A Conversation With Born A New
How did “Born A New” come to be?
Tyler Saczawa: Born A New started in 2013 with a completely different lineup. Tyler Mateychick is actually the only original member left. I joined in 2014 and that’s when we really got things going full force. Ryan Santos joined in 2015 as our bassist and then moved to guitar. We did our first few tours with us three and our old vocalist at the time. We parted ways with him after those first few tours and that’s when we made the decision to have Ryan officially move to vocals, that was in 2017. It’s been us 4 ever since.
What bands influenced you to get into music (specifically metal), and how long have you all been playing?
Ryan Santons: Some bands that influenced me were Underoath, Hawthorne Heights, From First To Last just to name a few and I have been playing music in bands since high school.
Saczawa: For me, Switchfoot, Anberlin, Emery, Evanescence were some bands that got me into heavier music and once I got more familiar with heavier bands, August Burns Red and Texas In July quickly became inspirations to me and a huge reason why I wanted to play in a touring band. I have been playing drums since I was 2 on pots and pans. Took a few lessons here and there, but for the most part just self-taught.
I noticed you guys are from New Jersey. Can you tell me a bit about what it was like growing up there, and how do you think it influenced your music?
Saczawa: We all grew up in New Jersey, just different parts of the state. Ryan lives by the shore and Kyle is in deep south NJ and then Tyler and I both grew up in northern NJ. I’d like to think that everyone can pick up on our northeast / east coast vibe musically because just like rap has west coast / east coast style beats, metal is very similar. You can almost tell if a band has west coast influence / midwest influence / east coast influence. For example I like to also think Texas bands have a very specific style to their writing. So yes, I think the northeast definitely influenced some of our writing styles.
Your new single “Rat in the Room” is an absolute banger! The lyrics speak about what seems to be a pretty heavy or significant betrayal in your life, which I’m sure most of us can relate to. Do you feel like being able to write and record this song was cathartic for you in a way?
Tyler Mateychick: It definitely was in a way. Lyrically the song is about going through the stages of betrayal and was written more from a place of anger and resentment. When you establish a solid relationship/friendship with someone, a sense of trust develops and it becomes valuable, something you should never break. Instead of acting out, sometimes you just have to sit back and watch karma take care of the situation. Let the karma become your closure. This is that.
You also released a video for this new single. If I counted correctly, this would be your 8th music video; that’s a pretty big deal. Was making this video much different from videos you’ve done in the past?
Kyle Pinder: 8 music videos? That’s honestly crazy to think about. I never really paid attention to how many we have out in total. This newest music video was definitely special though. We wanted to incorporate a lot of different camera angles/lenses, multiple locations, multiple promo sets, multiple outfits. We had a very specific vision that Tyler Saczawa pitched to the band and our director/editor and everyone was on board. Nick Chance created a treatment for us and everything went very smoothly and was well thought out. We filmed at a spot in Philadelphia called The Reservoir and we can’t thank Kurt enough for letting us use his space.
Does Born A New have any tours coming up in the near future?
Santos: We have some US dates with Desolated, These Streets, and The World at the end of April right before flying overseas for our EU/UK tour with King 810, Afterlife, and Yavid for all of May. Tickets are on sale now for both of them, so we hope to see everyone there. This will be our first time going overseas so we are very excited. Avocado Booking has seriously been incredible to work with.
If you could tour with any band, who would it be and why?
Mateychick: Man there are so many bands we would love to tour with on so many different levels, but we have some good friends in other bands that we’ve chatted with over the years about playing gigs with, if it were to line up. We would obviously love to tour with those bands since we have some familiarity with them as people as well if that makes sense. Like Moths To Flames, Cane Hill, A Day To Remember, The Ghost Inside, Spite, just to name a few.
We have spent the last almost two years dealing with lockdowns and quarantines due to Covid. How did you guys use that time?
Saczawa: We were featured on a bunch of different podcasts, wrote/released our “dura vita” ep, filmed playthroughs, took time to go to the studio to write and then eventually finish up LP2. We really just tried to keep our content consistent and keep ourselves as a band busy, so that we could be prepared when things got closer to being back to normal.
Can we expect an LP to be born out of this pandemic?
Pinder: LP2 is finished, we have the masters. We’ll leave it at that, short and sweet.
Let's end this on a fun note if you were left dropped onto a deserted island and only had one album that you could listen to for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
Pinder: That’s hard, Numbers by Woe is Me. Just one of my favorite records.
Mateychick: The Difference Between Hell and Home by Counterparts. Probably because the guitar work and composition of those songs are perfect.
Saczawa: Singularity Instrumental by Northlane. I chose this record because instrumentally it is beautiful. Every note compliments each other perfectly and I could listen to the record a million times and not get tired of it.
Santos: Stand Up and Scream by Asking Alexandria. Timeless classic.
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