How As December Falls Fell (Patreon)

The most frequently asked questions’ for any band is “how did you get your band name?” and “how did you meet?” So in today's “blog” post ladies and gentlemen we are going to be delving into it and answering these two questions, how did the current members become members, and the question that seems to be on everyone's mind, why are we called As December Falls.

TIMMY:

Okay so Timmy’s introduction into ADF is much shorter and simpler than anyone else's because Timmy is actually the guy who said ‘I wanna start a band’ and then did it. So round of applause for Timmy the originator who started this wild ride!

BETHANY:

That’s me! So to start my story with some sad news, I had literally just gotten back from my Omah’s funeral in New Zealand, (yes my mum is from New Zealand, and yes, my Omah chose to be called Omah because she thought Nana or Grandma made her sound old,) and I remember going to Morrisons petrol station with my mum and we were talking about my Omah and what an amazing woman she was, (fun fact; my Omah was also a singer.) The conversation ended with my mum saying that my Omah would always be watching over me and my sisters, and then she got out of the car to get fuel. At this moment my phone buzz’s and I have a message on facebook from someone I don’t know, telling me they had seen me sing at some tiny countryside festival and wanted me to come and audition for a band. Now at this point, I had only ever done acoustic performances, but being an emo kid, I was raring to sink my teeth into a band but had zero contacts and no idea where to start, and guess what, the audition was at my college where I studied dance so at least I didn’t have to go somewhere I didn’t know! (The college/uni was one that was split into about 4 or 5 locations over the city and did both college and uni courses.) My mum returned and I told her about the message and she just went “I told you she was watching!”

So skip forward a few weeks and here I am in a scary vocal booth singing Fall Out Boy’s Sugar We’re Goin’ Down in front of a complete stranger. I have never been in a vocal booth, never had my voice recorded, never heard my voice recorded, and to be honest at this point singing in front of anyone was damned right the scariest thing I could think of.

I cannot remember for the life of me anything that was said on this day, I just remember Timmy (the stranger) trying to play it cool and going “well we still have some more people we are auditioning” (to which I later learned was only one other person, but I genuinely still sit and think about what would have happened if they had gone for the other singer, what would my life now be?) Now as I’ve mentioned, I have never been in a band, but for some reason I wanted to be in this band SO much, even though at this point, the band consisted of Timmy. Needless to say I didn’t have to worry quite as much as I did because here I am 10 years later.

ANDE:

Ande’s intro to the band was a tad more… abrupt? So Timmy and Ande have known each other for years as they have both been in local bands as teens and basically grew up together. One day, one of their pals decided to put on a throwback show where both Ande & Timmy’s former bands reformed for one night only. (Fun fact number 2: I was supposed to go to this show but couldn’t get in because I was only 17.) It was at this show that Timmy and Ande got talking, and Timmy told him all about this new band he was forming and how we were going into the studio next month to record our first EP but still didn’t have a lead guitarist and had no lead guitar written on any of the tracks. Timmy asked if Ande could have a crack at it and one week later we got all our songs sent back to us with the most annoying lead guitar riffs sprinkled over every section of every song in true Ande Hunter fashion. He offered to come and record them for us when we went into the studio but said he couldn’t commit to joining as he had other musical projects on the go.

Day one in the studio, the first time I met Ande, he recorded his parts and simply never left. Fast forward 10 years and here he is managing us, dealing with the nitty gritty, and organising our unorganised chaotic selves. (Fun fact number 3: I’m pretty sure he once told me the reason he didn’t leave was because of me, he liked my voice, then he liked me, he must’ve had some sixth sense that I was going to be his wife one day.) ((You may now all cringe or aww or whatever response you deem appropriate to that.))

AS DECEMBER FALLS:

How did we come up with the most terrible band name in the history of band names you ask? Well here I am to tell you all you need to know.

So firstly; we tend to skip the first part of this story when we give interviews/q&a sessions so some of you may or may not know the real story. But actually, we got booked on to our first ever show, and the band we were supporting were like, guys we need to put a f***ing band name on this poster can you please tell us what you’re called. And we did a big old panic and gave the name As December Falls which actually is a lyric from one of Ande’s acoustic songs that he wrote for his old band. We all hated it but we thought, we will just change it later.

Lol.

We then started selling tickets, people knew who we were, we had an EP out and we all realised quite quickly that there was no changing this. This is when we had our first interview as a band and of course one of the first questions we were asked was “why did you call yourselves As December Falls?” We looked at eachother with blank expressions having no idea what to say, when Timmy came out with this.

We are called As December Falls because we had our first songs written and the members attained in December, so as December fell, everything just clicked into place.

Honestly, it’s not a lie. That is what happened. But that is not why we called ourselves As December Falls and now you all know the truth!

KC:

Throwing it back to 2016, Capture has just come out, and we are of course in a bar. Ande receives a tap on the shoulder and a small KC says “are you the guitarist in As December Falls? I just watched your song on Scuzz” (remember scuzz tv?) And honestly from here, I actually don’t know how KC went from super fan to bestie, but he was very suddenly entwined in our friendship group and was at all out gatherings, he came to all our gigs, we went to all of his, until one day Luke told us he wanted to quit the band to spend more time with his family.

Now we instantly all started freaking out about finding a replacement because we had gigs lined up, and it’s not that Luke had left us high and dry, he said he would continue until we found a replacement, but you could just tell his heart wasn’t in it anymore so we wanted to get it sorted sooner rather than later. That’s when we all thought of KC.

We were on tour at the time and me and Ande rang KC from our hotel room, almost immediately KC began telling us about how he had just told his band he was leaving, he didn’t want to play music he wasn’t interested in anymore and wanted to play pop punk, it all really fell in our laps as we then explained that we were ringing to ask if he wanted to join As December Falls. Needless to say he said yes, and after almost a year of playing with us we finally announced him as our newest member.

I hope you have all enjoyed reading about this little escapade into how the current members came into As December Falls, (as you know we also briefly had a Bambi in the band, and of course Luke,) maybe the guys will tell the story from their POV to make things interesting as I would love to see if any of our info clashes!

Until next time angels!