Most well known for sitting behind his drum kit and singing the clean vocals for the hardcore band, Underoath, Aaron Gillespie has stepped to the front for his solo act named The Almost. It began as a small side project but has grown into a distinguished alternative rock band originating from Tampa, Florida.
The songs for The Almost were inspired after Gillespie’s marriage to his wife Jamie, which allowed him to find a new writing outlet. The tracks were all written by Aaron himself while recording Define the Great Line with Underoath.
“I was writing some tines and they weren’t really fitting Underoath’s format, not in a bad way, just at the time it’s what it was,” Gillespie said to an interview from UGO.com.
Some may find this hard, trying to juggle a well known popular hardcore band whose constantly on tour and trying to make it big with a growing side project, but Gillespie was not afraid. Aaron was inspired by his idol, Dave Grohl, who was once in the same position when he was the drummer for Nirvana and became the lead vocalist for the Foo Fighters. This encouraged Aaron to wish that his new formed band would create the same hard hitting impact as both of Grohl’s bands did before him.
The tracks for the upcoming album were recorded in early 2006 which Aaron played every instrument himself except for bass on a few songs which, Kenny Vasoli, from The Starting Line filled in. However, a full band for The Almost was formed when they went on “It’s All Happening” tour from Dec. 17 to Jan. 20, 2006 to perform songs from their new upcoming album.
The songs were later released to the public on April 3, 2007 on their well anticipated record. The CD was dubbed the name ‘Southern Weather’ which was motivated from Aaron’s Florida-bred southern roots. In that year, The Almost performed at Warped Tour 2007 and attended Paramore’s headlining tour “Riot!” along side The Starting Line and Set Your Goals.
Their first music video “Say This Sooner” was released on March 19, 2007 which the guitar track was inspired by Johnny Cash’s original musical partner, Luther Perkins. The video premiered by playing every hour on MTV2’s UNLEASHED, and it was also available on MTV2’s website. “Southern Weather” was eventually made into a music video and the directors cut was finally uploaded onto The Almost’s official YouTube page on May 11, 2009. “Southern Weather” soon reached the number one spot on the U.S. Top Christian Albums chart and reached the top 40 of The Billboard 200 thanks to the asset of the Hot Modern Rock top 10 hit “Say This Sooner”.
In May 2008 Aaron announced that The Almost would be going into the studio to record their sophomore album to Southern Weather. The demo of their new album Monster, Monster was released on Oct. 3 and is available at Hot Topic, and the full release of the album can be purchased everywhere starting on Nov. 3rd.
“The record “Monster Monster” is about the darkness that every person has in life, sort of your proverbial ‘monster,’ if you will. Trying to find how to get rid of it, trying to make that public and find hope and grace through that, so that whole thing is the underlying theme of the record,” Gillespie said to Starpulse.com.
According to the band’s Twitter feed, (http://twitter.com/thealmostrules) some of the songs on the album will include “Get Through,” “No I Don’t,” “Hands,” “Summer Summer,” “Lonely Wheel,” and “Monster.” The Almost is currently setting up and planning tour dates with The Used for their upcoming 2010 tour which is said to be announced soon on the official band site, TheAlmost.com.
BY JASMINE PATTERSON
