Steady Hands

      The post-hardcore band, Steady Hands, has quite the noble message for their listeners. "When we thought about what we wanted to express, given the passion we pour into our music, we wanted to show other people that life isn't about the drugs you use to forget, or the violence you inflict on yourself or others to cope or the thoughts of suicide you may allow to repress in order to escape. There is hope out there for every person. All we want to say to people is don't give up on hope. Find yours, it is out there. You have worth in this world, no matter what the world will tell you. There's no concrete answer, but I think the name 'Steady Hands' represents that hope. It implies that when everything is against you, steady hands will guide you to a better place. Steady hands will lead you home. I always encourage people to interpret it in their own way, but that's how I see it coming from what our message speaks."

      The Rockford, IL band formed when band, Oh So Secret's last lineup disbanded. Chris Galvez (vocals), Mike Honson (guitar) and Brent Morning (bass) had played in bands together since high school and recruited Nick Berg (formerly of Milosny) on the guitar and Sam Cambell on the drums. The band's first show consisted of playing music from an EP Chris wrote while still in Oh So Secret. Kristian Ratliff replaced Sam on the drums and Alex Gaspar replaced Nick on guitars. Krisian left the band because of differences and the band is currently using Jimmy Martinez as a fill-in drummer.

      The band's sound is very intense, yet melodic. The band has several hardcore influence, but aren't a hardcore band by proper definition. "a lot of people always pigeonhole every band into a genre/sub-genre or some type of category, but I just like to think of ourselves as a band that plays music. It's heartfelt, passionate and completely honest. There are no scrims, or lights or farfetched stage theatrics, it's just honesty. We probably get grouped into post-hardcore more than anything else because that's the genre we most accurately represent, which, honestly, is cool. But, at the end of the day, we're just a bunch of punk kids playing punk music that no one wants to hear but kids like us." Says the band.

      The band takes influence from all kinds of bands, including Verse, Modern Life is War, and The Carrier, just to name a few. "Bands like Moving Mountains, This Will Destroy You, Explosions In The Sky in the post-rock genre have a lot of influence on us because they provide the landscape for what we feel sets us apart. Incorporating one incredibly emotional genre with another really makes for what we feel is a very passionate, raw and dark sound. We're not trying to invent anything else, but to re-invent it and re-interpret it is what we try to do."

      Stage presence is an important key element for the band. "People come to a show to see a band play on stage, they don't wanna see a band copy their own record straight up with no movement. At least that's the way we see it. If I want to listen to a record, I'll stay home and listen to the record. But I go to a show to be a part of the show, with the band and the rest of the crowd. Essentially, we're punk kids, so we're going to act like it on stage. Knowing the songs back and forth is a big help so playing well and being involved can go hand in hand. But I'd hope for people to go to our shows to feel it and not just see it."

      The band hopes to release their first EP in August. They're currently focused on writing a solid amount of music. "Steady Hands is a very serious band. We don't do this just for fun on the weekends or when we have time. We believe in our band so much along with the reasons as to why we do this, we want to take it all the way. Our long term goals are to play as long as we can until some greater force stops us, which we don't foresee will happen soon at all. We never want to stop playing intimate shows and never stop moving. We just want to hop in the van, tour, hang out, play as many shows as possible, meet tons of people, maybe reach out to a few who ask for it, and just connect and hopefully along the way, someone will hear what we're trying to say and feel it just as much as we do."