: When you guys go to France on your international tour coming up, it’s going to connect with them a lot.

JJ: Ah, qui! Except we’ll probably get there and all of a sudden it’s not even French and that’s not even how you spell “the sons” in French or something. Like everything we built ourselves on is thrown out the window.

Sean: Ah, it’ll be good. They’ll still like the music; they’re French.

JJ: French metalcore.

Sean: French black metal is actually pretty big right now.

JJ: Really? We gotta get to France.

Sean: Now Take Cover did break up already, but Children 18:3 are still together, Planet Earth is still together…

JJ: Planet Earth is not together.

Sean: OK, so what are the plans for Children 18:3 with the side project?

Dave: Well, Children 18:3 is my main gig. We’re working on new tunes and going into the studio sometime this year to work on a new record. We do Lessons just when we have time. Both the other dudes, Chad and JJ, have other jobs and families, so it’s more of when there’s time, Lessons is the thing we do.

JJ: We never wanted for Lessons to be something you felt obligated, pressured, or stressed to do. We never wanted any negative touch to be on this band at all. Zero negativity. Sometimes that means not over doing it, not getting burnt out. Sometimes we can do little weekends like this that keep us going with it, but like Dave said, there are other priorities in our lives. [We’re] not saying that music isn’t a priority, but like there are just different things that are just really strong on our hearts that are above this sometimes.

Dave: And sometimes you see bands too much and you just don’t get excited about it. We just never wanted to be that band that it’s like ‘uhh…here’s Lessons again. Oh. I’ve heard this song before.’ You know what I mean? We want to do something and not rake ourselves over the coals.

Sean: What are some of your favorite metalcore albums?

JJ: Well, my top five would go something like:
1. Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child [by Norma Jean]

2. The self-titled from My Children, My Bride.

3 & 4, the first two Maylene [and the Sons of Disaster] records.

5. Depravity by Plea [for Purging]

…Actually, that [Depravity] might actually be number two, then My Children, My Bride at three and then the first two Maylene records and Lost Boy by MCMB as well.

Dave: Probably, uhh…Aw, that’s always a big question. I can never rank [albums]. What defines a good album for me is [that] no matter how many times you listen to it, you can still put it in and listen to it and enjoy it without getting burnt out. Like Poison the Well, You Come Before You. That’s one of my tops. Misery Signals, Of Malice and Magnum…that’s a good one. What else? Advent, Naked & Cold. That’s one of my tops, for sure. I don’t know! There’s a few.

Sean: It’s tricky. There’s a lot of good stuff.

Dave: Yeah! But like growing up, I had [bands] like Symphony in Peril.

Sean: They’re from my hometown.

JJ: Oh really, you know those guys?

Sean: Yeah, they’re terrific.

Dave: Yeah, they’re awesome. What were some of the other bands? Bloodline Calligraphy. That’s the stuff. Not that I would ever listen to too much of that stuff right now.

JJ: No Innocent Victim.

Sean: NIV!

JJ: Nodes of Ranvier!

Sean: *laughs* Like XDiscipleX. Not Disciple!

Dave: Yeah! Deathstar.

Sean: The bands that would play Cornerstone all the time.

JJ: Yeah! I mean, it’s the classic stuff.

Dave: There’s a few good bands left out there.

Sean: Moving away from metalcore a little bit, we are going to pretend that you guys are absolutely flawless with any instrument in the world and you can play every genre of music. What genre of music would you guys play?

Dave: *laughs* Lessons.

JJ: Yeah, Lessons. It’s one of those things too where I love all different types of music, I even love playing the music stuff at church, like our worship stuff. It’s my favorite thing to do. But there’s something about playing a live set that I don’t think I could ever see playing in a mellow band. There’s something about when you’re on stage and you’re in a show setting. It’s either leave everything on stage or don’t play at all. It’s the energy and the crowd participation that metal and hardcore has to offer. There’s nothing that beats that. So no matter how much I would like to play this other music, as far as a live set, high energy, intense metalcore and hardcore. There’s nothing like it.

Sean: Alright, we’re going to do a quick roleplay here. The year is now 2015. Lessons have put out their new album. Obviously, it’s gone triple platinum. You guys can now tour with anyone in the world. Who do you tour with?

JJ: Children 18:3.  *everyone laughs*

Dave: Who’d we tour with? [We would] bring some friends along, I guess. Nothing like touring with friends.

JJ: I mean, yeah. If the idea was not ‘we need someone to bring the crowd in,’ because we’re the ones that brought the crowd, than yeah. It would be dudes we wanted to hang out with.

Dave: Maybe Word will Spread. Some of our hometown buddies…maybe throw in Project Jesus Freak with our buddy Alex. He could come with us.

JJ: The thing with touring is that it’s built so much around ‘how can we make a successful tour.’ So if you take that away from it, like if you say there will be a huge crowd no matter who’s on the tour, than it’s like ‘well, I don’t know then. Uh…whoever.’

Dave: Yeah, I don’t know.

Sean: We’ll find out in a couple years than.

Dave: We’ll see what 2015 has to offer.

Sean: Alright, just two more questions. First of all, what have you guys been listening to lately?

JJ: I just got Natalie Maines record. Been listening to that in the van. Preeeetty good.

Dave: New Paramore. Paramore’s self-titled is killer. We were just listening to some Daft Punk on the way here, gettin’ our dance on. What else has been good? Ellie Goulding’s new album, Halcyon is good.

JJ: I think those are the two latest ones for me: Paramore and Natalie Maines.

Dave: Those have been killing the radio lately. I think we listened to Paramore a couple times on the way down here. For nine hours, you don’t have a whole lot of options, I guess.

Sean: How do you guys keep yourselves entertained for nine hours?

Dave: *laughs* I don’t know.

JJ: Slept a little bit.

Dave: Yeah, slept a little bit.

JJ: I did all the driving pretty much. Seth took a couple hours.

Dave: Some reading, sleep. Just dad stuff, you know?

JJ: DAD STUFF.

Dave: Dad stuff. Things dads do. That’s about it. Music, read, sleep, laugh…we like to laugh.

Sean: That’s a good thing to do sometimes.

Dave: Fill the car with, uh…odd smells. See what happens.

JJ: I would never do that!

Dave: Whatever.

Sean: *laughs* OK, any last comments for readers, fans, anyone else?

JJ: Um…Thank you? If you’re reading this, thanks for checking us out and supporting us. Really, when it comes down to it, music couldn’t be anything without listeners. There’s something pretty powerful about that. Dave?

Dave: No, I’m good. Thank you.

Sean: Thank you guys very much for the interview!