It’s clear from the first moments of “Life in Parallel,” the opening title track to Hundreds of AU’s newest record, that the band are pushing themselves into new sonic territories. It’s not so much a departure as it is an expansion, growing outward in every direction from the sound they’ve developed over the past eight years.
On Life in Parallel, out August 22 via Iodine Recordings, the New Jersey based screamo band has added a fifth member, frontman Brian Burdzy, to take the dualing vocal duties off guitarists Paul Alan and Tom Schlatter. With the pair freed up to focus solely on their instruments, the music has taken on a considerable creative and technical depth. The greater attention to detail to both the musical and vocal aspects, as well as the crisp production and a slew of guest spots, has resulted in Hundreds of AU’s most dynamic sounding record to date.
With the record nearing its release, Burdzy, Alan, Schlatter, and bassists, Buzz, took the time to talk to us about writing, recording, and performing in their new formation.
It’s been a couple years and a few lineup changes since the last record, when did these songs start to form?
Paul: There are some riffs on there from 2020. We finished an album in 2020, in 2021 there was an EP, then we had the lineup change thing, so there was a transitionary period of learning old songs. Even before Brian joined, Buzz learned a bunch of songs. Actually he learned our last CD for a live recording. That was the first thing he did. And then maybe a year after that we started saying, “OK, we’re going to do another album,” and that’s when Brian came into the picture. It was another kind of reset because he had to learn the songs too. There’s some stuff on there from 2020, and there’s stuff on there from six months ago. We recorded in March, and there’s stuff from March in there. Actually, that song that we finished in March, that riff is from 2020, but we finished it with new riffs. So, five years.
Tom: I think this record was basically totally fresh with Brian. I think the only song I wrote before Brian joined was “Speculation.” I sent a demo with lyrics and everything all done, and I think that was the only one I had written before Brian joined, and I think that’s the only one we kept the lyrics.
Brian: Well, there’s a reason for that, and it’s because I couldn’t write lyrics. I was driving myself crazy trying to figure it out and then I just messaged Tom like, “Didn’t you have a blueprint here for this?” He sent me what he wrote and what it was and I was like, “We’ll go with this, this is great.”
Buzz: I think the reason it took like five years for the record to come out is because there was a lot going on in the meantime. After the last EP I joined the band, we wrote a few singles; we do a split; we do a comp, and Brian joins the band, and we do some more. But I think once we actually commit to a song it usually comes together pretty quickly.
How did you guys come to the decision of bringing a frontman into a band that have never had a frontman?
Buzz: I think the frontman thing was pure function.
Tom: Yeah, I think we realized that when you play guitar and sing, either your singing suffers a little bit or your guitar work suffers a little bit, and we were just getting to the point where we were like, “Wouldn’t it be great to just be guitar players and just be able to get into that?” So the search for a vocalist began.
Paul: If we didn’t get a vocalist, I honestly don’t think that we’d still be doing this. I remember Tom was like, “I can’t sing anymore.” I didn’t want to do it either because it was painful. The funny thing is, I’ve known Brian the longest, but the conversation that got Brian in the band was with Tom. He came in and kind of saved the whole thing and jutted life back into it.
Brian: I’ve gotten into bands where I’ve replaced somebody that had been singing before. Sometimes there was recorded stuff, sometimes there wasn’t. But I’ve never done it where the people who were singing are also still in the band, so it is strange. Nobody put any pressure or anything on me. It was very warm; I didn’t feel like I missed much. We got right into the fold because we were just getting right to work. Shows were already starting to wind up, and as far as the new songs went, these guys already wrote like three albums plus an EP plus a bunch of singles before me, and even though Buzz was new, I mean “Dark Like Winter” (from a 2023 released compilation) was one of the stronger tracks they had. We play it and I love it. I hope it never goes out of the setlist.
But they already had a strong thing going on, so when writing was happening, I just didn’t want to get in the way of that and just have it come to me a little bit. I just had faith that the songs were going to be good, and they already had some that were already great. I was like, “I can only do what I can control, which is write lyrics and be prepared and ready.” The parts that I felt funny on, or I wasn’t getting right, I had Tom and Paul there, and there’s several times on the record where they offered where they might put the vocal part, and it’s great. “Bloodthirsty” was one of them.
That’s interesting because normally when you switch a vocalist it’s going to bring an entire new style and sound into the band, but in this case the previous vocalists are still in the band to maybe offer guidance. Is that something you guys lean on?
Tom: For the old stuff, I think. For the new stuff I want Brian to be Brian. When I think about bands that changed their vocalist—Dillinger Escape Plan is probably the first one that comes to mind, I think I’ve seen Shai Hulud with like five different people on vocals—It can be done. I totally get when people are weary about it, but we’ve seen in history that it can be done. I think Brian coming in injects one hundred percent more energy into it. I think if you went from one singer to another singer and something was lost, I’d say, “OK, that’s kind of weird,” but I’ve seen examples where it just amps it up and I think that’s what we did.
Paul: That’s interesting. I never thought of it the way that you put it, that me and Tom used to both sing, and usually when a band replaces the singer, it’s because the singer is gone. I can think of a million examples, but are there any you guys can think of where someone stepped aside and was still there? That’s interesting, I never thought about that until right now.
Brian: One of the reasons that I was excited to join the band was because I love the old material. I was a huge fan of it. I really got exposed to the band on the first record, and that’s one that Paul’s on—Paul’s not on the demo—and he sent it to me and the first song is “Deflection Arts,” and that’s such a great song. A lot of them are Tom and Paul going back and forth, there’s a call and response to it, and it’s difficult to do both. Sometimes I have to coax them—I have to coax Tom harder than I have to coax Paul.
Going back to that idea that Tom mentioned of either not singing as well as you could or not playing as well as you could when you had to do both—Does focusing on the instrument free you up to do different things guitar-wise?
Tom: Yeah, I think this is probably our noodle-iest record, if noodle-iest is a word. I think we went all out on the guitar work more so than before because we don’t have to worry about what we’re going to do over a part when we have to sing. It’s not a concern anymore. I think we kind of went all out.
Paul: I definitely hear it from Tom. The riff that comes in almost right away is something he would have never done if he had to sing too. For me, I play a lot of rhythm stuff, but there’s time signatures that we would have never done in the past because we don’t know how to sing over them. There’s two waltzes on this. We never had that before. Its’ hard to sing over that and play at the same time. I think that came easy to Brian. The first song we wrote besides “Speculation” was “Wake Today.”
Brian: It was that one and “Waves” and “Bloodthirsty.” Those were the first set we wrote.
Buzz: On the recording side it’s cool because they’re focusing on guitar, so performances are even better. The whole record was done live and I think you’re getting a much better representation of what you’re going to see live. On the show side, it’s cool too. We weren’t actually looking for this, but something we talked about before we brought Brian in is that we’re a pretty introverted band onstage and we might want someone who represents that. I think Brian is actually the most extroverted on stage, at least as far as performance, and it works for us. It brings a new element. He’s a good hype man. I think that’s something we couldn’t have done. People respond better. It’s a frontman thing.
Brian: It’s funny, but that’s me at my most introverted. I’m dialing it back and it’s still too much.
Did the addition of Brian change the approach to songwriting or does everything still come from the same starting point?
Tom: I think because the whole aspect of having to sing and play isn’t there anymore it’s a different starting point. I don’t have to worry about whether I’m doing this or playing a chord, I can do whatever I want, someone else is going to take care of the vocals. So that’s been cool.
Buzz: I think most of the decisions are quicker now that we have more people. A lot of the songs we wrote towards the end of the recording we just banged out real quick. On one hand, it’s a lot of chefs in the kitchen, and we’re all super passionate about it, but on the other hand, there’s an odd number of us now, so it’s a little easier to make a decision.
Majority rule?
Buzz: Not always. Sometimes it’s loudest wins, but having another voice can help even things out.
Tom: I think this is something that Paul wanted to see out of the band but we just couldn’t do it playing and singing, but freeing up and having somebody that just does vocals. Brian has gotten really good at identifying the parts in the song that can become sort of anthemic and where lines can be repeated and actually kind of get stuck in your head a little. Before, we were just trying to sing and play over parts just to put vocals in and you didn’t really have the luxury of doing anything that would be catchy or anthemic because you’re just trying to get through it. That approach of Brian being able to spot those parts and then execute it is totally new and is kind of cool.
Paul: I could say for sure we would never have had a part like in “Scorched Earth” where the guitar plays alone and the vocals are over it. I don’t think there’s any other song we’ve done like that for a lot of reasons. One of them is because it’s difficult; two is because we didn’t want to take the lead, and three, we just didn’t even hear it.
Tom: I guess stylistically I’d have to admit that we’re, quote unquote, a screamo band, but in the roots of what we all listen to—I grew up listening to a lot of straight forward hardcore and singing along to bands like 108 and Mouthpiece, and Brian knows every new hardcore band coming out, Paul and Buzz are way into punk—there’s a lot of variation to add some of that stuff.
Brian: When people ask me what kind of music it is I will always immediately say hardcore first. I love screamo, I’m just a huge appreciator of other bands that Tom has been in. He’s been in so many great ones. That whole era of screamo, there’s just so much good music in there that I have such an appreciation for, but I just think we’re just a little bit more of an esoteric hardcore band maybe more along the lines of 108, and I love that. And we also have these parts where we can have something a little more anthemic and little more connective. I think it just adds to that. In my opinion, we could play a screamo bill, or we could play a hardcore bill, and I think we can present the same way and convey the same message, and I think it’s something that everybody can understand.
It’s interesting that you mention the anthemic nature of some it because my first impression of the record was that it’s your most dynamic to date. You have a lot of ups and downs and even this really interesting spoken word section towards the end of the record that sets up the big finish.
Brian: That’s Ryann Slauson from Sonagi and Closer. That was Tom’s vision and it turned out great.
Tom: The record is such a theme about where we’re at in 2025 and the various social, political, and personal things that are happening, and the record does move; like you said, it has some peaks and valleys. I felt one last thing to sum up where we were in 2025 was this question of, do we have any reason to have hope in an extremely hopeless time? Ryann is a great friend to all of us, a trans person living in 2025. When I hang out with them and talk with them about this concept of hope, they had a lot of feelings about it. I was like, “What would you think about doing this as a spoken word part?” I felt like that was a great way to bring the record to its apex at the end, to start with that. Paul made a joke when we were putting the whole thing together. Paul compared it to the speech at the end of Independence Day when the president is on a tank or something, and is like, “This is our Independence Day!” Like, Ryann is on a tank telling us to charge at that point. I love the way it came out.
Buzz: You’re asking about anthemic; I think Tom presented this idea that we wanted Ryann to say something on the record, but it wasn’t clear where it would go until last minute. We had organized the whole record and all the tracking and we were like, “Where can we put this?” Everyone brought someone in, there’s a lot of people on the record, and everyone else heard their part and where they could fit into the song. Ryann was the only one who kind of did it on their own. It wasn’t intentionally anthemic as like one big last song thing, that’s just where it fit. It’s all coincidental. It sounds good, but we just kind of dragged it over there. I think it fits the mood for the last song.
I think that dynamic nature of Life in Parallel that we’ve mentioned is aided by the production of it. It’s the most clean, modern sounding record in Hundreds of AU’s catalogue, and it’s interesting that Buzz mentioned it was all done live as well.
Buzz: Yeah, all the instruments were live and then vocals separate, but it’s a super live feel. I’ll let Tom and Brian argue this, but I think a big part of that production is that Paul and I listen to super-polished and super-produced stuff. That’s just the sound we like. We all have different values we’re trying to reconcile when we’re recording and we’re all pushing in different ways.
Tom: We had this guy, John Howard, do the mix. We tracked it at this place called The Missile Silo in North Jersey, and then we sent the tracks to John. John had mixed our split with a band called Horsewhip a while back and we got that mix back from John and on the first try it was like, “There’s the mix, it’s done.”
Kind of like what Buzz was saying, it’s kind of hard for me sometimes to like loud polished music where the vocals are higher and it sounds a little bit more professional. I grew up listening to hardcore where nobody had money for a good studio and they just recorded wherever they could, and some of those early records that sound like crap are what I grew up on. For me, I always looked at punk and hardcore as this anti-production genre, but the way that John does his mixes, he finds a way to please both my preference of that nastiness, and then Paul and Buzz’s preference of like, you can listen to this in your car and it sounds good.
Buzz: We interact with John so little on telling him what to produce, but as far as the record sounds, he’s like the Phil Spector of Hundreds … minus the murder.
Tom had mentioned the record having this overarching theme of hope. Was that something you were actively looking to incorporate into the lyrics or something that just came about due to the songs being written at the time they were?
Tom: I think all the lyrics Brian has been writing are a reaction to this year and where we live and who we are and how we’re affected by it and how the people closest to us are affected by it.
Brian: I grew up most of my life in Sussex County, New Jersey, and I kind of moved around for a little while and then I moved back right before I joined Hundreds, and it’s called Life in Parallel because as a kid growing up I figured racism would be over, and I grew up in a time when the only time adults ever talked about politics was around election time, and that was the only time you saw signs—You didn’t see flags or any of that stuff—and if you did everything right, like go to college and work hard, that you were going to get a little piece for yourself, and none of that happened. I was a senior in high school on September 11, and obviously that changed everything, and none of that happened. I went to college, and I’m not applying my degree, and I’m in debt for it. Most of the people hearing this and like, “Yeah, me too.” I think there’s a lot of people going through that. The life I’m living and the life I thought I was going to live are like two different timelines next to each other, and I’m having a hard time mentally navigating that.
Tom’s completely correct in that a lot of that is reactionary to what is going on. Some of the lyrics were written prior to the last election—”Wake Today” is one of them. It’s like a warning, like, don’t vote for this guy, we’re going to end up in fascism, and look where we’re at. It’s wild.
They gave me a lot of runaway to write lyrics, I didn’t have anybody over my shoulder or anything like that. Some ideas got sprinkled—Tom said we should write a song about veganism, and we did, and that was fun, and Tom had already written “Speculation” and the opening track was all Tom’s idea. It was awesome because that was one of the last things that we wrote for the album and I feel like it ties everything together. It was cool to be like, “I’m the newest guy in the band, I’m taking the place of two established frontpeople and what I’m doing, they are getting it. It just turned out so cool and everybody was so supportive.
I think another element that makes this record interesting is the guests. We already talked about one, but I’m curious how all the rest got involved as well.
Paul: Adam (Kaniper from Stress Spells) has been someone who we have played with in bands in the past and have always looked up to him as a musician. On our last EP or LP—whatever makes you feel good to call it—he took the last track of it, and he made a video and recorded himself playing the electric piano to it, and it was so cool, and I was like, “We should put that on something official.” The last song, I thought, was the most accepting of that because it felt like it didn’t have to be forced in there. It was kind of hard to convince everyone, but kind of like with Ryann’s part, there was not much direction, and Adam just sent us him playing over the entire song. We picked what we wanted, and I sent it back to him, and he was really happy with it. I like it and I’m just really stoked to have Adam be a part of it.
Tom: I brought on two guests. Geoff Rickley from the band Thursday, we used to live together and my old band would play shows with Thursday all the time. When they were recording Full Collapse, they asked me to come down and do vocals on it. I was like, “All right, one of these days I’m going to cash in this favor.” I reached out to Geoff and I was like, “You want to do vocals on a song on the new album?” He was like, “Yeah, I’m all set up in my apartment to do it.” So I sent him a song, and he was like, “This is perfect, I don’t really think there’s anything I can do to make this any better.” I was like, “Well, you’re going to have to try, man.” His vocal performance is on the first song, “Life in Parallel,” and it’s a very melodic and high pitched, operatic, beautiful performance that I would never have pictured because I can’t do those things. I got the vocal track, and I put it over the music and I was just totally stunned and in awe and I loved it. And then, Ryann, we covered that already. I had been hanging out with Ryann and we had this talk about it. It’s all coming from a place of old friends and people that we admire. Brian brought in Jon (Tumillo) from Folly, and I think that’s a pretty great story.
Brian: I’m a dad, and being a dad is tough, and Jon is a dad as well, and coming from Sussex County, Folly was everything. The scene that we had up here, they were the lynchpin of it. When they broke off for a while and didn’t play any shows it totally went downstream by comparison. He and I were friends for, like, two decades now, and he has kids around the same age, so whenever we’re just going through it as dads we talk to each other about it and it’s really great.
I wrote one of the songs, “Bluejay,” about my daughter. She was going through a rough time in school with, not so much bullies, but kids going back and forth, and I kind of flashed back to when I had to deal with that, and as a dad, you just never want your kids to feel any pain. I felt a lot of pain for her. It took me, like, five days to write this song. I wrote it totally with tears hitting the page. I have trouble even talking about it. It was one of the last songs that we wrote for the record, and so we had a demo of it, and there was this fun fast part, and I was like, “It’d be sick if Jon was on this.” I wrote a part for him, and he came out, and he just totally crushed it. Back in the day we would record and be at each other’s recording sessions, so it was nice to relive that memory with somebody who, we’re kind of going through this shit at the same time.
This is coming out on Iodine Records, which seems like a great fit for the band given their roster. How did you guys link up with Iodine?
Tom: One day, we just had a message in our inbox on social media that was like, “Hey, if you ever need somebody to put something out, we should talk.” I was pretty honored because of this roster that they have. At the time we were in no position to put anything out. It wasn’t until we got Brian in the band and started to actually write songs that I wrote them back. It was probably, like, a year and a half later. I was like, “I know it’s been a while, but would you still be interested?”
They’ve been so kind and supportive, and it is definitely a step up in terms of how professional things are. I could probably substitute the word professional for just people that are organized and have their stuff together. Like, “Here’s the timeline, and here’s what we need from you, and here’s a Google drive to put all that stuff, and here’s the podcast you’re going to be on.” They’re just so on top of that. We feel like kids getting invited to the adult’s table now. It’s great.
Buzz: It’s very cool to say, “Hey, we’re part of it,” to quote Piebald. I think Iodine has a pretty eclectic lineup. We didn’t talk about it, like, “Let’s write this for Iodine.” We’ve been in positions where we hype ourselves up and we get in our heads, but this just came together, and you said it’s more dynamic than the others, so if it is it just kind of worked out. And I think it’s cool that we got on this lineup that is also super dynamic.
For each of you, is there a song on this record that sticks out for any reason, and what is that reason?
Brian: Obviously “Bluejay” is one of them, but I really love “Scorched Earth” because that was one of the ones that Tom wrote and sent and we didn’t really have to make any real changes. It was set up pretty good the way it was, and the lyrics came to me really fast. When I was writing the lyrics, what you hear is exactly what I envisioned. It was exactly how that song turned out and that’s never ever happened. There’s always a little bit of difference, or you come close, but this came out exactly the way I thought it was going to come out.
Paul: “Scorched Earth” is mine too. It’s because of the same reasons. It came together so naturally. Tom taught me how to hammer on and pull off in a song on the last thing and there was an opportunity to do it on this one and I’ve been playing guitar for so long, it’s about time. I actually feel like a guitar player playing it. And that middle part, the way it breaks down, it’s the lowest part of the song but it’s the most important part of the song.
Tom: I had been trying to write a song like “Endless Beige” for the band for a while, but having to have to sing and play, writing some earthy, atmospheric song was going to be kind of tough. So, I saw the opening to do it. I think I sent you guys the song, we kept it pretty much the way I sent it, but Buzz was like, “Send me a version with no bass,” and he wrote the bass line, and it totally took the song to the next level for me. Then Brian did that song first in the studio and the vocal performance is just so bonkers. It far exceeded any expectations I had. Trying to write a song like that for the last eight years and then getting to do it was cool.
Buzz: I’ll go with “Axis.” Sick headband part smack-dab in the middle of the song. I love playing it; it’s my favorite part of the set. There’s always like one person way in the back of the room throwing up the horns when it’s going on.
So, this comes out on August 22; then what comes up for you guys?
Tom: We’re going to do a record release weekend September 19-21—Brooklyn at the Broadway; Red Bank, New Jersey at Relic Music; New Brunswick, New Jersey at Cinco de Mayo, which is a burrito place that started doing shows a few years. We used to go there after shows for burritos and at some point somebody was like, “Hey, can we do shows here?” If you go online and look at videos of it, it’s wild. Then in November we are going to do Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland.
Life in Parallel is out Friday and you can preorder it here. Follow Hundreds of AU on Facebook and Instagram for future updates.
Photo Credit: Nathaniel Shannon
