Hawthorne Heights (HH) is an American emo rock band that has been writing and playing dynamic and emotionally charged music since 2001. The Ohio-based band currently consists of vocalist and rhythm guitarist JT Woodruff, bass guitarist Matt Ridenour, lead guitarist Mark McMillon, and drummer Chris “Poppy” Popadak.
Popadak is the youngest member of the band. He joined the group in 2014 after former drummer Eron Bucciarelli left the band. Although he joined HH when the band was already established, Popadak had no trouble fitting in. He spent a lot of time with the group and even helped out on tours years before officially joining the band. Popadak and HH guitarist Mark McMillion have a band called The Story Changes, which they formed in 2003. The two bands have played together in the past.
HH will be performing in Pensacola on August 10th as part of their 20 Years of Tears event, hosted locally by The Handlebar at Community Maritime Park. For tickets and full show details, visit thehandlebar850.com.
DTC: What originally inspired you to play drums and who were some of your musical influences growing up?
CP: I’ve been playing drums my whole life. I think I came out and banged on things when I was a baby. My mom bought me a drum kit when I was about two. My first exposure to rock drummers was in the MTV era, watching hair metal or rock stuff. Motley Crue, Van Halen and all that really influenced me from a very early age. I was probably 10 at the time and already fascinated by drums in general. My mom always told me that she just knew I was going to be a drummer, so I think it’s just something that was kind of instilled in me.
DTC: How did you become a part of Hawthorne Heights?
CP: Mark (McMillon, HH guitarist) and I have a band called The Story Changes, and we made our name playing a lot of the early HH shows. As the band got bigger, they took us on a lot of tours. In 2009, they asked us to go on another tour, and at that point they were thinking about adding another guitarist after their (current) guitarist Casey passed away. So we toured together a lot, and they asked Mark if he wanted to play guitar in the band. He wanted to, and that went great. We did a few tours together with Mark playing in both (HH and The Story Changes). Since Mark was always gone, HH asked me if I wanted to come along and sell merchandise, which I did. I did that for maybe three years, just touring with them, selling merchandise and being tour manager. Then when HH’s drummer Eron decided to pursue a business opportunity, they called from Europe and asked, ‘Hey, do you want to audition when we get home?’ Our drummer is leaving the band.’ So I auditioned and got the job. We had already practically lived together on tour, so they knew we could coexist, and that’s really the most important thing. There are great musicians everywhere, but you have to be able to share cramped quarters in a van or hotel rooms for half a year.
DTC: You started making music in the early 2000s. What was it like gaining popularity through the internet and especially through platforms like MySpace?
CP: MySpace really elevated all the bands; it gave us all a bigger audience, which was very unexpected. The Story Changes started around the same time as HH. We were all just playing local shows, so when you have your stuff on the internet and you reach the world with some kind of organic growth, that’s something you can
DTC: How do you think the music industry has changed since you started? How do these changes affect your performance and the way you write?
CP: When we started out, you wanted to be on a record label. You wanted to have a connection with them because usually they had distribution, or at least you hoped they did. The goal was to get on a record label with a certain name. Now you can be an independent artist. You don’t usually need a label. When you’re on a major label and you’re at the level where you can sell millions of records, it’s different. But fundamentally we’re still a DIY band. Currently we own our own studio. We make music and release it when we want without much interference from anyone, and distribution is now through mobile.
A lot of people don’t make records anymore. I know a lot of bands in our genre still like making records and that’s very important to us. I don’t think we’ll ever give up that idea. But a lot of bands say, “Well, we’ll put out four singles and that could be our record.” It’s moved back to the ’50s and ’60s when you’d put out a lot of singles with a B-side. I feel like it’s going back in that direction.
DTC: What do you think about the current emo scene? Are there any artists that particularly inspire you or that you like?
CP: I think it’s cool. My favorite band is Bank – which isn’t younger now because it’s established and much bigger – but Movements is one of the bands. They come from a scene that’s younger than us and I think they’re the best torchbearers of what’s been built. They’re just the perfect representation of what I think our scene is. They’re incredibly talented.
It’s not the same scene, but Balance and Composure came after us. Hot Mulligan, who headline our Ohio is for Lovers festival, when I first saw them they were just a young band playing emo music for 150 kids. Now they’re a huge band and they draw a young crowd.
There’s always going to be a new band that carries the torch. Just like Turnstile opened up the world to hardcore. They’ve opened up what they’ve always done to a whole new generation of kids. I like to think that those kids come in and are open to getting to know any band that fits under the umbrella of the punk, hardcore and emo scene. We’re under a very big umbrella in terms of the bands we can play with and the bands we can tour with. It’s fantastic.
DTC: What can fans expect from 20 Years of Tears?
CP: Exactly that. It’s a show where every band is a well-known band. Every band has a career and a legacy of 20 years or more. Thursday will be with us on two different legs (of the tour). It’s a band that I got from my bandmates. I got Thursday’s Full Collapse for Christmas because they were like, “You’re going to love this band!” There are these legacy bands that have been around forever, and Thursday is a little bit heavier.
This Wild Life will open the whole tour and they play semi-acoustic. That’s a great warm-up for the show. Then you have Emery, who is aggressive and energetic. Armor for Sleep is just a great emo rock band. Anberlin is anthemic and they’re one of those legacy bands too. It’s just going to be a great, diverse night of music. It’s a long show, but that’s what it’s supposed to be. You’re going to come and see so many different types of bands, but bands at the peak of their powers.
Anybody who comes to this show, there’s an 85 percent chance that they’ve at least heard of every band on the bill, if not love every band on the bill, because we all play together. We’ve all toured together, we’ve all come on stage together. So it’s really just a celebration of music and friendship on our part, and we hope the fans experience the same.
DTC: Does HH have any new projects planned or in the works other than the tour?
CP: We are still in the middle of our Is for lovers Festival season, where the tour is based on our festivals, so to speak. This year we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of Silence in Black and White, so we will be supporting this anniversary all year long. We are playing the When we were young – Festivaland then we have a few unannounced things to close out our year. Actually, it’s about trying to Silence in black and white everywhere we can this year and possibly next year too. That’s what happened on our last anniversary tour, which lasted 18 months, because we just kept going to new places.
Because we have so much going on this year, we would love to take some time off next year and actually stay in our studio and focus on writing. We want to make new music. We’ve just been touring so much because we can and we enjoy it that when we have time off we’re really just working on the upcoming tours. The goal is always to write on the road, but it’s just a long and busy day, so you really have to make time for writing and productivity. We want to put out new music and play the album that’s kept us here for 20 years.
