Mike Milford of Scars of Tomorrow: The Alumnus – Where Are They Now?


SCARS_OF_TOMORROW_Band(Frame).jpg

Scars of Tomorrow made their return earlier in 2014 with an appearance at the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival, as well as a West Coast run of the Bleeding Through farewell shows. They released their new EP Failed Transmission this past summer via Artery Foundation.

While the band is back at work, frontman Mike Milford talked about where his various band members, past and present are today.

“Bob’s [Bradley, bassist turned guitarist] playing with some bands and do some stuff. Chris (Warner), the drummer who was with us the longest, he’s in a band called The Butcher Babies now. They’re doing well and doing some cool things. He’s always loved bands like Marilyn Manson and stuff like that. We were always that hardcore/metalcore band that had influences from outside of that. We didn’t care what the scene thought of us liking these other style of bands. Seeing him being able to tour with his idols is awesome. It’s really cool to see that. I’m proud of him.”
“I’ve got my record label going. We’ve doing well. I’ve got a lot of huge acts on it that are killing it on Warped Tour. So it’s cool. The people I work with on a daily basis are promoters or people who will let me crash at their house when we are on tour. Now we’re all industry, we’re all friends, we’re all doing tours together. We all came up together. Now I’m making a living doing what I love. I didn’t have to use my Electronics Engineering degree. I went from touring in a van for ten years to staying in the music industry making good money on it. I love what I do, helping bands come up the right way and appreciate what they did.”

Scars of Tomorrow 2004 'Rope Tied To The Trigger' era with Chris Warner second from left

Scars of Tomorrow 2004 ‘Rope Tied To The Trigger’ era with Chris Warner second from left


Mike Milford of Scars Of Tomorrow – Scenes Then and Now


Scars of Tomorrow

Scars of Tomorrow

Scars of Tomorrow made their return in 2014 and brought back their brand of metalcore that helped them establish their name within an Orange County scene made up of peers such as 18 Visions, Avenged Sevenfold, Throwdown and Bleeding Through.

They completed a run of weekends on the West Coast this past summer supporting Bleeding Through on their farewell shows. While they enjoyed returning to doing something they love, frontman Mike Milford shared his thoughts on the band’s return in 2014.

“It’s been good. The shows aren’t what they used to be back in the day when any time we’d play it would be the craziest shows we’ve ever played. But they’re still fun. It’s cool that a lot of people from the past that have been coming out,” he said.

“It brings back all the old fun memories of touring. Some things I might have forgotten – ‘wow I forgot about that. This was awesome!’ Those were some of the best times of my life. We made money for a while but the most you get out of touring is life and experiences. It won’t happen any other way. I’ve been to places I would never go if I had a regular nine to five job. I’ve met people all across the world, touring internationally. I wouldn’t have had that any other way. It’s cool and seeing old friends again I haven’t seen in a long time.”

“Yesterday was the first time playing on stage at Chain Reaction since 2006. It brought back a lot of memories. I have a lot of close friends here. They used to let me work here in between tours. I’d get home from a Scars tour, come and work security and work the door here, and help some good friends. It’s good to be back.”

Mike Milford of Scars of Tomorrow. Photo By Keith Chachkes.

Mike Milford of Scars of Tomorrow. Photo By Keith Chachkes.

He shared his memories of coming out a scene where they were the underdog band within a scene of their peers were gaining bigger exposure doing bigger support slots on arena tours and much larger sales numbers overall. Despite all of the hype, Milford is proud of his band’s accomplishments. “All of those bands got to the point where they were selling hundreds of thousands of records. We sold about 70,000 records. I’m proud of that. 70,000 records is a lot of records. We did a lot of high profile tours. We did some sold out headline tours. We didn’t get the commercial success of some of those. We still had success that was greater than a lot of bands even get the opportunity to tour. I’m thoroughly proud of everything I did.”

He recalled one of their first big touring moments. “Showing up to our first show in Germany to a sold out show with us headlining was like ‘wow!’ It’s awesome. Our era of metalcore is popping up out of here – there’s Atreyu, Avenged Sevenfold, 18 Visions, Throwdown, Bleeding Through…all the bands sound different too. A lot of bands nowadays sound the same. Every band sounded different. Everybody blew up. Everybody was able to go out and represent the area.

Bob Bradley of Scars of Tomorrow

Bob Bradley of Scars of Tomorrow

Hoping that comes back around again. There’s some bands who are willing to dare to take some new sounds and effects and all of that. It’s slowly coming around. The good old days…makes me sound old but they were. Scars were the birth of that whole scene, which is what some of these bands are doing now. 1500 people a night and crazy touring and it’s spawned off of stuff bands in Boston were playing 100 kid shows. When it’s here it’s 1500 kid shows. Metalcore blew up and now it’s so commercialized. It’s cool and I’m still working in that industry. I’m just trying to keep them level headed.”

“Even some of my bands are doing crazy numbers are some of the most humble people and I love it. Because when they were smaller, it helped bringing them up the right way. It helped them have careers. Now they’ve been bands for about six or seven years, still going strong and still growing as a band, when some bands will come around, be around, be big for about two years and then bounce out already. That sucks. I’d rather have a long career. I had a long career. Made some good money for a while, got to tour around, and stayed in the biz.”

As for Scars of Tomorrow’s return and their first shows since 2006, Milford wanted a low key approach upon getting the word out about the band’s happenings. They chose the Bleeding Through’s final shows for sentimental reasons, and the irony of them calling it quits while Scars of Tomorrow making a return on the same billing carries a lot of meaning to Milford.

bleeding through west coast final shows

“It’s kind of cool. The reason I wanted to do these shows so bad [was] when they were putting together these last dates and I asked if we could do them…I got to see Bleeding Through’s first show, even before they were Bleeding Through. I was there and for me I was at all of the early shows. I was friends with all of them too. It was such a big part of my coming up through high school and afterwards for years and years. It was such a big part of my life. Those early 2000s I wanted to be part of it.”

“I wasn’t trying to make such a big deal about our coming back too because we shouldn’t have broken up in the first place. It should have been ‘we’re going to take a few years off for ourselves.’ I wish we wouldn’t have officially broken up. I know it looks weird when bands break up and then get back together.”

“We didn’t make an announcement about it. We went out on a good note. We did the headline tour and the tour did very well, but at the same time I saw that…that’s when Myspace started taking off and all of the Myspace bands started popping, getting their 100,000 plays a day. We started taking out a couple of those newer hype bands. We saw what the new generation was doing. I don’t want to be one of those bands that goes out there and bleeds the promoters dry because he’s not making his money on us drawing kids any more. I didn’t want to be at a point where 400 kids were at the show and only 100 stayed for us. I didn’t want that.”

“I felt that we stopped at a good point and I think that’s one of the reasons why when we did come back and started playing shows again, it wasn’t like ‘oh that band’s shot. They’re not gonna draw anybody.’ We never let it get to the point where we weren’t drawing kids anymore. We were still drawing a good amount of kids and still doing well. It was just time. I saw it was our time. I didn’t want to be that band with a bunch of 30 year olds playing to 30 kids and ‘we sold this many records…’ and we need $3000, and have promoters lose money. I hate when promoters lose money. They do a good job…and that’s where it was at.”

“That’s why we subtlety came back, put out a new record and do the Bleeding Through shows. There’s so many memories with good friends.”

As for the future, Milford isn’t ruling out touring completely. International touring could be a possibility, where he mentioned shows could happen in the near future.
“I’ve actually been getting offers for Scars to go do some of the festivals over there. The festivals over there are awesome. I went over there last summer. I’ve been over there a couple other times for it. Playing in front of 30,000 people…yeah I’ll go do it.”

“We’ll probably go do a couple festivals. I can’t stay gone too long. I’ve got kids and everything now. I hate being away from them. I don’t want to take time away from my record label. We’ll probably do some overseas stuff. I’ll never do a full US tour. It just won’t happen. Some of my bands want my band to go out with them. The newer kids don’t get my era. If we would do a tour, I’d rather go out with Unearth or one of the older bands where we see the older crowds who are still there, in front and having a good time. It’s the crowd that likes us. The younger kids don’t get our era.“

“I’ll do a week here a week there. We’re already talking about doing more Cali shows coming through after this. These shows were focused around Bleeding Through. It may be cool to do shows focused around us or bands around our era.”

Interview By Rei Nishimoto


Interview: Mike Milford of Scars of Tomorrow


scars of tomorrow 2014

The Orange County metalcore scene was a well documented scene in the early 2000s, where a moderate sized music scene began producing bands that brought attention to a usually conservative area of Southern California.

Scars of Tomorrow reformed this past year after going on hiatus in 2007. They came out of the same scene as bands such as Throwdown, 18 Visions, and Bleeding Through, and made a name for themselves with their abrasive metallic hardcore sounds that fans have grown to love over time.

Frontman Mike Milford talked about what led to them going on hiatus. “Before these shows we’ve been doing this year, we disbanded around 2007. We had toured non stop for years and years. Real life started kicking in and everybody started going ‘hey let’s go back…’, finish what we’re doing with school, get real jobs, make some money and experience normal life for a while. That was around 2007. We started playing shows again in April. “

He explained how the reformation idea began nearly two years ago and they slowly began working towards making it a reality. “It kind of started with me and Bob [Bradley]. For the last year and a half or two years, we’ve been throwing the ideas around. He’s stayed pretty active with music. He has Fake Figures and he did a band SS Nova right after Scars. I’m a president of a record label [Artery Recordings] and I manage bands for a living.”

“We’ve been in this industry still this whole time so we thought ‘why don’t we start doing stuff again?’ We were done with our contract with Victory and since I own my own record label, I thought why don’t we write music and put it out on our own label. I have all the assets that we need and we literally do everything ourselves with no rules. We could do all the things we wanted to do. We finally found time to do it. The members who will be playing for us all have jobs we could travel with. It made sense. We would do it for fun now. We don’t have to worry about the BS and all the politics behind touring and what tours you get. It’s been cool to come back and play whatever shows we want to get on.”

Bob Bradley of Scars of Tomorrow

Bob Bradley of Scars of Tomorrow

 

They released a new EP on Artery Recordings titled Failed Transmissions, which gives a taste of what they are working on these days. While they haven’t stayed too far from their classic sound, Milford wanted to retain some of the flavor of the past within an ever changing music scene.

scars of tomorrow failed transmissions

“We put one out a couple weeks ago. We didn’t really do any crazy promotion or anything for it. We wanted it to come out around the time of these shows. We’ve been doing shows on weekends for about a month now. We wanted it to be word of mouth again, like it was back in the day.”

“Back in the day, I would be sitting out here with demos, passing them out. I kind of wanted it to be word of mouth. If somebody wants to buy it…they’ll hear about it, we’re playing shows..oh we’ll go check it out. It’s selling…not like it was back in the day when we were selling 20 to 30,000 each release. That’s what I wanted. I wanted it to be something small, kind of a comeback, see what people thought about it. We’re stoked to hear some good metalcore again. It doesn’t sound like all of these other bands now doing the same 4/4/4, same everything. There’s no autotuning. We like the raw sounds. It felt good to write a record like we used to.”

Mike Milford of Scars of Tomorrow. Photo By Keith Chachkes.

Mike Milford of Scars of Tomorrow. Photo By Keith Chachkes.

As for who’s in the current lineup, Milford said the current members will be doing the upcoming live performances. While the final few years of the band saw numerous members in and out of the band, they found a core group of people who they could manage to get things going again.

“This will be the lineup. The guy who’s playing drums for us now, Sam [Shepard], we had to literally call him a week before the shows started. Justin [Salinas], the guy who was in Scars before, his work was like ‘if you leave on tour again right now, you won’t have a job…’ You can’t lose your jobs. We all have real bills now. We’re not living at our parents’ house. We don’t want to live on people’s couches.”

“I got it so Sam is playing for me. He works for me at my record label. He’s my graphic designer, so I was like ‘hey do you want to take some days off of work and come hang out?’ He was like ‘dude that’s awesome!’ He’s worked for the company for a little over a year now and I’ve never had a chance to really bond with him outside of work. It’s been cool to get to know him to strengthen that friendship/work relationship. He’ll be in the band full time.”

“Mike Nordeen, who’s been a close band friend, and he works for me as well. It’s funny how it works. Bob [Bradley], he’s not playing bass any more. He plays guitar now. It’s what the core lineup is. Our friend Therron [Francis] is playing with us. We wanted to make it to where the core lineup is in Portland. So four of us in Portland and Bob still lives here in Orange County.”

“The four of us get together and practice, and Bob has to come in and plug and play since he knows how to play everything already. So that’s how it’s been working out. It’s nice.”

As for future releases, Milford says there are tentative plans of another release, but no set schedules as for when it may see the light of day.

“We’re already talking about the new EP or the new CD we’re going to do. We cranked out this last CD pretty fast. I knew what I wanted it to sound to be. I wanted to bring back that old sound, and write a CD that reflected some of our earlier stuff. The next CD, we’re talking about bringing in some new sounds and having some more people writing this time.

“I kind of took control of what happened on this last record. It wasn’t as many people involved, but now we’re playing shows together again, everybody’s getting the writing juices back. I’ve heard some cool ideas and some cool things coming out. It will be a cool collective of stuff.”

Interview By Rei Nishimoto


Interview: Mike Milford of Artery Recordings


artery foundation logo

One of the fastest rising new recording labels is Artery Recordings, a Sacramento, CA based record label and management company that began in 2010 with band manager Eric Rushing and Scars of Tomorrow vocalist Mike Milford.

The company has launched the careers of high profile acts such as Attila, Chelsea Grin, Capture The Crown, and I Declare War. Much like many independent metal labels launching with its own respective mission, Artery Foundation has slowly built up their bands from the ground up and groomed them into what they are today.

Attilla

Attilla

“They’re doing good man. It’s been a good time for sure. We’ve got Attila, Chelsea Grin, and I Declare War. We just signed some new bands. We’ve got some up and comers – Upon This Dawning, Slaves, Kublai Khan. Kublai Khan is so awesome. It reminds me of early Bury Your Dead.”

Matt Honeycutt of Kublai Khan. Photo By Keith Chachkes.

Matt Honeycutt of Kublai Khan. Photo By Keith Chachkes.

“It’s cool to hear a new heavy sound come out again. Deathcore was the big thing there for a while. It seemed like every heavy band sounded deathcore. Kublai Khan came back and brought back that Bury Your Dead, mosh n’ roll, early Eulogy/early Victory days. This reminds me of some older stuff but kids are taken to that again,” he said.

Now Milford is based out of Portland, OR, and he is getting an opportunity to explore musical acts in an area where the region has been producing a number of quality acts that are also gaining a lot of attention.

“A lot of the bands are popping up out of that area. There’s a lot of style of bands than what we work with normally. I do a couple different type of bands. We aren’t genre specific. There isn’t anything specific that needs to be on our label,” he said.

“There’s a band out there I like called Standing On Satellites – they’re pretty good. They’re friends of mine. They helped me out this summer with the Artery tent on Warped Tour. They’re out there selling their own CDs on the tour every day. They did a good job.”

“There’s a lot of metalcore, metal or hardcore up there. It’s kind of died out there. There are a couple new Seattle bands that are popping up. I do have one band from up there – I Declare War. Jamie [Hanks, vocals] lives in Portland. The rest of the guys live in Seattle.

I Declare War

I Declare War

He used his experience from his band to mentor his bands, and giving them advice on what is best for them. But he admits there are obstacles towards a band making decisions, and does his best to guiding them in the best way.

“Here’s the thing that sucks about a lot of touring bands,” said Milford, about the dilemmas of being a touring band in modern times. “They got a giant head start and so therefore a lot of them are able to straight into these massive tours and they never had to pay their dues. The one thing I try to teach all of these bands I start off with is to appreciate every level of growing as a band. If the band comes up too fast, they’re gonna go away just as quickly. They’re not going to get the same benefits and experiences out of it.”

Mike Milford of Artery Recordings

Mike Milford of Artery Recordings

For over a decade, Scars of Tomorrow built their name from the ground up from their early moments in Orange County, CA, playing to small crowds and working their way up to playing festivals across Europe in front of 30,000+ people.
Milford tries to install a certain work ethic into each of his bands so they are prepared for the rigors of the road through his past experiences.

“A lot of them look up to what I did in my career. I think that’s really cool. ‘We see what you did. We see what you built from the ground up and you weren’t given anything. You had to work hard for it. I’ve had to instill that into a lot of newer bands. Don’t be ashamed to go play a city that’s six hours away from you coming up when there’s only 30 kids there. Go do it because those 30 kids will tell 30 more. A lot of bands will go ‘fuck that. We don’t wanna play that. There’s not gonna be 500 kids there. We’re not gonna go. Blah blah blah.’ “

“You have to go pay your dues. Bands like Bleeding Through – us and them used to play this place called Koos Café together to 50 to 100 people when the scene here first started. Bands today never had to build a scene. It was already built for them. I think finding a way to have a building point for a band, they have to build it correctly. Don’t expect everything to be handed everything right away. A career doesn’t work out that way.”

Interview By Rei Nishimoto

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