Lost Hands Found Fingers

Diatribe: Who are you and what the hell do you do?

Patrick: Patrick Cost. I play drums.

Jon: Jon Weidenbacher, guitar and vocals

Chad: Chad Snowden, guitar and vocals

Kevin: Kevin, bass

Diatribe: How did Lost Hands Found Fingers start out?

Chad: In an Ohio basement, I'm told, KD KO and Patrick Cost collided.  Years later Kev and I brought the thunder.

Patrick: The Original Lineup:  Jon Weidenbacher, Patrick Cost, Dan Graham, & Chad Graham were together summer 2002 - winter 2006. The New Lineup, Jon Weidenbacher (Vocals, Guitar) Patrick Cost (Drums) Kevin McNair (Bass) Chad Snowden (Guitar, Vocals) has been playing together for almost a year. A total of five years. The band started when Jon and the twin’s band lost their drummer and my band all quit on me all in about two weeks time.

Jon: Patrick and I found each other without bands at the same time. Despite the fact that I hated his guts, I knew that drummers are, as a general rule, a rare commodity. Choking back bile, I formed this unholy alliance with him that has led the both of us to countless blacked-out nights and at least one visit to the emergency room. Somehow, he is my best friend now.

Diatribe: I’m always interested in how bands come up with their names and you guys certainly have a fascinating name, how did it come about?

Patrick: Dan Graham the original bass player was given the task to write a list of twenty random band names and that was our favorite from his list. I wish there was a better story to it, but nope that’s how it all went down.

Jon: It was originally a joke that  Danny, came up with. Somehow it stuck. I think we’re all happy it did.

Diatribe: Your full length album “Live Hard, Hold Fast” has almost taken up permanent residence in my stereo. It’s a very strong album, both musically and lyrically…what was some of the inspiration behind the songs?

Patrick: Good friends, good beer, good stories....We are all about writing songs to be heard in a basement with full stacks and an adult beverage in hand.

Jon: I wish I had a good answer to that. I honestly don’t. I guess the human dynamic inspires what I do. I like to explore relationships, not in the girl/boy/whatever your preference kinda way, but on a more basic level. The way atoms interact with each other, the draw of a black hole on a star, or the mood-warping effects of a waning moon. Oh man, you got me babbling. 

Diatribe: Besides the full length, do you have any other releases?

Patrick: We have a new split 7” with our good friends from Boston named Inblackandwhite. It was put out on Clubhouse Records. 300 copies pressed, IBAW side recorded by Ethan Dussault @ New Alliance, LHFF side recorded by Lewis Avramovic @ Sleepout Studios-2007).

Chad: Great guys, we joined them for several days of their farewell tour.

Diatribe: How did you guys get hooked up with Sacred Plague Records? 

Patrick: The founder Kaleb, has toured with and played in bands around us for years. He then moved to Boston and currently he is moving to Japan. He has a knack for moving shit and booking good shows so he helps us out.

Diatribe: Awesome. Planning any albums in the near future?

Patrick: Always....recording is good....albums are good.

Diatribe: That they are, sir, that they are…and I’m hoping you crank one out for us pretty soon. Alright, I know that you guys played a few shows with Against Me recently, how was that experience?

Patrick: That experience was fucking rad. You know it was. We drove twenty seven hours straight from Cincinnati OH. to play with them in Billings MT, and then Des Moines IA. There were like 400-500 people at each show and shit was crazy. Both bands partied their asses off. Good times were had by all. Everyone should start a band just for the hope of getting to play shows with those guys.

Jon: They’re really cool dudes and they make good music. We beat ourselves up, figurative and literally, on that outing and it was totally worth it.

Chad: Fucking amazing.  Those guys are great.  They were extremely generous and we just had a blast hanging out and playing with them.  Against Me! shows have this unwritten rule where the kids all show up when the doors open, rush the stage and then later sing every song with the band.  The crowd was extremely responsive for us being a opening band.  A lot of great energy.

Diatribe: You guys seem to have no trouble hooking up great shows with some cool bands. What's been your secret for getting out there and exposed? 

Chad: Exposing ourselves!

Patrick: I do all the booking. Kaleb from Sacred Plague helps us out a lot also. Honestly, the person who has helped us get on the best shows has been our good friend Jon Gerhardt. He is Against Me's full time stage manager and he sees to it that we get on all kinds of rad shows. Honestly I don't feel we are very well exposed… Rad interviews like this help so much.

Diatribe: When I originally spoke to you about doing this interview, you told me about someone interviewing from a local paper and getting him drunk…I have to hear the whole story.

Patrick: A nice gentleman named Ezra who used to do band interviews for Cincinnati's City Beat met us at a local hotspot "The Comet" there was a band playing so it was too loud to do an interview so we managed to get a few shots in and then went to my house which is close. We all sat in my basement and talked he just kept his recorder on and we talked shit for a while. We kept making him drink with us and he ended up pissing in the utility sink in my basement. He later told us that he erases all of the interviews he does but that he held onto that one.

Diatribe: I think everyone who’s spent a good bit of time drinking has a good story about how they pissed somewhere inappropriate. I want to get back to Against Me! for the moment. What are your thoughts on their new album “New Wave”? There’s a lot of talk going on about the musical change that they’re going through right now. I’m kind of torn about it right now, there are definitely some great aspects to the album but there is a departure from their older style. I’m just curious to get other peoples opinions.

Patrick: Every album that has come out since “Reinventing Axl Rose”, I have been skeptical of. All it took was seeing them play songs from “Eternal Cowboy”, “Searching for a Former Clarity”, and “New Wave” as well to think: “Yup, that band is rad and will always be rad.” That is one of my favorite bands and they are also good friends of ours.

Jon: I think that they’ve managed to write a pop album via their style. There’s nothing wrong with that and people that don’t understand that are missing out on a whole other dimension to popular music and the dynamics of music in general. Aside from that, Against Me! deserves to have people experience those songs live before concluding that it’s crap. I admit I didn’t like it that much till I saw them perform most of those songs live. Now I really genuinely like it.

Diatribe: My first listen, I wasn’t really digging it too much, but it has since grown on me. I wasn’t preparing myself to yell sell out to Against Me! or anything, but I was wondering how they’d handle their major label debut.

Chad: At first listen I was worried Butch Vig would do what he always does and compress the shit out of everything.  For the most part “New Wave” is really compressed but the band's rawness is just lurking the whole time.  Tom has taken his songwriting to a new level and it’s a strange fit at first but this album is layered.  You have to spin it at least ten times to appreciate its complexity.  The music is solid and the flow is constant.  Then again, I like Against Me! a lot better live than on any of their albums.  I think no one has really learned how to capture the band's energy on tape.

Diatribe: Living in Columbus, I’m not too well versed on the Cincinnati punk scene…what’s it like down there?

Patrick: We do alright! Just like any scene it could be better. We have good bands in about every style. There are a few good venues in Cincy as well as good venues in Northern Kentucky. We also have a real good basement scene that is always a blast.

Jon: Much like any other scene, it depends on who you ask. There are a lot of people who get alienated from it and by it. But I have a lot of good friends that I can expect to see whenever I go out. That’s cool for me. It’s not that punk. I kinda like it that way I guess.

Diatribe: I was perusing Patrick’s pictures on MySpace and noticed by the picture of Chris Wollard that we were both at the same Draft/ Lifetime show. Great fucking show…I’m stoked that Lifetime got back together. You guys would have made a great addition to the line up at that one. Why the hell weren’t you playing?

Patrick: We were on tour with Scouts Honor from Peoria IL. & then we had a show cancel on that date and then our next show was in Dayton OH. So I wanted to go to that show with our day off and get fucked up with my buddy Chris Wollard. We got to see Lifetime at last years Fest in Gainesville and it was amazing.

Jon: We get to play with the Draft the next time they come through, and every other subsequent time we’re home and they stop here. If we’re lucky.

Diatribe: How did you get acquainted with the guys in The Draft?

Patrick: Chris was at Common Grounds drinking in Gainesville when we played there with Fiya and The Grabass Charlestons. He was home at that point because The Draft hadn’t started touring yet. "In a Million Pieces" was still in demo form. He gave us a place to stay that night and I got to drink myself stupid with an idol.

Diatribe: If you had to pick one of your songs that you really felt summed up Lost Hands Found Fingers, what do you personally think it would be and why?

Patrick: Probably “But It's Still Alive”.

Chad: "Bartender" by Nickleback...I didn't understand the question.  Uh, "Three Cigarette Story," these days.  

Diatribe: You guys describe yourself as “Hot Water Music and Iron Maiden got in a bare knuckle brawl in an Ohio basement”, besides being one of the best descriptions I’ve heard maybe ever, it’s also extremely on point. Did you grow up listening to classic metal stuff like Maiden first and then get into punk or the other way around? I’ve been into punk rock since about 1993 and am now kinda just getting into Maiden.     

Chad: I was never into Maiden either.  Really, just not introduced.  I'm more from the school of punk and progressive rock.  My metal roots are more in tune with The Melvins.  Punk was definitely the beginning though.

Kevin: I grew up on Maiden, King Diamond, and Motley Crue.

Patrick: I grew up on punk rock and have recently added Metal to my repertoire 

Jon: I got into it at an earlier stage of my musical appreciation, though that didn’t start as young as most people or moved as fast as others. I do know that as soon as I was able to fully grasp what was going on with the whole ‘New Wave of British Heavy Metal’, I wanted to incorporate it into whatever I was doing musically. Love it.

Diatribe: What motivates and influences you in Lost Hands Found Fingers…musically or otherwise?

Patrick: I love writing, sweating, performing, drinking, driving…not at the same time. It is the best excuse to travel around the country with your best friends.

Jon: Big guitars motivate me personally. I like thick but articulated tones and riffs. I also like the throaty deep vocals. I don’t think that our description is a reflection of us trying to sound like that as much as it is what we want and that happens to be a good description. I mean, it could go either way. I don’t mind. I just want to drink and make an ass out of myself and my friends in front of a bunch of people in different parts of the country.

Kevin: Alcohol

Diatribe: Nice.

Chad: I like the static of music.  I love bands that meld and form it into melody.  Like Cursed, Planes Mistaken For Stars and Coliseum.  It just all sounds like at any minute it will all come crashing down.

Diatribe: I noticed on your tour schedule that you’ll be attending the Fest 6 in Gainesville. Are you boys just going to be hanging out down there or are you playing?

Patrick: Still a little bit up in the air. We will be there though.

Jon: Crossing the fingers for playing. Either way, it’s going to be a blast.

[note: after this interview, it was confirmed that LHFF is playing The Fest 6]

Diatribe: You guys have to have some good tour stories. What's your favorite or weirdest tour memory?

Patrick: When we went to play those shows with Against Me!, our first was in Billings, Montana. We drove twenty seven straight hours from Cincinnati to Montana. Finally got out of the van and started drinking. The huge place we were playing was called Yellowstone Brewery. So we started drinking. Show was rad. It ended and we went onto the bus drinking, then to another bar. James bought me this like three foot beer for our table ‘cause he could see we were already fucked. Anyway, we ended up leaving the bar, so I am told; drinking more on the bus, and then Against Me’s bus left. We get to our van (so I am told) and all of a sudden our headlights weren’t working. While they are trying to figure out what happened I manage to puke all over myself. Jon lays me on the ground where I lay lifeless. All of a sudden I decide to take off running towards someone’s house when Jon tried to grab me. I didn’t like being touched so I started trying to fight Jon and I fell down and split my eyelid open. When arriving at the Hospital a nurse asks me if I knew where I was and I responded "I am in Fucking Montana." My memory goes from leaving the bar and then waking up in a paper skirt in a hospital. We meet up with Against Me! later that night and they think we are fucking insane. Good times in Billings.

Chad: Same night, driving Patrick to the hospital while holding the brights switch because our headlights went out.

Diatribe: Alright, now to the real important question…favorite beer? Mine’s Guinness.

Patrick:  I am all over the place. Is it casual drinking? Hard drinking? Binge drinking? Is it summer? Winter?

Diatribe: You got me there.

Chad: Killians or Guinness.

Diatribe: A guy after our own hearts. Where are some of the best places in Cincy to catch shows, and more importantly, where's the best place to get burritos?

Patrick: The Glendora House is our favorite place to play. Poison Room, Mad Hatter (Covington KY)and The Gypsy Hut. Get burritos at Habanero or The Comet.

Chad: I'd say Southgate House or Glendora House, which is not a venue but a cellar we routinely destroy.  Burritos? The Comet.

Diatribe: Where do you see the band in five years?

Patrick: Hopefully still playing. Fatter.

Chad: Celebrating the five-year anniversary of you asking us this question.

Diatribe: We’ll drink to that!