For emo music lovers and orchestra aficionados alike, Emo Orchestra is a new live experience that brings some of the most beloved emo songs of your youth to the theater stage with a full orchestra arrangement.
This Spring, Emo Orchestra welcomes ESCAPE THE FATE as the featured guest. Fans will hear ESCAPE THE FATE perform their own hits as well as songs by New Found Glory, My Chemical Romance, Panic! At the Disco, and many more.
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ESCAPE THE FATE is a family. Sounds trite, I know, but hear me out…
What used to be all chaos, all the time is now a harmonious collective. In their almost 20 years as a band there have been many changes to the lineup of ESCAPE THE FATE– with vocalist Craig Mabbitt holding down vocals for 15 of them. In preparation for their upcoming album –OUT OF THE SHADOWS– they have reached peak stability and happiness.
Original member, drummer Robert Ortiz, has been pondering growth and change since he wrote “I Will Make It Up To You” for their 2015 HATE ME album. The subsequent pandemic drove his point home in a big way. Time is passing, his kids are growing up so fast, and he has to leave his family regularly in order to support them. If Ortiz is going to hit the road again, it needs to matter.
Vocalist, Craig Mabbitt, is a new man. Sober and at the top of his game, he has released music with Dead Rabbitts, hit the road with Scary Kids Scaring Kids and cultivated a thriving Twitch community. This productivity is a result of his new clarity. Another result are the songs on this album. Mabbitt touts a record 15 songs on this album as being a testament to the band’s renewed vigor. “There is a coy darkness to this record – the fans will hear themes of rebirth, but in stories they can bring to their own lives and make meaning of.”
They may come at the music from different directions, but both Ortiz and Mabbitt agree on the importance of the band’s live presentation. “Whether it is 500 or 50,000 people in the room, we BRING IT,” says Mabbitt. Ortiz agrees and adds “the honor of the ability to do this for a living for our amazing fans is not lost on us. We are really grateful.” Gratitude and humility are the buzzwords for the new ESCAPE THE FATE.
Another thing that is new is the official addition of longtime bassist, Erik Jensen, to the lineup. The bassist was a big fan of Escape The Fate and was excited to have an opportunity to play with his favorite band 6 years ago when he first signed on. His production experience and love of “messing with sound” as Ortiz describes it, makes him the self-professed ‘tech nerd’ of the band. With an easygoing personality, Jensen adds a point of view that enhances the ETF experience.
TJ Bell has been ‘the glue’ that held the chaotic lot together in his nearly 10 years with the band. His personal growth in recent years has made a huge impact on Ortiz “TJ is an amazing communicator. He has been on a journey over the last few years where he has come out a real leader. He translates ‘anger speech’ into something more productive.” In the studio his “what are you hearing that I am not hearing?” is a gentle way of encouraging understanding and compromise between Mabbitt and Ortiz’s polar opposite styles.
Matti Hoffman is the coffee-chugging, guitar-solo-writing, high-energy new guitarist taking on his duties. Though Jensen tracked much of the guitars for the album, Hoffman was “hearing the music and running into another room where he sat alone and wrote guitar solos,” explained Jensen. “And then running back in to record them – there are so many solos on this record, he was really busy.”
Laying themselves bare for the fans, it is a re-invigorated ESCAPE THE FATE on OUT OF THE SHADOWS. New label (Big Noise – run by longtime collaborator producer John Feldmann), new bandmates and a new lease on life for each of them, the only thing that has not changed is ESCAPE THE FATE’s love for their fans and determination to give them the very best of which they are capable.