Even though the term is a cliché, it’s been a whirlwind year for Escuela Grind.

They started the year playing nearly 40 shows in a row, headlined their first UK and European dates, and supported Baroness. Tom Sifuentes left and came back, singer Katerina Economou fractured their neck during a show then rode out the rest of the tour in a neck brace, and a storm of controversy surrounded the band following a former driver’s allegations, which guitarist Krissy Morash denied.

Oh yeah, and they also released their third full-length album Dreams on Algorithms, recorded once again with producer Kurt Ballou and written almost entirely on the road out of necessity of having no other time to write songs.

“Jesse [Fuentes] wrote them in the van seat,” Morash says. “We’re plugged in through the aux, through our guitar running riffs through the speakers.”

But for all the drawbacks tour life brings, the amount of miles Escuela Grind has traveled the last few years have taught them so much about the way their music makes people feel. It’s the biggest distinction between Dreams on Algorithms and anything else the band has done in the past.

 

 

“On [Memory Theater] we were visualizing what people might do because we were in COVID,” Economou says. “And now we wrote this last album while we were on the road playing shows, so we knew what people were reacting to.”

“Even before we started playing these songs live I was just imagining how I was gonna move to them,” says Morash. “I was getting really excited in terms of just visualizing what we could be doing on stage to get the audience moving. That's something we talk about a lot as a band.”

The attention to detail and desire to step into the unknown by taking risks with their musical style has paid off in spades. Escuela Grind released Dreams on Algorithms in the middle of a headlining tour through North America, witnessing the reaction to the new material firsthand.

“I'm surprised people fuck with the singing songs more than any of the songs we have,” Fuentes said.

“People love the songs,” Economou adds. “They're our most successful songs yet. It's been amazing seeing people sing them back to us and really enjoy the new directions in which we're going.

“We’ve talked about how we've always had haters, we've always wanted to take risks and we want to be a gateway band and what not. But we will have to work for it. It's not easy. There are many different factors to prohibit us from being successful in this thing that we like to do, and I never want to cancel an opportunity. I feel like I would push through anything mentally to be there for that, because it's just not a given.”

An entire year on the road took its toll on the band mentally and physically, and they’ll close out 2024 getting reacquainted with their own beds and living rooms while plotting the next steps of world domination.

“There’s a capital ‘V’ vision in place,” Economou says.

KNOTFEST’s Jon Garcia caught up with the band as they recharge their batteries and enjoy some much-needed downtime to plot their next course. They discuss recording with Ballou at God City Studios again, the reaction to the new album and creating it in the van, and all the ways they really learned how to tour and take care of themselves.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How have the last few months been, getting to release a new album and immediately tour to crowds who’ve had a chance to hear it?

Katerina Economou: We're super proud of the record. It was rolled out over the course of a long time. I know that's the standard, but for us we were just itching to get it out, itching to play it. People love the songs, they're our most successful songs yet. It's been amazing seeing people sing them back to us and really enjoy the new directions in which we're going and meeting all the new fans that we've acquired through this year as well. So I mean, it's been fantastic.

Jesse Fuentes: I'm surprised people fuck with the singing songs more than any of the songs we have.

Katerina: It's very awesome when you take a risk — and obviously, with any risk there'll come detractors — but really, overwhelmingly, it's been so much positive feedback to our risk taking and that's one of the best parts about releasing a new album and hearing yourself that way.

Krissy Morash: We also recorded the album with Tom [Sifuentes], and he's back in the band now as well. So it's been really nice playing these songs with him on stage again. It took maybe a year or so for this album to really come out. It's been a while coming.

Memory Theater also took about a year, didn’t it? I remember you said you had to sit on that one a while as well.

Katerina: Yeah, pretty much. Our timeline for that was we recorded the album independently. We reached out to Kurt [Balou] ourselves, we recorded it, we spent our own money, got her own art, did all that. Then we got signed to MNRK Records, who had a whole plan of how we were going to roll out that album.

So for us, that seemed like an eternity. And with that album we took risks as well, and changed our sound slightly, and that had a similar reaction in just a different way and at a different point in our growth. So it's nice to see that happening again, in a lot of ways.

 

 

How do your songs come together? Are you consciously trying to push your own personal boundaries or does it come out in the studio when you look back at the overall body of work?

Jesse: I always consider added value. Trying to add things in places where it doesn't take away from the entire aesthetic too much. People suggested we do the singing, and we tried it out. People like turbulence. So really I just kind of put stuff out there and see what people like, and try and put that all in like one place sometimes. Most of the time I try and do things we haven't done yet in a prior album. So I think about, like, ‘What haven't we done yet?’ I'm like, ‘Oh, cool. We haven't done this weird drum beat.’

Krissy: Exactly, yeah. There’s only so much you can do with a grindcore blast beat and incorporating it into what you like to hear in your music. Going back to the last two albums, Indoctrination we were definitely trying to appeal to the “grindcore elitist” at the time and put out something that was fast and punishing.

Over COVID, I want to say that we were just trying to think of ways we could incorporate that into a fun show where people can dance and move around. Visualizing that before we wrote the songs. This next album was just taking the next step. It actually starts off from the last song of Memory Theater, and it starts in “Doa” with the same riff. So we were just thinking of where we could go next in terms of incorporating new things.

Even before we started playing these songs live, I was just imagining how I was gonna move to them, and I was getting really excited in terms of just visualizing what we could be doing on stage to get the audience moving. That's something we talk about a lot as a band.

Katerina: I think the key distinction between the previous record and this record is that on the previous record, we were visualizing what people might do because we were in COVID, and now we wrote this last album while we were on the road playing shows, so we knew what people were reacting to. It’s difficult for us because we play a lot of shows, so if we play a death metal show certain things will appeal to that crowd and they’ll move a certain way as opposed to if we play a more mainstream event.

We've had all that input, and we know the different things that we like and that we bring to the table with this band. It's just polishing it now, and I think with the risks that we were taking on this album, the most important thing is — and this goes back to your last question as well — we are “Yes, anding” ourselves and we are adding things that are new to our palette; but with that comes authenticity. It has to feel authentic to what we do, and I feel like that's why people have been responding positively to the risks. Because it's not just thrown in there for the sake of throwing something in there. We are really working these things out, and we are making sure that they are authentic to what we sound like and it's not so left field.

For example, with the clean singing: we didn't just throw in a metalcore standard melody that one would hear on anything like that. Jesse created the song, we listened to the song strengths, we referenced what we know and that we like and we worked within the bounds of what my voice can do; and that came out as a grungier, more alternative take.

So that authenticity kind of plays through, and the tie through with how we move and how we want others to move,it's always there. It's just where our head space is at when we're writing the music.

 

 

This was the second album in a row you recorded with Kurt Ballou at God City Studio. What was the experience like a second time around after you’d established that relationship? You know how he works and what the studio is like. How do you think that shaped the record into what we hear?

Krissy: The first time was really daunting for me because it was my first time ever being in a professional studio, let alone with one of my favorite guitarists in hardcore. I think having the second time, it was a lot more time to record. We stayed upstairs in the apartments. It was a really nice experience and I think we got very comfortable.

I also want to say that having Tom there for the first time was a really nice experience. We're kind of like little children! We talk a lot honestly while we're in the process of making it. Maybe we didn't seem focused, but we were super excited,maybe just as excited as the first time, you know? It's like a dream come true.

Jesse: There's a lot of communication between the engineer and us. We’re just getting to know each other better. We talk about preferences and stuff, and then we go deep into the philosophy of the preferences so that at the end of the day he just knows exactly how to mix it. It's like a lot less back and forth with that, whenever he knows what you want and you know that we’re trusting him to do his own little tricks he adds.

Like the ring in the snare, you know? I wanted it out. I was like, ‘Damn, Why would he put that in there?’ [laughs] But after a while I was listening to it and I was just like, ‘Damn. Okay fuck it, leave that shit in there.’ People like ping. Honestly, I don’t really care for it, but when it’s in the general mix of a real fucking nicely mixed snare, it sounds real fat and sharp.

Krissy: He’s on our wavelength too. Like when we went in, what he said to us was, ‘I want your audience to call you posers when this album comes out.’ [laughs] Something along the lines of that. He’s on the same wavelength. It’s really important.

Katerina: It was my first time recording with Kurt on this record, because we recorded the vocals at home for the last record. And I was very, very nervous. I was like, ‘Well, whatever Kurt wants is what I’ll do.’ But he really quickly kiboshed that sort of mentality out of me and it was very easy working with him. You know, he was like, ‘Nope you can do it better. No, I don’t think that’s good. Oh, this sounds like that.’ I do feel like he was kind of being nice to me a little bit. [laughs]

Jesse: His tone is very…he’s a gentle giant, man. I mean, there’s times where he was like ‘You shouldn’t do this, actually, because you don’t do that.’ And I’m like ‘buuut,’ and then he’s just like, [nonchalantly] ‘I’m telling you.’

Katerina: But it wasn’t like there was a code to figure out, you know what I mean? He knew when certain things had to happen, especially with vocals. It’s tailor made to the bands in which you work with, and not just the bands but the specific song that you’re in and the mood it’s supposed to give. He’s really good at that.

We didn’t get to jam it out as much as we wanted to. I was still writing lyrics until we were recording them. It’s just a symptom of how we wrote the album on tour non-stop last year. 250 plus shows.

Krissy: A lot of the songs were written on the road. Like that was the case. Jesse wrote them in the van seat, we’re plugged in through the AUX, through our guitar running riffs through the speakers.

What was that like? Creating while doing so much touring?

Katerina: Necessity breeds invention.

Krissy: It’s a sink or swim situation.

Katerina: Yeah, we’ve learned to do many things on the road. We just learned how to tour, you know what I mean? We had no time at home. We learned how to make our spaces where we're at. We learned how to at least be sane enough to keep doing it. We learned how to keep our hygiene. We learned how to do everything on the road. The studio’s no different.

Jesse: I mean, really I just recorded videos of the riffs that we wrote in the van. Then when I got home, I had this little space on the couch where I put my electric drum set, an audio interface and an amp and like a cab and a guitar. So I would just demo everything while I was home. If I were home for a week I'd spend a few days and I would demo this shit.

Katerina: We decided 250-plus shows in a year is a little bit much. We decided on less than that [next year], but still a lot. I love the mentality that people have now about being upfront with where their mental boundaries are and being able to cancel a tour because you're gonna go crazy. I love that that's a thing. I do. I love that that is real. I struggle with it myself still, and I know some of my bandmates might also, but that gets back to the mentality that I think me and some of my bandmates share: that this is not a given for us and it comes with the territory.

We’ve talked about how we've always had haters, we've always wanted to take risks and we want to be a gateway band and what not. But we will have to work for it. It's not easy. There are many different factors to prohibit us from being successful in this thing that we like to do, and I never want to cancel an opportunity. I feel like I would push through anything mentally to be there for that, because it's just not a given. It can be here one day, gone the next and I will never miss out on that, personally. And that's just because I never thought it was something that I could do, period. So I don't think I'll ever be comfortable enough in that situation. I know that sounds mentally unhealthy, so I’m not saying do this for yourself! I'm just saying that's personally where I'm at with that. I love our fans. I hate canceling shows. I hate that. It really gives me a lot of anxiety thinking about it. I would rather be in a chair, in the neck brace, in whatever, no voice, like giving it as much as I can give than cancel a show.

Krissy: It’s hard to balance that too, in terms of being gone for so long. Like, pets die. We’ve lost a lot of pets on the road. Friends die, and your family you miss terribly. But also while you’re on the road it’s some of the best moments I’ve ever had in my life.

Jesse: Same.

Krissy: Still from the last year, I can recall if I wasn’t on the road I’d be losing my mind. So it’s really hard to find this balance of composure between keeping your personal life at bay, but also balancing what you love. This… I mean, I want to call this a hobby because this is what I really love to do.

It’s those sacrifices touring musicians have to make, right?

Jesse: Yeah.

Katerina: Yeah, for sure.

Krissy: Totally.

Katerina: For sure, but in the grand scheme of things what we sacrifice to do this fun thing that we love and fulfills us, people sacrifice way more just to even get by and make a living. So I’m never gonna complain about that. I’m grateful. So grateful for everything.

Krissy: So grateful.

Jesse: For everything.

 

 

Now that we’re years post-COVID and the live music scene has had a chance to try and evolve and adapt to our brave new world, have you noticed a change in the heavy scene as far as the makeup of bands and fans or the passion or anything like that?

Katerina: I mean, that's a really interesting question you asked and it's a really hard one to answer while you're in it. I do think that the young people are always the answer to that and seeing more of them at the shows. I do think there was a huge influx of young people that came to shows after the pandemic – maybe some of them stayed, some of them didn’t – but the young ones that are in it now, they like a production. They like something different.

They don't always know the references. So, like you said, a band like us can introduce them to something like a Napalm Death — which is a crazy thing to think about as a band but it is true.

It's really interesting, I see a lot of similarities between the really, really young ones and the old heads. They both have this open mindedness that is just so pure. There's this period of in-between where you're trying to figure it out, and then you just get back your beautiful, open minded self at a certain age. I think that's very real.

Jesse: It's kind of like the way it was when I was a teenager. I would go to hardcore shows, but there also be metalcore and deathcore bands, you know? Somewhere along the line it segregated, because… I don't know. People were finding just niches.

But like the way people book shows and big festivals is what is really different than back then, because it's bringing all these like hyper niches together. So it's like they're creating value for these hyper niches that didn't have that kind of value before. So there's a wider umbrella to cast whenever you're trying to promote whatever you have.

For the first time in a while there are no announced shows on the horizon for Escuela Grind. What’s the plan for whatever downtime you have? Lots of rest, I hope!

Jesse: Well, we recently have a new agent working for us at Dynamic Talent.

Katerina: There’s a capital “V” vision in place.

Jesse: There’s a team as well. We’re just not rushing anything at this point.

Katerina: We’ve decided we can’t do 250 shows in a year, we’re not there physically and we want to develop ourselves. So we have a sort of vision to get out there to totally new, different groups, as well as staying true and playing festivals and all of that. That will all be announced soon.

For the rest of the year we are off, we are home. You can expect a shit ton of content from us, we’re going to be doing some special things with a more philanthropic bent to them. We have test press auctions and giveaways and whatnot planned. And then lots of exciting shit for next year! I think everyone’s going to be really excited with where we’re going, and we’re writing too.

Jesse: We haven’t written anything since we recorded the album a year ago. So like just yesterday I laid some stuff down real quick. Rest is what we need right now, honestly.

Krissy: Yes. Just taking care of your health right now is really important. I have my own morning routine but it’s hard not having that on the road. Me and Jesse have been selling a lot of trading cards. We message each other about that. We’re staying busy.

It’s good to take a step back to breathe and assess the bigger picture sometimes and hopefully it lends itself to the next album.

Katerina: It's kind of a luxury to be able to do that as a band, you know? To really work on something. I mean, we all have those influential albums from our childhoods and whatnot, that were built that way, and that’s the dream and the goal. So lots to live up to for the next one, but we're pushing there.

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Dreams on Algorithms is available now via MNRK Heavy Records - HERE