Paving the high road… Self Against City

By SuperGina

The mind is a powerful thing. Music is a powerful thing.

Using music to entice the mind can bring about thoughts that you may have never imagined. This is something the Self Against City will do with their next album. They are something rare to music. The chemistry and dynamics that hold the band together are in a delicate state of harmony. They strive to create, inspire, move and rock. Self Against City has a reputation in Sacramento, but not many people know what they have been through to get where they are today, nor the plans they have for the future.

Self Against City is signed to Drive- Thru records. Sometimes people assume that being on a label like that means that their band business is all taken care of by other people. That they went out and played to hundreds of people everywhere they went. This is not really the case. The band themselves are very involved in the business of being a band, from shows to press. Just like most touring bands, they played bad shows along with the good. Even at the bad shows they were able to make the best of it, meeting interesting people and living life everywhere they went. They took the tour experiences and a short stint living in Arizona for a month between tours and soaked it up. Processing the instances and making them their own, learning from people and taking mental notes on the nature of people.

Self Against City formed at the Sacramento rehersal spot, House of Hits in 2004. Normally this wouldn’t be an important fact, but it is because they have come back to this spot. It is where they find themselves practicing for hours on end, writing song after song, developing a universally appealing sound, until their next venture. Self Against City’s journey has taken them across the U.S. multiple times, up and down both coasts and even as far as the U.K.

Before leaving for their tours, the band had already musically and lyrically progressed past what their debut CD, “Telling Secrets To Strangers” was. The CD was actually done for almost a year before it was put out. This made it kind of hard to play songs that they didn’t necessarily feel the same way about as when they wrote them. While on the road, they witnessed hundreds of bands playing music that seemed meshed together. Other bands focused more on girls and booze than the quality of their music and messages. Self Against City saw that and decided that is not what they wanted to do. They would be determined to do something more.

Every person in the band has a hand in the songs that Self Against City writes. They have a union of energy that is put into each song. The creation itself is very natural and spontaneous. Somehow, the music and the songs just come out. That is what makes Self Against City different from other bands, their dynamics and energy.

If you are ever in the room with the band, you can tell that between them, they have a deeper understanding and caring for each other than most people. Most bands should have that kind of relationship with each other. Self Against City has no problem confronting each other with issues and working through them. It makes their bond that much stronger. That’s something that more bands should work on. Self Against City’s new music is a little more moody than the last CD and the messages are a little bit deeper. The music will continue to evolve, develop and change over time. You’ll be able to listen to their first EP, Take It How You Want It, and then listen to the new songs and tell that they have grown as a band.

Music has the power to move and change people, and Self Against City hopes that is what they’ll do. Wait, no, they don’t hope. They know.