An Interview with Local Band, A Shattered Hope

Members of local band A Shattered Hope were cool enough to swing by my radio show at USD and talk about their music and upcoming shows. A Shattered Hope are a hardcore/screamo band, drawing inspiration from bands like Every Time I Die, Alexisonfire and As I Lay Dying. Members are Tyler Ferguson on vocals, Scott Szikla on guitar, Nic Walker on bass and Nate Hess on drums with backing vocals. A Shattered Hope got together in 2003 while attending Poway High together and became really good friends. After spending only a half hour with them, I could see how much they really enjoy playing music and being together as a band, and I really began to hope that they break out and make it big, and it seems as though they are well on their way to doing exactly that.

A Shattered Hope played their CD release show with Scary Kids Scaring Kids when SKSK’s farewell tour came to San Diego. Their self-titled full-length CD has so far been selling pretty well on iTunes, receiving nothing but positive responses, and the guys believe “we’re starting to win over San Diego even more now.” This statement is backed up by the fact that they were recently featured as “Hometown Heroes” in Alternative Press magazine. This means that a bunch of people wrote in to Alternative Press to have A Shattered Hope featured in their magazine as one of that month’s best local bands, showing that they are beginning to make their mark on the local music scene. Because of this featured spot in the magazine, more people have already been contacting them to book them for shows, and it feels to me like it is only a matter of time before they get themselves signed.
According to Szikla, if there is an overall message to their music, “it’s to do your own thing, and try not to go with what everyone says to go with. We write songs about whatever is going on in our life.”
As far as the actual writing process goes, the band says that they will often write their lyrics separately, then bring what they have together. When their lyrics are brought together they usually end up connecting really well, which just goes to show how well these guys fit as a group.
As far as upcoming shows go, A Shattered Hope will be playing The Epicentre in Mira Mesa with Of Mice and Men and Adestria, as well as other guests, on May 6. Two months after that they will be going on the Tupac ShaTOUR with Monsters Scare You as well as various other bands for three weeks starting July 9 from Northern California to Seattle, then working their way across to Texas. You can vote for them to play Warped Tour 2010 at the Warped Tour Battle of the Bands website, and their CD is available for download on iTunes and Amazon.com. I really hope that you will at least check them out on MySpace, because they are a really talented group of guys, and if you want you can also add them on Facebook.