These Green Eyes – Greg Mauro

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Post-hardcore fiends should check out THESE GREEN EYES. The outfit infuses the angular guitar elements of bands like Jawbox and Thrice and the melodic sensibilities of Jimmy Eat World and Christie Front Drive. Their new album, Relapse to Recovery, hits stores March 24th. SMNnews spoke with guitarist Greg Mauro about the group, touring, and superheroes.

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SMNnews: Can you explain how you came up with the name “These Green Eyes?”

Mauro: Green eyed means jealousy and envy. It was one of those things were we had a real hard time coming up with a band name. These Green Eyes just stuck.

SMNnews: With your debut album coming in March, can you talk about your process with writing this record compared to your previous records?

We have a real free vibe when it comes to recording. Anything goes, Colin may write a whole song by himself. I may structure something or write with zach. Colin and Zach may write together too. Whatever happens happens.

SMNnews: Can you talk a little about this record, what it means to you, and why it’s titled Relapse to Recovery?

The record means the world to me. We all hit a a real rough patch before we decided to write this record. And we got a lot of our frustration out on it. The record tells a story of a mental relapse to a recovery, and how sometimes you may need a serious mental break down to recover from tragedy.

SMNnews: I know that you have played with a lot of popular bands. What has been your favorite/most memorable show?

Any show with Less Than Jake. Those guys are blast. Playing our home town is always a special experience as well.

SMNnews: Do you have a favorite song to play live?

“All We Have Is Gone” off of House of Glass. The song has amazing energy live!

SMNnews: What has been the biggest obstacle to over come as a band from starting out to where you are now?

We lost a good friend to suicide. At that point not only did we question what we wanted out of the band but what we wanted out of life. And one day we just woke up and decided we wanted to tell that story. We truly had nothing to lose.

SMNnews: Who have been your biggest influences as far as your musical tastes?

That always a tough one to answer. Anything from punk to classic rock. Nobody in this band has the same taste so its tough to say. I guess it depends on what I’m listening to while writing.

Are any of you guys married/have girlfriends and how do you handle that when you are on the road?

At the moment some us do and some of us dont. Its very tough to handle. When things go wrong on the road its easy to say “i want to go home” if you have someone at home. And when you have problems at home it’s easy to say “I want to hit to road”. Its hard to handle two things your passionate about and love. Allot of phone calls and text messages get you through it. I have seen allot of bands do video chats too.

SMNnews: If you could be any super hero, who would it be?

Superman. The dude can fly and only one thing in the universe can kill him! Wolverine is pretty bad ass too.

SMNnews: What is yet to come for These Green Eyes in the coming year?

We are dying to go to Europe or Japan or anywhere over seas and see how different the music culture is. We’ll see this is going to be a big year for us.

By Ben “Twink” Farber