Wherever They May Roam
By ROB DEWALT
In April of this year, I found myself in a home recording studio in Eldorado with local progressive-metal band CassoVita. The group’s members, formerly known collectively as Fallen Hope, invited me to spend the day with them while they prepared for an upcoming national tour. They were also recording an EP titled The Value of Impermanence. Having watched this group in its many incarnations morph from a Warehouse 21 mainstay into a mature band over the past four years, it didn’t take much coaxing to get me to the doorstep. CassoVita is currently finishing a national tour, which culminates in a welcome-home concert at Warehouse 21 on Sunday, Aug. 10.
Between sets of ear-punishing metal performed in a room no larger than my own tiny kitchen,
I was made privy to the inner workings of a group that resists categorization. CassoVita has its radar tuned to the distant future, but if you think these guys are about to forget where they came from, you’d be wrong. If a bright future does exist for this band (and I believe it does), its members are well aware that they have their past experiences here in Santa Fe to thank for it.
The band decided on the new name after one of its members heard the term in Latin class. Casso means, in Latin, “to destroy, annul, or make void”; vita translates as “life” or “way of life.”"In a sense, we destroyed our old persona as a band, as a style, and as a sound,” said 18-year-old drummer Ben Durfee, “and we fully re- created ourselves at the same time.”
“And besides,” chimed in 21-year-old guitarist Jacy Oliver, “we decided the name Fallen Hope was actually a little cheesy.”
Oliver and Durfee, who have known each other since elementary school, have been playing music together in Santa Fe since their early teens. Formed in early 2004, Fallen Hope was a revolving door for musicians, with Oliver and Durfee at the core. Guitarist Steve Hilson, bassist Zac Hogan, and vocalist Jayson Grace, who range in age from 18 to 21, complete CassoVita, which was formed in the fall of 2007. “Santa Fe, like most other towns, has recycled its fair share of musicians,” Durfee explained. “The music scene in Santa Fe is not and never will be what everyone wants it to be. A few years ago, you couldn’t have just a metal show. There just weren’t enough teen metal fans to fill a space and support a scene back then. A lot of us found ourselves performing on the same bill, even if our bands varied in style. In a way, we got lucky. It brought us [CassoVita] together.”
Fallen Hope’s early influences included ’80s-era heavy metal and melodic metal, but as an older, more seasoned outfit, CassoVita’s range of influences has broadened. “Part of the reason our tastes have evolved so much is due to how fast news and information travels now,” Durfee said.
“I mean, MySpace these days! You type in the state, and you get a list of every band there. When we started the band when we were, like, 14, none of that existed.”
“It’s gotten so much easier to discover new music without really having to seek it out,” said Hilson, “but I’m still not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.” He then pointed out, while laughing, “But it’s done wonders for us!”
The band members now struggle with the reality that remaining here is not compatible with their ambitions. “We’re out on the road every summer now,” Hilson said, “and when we’re in Santa Fe, it’s hard to draw big crowds during the school year. We’re trying to branch out, and touring, for us, takes precedence over local shows now. It just has to.”
Durfee put CassoVita’s latest tour and its longtime relationship with Santa Fe metal fans into perspective: “You can’t develop a fan base on the East Coast in just three trips out there. Touring is a part of your life that you have to maintain if you expect to win any new fans over — especially metal fans. They’re the most devoted fans ever.
“And sure, it’s nice to see a lot of the same
faces at every gig in Santa Fe. In a sense, our fans have grown up right alongside of us. And we’re confident that if we can maintain a core fan base
in a town where the music scene is so sporadic, we’re on the right track. Of course, in time, we are going to have to get out of Santa Fe. We’re always going to come back and utilize the studio, but if we can plant ourselves in a bigger city with more ears listening and where there’s more of a populated scene, I think we can develop the same kind of tight bonds with those fans that we have with fans here.
“We are looking at record labels but from a safe distance,” Hilson said. “We want to go all the way with this. So when it comes to doing that, we want to have as much control over everything as possible, especially recording. I feel much more confident doing that here in Santa Fe with Jacy and the rest of the band. We don’t want to be beholden to a label that says, ‘You have to travel here to record your album, and you have to do it in three weeks.’”
“We no longer think of things in terms of tomorrow or next week,” Oliver explained, “and after gigging for two solid years and touring during the summers, you realize that everything is a process. Eighteen hundred miles is a long way from home, and when you’re dealing with an unfamiliar sound system in a strange place, no social-networking site is going to save your ass. You have to plan ahead.”
Durfee recently summed up the band’s latest touring experience like this: “We got to travel the country with people we really love and respect, and we got to play music. And it’s also part of the payoff, the things you discover about yourself while living with someone in a goddamn stinky van for a month and a half. Look, you could be touring with Gandhi, and I guarantee you’d eventually want to punch him in the face, too.” Welcome home. >>
details
>> CassoVita, with opening acts Antagony, Sific, This Days Light,
and Fields of Elysium; all-ages show
>> 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 10
>> Warehouse 21, 1614 Paseo de Peralta
>>
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