Carving Out Fiction

Band:

Carving Out Fiction

Members: Joe Coria, vocals and Guitar; Andy Frey, bass; Oliver Feakins, drums; Adam Gingrich, lead guitar

Who we talked to: Coria, 28

How did you guys meet/ How long have you been performing together? In 2007, I wrote a bunch of songs, and I decided that I would . . . do a solo album. I called it Carving Out Fiction. I never had any ambition of making a band of it or anything like that. About that time, I met up with Andy. I was in a band playing drums . . . and it never really got anywhere. Andy came in to be our bass player, and then . . . the singer. Around late 2009 . . . I went to Andy and said, "hey, I already have songs written in this thing called Carving Out Fiction. Would you be interested in making it a live band?" It took us a while to get . . . members. It was about maybe May of last year that we actually had a full band.

Where do you play in the area? We played our first show at Tourist Inn in August of 2010. It went over pretty well. Our second show was a CD release party. There was a second CD that I had been working on for a long time. The guys were like, "Let's just release that and promote that, and then we'll make our actual studio album as a band." We set a Gullifty's record. There were (more than) 250 people through the door at (the CD release show).

Describe your sound. I would say that we're hard rock and (have) elements of post-hardcore. We've been compared to Thrice and Glassjaw. There (are) a few songs that people say we sound like Incubus. There's a song that people say we sound like the Deftones. There's a song that people say we sound like Green Day. It's very versatile. It's very non-threatening, even though I'm screaming in I'd say, like, 25 percent of the songs. People (who) don't listen to that kind of music could get into it.

Does all that screaming hurt? The way I scream . . . doesn't really hurt me very much. At first, it did because the way I was doing it. Now, I kind of learned to get better and better at it where I'm not exerting as much energy to (scream). At shows, sometimes I pop blood vessels under my eyes. I (scream) enough that you can tell that the band's a little harder than most. I do it just enough where it doesn't really affect my voice. If we play a longer show, I might lose my voice.

You landed some big opening slots? On Tuesday, we (opened) for Bowling for Soup at the Chameleon Club. That was a last-minute thing. July 9, we're opening for Hawthorne Heights. We were offered to open for Taproot on May 22, but we had to decline it because (Andy's wife) is going to have a baby very soon. We wanted him to be around and not playing a show the night his wife might be giving birth.

How do you get the crowd into your music? The thing about it is that there (are) a lot of bands that have this . . . rock star (attitude). We get very interactive with the crowd. I throw, like, Skittles at them and play around. That's what we feel that it should be at a live show. Our music isn't the kind of music that people flock to. We promote (it) and get people to come out. That's pretty much the secret to our success at this point. Any band that wants to do well . . . has to go out and bug . . . their friends to watch them play. Our goal is to show Harrisburg and Lancaster and York and all the surrounding areas that local, original music can have a good turnout. Andy . . . is a promotional machine. We blast text message everybody. I'll be honest with you - We're pretty annoying, but in return we get people to come watch us.

What is coming up for you guys? We should have the new (EP) done by the fall. We have five new songs and we're going to (re-record) three songs from the first album. We play them very differently (live) than the way I recorded them. We kind of also like to have some cool artwork, too. The first album (cover) kind of has a Tim Burton feel. The second . . . is a comic book parody. I think that having cool artwork is just another layer on top of (the music). We're in the process of making the third album now . . . and the guy who did the (artwork is) David Wirth. He is an amazing artist. I kind of wanted something gloomy . . . kind of something out of the movie "Big Fish".

- Erin McCracken, FlipSide staff

One Motive Productions

"We have careers . . . so we have extra money for the band fund," Carving Out Fiction guitarist Joe Coria said. "We've started a small label called One Motive Productions. We signed two bands earlier in April. The one band is called A True Calling. The other band is called The OK Rivals. Our guitar player (Adam) is the frontman in that band. They're very different and also very good. We play a lot of shows with them. We have this mentality . . . that we're going to show a lot of other bands that want to do well how to do it. It's not easy."

Online

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