Strangeworld, the new album from Throw The Fight appeared on Long Branch Records in June 2023. With a diehard audience which they’ve built up the old-school way – a one city, one venture, one gig philosophy to touring – together with a library packed with modern rock anthems suited for the digital age, Throw The Fight can justifiably celebrate two decades of passion and perseverance. Mixing soaring melodicism and heavy bombast without ever sacrificing hooks, the Minnesota outfit prove they were built to last.

We’re joined At The Barrier by Throw The Fight guitarist Kris Weiser whose Why I Love subject is Every Time I Die.

I was first introduced to Every Time I Die in the fall of 2007. I was riding in my friend Justin’s  Jeep Grand Cherokee and he slid the newly released The Big Dirty album into his CD player and handed me the disc case. I was immediately hooked from the first seconds of the opening song No Son Of Mine. The hammer-on/pull-off guitar riff, squealing feedback, into a slow heavy half-time groove that had me bobbing my head and looking wide-eyed at Justin. I’d  never heard anything like it. At 20 seconds in the groove picks up only to drop into a  breakdown 4 seconds later with Keith Buckley screaming repeatedly “shoot that dog if you  can’t afford to feed!” It was the coolest most unexpected, herky-jerky, 30 seconds of music,  but the beauty of it was it was cohesive, accessible, unpolished, plug-n-play rock-n-roll and I  loved it.

I love many things about Every Time I Die — punishing guitar riffs, versatility and dynamics in songwriting and song structure, amazing musicianship, thoughtful, powerful lyrics — but one of the things I love most was the band’s ability to evolve over the span of a 24-year career and still sound like themselves over the course of 9 albums. There is a drastic difference between the chaotic, ear piercing Floater from 2003s Hot Damn and the driving, melodic force that is  Map Change from 2016’s Low Teens album, or even further Thing With Feathers off their magnum opus Radical (2021).

Early in their career the music of the first two albums, Burial  Plot Bidding War and Last Night In Town (2001) was un-nerving and out of control. It sounds like pure chaos. They continued those chaotic elements, but corralled them on Hot Damn!  starting to find more grooves and traditional song structures. Ebolorama is a perfect example  of this seamless transition.

Another thing that made ETiD special was their live performance. I’ve seen them too many  times to remember and every show was energetic and inspiring. Memorable moments include watching the guitar player, Jordan, stand on top of an ego riser, while the crowd held him up at the final show of the Warped Tour and refusing to stop playing even after the road crew unplugged his amp and started to haul gear off of the stage is a memory that will forever be engrained. As will Keith having the crowd do the crawl of death instead of a wall of death at a Warped Tour over a decade prior in 2008. He split the crowd down the middle and had everyone get down on their hands and knees. When the song kicked in he instructed everyone to crawl toward the center which culminated in everyone standing up and moshing. It was one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever witnessed at a rock concert.

My fondest ETiD show was in the fall of  2009, where in a small club in downtown Minneapolis I got to see Every Time I Die headline with Bring Me The Horizon as direct support and Architects as the opener. I raged. I literally jumped off the stage until people stopped catching me.

You can hear Every Time I Die’s influence on our album Settle Your Sins. Most of that record was written in 2017 and I was inspired by their record Low Teens which came out the year before. It propelled me down the rabbit hole of revisiting a lot of their back catalogue as a  resource for my creative input on that record. The stand-outs that you can see the influence would be the title track Settle Your Sins, Q&A and Nightmare.

Sadly all good things come to an end and Every Time I Die Broke up in 2022, but they still  continue to be a source of inspiration and fond memories. R.I.P. ETiD.

Here’s Sorry, Not Sorry from the recent Throw The Fight album:

Our thanks to Kris for highlighting another band, who despite no longer being active, have left a legacy and inspiration.

Throw The Fight online: Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Youtube / Soundcloud

You can read more from our extensive archive of Why I Love pieces from a wide array of artists on an even wider array of subjects, here.

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