Massachusetts act Within the Ruins have become quickly identified for their notable guitar playing and easter egg level depth in their musicianship. Ten years ago, they released the comic book villain inspired Phenomena, which grew to be one of their strongest releases. Now they have released a direct sequel with Phenomena II, again with a focus on comic book characters to accompany the band’s guitar-inspired controlled chaos. We spoke with vocalist Steven Tinnon about his take on doing a direct sequel to a fan-favorite album, his own thoughts on if he got a superpower, his creativity with bar cocktails and how it weaves back to Within the Ruins, and much more.
Dead Rhetoric: 10 years ago you released Phenomena, did the time span inspire you to think about coming up with a sequel?
Steve Tinnon: I think at first it probably wasn’t. Originally, coming out of the Black Heart album cycle and figuring out what to do for the next record I wasn’t super sure. I just knew that I wasn’t in the same headspace I was in for Black Heart. It was pissed and dark and sad; I was in a really different spot then. I didn’t want to write or think about that again. When I record or write, I want it to be real. So when I was thinking what the next record would be, I kind of threw out the idea of Phenomena II to the guys and it was kind of half-serious. Then I said it again in our group text, and the more that Joe [Cocchi] was writing, the more it actually sounded kind of like the original Phenomena to me, so I brought it up again to the guys and it kind of sparked that it could be a cool idea.
I didn’t want to write Black Heart again, and when Tim [Goergen] was in the band, that was his record. I always liked the record when it came out, and I have always liked comics, records, and the movies. So I was thinking about it, and it was going to be about 10 years depending on when it came out and the guys all thought it was a really good idea. A sequel album and a 10 year anniversary all at the same time. It ended up being a cool idea, even if at first we didn’t think about it that way.
Dead Rhetoric: In that same span of time, how do you feel that Within the Ruins has grown or changed?
Tinnon: I would say a good amount. That album was before my time. I have been in the band about six years now. I hopped in about halfway through the Halfway Human album cycle. Me and our bass player Paolo [Galang] used to be in a different band out here in Texas. Our bands had been friends for a long time, so I had seen pretty much since the Creature days and seen how Within the Ruins have gone through changes. What really started to change, when Paolo was in the band, and before I started, there were a few years when Halfway Human came out and that was when they started doing some singing, and clean choruses so I heard that album and thought it was really good. I kind of got jealous that it was so cool. I actually stopped listening to that album because I thought it was so good. It would make me feel weird. But that was always a cool change that I thought they did. We did some of that on Black Heart also.
We pull from a lot of different places when we record. So trying new things is always fun for us. Now that Paolo and I are in the band, not that they didn’t do it before, but just seeing more and more stuff. There are all kinds of hidden details. If I don’t point it out, you might be like, ‘that’s just a part of the song and whatever,’ but if I say to listen to it this way, or here’s where I got it from, there’s been more of that in the past two albums.
But yeah, the band has progressed in multiple cool ways, but also stayed the same. You hear a riff that Joe writes or hear the guitar tone and you know it’s Within the Ruins. So it’s cool to see the band progress and try new things while still maintaining the identity of the band the whole time.
Dead Rhetoric: I was actually going to mention that at one point. You tend to put in some little nods into the music itself. Do you feel that a portion of the fan base digs for those little easter eggs now?
Tinnon: At this point, yeah for sure. It’s not that the band doesn’t focus on vocals as an important part of the band, but it’s always been very guitar-driven. Joe has a lot of his own group of followers that want to know what he’s doing. Joe pulls from all kind of stuff, that you might not know unless he told you, but once you hear it you can’t unhear it. I think now, even more so. Now with Phenomena II, there are going to be references, even lyrically, all over the place. Now people are more like, ‘what are they going to secretly hide in there that we have to listen for.’ I think that’s good because it also warrants more listens and gives you something different to listen for. Like when you watch a movie a second time and you notice something you didn’t catch the first time, it kind of does that. I think people have caught on to listening for the small details and seeing where we get things from.
Dead Rhetoric: It must give you some satisfaction to know that people are actually taking the time to not just superficially listen, but actively trying to listen to everything that’s going on.
Tinnon: Especially with people’s attention spans these days, which can be very fickle. I’ve seen it a lot already, just with the singles we have put out. I watched a reaction video for “Castle in the Sky” and the guy was pausing and listening, even rewinding it to relisten. He was saying what we might be talking about, and he was getting it. I appreciated the time to actively listen and seek out what we are doing. If you are just listening for background or fun, cool! Everyone listens for different purposes, especially for an album like this. It’s very satisfying for people to pick up on the nuances though.
Dead Rhetoric: Phenomena was based upon villains, Phenomena II is based on comic book characters. Was there anything you wanted to shoot for, in terms of specific stories?
Tinnon: What I didn’t want to do was pick any of the characters that Tim picked. That would just be redundant and not exciting. So I picked different ones, some villains and some heroes. I tried to mostly write them from the perspective of where they are coming from. From their origin story, whatever events got them to where they are at. Kind of humanize them a little bit. It’s tougher with like, Superman. The last song is about Superman, but not like a nerdy, he’s powerful and can do anything he wants. It’s more of a ‘some people see him as a threat or alien that doesn’t belong, and some people see that we need him and we need to accept him.’ So he’s struggling, because he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. This is his home now, but his home is gone. He’s struggling with people accepting him or denying him. It humanizes the character a bit. With “Castle in the Sky,” it’s a guy who lost his family. He’s going through a lot. He’s a vet. People lose family members all the time. My mom died a year ago and these are things people go through. Some things may be over the top. I wasn’t going to write a song about The Punisher and be like, “I’m going to shoot everybody.” I wanted to humanize them more. That was what I was going for with the characters I chose. I went with ones with interesting stories.
I was also going for, if you were to look at the list of what each character is about, is that I picked mostly ones that would be coming up in the DCU and MCU down the road. So it would elongate the relevance of the characters. I didn’t want to just pick ones that were just there. If I hypothetically picked a song about say, Thanos. It could be interesting, but that was done in Endgame. I tried not to step too far back, so I picked mostly characters that were new or coming down the pipeline. I wanted to maintain the relevance as long as I could.
Dead Rhetoric: I think that’s really cool that you did it that way and had that kind of foresight. It kind of limits where you would potentially pull from and give you some greater cultural significance.
Tinnon: The one that I couldn’t really humanize was…there’s a song called “Eater of Worlds,” which is about Galactus. I was pretty pumped about that one but there’s not really a way to humanize a character like that. He feeds on energy from planets. That’s not relatable from a human aspect. But I always thought the character was cool, just the magnitude of a being like that. I do follow a lot of what could be coming up in the comic world. I knew Fantastic Four was coming out, and they would probably have to do a Silver Surfer/Galactus at some point. It was all rumors but I felt like they would probably do Galactus. But even if they didn’t the song would be cool and sound epic and space-y. Then low and behold, they confirmed Galactus was happening in the new Fantastic Four. I nailed it! I was stoked about it.
Dead Rhetoric: Would you ever consider doing some sort of similar concept with video games, anime, or something along those lines?
Tinnon: I think that idea has been floating around a bit. Not that it hasn’t been done before, necessarily. But if you listen to the last one there are little video game nods in the guitarwork. But doing this with comics opens the door to things like that. We played a festival in Austin a few months ago and the guys were just driving up there and we were listening to theme songs from the original Sonic the Hedgehog. They are just some cool songs! It was 16-bit or whatever but they still sounded cool. So it’s a possibility. We are all kind of intrigued by what Ice Nine Kills has opened up for themselves with the horror movie thing. It’s awesome and they do it so well, it’s great! Not that we would make this our whole schtick, but the idea is definitely there. Pick some cool games and do another themed album, yeah. We pull from so many things, we have some nerdy tendencies in the band for sure. I wouldn’t rule it out, even if its just an EP or something.
Dead Rhetoric: How do you feel that Phenomena II feels in terms of being a Within the Ruins album?
Tinnon: It’s really exciting, but it’s also nerve wracking. Doing Black Heart was not scary, but I was the new guy and I have big shoes to fill. Tim was in the band for a long time. No matter how good of a job I did, it was always going to be ‘who is the new guy?’ But it was very well received and I was happy to hear it. This now, is like a big deal. It’s a sequel, but also one of the most beloved albums in the band’s catalog. So there is extra pressure to make sure it’s just as good and interesting as the others. It’s tough to get away from it being a sequel, but I wanted to put my own spin on it and do it myself. I wanted to not reach out and seek help or guidance from Tim. I’d wrestle with the idea, and not in a disrespectful way, but I wanted to do it for myself and do it my way. But I think there are plenty of good elements in it.
We do keep it very Phenomena I in a lot of spots, and I tried a couple of new things. Just like in the original one, there was no clean singing, there were some pitch screams but no actual singing. I took some lyrical concepts from the first one and applied them to this one. Even casual listeners might notice some things I did that really ties the albums together. It’s tough to get away from the sequel, and it was a lot of pressure, but I was willing to take that on. I’m really excited for it and I’m very happy with how it turned out.
I had a vision for it, and not in an egotistical way, but if you are going to take on a project like this, comics are more of a me-thing. Joe and Paolo like that sort of thing, but nowhere near diving in and being a total nerd, which is perfectly fine. I was happy to explain with the lyrics in the studio and say, this is what I’m doing so you know so it doesn’t sound like I am rambling about nonsense. I explained who the characters were and where they were coming from, so they could understand the perspective. It was a plethora of emotions doing this album. It turned out great and we are happy about it.
Dead Rhetoric: What do you feel are the most important elements that Within the Ruins focuses on?
Tinnon: My brain goes straight to whatever Joe is doing, it’s all guitar stuff. The vocals are usually important, but Ruins is one of the those bands where the focus is on the guitar stuff. When I hear it, I hear Joe’s guitar tone specifically. It’s an insane guitar tone. And the way he writes. Paolo and I used to be in a band around here called Silence the Messenger. It was more of a straight-forward deathcore band. When I joined Ruins, I had to adjust a little bit to how Joe writes. I would sit down to write lyrics to songs he would put in the dropbox and my brain would just start to look like Zach Galifianakis from The Hangover and he is trying to count cards and the math symbols are floating in the air. My brain was trying to process what the fuck he was doing. He’s a genius and a madman, and I love it.
I listen to his patterns and what he does. As unpredictable as it may be, it’s still a controlled chaos that I really enjoy. The big picture, if you just step back, is interesting. You don’t always know where it is going to go, but you know it’s going to suck you in and be catchy even if it’s spastic at times. So his riffs and writing style is what makes it Within the Ruins, for me.
Dead Rhetoric: Given your background with comics, what superpower would you like to have if you were a comic book superhero?
Tinnon: Oooh, man! That seems like a question I should have been prepared for but I’m not [laughs]! I think flying would be cool. I’d like to be able to fly places and not sit in traffic. If I had to pick one…man. I would rather be able to eat and drink whatever I want and not gain a pound. That’s what I would want. If that’s a superpower at all? It wouldn’t do anyone any good besides me, but I could be selfish about it. Flying could benefit people…I could get a cat out of a tree. I don’t want to be invisible, because that could be creepy. Like, ‘where’s he at, what’s he doing?’ Laser eyes would be destructive and I don’t need to do that. So yeah, final answer is flying [laughs], let’s go with that!
Dead Rhetoric: Joe has Tin Bridge Brewing and you mentioned you are a bartender as well. What’s inspiring about bar/brewing in terms of the band?
Tinnon: The brewery is really cool for us as a band, because I want to say Joe has been doing it for like 7 years or so. I remember one time our old band was touring and we stayed at his house and we would have little brown jugs on the ground as he just started doing his own stuff. Now its huge. The brewery and studio are in the same building, so we can open a door and walk into the brewery and just pour something and take a break. Sometimes it helps the creative process. When you are in there, you are drinking a little bit and having fun, it lets the juices flow a bit. We just all like beer. Beer’s great.
For bartending, the bar I work at is called The Green Lantern here in San Antonio [Texas]. It’s like a craft cocktail bar but it has a nice neighborhood feel to it so it’s not super snooty but if you want a fancy drink I can make that for you. It gives me a lot of time to focus – I have one of those creative brains that I can’t shut off, so when we aren’t doing band stuff I come up with drinks for our menus. I think at this point I’ve gotten close to about 30 drinks that have been on the menus in the last five years. I have ideas left and right, so if I’m not using that creative energy for band stuff, then it goes into cocktails. So in a way, if we aren’t busy with the band, I am always thinking of stuff.
Sometimes I sit back and I’m like, “a lot of my world revolves around alcohol [laughs].’ But it’s never out of control. We drink and have a good time, and the band is known for being drinkers. Every band has their thing and that’s one of ours. None of us have ever been like, “oh we don’t do that.’ Joe has accepted it just as much as anybody and has a brewery that has provided a lot of nice times for us. It all ties together in a really cohesive way. It’s cool to be able to record in the studio and then have something cool to drink. Say what you will about living in that sort of an environment, but we are all kind of adults about it. Especially now that we are older, we can’t go too crazy all the time.
Dead Rhetoric: So is there any cocktail that you are particularly proud of?
Tinnon: There’s a lot. I did, to tie the two together, I came up with one three years ago during the wintertime that I call The Ivory Tower, which is also a song on the Halfway Human album. So it’s my nod to Ruins. It was in a Collins glass, and it was a few different rums, a godiva white chocolate liqueur. I kind of made a white chocolate, raspberry kind of drink that had a framboise float on top and sink down. So it was a tall, white drink that looked kind of like a castle tower. I don’t do overly sweet drinks too often, but it turned out really cool as a fun, white chocolate raspberry thing I put together. I wouldn’t say it was my favorite one, but it ties bar and band life together.
There’s one I still like to this day that I call the Dragon-rosa. It was like a margarita meets a paloma. So tequila, lime juice, grapefruit, but it also had some dragonfruit syrup and peach liqueur in the middle. It binds the two together so it was sweet but tart yet bitter. It was a blanco tequila that we used at the time, so it was a really pretty purple color. It’s like trying to choose your favorite child, but I always thought that one was pretty fun.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s planned for the rest of 2024 and into next year?
Tinnon: We have some shows here in Texas and in the middle of the country in October. Then we should be announcing some dates in the northeast around that time too. We might have one or two more things before the end of the year, and we are kind of just seeing what rolls our way right now. We didn’t do a whole lot of touring during the Black Heart album cycle, so we are trying to get back to work a little bit more so we will see. But nothing is set in stone for when the new year hits, but I’m sure we will be doing a lot more this time around. No one wants to be gone 8 months out of the year anymore. We are all kind of past that, but we do want and love to play shows. You can’t just not do it. Whatever we can make happen, we will make it happen. So next year should be more busy.