Some people may not exactly know or have even heard of My Ransomed Soul. Now is your chance to get to know these Maryland natives as I got to interview their vocalist Brendan Frey about the band’s past, present, and future. He talked to me about how excited the band is on the release of their first ever full-length, The Chains That Binds Us. Check it out below.
A lot of people may not know the genius known as My Ransomed Soul, tell us a brief back story of the band.
The band was formed in 2007 by Garrison Frey (guitar), Daniel Proffitt (drums), and me (Brendan Frey, vocals) out of central Maryland. Garrison is my older brother and Daniel has been his best friend since they were little, so things just kind of fell into place. Since then the band has gone through several lineup changes, released 3 EP’s, and we just released our debut full length.
Your first EP was delivered to us in 2009 and features clean vocals that sound a little forced at times and it’s not featured on iTunes at all. Are you guys ashamed of your early stuff?
I wouldn’t say that we are “ashamed” of our first official EP. When we recorded it in winter of 2008 I was only 15, so things change a lot over time. I have been trying to find the right way to do clean vocals for years and am still trying to improve. Even though we released it under the same name we feel it doesn’t really represent us as a band. Considering the number of lineup changes we have had it would be hard to even call us the same band.
2010, progressed you guys by the deliverance of the Hourglass EP, which featured a different style of MRS that had not yet been seen on the earlier stuff. Why the shift in genres?
Since the beginning we have been trying to “find our sound”. Every band has a hard time accomplishing this. Some find this harder than others. Hourglass was an experiment to find our sound. It didn’t stick so we moved on.
A year later, Perceptions EP, was released on iTunes this again was a step towards maturity for you guys. Out of the three EPs, which do you recommend the most to a new listener?
I personally do not recommend listening to our older EPs. If you were going to listen to any of them listen to Perceptions. This is closest to what we currently sound like. If you are curious I’m sure you could still find our old EPs online but we have taken them all down. We did this because we feel like we are pretty much a completely different band, just under the same name.
With Perceptions it bought a bit of brokenness between the band, you guys lost some members. Explain a little bit of what happened.
We have gone through several different lineup changes. Various different reasons caused certain members to split. Some of our old members had musical differences; some found differences in faith, while others found themselves leaving because of other responsibilities keeping them from band life.
Do you guys still remain friends with the old members at all?
Most of our ex-members still keep in contact. We have no hard feelings toward any of them. Most of them were like family and will always have a special place in our hearts.
So, how did the new band members come into the picture?
Our bassist Taylor Beard officially joined in March of 2011. Taylor had just left a pop-rock band from our area similar to the style of Paramore. It was really God’s timing because things just seemed to fall into place perfectly. He saw we posted a “bassist wanted” add on Facebook and responded. We didn’t really know what to expect at the time considering he was only 16 when he joined but he fit in just fine. Our newest guitarist Michael joined in August of 2011. Michael was actually in the same pop-rock band as Taylor. Michael saw that we were looking for a second guitarist after our old guitarist had left to pursue a family life. Michael contacted us and after talking and praying about it, we decided to take a chance with him. Since then things have really just felt right.
When they entered into to My Ransomed Soul. How was the writing experience different than before?
Each new member definitely brought some new ideas to the table. Garrison wrote the foundation for most of the music on our new album, while the new guys helped bring the ideas to life. The new input was vital to bringing about our current sound.
With the release of the new album, The Chains That Bind Us, what are fans going to expect differently that no other MRS release has had to date?
Lyrically expect a much deeper and thought out message. I really tried to convey an emotional and passionate experience through the lyrics of this album. Musically I feel the album is decently diverse. There are some songs that are on the melodic side while others are just made to be on the heavy side.
Summer is right around the corner. Any plans to tour on the new CD?
We are planning on playing as many shows as possible to support our new Cd. Full tours are becoming harder and harder to take on considering the current state of the music industry. We will be trying to make it as far out as God permits us this summer.
You guys did an Indiegogo to fund this new album. How was that beneficial or different from previous funding on albums?
It was amazing to see the response we received from friends, family, and fans. We were able to cover a huge portion of the CD’s expenses due to the generous donations. We actually spent less out of pocket on this full length than we have in the past on some of our EP’s.
Why wait this long to do a full length album, since you guys have released multiple EPs in the past?
I believe we never really found the right line up or sound to do a full length in the past. You only release your first full length once, so the time has to be right. This has been the perfect line up to release a full length with. Things just seemed to click.
“Light the Sky” and “Fragile Lives” has been featured on the Perceptions EP and this full length. Why do these songs twice?
Light the Sky and Fragile Lives were songs that we all still enjoyed but felt that they weren’t perfected. We wanted to re-record these songs to give the ideas behind them justice. Light the Sky had some minor adjustments that we felt would make it sound better. Fragile Lives had a clean singing part that sounded awkward, out of place, and honestly not that good. We ended up just cutting that clean part completely. I was trying to hit that “higher” singing that you hear in a lot of popular metalcore acts. I soon realized over time that I should just stick with my natural clean singing voice which is featured on various songs from our full length.