Dedicated to their craft, these five DIY lads hailing Lawrence, Kansas are upholding the Midwestern tradition of being hard workers. Speaking of hard working, this band has been at it since '96 to be exact. Once playing in some of the most highly celebrated hardcore bands to indie to noisecore favorites like Coalescence, Reggie and The Full Effect, Theta, and Today Is The Day. Vocalist Steve Cruz sat down with me as we conversed about their current tour, their latest release Sureness of Sleepwalking, the meanings behind their songs, etc.

Karma: Thank you very much for doing the interview Steve.

Steve: Yeah, thank you! [Smiles]

Karma: Please define The Esoteric in a statement.

Steve: The Esoteric is just five guys that have been playing music together for a really long time. We're just constantly trying to stay interested in what we're doing and have a good time. That's the basics of it I would say.

Karma: Then you guys are coming from such bands as Coalescence, etc…   

Steve: Yeah! We'll here's the deal, The Esoteric has always been a band like before Cory started playing with Reggie or Coalescence or even before Marshall was Today Is The Day him and I played in bands together ever since he and I were fourteen/fifteen. The string players in The Esoteric are the same way, they've been playing together since junior high. There's down times when you first try to put a band together. It's really hard to keep everybody focused.

There was some down time here and there and everybody got involved in some other project. They were definitely project oriented and the Esoteric has always been happening so… It's just now in the past couple of years where we are focusing in on The Esoteric full on and not try and spend too much energy doing other stuff. All the other stuff is project driven.

Karma: What would you like to see The Esoteric do that you hadn't accomplished with prior projects?

Steve: Keep playing super rad shows and have a good time. I’d really for us to get started writing a new record but there's so much life left in this one. I don't know being stuck in van; you come up with a lot of ideas. I'm just really excited to see how it turns out! [Smiles] But mostly just keep doing what we've been doing, keep playing shows, and write new music.

Steve: Yeah! Everybody in our band is like real busy bodies. If somebody's not…even in the van everybody's got laptops (well almost everybody). So, a lot of us sketch out ideas on the computer. A lot of us are really interested in electronic music as itself; we don't really share it or put it out there as much. Some of the influences seep into The Esoteric but it's just a personal thing. Everybody's constantly like writing and recording all of the time.

Karma: That's great, so when you were talking about electronic music we are talking about electronic/electronica.

Steve: Yeah, electronica, jungle.

Karma: Drum & bass?

Steve: Yeah. Definitely, like electronica unclassifiable, like experimental, noise. Like everybody is really into dance music, like really cheesy dance music like Leftfield and Aphex Twin, stuff like that.

Karma: Oh wow. I mean I know you said your personal influences seep into your music, will you use your love for electronica, etc. and incorporate more of that into The Esoteric, or will it remain a separate entity?

Steve: With The Esoteric, the one thing we definitely want to do at least as of now, who knows what we'll end up doing later. We want to keep everything solid and really focused. Definitely with the album we have out right now, we were really concentrating on songs versus parts and pieces. With the old record, was definitely more collaged based. It was a situation where you could put parts together don't really go together and we'd make them fit. It was really cool and really interesting. But on this record, we wanted to keep focus and maintain some kind of cohesive vibe to the whole thing.

Karma: More like concept orientated?

Steve: Yeah somewhat but who knows, in the future may be we'll incorporate more of that. There's a couple of pieces in the Sureness there's something that's really Aphex Twin, "Your New Burden" and there's another My Bloody Valentine/Dalek piece somewhere in there too. So I mean it seeps in there here and there but we really wanna make sure it really fits. No go off on a tangent where we do something that has nothing to do with the whole record. In the future, we might get into that too. It's kinda what we're into, keeping everything solid.

Karma: Talk to me about you song titles off Sureness, I find them very interesting not to mention the lyrics themselves…

Steve: Before I was in this band, I'd always go see them play and the first thing that attracted me to them was their name, The Esoteric. 'Cos it seemed like growing up I was always really interested in esoteric literature, esoteric music. I always thought that was really cool stuff. I'd get into and I was always bummed that the old vocalist's lyrics we're really esoteric themed. They were just really personal and kind of obvious. I thought it would really be cool if they were cryptic, mysterious. With this record, it's like a bunch of stories and myths combined with personal stuff. But I definitely wanted to keep it as esoteric as possible just to stay with the…

Karma: …keep with the theme…

Steve: [Smiles] …keep with the theme.

Karma: Okay. So how's this tour going so far?

Steve: It's awesome! It's the first tour where every single band has totally been doing their own thing. It's awesome! I love it.

Steve: The Dirty Black Summer tour was a good one as well.

Karma: We saw your set when you guys were here it was an awesome set.

Karma: It sure is!

Karma: Out of morbid curiosity, why do you think this?

Steve: You've got HOF, that's playing now, and they're just straight up rock and roll. There's not a blast beat or a break down to it. The Red Chord…[pauses]

Karma: At least they have breakdowns; perhaps not the blast beats all the time…

Steve: …Exactly! Same thing with Every Time I Die, they are definitely a band that combines all of those elements. That's why I'm really stoked to be out with them. When it's an ETID song, you know it's an ETID song no matter what. Even if you never heard it before. I think with this tour, everybody's definitely into their own; it's really obvious. Sometimes the crowd is really unreceptive towards us. Because it's new, it's really fresh. But we love that! It means that we're doing something that's our own. It feels good!

Karma: In essence as long as it feels good to you…

Steve: …yeah totally! We definitely want kids to be all about it but we're not writing music for the kids first, you know. We just hope that comes with it, hope they get into it!

Steve: Yeah, totally! We've been trying to capture a lot of it on videotape in hopes of having some really cool DVD's like vulgar videos or something. [We all laugh] Well nothing that crazy… We're a lot more tame; actually, we're pretty boring! This whole tour we've going around listening to Harry Potter on CD. We have them ALL! That's never ending man! It's awesome!! We know how to have a good time, for sure.

Karma: Well switching gears a bit, how is the scene in Lawrence, KS?

Steve: It's really incestuous. It's very open. It's not like a bunch of metalcore bands.

Karma: Is it supportive?

Steve: Yeah, like when you come to one of our shows, if we headline they'll be like hip hop kids there. You know I DJ for a living out there. So then, of course, the kids are curious, they're like, "Oh that guys screams in that crazy metal band!", so they'll come out.  The bands are pretty open-minded, it's a liberal place; it's Kansas. But it's like this cultural oasis in the Midwest.

With shows on the east coast and on the west coast, I've noticed it's only one type of kid there and nobody else. I mean not always, you mix it up with the tours, but otherwise, it's really crazy. It's the so called "indie rock" kid. Weird industrial rock kid, hip-hop kid. We're all really good friends with the kids in the hip-hop scene. When we played there with ETID, it was our show. I think the Go Go Bordellos were there, it was awesome. You'd have to see it; it was like a circus troop type thing. And then some of my friends who had a hip hop night down at this other bar. It's just like that! Being around everything, you just kind of get in there and check it all out.

Karma: In February, you guys suffered a great loss losing your home, practice space, equipment…

Steve: Oh yeah, totally!

Karma: The community really pulled together, how soon were you bale to recover? Were you able to find a better place?

Steve: No, I've just been kind of touring, hanging out in the van, stuff like that. I mean I've got a lot of really good friends that helped me out. I stay at my manager's house and whatnot. We've just been on the road ever since that happened. Two of the guys didn't live there; they live with their girlfriends. One of the guys that did live there moved in with his girlfriend, just recently. But Marshall and I are still kinda like… [pauses]

Karma: …in limbo.

Steve: …in limbo! …

Karma: But like you said, you still chose to soldier on and tour, many kudos!

Steve: Thanks, yeah, cool!! [Smiles]

Karma: What’s your favorite song off Sureness?

Steve: My favorite song is "Mapping The Fall", it's the very last song on the disc. It kind of incorporates all of the other songs, I think on the record. It ties it up. We haven't actually played that live. [Snickers] The thing about touring so much is you never have time to practice the other songs. I know when we do it's gonna come off really well live, that would be really fun to play.

Karma: Is “The Prettiest One” dedicated to someone in particular?

I was reading the story; there are several different stories about this goddess though. She's also known as Eris Esoteric, the Goddess of Confusion. The story goes, that she was not invited to a ball by all these other gods and goddesses. She was kind of blacklisted. To make a long story short, she wasn't cool enough. She didn't really fit in; she caused too much trouble and whatnot. She wasn't allowed to go to this party, and so she created this silver apple and inscribed on the silver apple Kallisti. That translated to "this is dedicated to the prettiest one". She went to the ball, threw it into the party, threw her magic into that and it made everybody spring for the apple. They had to have it. Everybody who touched it, or gazed upon it ended up with their vanity and their snobbery, like really came out. I guessed it cursed them with this forever yearning to be satisfied and fulfilled and they were cursed to never obtain that.

Karma: That is very interesting; I am going to have to read up on that.

Karma: The album cover’s pretty brutal once you really look at it. Was it designed that way?

Steve: Yeah, our friend Andy Cummings, a kid from Jersey, and sings in a band called Kiss The Cynic. He's been a great friend and we've done tours with his [other] bands. We just kept in good contact. He's a graphic artist and he's done some stuff with us in the past just like simple logos or t-shirt designs. Now we're like, "you've got a full layout! You're our boy so let's see what you can do"! We sent him all the lyrics, and he would send me his ideas and we'd just go back and forth and this is what he came up with. We thought it really fit well. [Smiles]

Karma: Definitely! Tell me about the video for “Ram-faced Boy”. What all went into that mind jarring piece, was it a concept that you came up with?

Karma: It's a great video.

Steve: Thanks!

Karma: Who are some of the bands that you are listening to right now?

Karma: Well it's a great way to pass time too.

Steve: Exactly!

Karma: Which band member has the worst and best sense of humor?

Steve: I think Cory has the worst but he's a pretty funny guy at the same time. He's just rather moody, but so is the rest of us. Actually, everybody in the band has a good sense of humor. If we didn't have a good sense of humor, we wouldn't be doing this, you know! [Smiles] That's for sure. Like I said, we are out to have a good time…van breaks down, house burns down. You know if you can't laugh and get on with it, it's no sense in doing it.

Karma: Very true! If not music then what?

Steve: We're so into music, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I think the last thing the world needs is another band, or another dude screaming! But it's all I know how to do and I'm not hurting anybody.

Karma: If you could commission a band to cover an Esoteric song, which song would you chose and who would cover it?

Steve: Oh wow, that's a good question!

Karma: Thank you!

Karma: Cool, will check that out…

Steve: [Laughs] Yeah, cool! He's working on a version of "Ram Faced Boy", there's some guys from the Ghostly International label that are working on a possible version of "Dedicated", and we're just putting the word out there with different friends. Mr. Dibbs is a DJ for Atmosphere, Ryan Sayers' guys. They play around here a lot; he's possibly working on something. We're looking at all kinds of people to do Esoteric songs. But I'm mostly excited about this guy named Venetian Snares, I believe his name is Aaron Funk, he's from Canada. He's got records out on all different kinds of labels. He's kinda like Aphex Twin but a lot more drum oriented.

Karma: Again, more drum & bass?

Steve: Yeah, he's from that kind of scene but now he's totally in his own. Every record he puts out is totally different, so it's hard to tell.

Karma: Is he doing one song?

Steve: Oh yeah, we're hoping to have do one song. No confirmation on that yet, but that's someone I'd like to see interpret one of our songs.

Karma:  If it were your job to interview another band, whom would you interview and what would be the one thing you'd like to find out about them?

Steve: It would be really cool to interview Faith No More. That was band that really interested me on many, many levels. What I would really like to know is how they made it work. From what I understand, they were all super different from each other and they shouldn't have been a band. But somehow, they did it! Five, six records, all amazing. So, I would ask them how the hell they kept it together!

Steve: No, just thank you for doing this. I appreciate it. [Smiles]

Karma: Thank you Steve!