Band Interview: EastDear Park

“We are five down to earth guys from Gaithersburg, Maryland dedicated to a life of playing music. Music is what we each fall back on during good and bad times. We go all out at performances and love getting the crowd involved. No matter where we go, we will always remain humble and will always hold open arms to whoever wants to get to know us. Our debut self-titled EP was released January 17th, 2012 and our full length Reflections was released April 2nd, 2013.”

1. How did you get started as a band?

Shields and I said fuck a desk job and decided to start a metal band back in 2011. One day we met Kevin in the smoke room at a party our buddy Charlie threw and found out he liked metal too! The next day i asked him to bring his drums over and we started jamming as a three piece with just bass, drums, and vocals. Then after countless guitarists went through the doors we finally found Colin and Ryan and wrote a song the very first day of practice. Since then it’s been a wrap!

2. How would you describe your sound?

If August Burns Red and The Contortionist had a baby with Randy Blythe at vocals.

3. What bands/artists would you say have influenced your style of music?

Pretty much everybody influences us. Whether we mean to or not we’ll always be getting inspiration from other metal bands. Our biggest influences are August Burns Red, The Contortionist, Fallujah, Balance and Composure, BTBAM, Snarky Puppy, and the list really goes on and on.

4. Has the rise of YouTube & music streaming helped or hindered you as a band?

It’s definitely both helped and hurt us. It gives us a tool to get our message across and give a better picture of who we are, but has also stiffened the competition at the same time. We try to stay pretty active with our YouTube account EastDearParkOfficial.

5. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not making music?

Music is a majority of what we do, but Colin, Kevin, Shields and Ryan are really into gaming. Shields and Ben also write a lot of skits together and are currently working on a web show they plan on launching pretty soon. Ben likes to write, cook, and smoke weed.

6. What are your future plans musically? Tours?

We’ll be filming a music video for our song Malice at the end of this month and plan to start hitting the road in October!!

(GBHBL would like to thank EastDear Park for the interview & Stencil PR for arranging it. You can find out more about the band on their Facebook Page & download all their music for free here! I would urge that you give them a little something though!)