The Almost

All Music Guide:

The Almost is an emo solo project by Aaron Gillespie, drummer and occasional lead singer for Underoath, the Christian metalcore outfit he co-founded in 1998. Choosing to come out from behind the skins like his idol Dave Grohl before him, the Florida-bred Gillespie (who relocated to Salt Lake City in early 2007, following his marriage) wanted to explore a different outlet for his songwriting outside of his hard-hitting main gig. Written as Underoath were recording their critically acclaimed 2006 album, Define the Great Line (and recorded soon after that album's completion), the songs on the Almost's melodically inclined debut album, April 2007's Southern Weather, are pointedly lacking Underoath's metalcore sound; the album's first single, "Say It Sooner," features a rhythm guitar track directly inspired by Johnny Cash's original musical partner, Luther Perkins, among others. Although Gillespie played all of the instruments on Southern Weather, which was jointly released by Tooth & Nail and Virgin, he formed a full band version of the Almost for touring purposes. This incarnation featured Gillespie on vocals, guitarist Jay Vilardi, bassist Alex Aponte, and drummer Kenny Bozich. For their second album, Monster Monster, Gillespie opted for a more collaborative approach to the songwriting and brought the entire band into the studio with him, making the leap from solo project to an actual band. The album was released in 2009 by Tooth & Nail.

Wikipedia:

The Almost is an American alternative rock band from Clearwater, Florida, best known for being fronted by former Underoath drummer and vocalist Aaron Gillespie. Formed in 2005, the band's current lineup consists of Gillespie on vocals, lead guitarist Dusty Redmon, rhythm guitarist Jay Vilardi, bassist Jon Thompson, and drummer Joe Musten. The band has released two albums and two EPS on Tooth & Nail Records, with the most recent release Monster Monster peaking at number 67 on the Billboard 200.

History

There is no definitive date as to when Aaron Gillespie started The Almost. He made a Myspace for The Almost on October 1, 2005 before he had released any of the songs to the public.

On October 4, 2005, he released two of his songs which were the demos for "I Mostly Like to Copy Other People" and "They Say You Can Never Write I Told You So in a Song But Here I Go".

Aaron worked with Kenny Vasoli to record a song called "Yule Be Sorry" for Happy Christmas Volume 4 on Tooth & Nail Records. It was in stores on October 25, 2005.

Gillespie wrote all of the songs himself while recording Define the Great Line with Underoath.

In 2007, the band embarked on Paramore's headlining tour, RIOT!, alongside The Starting Line and Set Your Goals (who played for the first half of the tour.)

In addition, according to their MySpace, The Almost went on tour with Emery, Envy On The Coast, Army of Me for all of June and parts of July. In May they also released the B-side song 'Hold On', which was originally only available as a bonus track on iTunes.

Shortly after the announcement of their new EP, drummer Kenny Bozich, quit the band. It was announced sometime in November via their MySpace. Dusty Redmon (the band's guitarist), made this statement in the AbsolutePunk.net forum: "Kenny quit. He's getting married and didn't want to tour at all. It happens..it's happened to me twice with beloved and dead poetic. It's a personal choice and we're cool with it. He was going to be playing drums on the next record, but made the choice to not be in a band at this point in his life. No big deal." The Almost played at Soundwave 2010 with bands such as HIM, Whitechapel, A Day To Remember, Paramore and others.

Southern Weather (2007-2008)

Their debut record, Southern Weather, was released on April 3, 2007, and was recorded in February and March 2006. The first single, "Say This Sooner", can be heard at The Almost's PureVolume and MySpace pages, along with "I Mostly Copy Other People" and the demo version of "Never Say I Told You So" (originally named "They Say You Can Never Write I Told You So in a Song But Here I Go"). Aaron recorded every instrument on the album, except for bass on a couple of tracks, with which Kenny Vasoli from The Starting Line helped.

The Almost released their first video for "Say This Sooner" on March 19, 2007. The video premiered on MTV2's UNLEASHED, which ran all day long on the hour. The video is also available on MTV2's website.

The Almost embarked on the "It's All Happening" tour from December 17 to January 20, 2006, joined by Jay Vilardi (guitar), Dusty Redmon (guitar), Alex Aponte (bass) and Kenny Bozich (drums). The tour showcased new songs from the upcoming recording of Southern Weather.

Since The Almost has formed, the band has reached over 11,000,000 plays on their MySpace music page and the band's song "Say This Sooner" has reached number one most played on all of PureVolume.

A video has been made for the second single Southern Weather. It can be seen on the band's Myspace.

No Gift to Bring EP and Monster Monster (2008-2010)

The Almost released a new EP titled "No Gift to Bring" on November 24, 2008.They were originally going to release it on November 25, 2008 but they changed the date to the day before. The EP was released to tide fans over until the release of their next album in the summer/fall of 2009. It includes a new song titled "Awful Direction", a cover of the Christmas carol, "Little Drummer Boy", a cover of "Your Love Is Extravagant", a new version of "Amazing, Because It Is", and an exclusive mix of "Dirty and Left Out". The EP is almost entirely recorded by Aaron, and it is produced by Underoath guitarist Tim McTague, who also created the remix of "Dirty and Left Out." In May 2008, founder and frontman of The Almost, Aaron Gillespie, announced that The Almost would be entering the studio in the winter of 2008 to record their follow-up album to Southern Weather. In the November 2008 Tooth And Nail podcast, Aaron stated "the new album will be more of a complete band effort", suggesting the whole band will be involved in the recording process.The band went into the studio at the beginning of May, recording in Nashville TN. The album titled Monster Monster was released through Tooth and Nail/Virgin on November 3, 2009 featuring the singles "Lonely Wheel" and "Hands"

There are several bonus tracks for this album. Users who downloaded "Monster Monster" off of iTunes received the bonus track "Me And Alone". The fan pack version of the album sold exclusively at Best Buy contains the tracks "West" and "Wrong". The Monster EP contains two bonus tracks entitled "July" and "Birmingham" The album charted at No. 67 on the Billboard 200 and No. 3 on The Christian Album Charts.

In February 2010, The Almost played the Australian Soundwave Festival. The Almost toured across Australia nationally playing alongside the three festival headliners; Faith No More, Jimmy Eat World and Jane's Addiction, as well as other bands such as Paramore, All Time Low, A Day To Remember, Escape The Fate, Enter Shikari, Meshuggah, Anthrax, Trivium, Whitechapel, Set Your Goals and other alternative, rock, metalcore and hardcore bands. Along with Soundwave, The Almost played club shows in Melbourne and Sydney with All Time Low and Dance Gavin Dance.

On July 31, 2010, The Almost played at iMatter Festival, in Elmira, New York. Along with Secret And Whisper, August Burns Red, Oh, Sleeper, MyChildren MyBride, Texas in July and The Glorious Unseen.

According to their Facebook and Twitter updates, the band are finished writing the new record and are currently in the studio recording. The new album should be expected sometime late 2012.