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Quicksand’s Walter Schreifels: “I use the tricks I have to the most effect that I can. And I think that’s the trick of my playing”

The innovative six-stringer reflects on a life of hardcore, splitting – and then reuniting with – Quicksand, and chasing progression as a guitar player

Hardcore punk music is simple by design and tribal by nature, focused on eliciting a specific response as opposed to encouraging exploration. It’s ironic, then, how hardcore journeyman Walter Schreifels has somehow evaded the genre’s structures to create some of the most compelling and influential heavy music of the last three decades.

“Hardcore is such a limited format, in a way – it’s more like haikus than sonnets,” Schreifels says. “When I got into Quicksand, I didn’t want to work within the boundaries of that formula of hardcore. I wanted to stretch out, and the guys I was working with all wanted to do that as well.”

Of all the groundbreaking bands Schreifels has been involved with – '80s hardcore pioneers Youth of Today and Gorilla Biscuits, and early-aughts alt-metal underdogs Rival Schools chief among them – Quicksand will be writ large in his epitaph. Emerging in 1993 with their debut album Slip , Quicksand bridged the worlds of punk and metal while maintaining the bludgeoning beats of hardcore – the perfect concoction for music fans who loved Nirvana and Helmet in equal measure.

Schreifels had grown up in New York on bands like AC/DC, the Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen and the Velvet Underground before discovering punk at CBGB’s hardcore matinee shows. He realized that even his meager musical abilities were good enough to start a band, so he formed Gorilla Biscuits. He loved how the barrier between bands and fans was always blurred, and because of the music’s simplicity he sometimes filled in with bands like Judge, often learning the set on the way to the gig.

“Hardcore has this family vibe where you jump in [to help other bands],” he says. “You know, ‘Billy’s parents said he can’t go to Connecticut to play a show, so do you want to play?’ The good thing was that the songs weren’t hard, and no one cared – that was the other part. [Laughs] In hardcore, it wasn’t that important to play great as it was to just be about it.”

By the time he formed Quicksand, Schreifels had become more ambitious in his guitar playing and songwriting, taking notice of Brian Baker’s octave melodies in Dag Nasty, the angularity of Greg Ginn’s work in Black Flag, the dissonance of BL’AST!, and the use of space by Jane’s Addiction.

“We did a tour in England and got ahold of a My Bloody Valentine cassette,” he says, “and by the time we did Slip , that was our biggest influence. I don’t know how much it comes off as sort of, ‘Oh, they’re doing shoegaze,’ but that’s what we were doing.”

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After performing on the inaugural Warped Tour in 1995 and releasing Manic Compression – winkingly named for the record’s tightly wound mix, which bassist Sergio Vega dubbed the … And Justice for All of hardcore, according to Schreifels – Quicksand splintered. 

Schreifels launched Some Records and put out Hot Water Music’s seminal No Division , and formed Rival Schools with friends from the New York hardcore scene. With a more streamlined, melodic hard rock sound, the band landed the single Good Things in rotation on MTV2, but soon Schreifels moved on to the British Invasion power pop of Walking Concert. Non-stop moving is the only constant in his long and prolific career.

“I guess it’s that hardcore community thing where bands wouldn’t really last for more than a record, and that would be your career,” he says. “I may have carried that mentality into my pro career, to where I wanted to work with different people and create different sounds.”

We didn’t want to rehash ourselves, mainly because I don’t think we would’ve done a good job of it

Reforming Quicksand in 2012, and Rival Schools the year before, bucked this trend – but they didn’t recycle old riffs or themes. He and Vega, who had been playing with Deftones, brought new perspectives and a more progressive musical mindset to the music they created for 2017’s Interiors .

“There was no master plan,” he says. “We all had to regain our chemistry and figure out, what is our style at this point? What we all agreed on was that we didn’t want to rehash ourselves, mainly because I don’t think we would’ve done a good job of it. We had all progressed as players in so many different ways, and as people even more so. Even if you wanted to, that time is over. How do you recontextualize it? It took us a while to get a handle on it.”

Since then, his guitar playing has taken new forms. After second guitarist Tom Capone left Quicksand abruptly during the Interiors tour, Schreifels had to learn to cover both rhythm and lead; the same thing had happened before a 2011 Rival Schools tour, when Ian Love quit. Each time, he emerged a stronger player, and has channeled those lessons into Dead Heavens, his bluesy proto-metal band, and Distant Populations , Quicksand’s 2021 release.

“I think I have a good sense of how to improvise and make it sound cool, and I use the tricks I have to the most effect that I can,” he says. “And I think that’s the trick of my playing. Depending on what you’re going for, there’s always gonna be different levels of technical skill. It’s what you do with it.”

• Distant Populations is out now via Epitaph.

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Jim Beaugez has written about music for Rolling Stone , Smithsonian , Guitar World , Guitar Player and many other publications. He created My Life in Five Riffs , a multimedia documentary series for Guitar Player that traces contemporary artists back to their sources of inspiration, and previously spent a decade in the musical instruments industry.

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• The Bicycle Song
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Walter Schreifels at Brooklyn Made, Brooklyn, NY, USA

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• Pushed Too Far / Friends Like You
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Walter Schreifels at The Camel, Richmond, VA, USA

• Arthur Lee's Lullaby
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Walter Schreifels at Outbreak Fest 2022

• Lightning Field
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Walter Schreifels at Roadrunner, Boston, MA, USA

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Walter Schreifels at The Triffid, Brisbane, Australia

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Walter Schreifels at Upstairs at The Garage, London, England

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Walter of Quicksand talks reunions, Riot Fest, and retrospectives

The name Walter Schreifels is certainly not foreign to fans of hardcore or post-hardcore. Most first became familiar with his legendary work in the seminal New York hardcore band Gorilla Biscuits . Following their breakup, he formed the genre defining Quicksand . Beyond Quicksand, Walter has worked on many projects including Rival Schools. Punknews staffer Jason Baygood had the chance to catch up with Walter at this year’s edition of the annual Riot Fest in Chicago where he pulled triple duty, including performing the debut Quicksand album Slip in full.

Right off the bat I have to ask. What was the initial motivation for the Quicksand reunion? We were solicited to play a celebration event for Revelation Records. Initially, we thought we would simply play a few songs and that would be the end. The whole experience blew us away and it ended up being something more long term again.

Since the reformation, Quicksand have released two albums. (Interiors released in 2017 and Distant Populations released in 2021). Do you feel any sense of burden that any new material has to match the classic Quicksand sound? I think that’s a little bit of it. I try not to turn it into a burden though. Used in context in an effective way, you can do interesting things spinning off of that. That is part of the fun of it.

You are playing the debut Quicksand album Slip in full today. Many consider that a genre defining post-hardcore album. With writing newer albums, is there an attempt to recreate the past or do you write in more of a contemporary style? We are 100% not trying to simply recreate the past. At the same time, with it including the same people, it is hard to not sound like it at times. We were very innovative in the beginning and we are always trying to continue to be innovators.

I recall the first few times I saw Quicksand in the early '90s. The band was something completely different you brought to the stage as compared to the bands which everyone had previously been part of. Yes, of course. We were being innovators!

I wanted to talk for a moment about what you were doing during your downtime from Quicksand. Of course you did the band Rival Schools. Some say that since reforming, they hear that band’s influence on both Interiors and Distant Populations. How would you respond to such statements? It’s the same guy leading both bands. My ideas are always going to come back into anything that I do. My style is natural and what I go to.

How did the departure of original Quicksand guitarist Tom Capone impact your most recent album Distant Populations? We have been on this path of playing as a three piece for many years now. His departure really didn’t impact us at all.

You certainly have a busy weekend this weekend. You are taking part in full album plays for Quicksand, Rival Schools and Gorilla Biscuits. Whose idea was it for all this to happen? Honestly, I don’t know how it all happened. I simply initially got an offer from Riot Fest to play and I said yes. I can’t remember which band it was that got asked first. Other offers came in and before I knew it, three of my bands were playing Riot Fest! Maybe it was the festival itself who had that idea?

Riot Fest has always been big on having full classic album performances by various bands. That has to be exciting to perform three classic albums from three separate eras of your career. I am extremely grateful to get to go through this retrospective of my career this weekend.

Has your preparation for this weekend differed from your norm, as you are playing with three different bands? Yes. Quicksand is the most challenging due to all of our different tunings for songs. That can get tricky. Gorilla Biscuits is always really chill. For Rival Schools, we are actually having practice tonight.

Here we are at Riot Fest. Festivals continue to get huge, and bands more than ever are doing more destination shows. Do you prefer doing these festivals or doing one-off shows and tours? I certainly appreciate each on differently. Festivals are great because you get the chance to see both your peers as well as cool bands like The Cure. At the same time, that doesn’t mean that I don’t also like playing shows where you know the crowd is primarily in attendance for you and your band.

It does seem these days with the increase in festivals worldwide that bands don’t seem to tour as much. Many seem to favor such destination type of events. It’s great to hear that you appreciate both. What bands are you excited to see this weekend? There are so many great bands performing. Some are the Breeders, Turnstile, The Cure, and Say Anything.

Walter, I wanted to thank you for your time in speaking with me. I am looking forward to your performances this weekend. Thank you. My pleasure

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Quicksand (live on kexp), madness, devo, descendents to headline prb 2024, hot water music announce us and canada 30th anniversary dates, glitterer announce new album, release video for "plastic", gorilla biscuits, war on women, pears, more to play off limits festival, quicksand announce 30th anniversary 'slip' shows, book about brooklyn's saint vitus bar to be released, gorilla biscuits announce us tour dates, steve ignorant, screaming females, cure, afi, drain, p-funk, gaslight anthem, to play riot fest.

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Quicksand’s Walter Schreifels: “I feel kinship with a band like Turnstile”

The post-hardcore heroes also discuss "the romance of breaking up" and the political themes of new album 'Distant Populations'

Cult post-hardcore band Quicksand have hailed Turnstile as a band they feel a “kinship” with, while also revealing the political themes of new album ‘Distant Populations’ and the “romance” of their past break-up.

The New York band’s first two albums (1993’s ‘Slip’ and 1995’s ‘Manic Compression’) were seminal in establishing the post-hardcore scene, alongside work by the likes of Fugazi , Refused and At The Drive In . Around that time, the trio supported The Offspring across America and Europe just as the Cali punks’ thid album ‘Smash’ became a global hit. Soon after, they headlined the first ever The Warped Tour in 1995 but had broken up by the end of that year.

Speaking to NME , frontman Walter Schreifels said he had few regrets about that period.

“We were playing 300 shows a year in this big machine, trying to get a platinum record,” said Schreifels. “It made us all nuts and very prideful, which wasn’t healthy. Looking back now, I know I needed to say, ‘It’s not that I don’t love you, we’ve just been playing too much together’ but there’s a certain romance to breaking up.

“The drama of a rock band deciding it’s all or nothing, it’s the stuff legends are made of. I don’t regret the band breaking up, I’ve done so much cool shit outside of Quicksand that I wouldn’t have done otherwise, but it’s not an unusual story either.”

A brief 18-month reunion came in 1997 that saw the band support Deftones and back head into the studio, but those old tensions hadn’t healed and in 1999, the band split once more without releasing anything new.

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Schreifels went on to form alt-rock heroes Rival Schools while bassist Sergio Vega started working with Deftones, eventually joining the band full-time in 2009. In 2012 though, Quicksand decided to give things another go with a series of tours and festival dates before third album ‘Interiors’ finally arrive 2017. Last week the band released their new full-length, ‘Distant Populations’.

The singer said that they still feel a world apart from the rest of the scene, but they see some of their spirit in bands like Maryland hardcore punk Turnstile .

“I had more confidence going into this one,” Schreifels said. “‘Interiors’ was more of a stab in the dark because we had no way of knowing what would happen. When we were doing it in the ’90s, we were part of a scene. Now, either our peers aren’t doing it anywhere or they’ve become massive institutions like Tool or Deftones. There are younger bands like Turnstile that I feel a kinship to, but in many ways we’re out here on our own.”

Despite the completely different musical landscape and the band growing a cult legend over the last two decades, the frontman explained how “the only real pressure on ‘Interiors’ came from the fact we financed it ourselves. If the album came out shitty, it would have been our money that we wasted. I thought that was a healthy pressure to have.”

He went on to explain their growth as a band, telling NME : “After ‘Interiors’, we knew what worked. We always had chemistry but now, we knew how to talk to each other. Once you’ve gone through all that hard stuff and gotten to the good part, it would be stupid to just say goodbye. ‘Interiors’ is a great album but it by no means was our definitive statement. If anything, it just opened up more questions.“

With the mission statement of ‘Distant Populations’ to be “more open to challenging people”, the band set about showcasing the broad church of their influences and for the songs to have more impact

“We wanted it to be more compact,” said Schreifels. “We wanted to crack our knuckles and hit it harder. The first song we put out was ‘Inversion’ because it would have fit really well into our set in those early days. It also takes things to the next level though because we are evolved people. We’ve continued to create so there are certain complexities we can get into, or choose to avoid, which is where the fun is.”

Lyrically, the record deals in themes of technology, apocalypse and the desensitising amount of information we’re all exposed to in the social media age.

“We’re so wrapped up in our own bullshit, we’re more isolated than any group of people that have ever lived,” Schreifels said. “You might think your life is so much better than a servant in the dark ages but if you’re working in a fast-food place, not making enough money to feed your family…”

He went on: “Everything was heightened by the pandemic and political tensions across America but it really does feel like there’s a massive amount of trauma in the world right now as well as a societal evolution going on. I took these very simple ideas that I’ve had since my early punk days – kindness, empathy, don’t be racist, save the oceans – and found myself digging deeper.

“In a literal sense; the planet is dying and we need to work together to fix it. I’m not political in the same way as some of my peers but I wanted to put some empathy out there.”

Schreifels also explained that that while the band enjoy “a great legacy,” they’re set on continuing to do more “interesting shit”.

“No one sounds like us,” he said. “Sure, adding something new is always a potential threat to what’s come before but if you worry about that, then you work yourself into a corner. That’s not really an option. Our legend’s not that big that we can’t try to be who we are.”

He added: “It’s one thing to have a legacy that means people will come out to see you at a festival, it’s another to make a new record and build on that excitement. The downside of legend is that it implies the story is over. Once you hit legend status, whatever your legend is, it’s tough to compete against that. The more you fight against it, the more sparkle you get from it. It’s a fun challenge because we can always surprise people.”

‘Distant Populations’ by Quicksand is out now on Epitaph Records. The band embark on a US tour next month.

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Interview: Walter Schreifels (Quicksand)

Photo by A.F. Cortes

In April 2021, with no warning, NYC post-hardcore legends Quicksand dropped a brand new single, “Inversion”, on unsuspecting fans and then followed it up in June with the announcement that their second reunion album, Distant Populations would be released in August. This shouldn’t have come as a great surprise as the band did the same thing with their 2017 release, Interiors but, nevertheless, it did.

Coming out of the punk scene in the early ’90s, Walter Schreifels (vocals, guitar), Sergio Vega (bass), Tom Capone (guitar) and Alan Cage (drums) helped pave the way for generations of bands in the decades to follow. 1993’s Slip and 1995’s Manic Compression were the blueprints for bands like Sparta , Thursday , Drug Church and Title Fight but the all-too-common “creative differences” led Quicksand to break up in late 1995.

Though periodic live reunions happened in the ensuing years, rumors of new Quicksand music didn’t come to fruition until 2017 and, by that point, personal issues led the band to drop Capone from the lineup and continue as a three piece. And now, four years since the trio reunited, Quicksand has as many full length releases as they did back in the ’90s with the promise of more to come. Of course, we likely won’t know that they’re working on something new until a single drops given the history of Interiors and Distant Populations .

A few weeks ago, Schreifels and I chatted for about 20 minutes via Zoom as he drove around New York City looking for an ever-elusive parking spot. When the call was suddenly dropped, I figured I had enough to go with but within 24 hours, Schreifels had reached out offering to continue our conversation, which we did a week later. Here’s what came out of those two conversations.

Both Interiors and Distant Populations were big surprises. I don’t recall hearing that you were working on new material. Was keeping it quiet intentional?

WALTER : We wanted to drop them out of nowhere. With Interiors, I was going by the example of My Bloody Valentine . They dropped their MBV album out of nowhere, like it just appeared and I thought that was great. The real commitment we made was that we were paying for it ourselves, so it became, “If we don’t complete this album and if it’s not good, then not only is that going to be a bummer, but, we’re going to lose a significant amount of money.” It was a great incentive to make the best record we could possibly make and to complete it. I think the best thing was to drop it out of nowhere so people could be surprised. Nowadays, things are rolled out in such a long way that it’s rare that things are surprising.

I was fooled both times. You dropped a surprise single with no immediate mention of a full album. That was something fans like me were hoping for but just to get a new song was great. And then, a week or two after releasing singles, comes the announcement that not only is a new record coming but that it’s done and will be released imminently. That blew my mind!

WALTER : Good. I’m really stoked on this new record. I feel like we were more focused with what we were trying to do and didn’t really feel the pressure or the baggage of the legacy of the band. It felt like we could be more contemporary if we decided to be a band that exists in the world right now. Of course, we have our past, which is cool, but that’s like a lot of bands. I think we really just said, “Okay, what do we want to do now? Let’s say something with this album with some sort of intent.”

The gap between 1995’s Manic Compression and 2017’s Interiors was 22 years. Now that you’ve released as many albums in the four years as you did in the ’90s, you’re not going to wait another 22 years for albums five and six, right?

WALTER : No, that’s not the intention. When I was younger, it seemed crazy to me that I was a professional musician. It wasn’t like that was my career path. Now, I see it through a different lens. I hang out with my good friends, who have been part of my life story, and get to do creative work with them. We get to travel the world and see friends and have experiences, communicate, create art. I’m grateful for that. I enjoy what we do and there’s a lot of respect between us. I value it and want to continue the story. In a lot of ways, I think we’re just getting started. I think there’s no limit to what we can do creatively and I think we have a good vibe. That’s cool. That’s rare as hell.

After the initial break up, you did an interview where you said there would never be a Quicksand reunion.

WALTER : Yeah, because we were all pissed off. There was a lot of drama. When you’re that age, you’re like, “No, never again.” If there hadn’t been a reunion, I think that would have been fine but I’m grateful that these guys are my friends and I love these people. They’re still in my life and we’re able to do fun things together and be creative and be better people to each other. At that time, we loved each other and we had some cool chemistry, but, we weren’t able to find time to work on our relationship. Now, it’s a really nice way to mark your progress as a person. “I would have acted like this, but, now I’m not acting like that.” Or, “This would have set me off, but, now it’s not setting me off.” They’re my brothers. At the time of that interview, that’s just the way things were.

With four albums under your belt, and a recently announced tour, have you started thinking about what songs you’ll be playing live?

WALTER : We’re starting to work on what the setlist will be and I’m really stoked on it. Since we have a wealth of material now, I think we can create a very interesting show, the kind of show that I’d want to see.

As much as I love the material from the ’90s, if you were just playing new stuff, I’d be the first in line. That’s not always the case, where a band waits 22 years to put out new material and it’s as good as their early stuff. With each listen to Distant Populations, I’m finding a new favorite song.

WALTER : Thank you so much. When we’ve been rehearsing, these new songs are rocking. Obviously, I want to play “Dine Alone” and, of course we’re going to do that stuff. It feels good to live within those songs, but being excited about the new songs is very empowering because I don’t want to play new songs live and have you go get a drink. The new songs are the stuff that we’re actually the most excited about, so I’m glad as a listener you’re catching that too.

The new album is economical, 11 songs clocking in at 32 minutes, but I don’t feel cheated at all. You don’t waste time, everything is right to the point.

WALTER : I thought with Interiors we took the liberty of being a little more expansive and I was fucking around with effects a little bit more. I think that was a really cool next step for the band coming back, but, having done that, we went in with the idea to keep our songs under 3 minutes and be economical, that’s a good way to put it, and crack our knuckles. A 2-minute song can be a whole world. Some of the best songs are like 2-minutes-and-15-seconds and you don’t need any more than that. We were kind of on that trip with this record, almost like a punk record where you can listen to it three times in a row and absorb it.

The departure of guitarist Tom Capone during the 2017 tour has been documented and we don’t need to rehash that but, as you went into work on a new album, did it feel like you were missing a family member or had you already moved on?

WALTER : I think with Interiors it was a little bit more of a struggle because we were just headed in somewhat different directions and weren’t collaborating. We were making the songs and moving forward as a band but there was this side, I don’t know if it was a drama at that point, but we just weren’t on the same page. Obviously, Tom’s awesomely talented and when we were together, that was an awesome thing. Like a lot of relationships and friendships, they can work on some levels and not work on other levels. That’s an evolution of people. I think with this record, having done the last record as a three piece, we were way more confident. That wasn’t something we were worrying about. We were just coming up with the statement that we wanted to make music that would make a fan like you go, “Oh, they are talking to me. They are doing tighter stuff.” It’s a bit more punchy. I think musically it’s very futuristic and shows a lot of different directions in which we could do well.

While there was punchy material on Interiors, I know what you’re saying. It did feel like you were missing Tom and, for me, it took a few listens to embrace the new Quicksand sound. That being said, it’s a phenomenal record with a lot of depth. Have you given any thought into bringing in another guitar player to fill out the sound when you go on the road?

WALTER : We have. We’ve got somebody really, really cool joining us for the upcoming tour and we sound so heavy and awesome. It sounds more like the records than ever. Where we were more jammy in the past, because I was doing all the guitar work, now I think we can be a lot punchier. I’m really excited about it, I think it’s going to sound great.

[At the time of the interview, Walter wasn’t ready to reveal who would be rounding out the Quicksand touring lineup but the “Colossus” shows that Cave In ’s Stephen Brodsky has been tapped to play guitars and add backing vocals.]

You kept busy with bands like Rival Schools , Vanishing Life and Dead Heavens during Quicksand’s hiatus and Sergio has been a member of the Deftones since 2009. I know Alan was in Seaweed in the late ’90s but what was he doing between Seaweed and the Quicksand reunion?

WALTER : Alan has an interesting past. After Seaweed, he got into union organizing. Alan’s always been very left wing political. He’s a man-of-the-people type person. He got into organizing unions at hotels. It’s really hard work, people are exploited like crazy. There’s politics within the politics of the unions. He did that for many years and then decided to take a break and became a professional gambler, of all things. I don’t know if he puts that on his resume. He has a super math mind. His mind was able to keep cool in these situations where he’s assessing the outcomes of things. It makes sense since playing drums is kind of mathy. When Quicksand started playing again, I think Alan was a bit out of practice but he has such natural skill and feel and since he loves playing drums, he was practicing all the time. On this album, the amount of playing he did wasn’t a big leap from the last album but I can hear in his playing how far he’s come and what an awesome drummer he is. His fills are super musical and I don’t think anybody plays like him except John Bonham .

With the album coming out digitally recently [vinyl will be out in September], does that mean you recorded in 2020?

WALTER : No. Actually, the very last day of recording was my birthday, which was March 10, 2020. And the lockdown happened on the 13th. Covid, for me, was really, really cool. I don’t want to sound glib, because, obviously, it’s a huge weight that we’re all universally connected to within this time that we’re still going through. But, I have a place in upstate New York and I could go there without having to accomplish anything. Whenever this pandemic is finished or whatever comes next, I already knew I had finished an album which is something I was excited about. It felt like a summer vacation and gave me the opportunity to be upstate in a rural area and be outside of New York City.

I don’t think I had a unique experience. I think a lot of people found they were capable of doing more than they thought and they could put a finger on the pulse of where their challenges were. For me, I was really happy to discover that I could live in the country as much as I could live in the city and appreciate the slowness. And rather than let it freak me out or feel isolated, I was more in touch with the richness of that experience. I did a lot of cool things that weren’t part of the grind mentality. I know some people celebrate that daily grind and I’m not looking down on trying to celebrate being productive but, at the same time, I think people are discovering that, as the lights come back on, the manic pace that we’re living at makes us sacrifice some stuff. You’re constantly having to show up here and there in this constant state of production as opposed to really valuing nothingness. It’s kind of like a Buddhist concept to embrace the void – I’m here with myself. I’m here with my family. I’m here in nature.

I think the pandemic allowed me to explore that more and be cool with it and not think that I should be doing something else. The field was flattened to where it was like I’m not calling you, you’re not calling me unless we just want to talk. It’s like nobody can get an edge on anybody right now and I see that as a good thing. But, of course, I have friends who were very, very sick and I know people that died from Covid. We’re going to be feeling the impacts of the psychological PTSD for many years to come.

These songs were written and recorded before Covid but some of the general themes of what we’ve been feeling as a nation the past 4 or 5 years still work their way into your songs. When you’re writing a new album, do the songs start with lyrics? A song title? A melody that is stuck in your head?

WALTER : A lot of the lyrics are generally coming from the music. The music will dictate the emotion of what the lyrics will end up conveying. I started writing lyrics when I was with Gorilla Biscuits and I was very plugged into what the scene was, what I wanted to say about it, and the messages I wanted to convey. It was very straight forward. As I got into writing lyrics in Quicksand, it became more personal, more of my struggles and observations. Then I would start to get away from the lyrics being about me directly and start to find different angles. As a songwriter, you have your basic things that get you wanting to write, you have those 10 things that you’re qualified to talk about and once you’ve written 5 songs each on those topics, you have to start to find, to use a sport analogy, a new type of pitch to throw. If you’re throwing all fastballs, you have to learn how to throw a curveball.

The first song I wrote lyrics for on the new album was “Inversion”. The lyrics are really straight forward and simple but I feel like there’s some weight to them. I always try to insert a sense of humor into what I’m doing, even in the heaviness. With a band name like Quicksand, it kind of invites that heaviness but I try putting a little humor in it so there’s a lightness. The lyrics for “Inversion” have personal meaning for me, they have political meaning for me, they have a wide range. I think you can find different things in them.

As you go through the rest of the album, some things are not like that. I might have a simple thought but, in the scope of the song, I need to be more obtuse in painting the picture. An art metaphor rather than a sports metaphor. I do feel like a lot of the songs are stemming from some sort of emotion that I can’t put a finger on. I’ve been doing this for such a long time, I have to always think about roots to that end to keep moving. I would prefer everything to be simple but sometimes it just doesn’t work that easily.

When I mentioned the album is economical, I think the same can be said for the lyrics. You don’t need a lot of words to say what you want to say. But, when you mix the lyrics with the music, though the songs may be short and the lyrics may be simple, the end result is this really rich and heavy thing.

WALTER : If you listen to earlier Quicksand stuff, I was very influenced by Kevin Seconds and the hardcore stuff that would have a ton of lyrics within a minute and 40 seconds. I would rather have less lyrics and be more impactful than fill in all the details and have all these added rhythms. I just want to make everything count. There’s no right way. I think a lot of stuff I’ve done with all those details and all those rhythms have been great but I’m not as into that as I once was.

With Rival Schools, you put out an album of B-Sides. There are a lot of B-Sides, demos and lost Quicksand songs on YouTube. Have you considered packaging up those songs for an official release?

WALTER : That’s a great thought. I’ve been thinking about that more recently. A friend of mine has been gathering all his bits and pieces from his catalog with the idea of packing it up and releasing it. I’d like to do that. Right now, I’m focused on this record but I have some time before this tour starts. It’s going to be a project, but I want to do that.

Not only are your fans from the ’90s happy you’re back, but so many bands have started since the first breakup that have cited Quicksand as an influence and they may never have gotten to see you live back in the day. I don’t know if this is something you want to admit, but you must recognize the influence Quicksand has on so many bands.

WALTER : There’s some things that I’ve done that have impact that have filtered through the musical community. So when I see my peers, I feel really good that I’m part of that conversation. For me, what I want to do with music is get into people’s heads, to communicate. Through music, we can all connect.

When I get a cool compliment or somebody says something is meaningful to them, like we just put out the new single “Brushed” and people were texting me all day and saying cool things about the song, when something hits like that, the feeling you have when you know a song you put together has gotten in somebody else’s head is just a really cool feeling. I don’t get a big head about it because I’m just taking from other people who have made me feel that same way. I wouldn’t say I don’t have pride, but I’ve made lots of songs where people are like, “Eh. It’s an okay song.” It’s cool to have people clapping for you. It’s an amazing miracle that I can make a living doing this. I’m super grateful for that. I’m just mad lucky and grateful to be part of that. I’m benefiting from that system because other people are inspiring me and making me think, “How can I take that someplace else?”

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Why Vanishing Life went back to their punk roots for their debut album

Vanishing Life features members of Quicksand, Rise Against and ...Trail Of Dead. Just don't call them a supergroup...

It’s time to stop calling anything with members of more than one other band in it a supergroup. Alright, Hollywood Vampires are an exception to the rule, but more often than not, these bands are just like-minded musicians wanting to do something a little different. As is the case with Vanishing Life .

Comprising …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead bassist Autry Fulbright II and drummer Jamie Miller, Rise Against guitarist Zach Blair and Gorilla Biscuits / Quicksand / Rival Schools legend Walter Schreifels behind the mic, Vanishing Life brew an angular concoction of straight-up, bullshit-free post-hardcore with a bullish edge and existential lyrics. Influences seep in from its members’ respective projects alongside everything from Black Flag to Angel Olsen, Wire to The Damned – and it’s fantastic. We spoke to Schreifels and peeled back the layers surrounding the band’s debut LP, Surveillance.

The idea for the band came through a chance meeting at Groezrock Festival 2013 and evolved through emails. Coming from a DIY, hardcore background, was that detachment weird for you?

Walter: “It’s not so unusual to be hanging out with your friends when someone says something funny and you say, ‘Oh, dude, that’ll be our band name.’ Then you make this whole concept of what the band is, what you’d wear, what you’d do, and you kinda laugh about it but it never happens. This was just a good group of people and we kinda got psyched on doing something together, but to be honest I didn’t think it’d go past that fun conversation. But once the emails started coming in and they had demos attached to them, I thought of it as a challenge to do something really cool and to just do something . A lot of the time you say you’re gonna do something and you don’t, so this time I just thought, ‘Screw it, I’m gonna step through the window and see what becomes of it.’”

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Coming from your musical background, does the term ‘supergroup’ get your goat?

“It’s kind of a lazy way to talk about it, yeah. We’re not thinking, “Let’s form a supergroup with your superpowers and my superpowers COMBINED! ” We’re just guys who hang out. I’ve toured with Trail of Dead and I’ve known Zach for many years from the festival circuit, but more like acquaintances. It was really just a lark. In this modern time, with the way music is in my field, you’ve gotta keep putting things out and challenging yourself because it’s not like some old school thing where you’re on a major label, you make an album every three years then tour the cycle. Everyone’s an independent operator and they’ve gotta challenge themselves creatively and that’s how I looked at this. The fact that these guys are in popular bands is good in the way that maybe more people might pay attention to it, but calling it a supergroup is almost another way of saying you shouldn’t take it too seriously. I don’t really care because the music is good.”

Vanishing Life recorded their first seven-inch in two days. How did that gestate into a full-length?

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“Initially, Geoff Rickly from Thursday was supposed to be one of the band’s singers – there were supposed to be multiple singers but I was the only one who actually put anything down on the songs! Geoff stepped in later because he had a label and he wanted us to put out a single and make an album. Immediately we had a runway built for us to keep moving forward; it’s like when the universe presents a certain path to you and we all just decided to walk along it into the full-length.”

So how did the music on Surveillance come to fruition from there?

“Primarily, most of the music came from Jamie. He made these really awesome, simple demos that allowed the band to colour in the music; the style wasn’t pushing one way or another, the guitar was distorted and that’s as much character as it had. That gave us room to bring it to life. I presented a few songs when were able to get together because I’m really not good at making demos. I wrote Realist, Thinking Weightless and Pretty Ruined , and Zach did demos for Painter and Big Other. Autry was the guy who kept it flowing. There was no dead weight and we’re playing in a blueprint that’s within a language we all understood, and that language is punk rock.”

Was the album recorded in a similar way to the seven-inch, then?

“Yeah, and it was really refreshing for me. Again, in this day and age, people record on their computers at home, they’re manipulating everything and they’re going over it beat by beat to make sure everything’s perfect and to its maximum effect. We didn’t have that option. For all of us to get a week together for this record was as much as we had; I don’t think I’ve ever recorded an album this way, even in my early days. We were in there for seven days and we came out with a full album. I had half the lyrics written going into it, so every night after the session I’d go to my cheap hotel room nearby and write lyrics for the next songs. There was a spontaneity to it that kinda stressed me out at the time, because I’m always thinking, “Argh, I could do it better!” Being under that pressure, that it had to be done that week, had an effect on how the record came out and I love that.”

Lyrically, Surveillance is pretty heavy.

“I set the blueprint with the original couple of songs and just expanded on that. The name Vanishing Life evokes stuff like extinction and environmentalism, and the title Surveillance suggests that we’re on some sort of pivot on the evolutionary scale, like how much of what we do is recorded and documented and how weird it is looking outward and into other people’s lives, and how the whole geopolitical aspect of the world is figuring into that. It’s pretty astounding. I’m trying to take a peek at that stuff from a humanist point of view, but at the same time, there’s all this paranoia and manipulation and our own narcissism that’s really been given pace in the past ten years, so where do you find your humanity? You can move to the woods and check out and there’s different means. How do you find love when you have Tinder? Not that I’m on Tinder, but it’s fascinating. Every song taps into that paranoia and existential questioning, but also has a sort of relief moment where it’s like, “Everything’s all right. I love you, baby. It’s gonna be OK.” I wanted to have those little respites and there’s humour in there too. I also remember going to the Stasi museum in Berlin just before recording this album and just being knocked out by how East Germany really had the surveillance state down ; they were cutting-edge in a lot of ways.”

What’s that dashing wolf doing on the album cover?

“I can’t remember the photographer’s name, but an old friend of mine from Switzerland, Thomas Rütti did the album design and he got the photograph from his fine art photographer friend. I was just captivated by the stark image of this wolf, this endangered animal, kinda confronting the glow of a computer screen. It’s a strong image when you think of it in any deeper way than, ‘It’s a wolf.’ Its curiosity juxtaposes the danger of the wolf, because it’s a fierce animal but it’s not in a fierce pose, and that struck me. Vanishing Life sums up all these environmental issues, so this animal on the front is endangered yet so beautiful and fierce, and it approaches this light with a curiosity that could ultimately be its undoing. Maybe I’m looking too much into it, but it looks really cool.”

You even took the mic for several Gorilla Biscuits shows and had a lovely time. Does Vanishing Life give you the same rush?

“Oh, for sure. It’s cool that you’ve mentioned that because it was definitely one of my inspirations for this. Gorilla Biscuits is too dangerous for me – too many fully grown men jumping on you – but the idea of being a frontperson and having the freedom and thrill to run around… I didn’t want to do another band where I’m singing and playing guitar. Having played music for so long, if I want to invest in something creatively, it has to be in a realm where I’m not comfortable. Although I did play guitar on the record – I couldn’t let that go! – the idea of performing without the guitar, not taking the guitar to the airport, having my hands free on stage and all that stuff makes it a new experience for me. I get off on that fresh insight.”

Vanishing Life’s Surveillance will be released on November 25. The band are on tour throughout November .

Metal Hammer Quiz: Supergroups

Alec is a longtime contributor with first-class BA Honours in English with Creative Writing, and has worked for Metal Hammer since 2014. Over the years, he's written for Noisey, Stereoboard, uDiscoverMusic, and the good ship Hammer, interviewing major bands like Slipknot, Rammstein, and Tenacious D (plus some black metal bands your cool uncle might know). He's read  Ulysses  thrice, and it got worse each time.

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Dubai floods: Chaos, queues and submerged cars after UAE hit by record rains

Passengers report being stranded in the desert city as the international hub struggles in the wake of unusually heavy rain

Don’t blame cloud seeding for the Dubai floods

Dubai is wrestling with the aftermath of extraordinary torrential rains that flooded the desert city, with people describing harrowing stories of spending the night in their cars, and air passengers enduring chaotic scenes at airports.

Up to 259.5mm (10.2in) of rain fell on the usually arid country of the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, the most since records began 75 years ago . The state-run WAM news agency called the rains on Tuesday “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949”.

As the sun returned on Wednesday, along with it came stories of people stuck in cars and offices through an arduous night.

“It was one of the most horrific situations I had ever experienced,” said one Dubai resident in his 30s, who did not want to give his name, after his 15-minute commute turned into a 12-hour ordeal on flooded roads.

At Dubai’s airport, one of the busiest for international travel, with nearly every flight repeatedly delayed, Emirates passengers were told to stay away “unless absolutely necessary”.

Frustration from those already there began to build.

A large crowd formed at a connections desk, clapping and whistling in protest as they waited for information.

“They are completely lost, it’s complete chaos – no information, nothing,” fumed one passenger, who did not want to be named, after a 12-hour wait, Agence France-Presse reported.

Standing water lapped on taxiways as aircraft landed. One couple called the situation “absolute carnage”. They spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely in a country with strict laws that criminalise critical speech. “You cannot get a taxi. There’s people sleeping in the Metro station. There’s people sleeping in the airport.”

The BBC reported other passengers were diverted to Dubai World Central Airport – also known as Al Maktoum airport – telling the broadcaster they had been “living on duty free” and that water was in short supply.

One furious British traveller told PA Media that once his flight was diverted to Dubai World Central, he had not been given any food or water either. “It’s just been an absolute disaster. We’re stuck here and seven hours without a single update is inexcusable.”

Emirates, Dubai’s flagship airline, posted on X on Wednesday night: “Customers should expect delays with departures and arrivals” and that while some passengers had been able to get to their destinations “we are aware that many are still waiting to get on flights”.

The airline cancelled all check-ins and announced that it would continue to suspend services until Thursday morning, apologising for the disruptions. Those on FlyDubai, Emirates’ low-cost sister airline, also faced delays.

Dubai airport posted on X early on Thursday that flights had resumed from Terminal 1 but urged people to travel to the airport only if they had a confirmed booking, as flights continued to be “delayed and disrupted”.

Paul Griffiths, the airport’s CEO, acknowledged the issues with flooding on Wednesday. “It remains an incredibly challenging time. In living memory, I don’t think anyone has ever seen conditions like it,” Griffiths told the state-owned talk radio station Dubai Eye.

Neighbouring countries were also hit by heavy rains earlier this week, including Oman, where 20 people have died, including 10 schoolchildren swept away in a vehicle with an adult.

Soldiers were deployed to badly affected areas of the sultanate, which rests on the eastern edge of the Arabian peninsula, to evacuate people trapped by flooding.

Schools will stay closed in Dubai until next week, authorities said, underscoring the difficulty of the clean-up.

In an unusual direct intervention, the UAE president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, ordered “authorities to quickly work on studying the condition of infrastructure throughout the UAE and to limit the damage caused”, official media said.

The president also gave orders for affected families to be transferred to safe locations, said a statement carried by the WAM news agency.

Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, wrote on X about “efforts being made by teams of citizens and residents that continue day and night” as the city’s media office posted video overlayed with dramatic music of officials conferring in groups and water pumping appearing to take place in the background.

Photos too were posted of what it said showed water flooding into desert areas.

صور من جريان الأودية في صحراء القدرة في #دبي pic.twitter.com/pyXP8OpBVF — Dubai Media Office (@DXBMediaOffice) April 17, 2024

Similar scenes were visible around the Gulf state including in Sharjah, in neighbouring Dubai, where people waded through main streets and paddled around on makeshift boats.

At least one person was killed in the flooding. A 70-year-old man who was swept away in his car in Ras al-Khaimah, one of the country’s seven emirates, according to police.

The UAE government announced that remote working for most federal government employees had been extended into another day because of the impact.

Agence France-Presse, PA Media and Associated Press contributed to this report

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