By Natasha Van Duser
Long Island has always been a key American music hub helping artists such as Public Enemy, Glassjaw and Taking Back Sunday get their starts. So it should come as no surprise that members of the up-and-coming metalcore band Call It Home, found each other through the well-known New York region. Forming in late 2012, Call It Home has already begun to make their way through the scene by opening for acts like The Bunny The Bear and playing the 2013 Vans Warped Tour.
Call It Home began when unclean vocalist Chris Christofi found his way to guitarist and clean vocalist Andrew Rothberg before immediately hitting it off tracking songs. “It was me, Chris and Jay [Schwartz, guitar] originally. And that’s really it. We just started writing.”
“[Andrew] sent me the demo [to the song ‘Homewrecker’] originally because I was in another band when we started talking,” says Christofi. “He sent me the demo and said, ‘If you want to write [lyrics] on this, go ahead.’ So I started and it took me like four days. I came over to his house one day and we tracked it.”
Eventually the trio would settle with Chris Ganim on bass, Nick Drago on drums and the name Call It Home to complete the group. “This guy [points to Christofi] decides to book us a show before we even have a name,” explains Rothberg. “[The venue] said, ‘You need a name.’ So it was either Call This Home or Call It Home and we said Call This Home. Then I pictured myself saying ‘What’s up, guys? We’re Call This Home!’ and we called the guy back and said, ‘Never mind, it’s Call It Home.’ And that was it.”
But as Call It Home has evolved, the name seems to have taken on a much greater meaning than initially planned. “As the band has continued, the name has grown in meaning towards me,” notes Christofi. “I’ve moved a lot throughout my entire life, so when you have a band that you finally connect with, it’s like they’re your brothers. They’re like my family away from home and they’re what I call home.”
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As this metaphorical home has developed, so has the portfolio produced, such as the group’s self titled EP which dropped in April of 2013 including crowd favorites like “Backburner” and “Homewrecker.” “I don’t like writing music that’s depressing,” notes Rothberg. “I like music you can jump to, music you can have a good time to and is entertaining to watch and listen to. Just bob your head to it and have a good time.”
“The music, it’s only half of the show,” Christofi adds. “You want to get people excited. I’ve seen a lot of bands where they’re playing awesome music, but they look so bored up there. We don’t want to look like that. When there’s a crowd that has more energy and they’re jumping around more and participating more, we feed off that.”
Now currently wrapping up their second EP with producer Bryce Kariger, Call It Home has decided to take their sound up a notch leaving their earlier work in the dust. “The first EP was literally just verse/chorus/verse/chorus and only clean vocals were choruses. There were no verse cleans and in this EP there is not one song that has just chorus cleans. It’s more than just the chorus,” explains Rothberg.
“I’m barely included in it!” jokes Christofi before adding, “The EP is a little bit more technical than the last one. It’s a lot better because on the last one we felt a lot more rushed.”
“We’re definitely going to release it by the end of March,” Rothberg continues, which will be just in time for the band’s first headlining gig at the esteemed venue, Santo’s Party House in lower Manhattan. Call It Home is headed in the right direction now by booking venues such as Santo’s and Webster Hall, a solid follow up to their successful and humbling time on Warped Tour 2013.
“We had a decent crowd of people [at Warped] for not being a big band at all,” admits Rothberg.
“No one had ever heard of us there,” Christofi says, “but as soon as we got off stage a lot of people came up to us. It was awing because it just felt like we had accomplished so much in a year’s time. To have someone ask a no name band to take pictures with them was just really cool and I think anyone who plays music would love to have that experience.” With the festival season just around the corner and a set of new tracks on the horizon, Call It Home have many more great opportunities to look forward to.
www.facebook.com/callithomeofficial | twitter.com/callithomeny
