Creativity isn’t manufactured on an assembly line. It can’t be scheduled or forced and when it’s not coming there’s nothing to do but wait. That’s what the members of Knoxville, Tennessee quintet, 10 Years, discovered when they started writing songs for their second album, Division, the follow-up to their debut The Autumn Effect. Having spent the better part of two years on the road, the band members planned in October 2006 to take a month off and then dive back into writing mode. They aimed to re-enter the studio in early 2007 and have their second album done by that spring. But just a few weeks after they started coming up with riffs and melodies, it became clear they were going to have to throw away the calendar.
“You don’t just come off the road, decide you’re gonna write and magically come up with a really good record without really searching your soul and putting in the effort,” says drummer Brian Vodinh. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“We could have met our deadlines and gone into the studio in January,” clarifies singer Jesse Hasek. “But we decided early on that we weren’t going to allow ourselves to run through the motions. We felt like we really needed to challenge ourselves and do something fresh and different. And that took a little longer than we expected.”
As it turned out, Division was well worth the wait. Musically eclectic, technically adept and emotionally poignant, the songs shatter preconceptions, revealing a tapestry of previously unexplored influences and a larger array of stunning melodies. Like The Autumn Effect, the new album is filled with enveloping textures and heart-stopping dynamics, but the arrangements are more developed and the songwriting more mature, revealing a cavalcade of styles including metal, hard rock, punk, alternative pop and even classical.
“We come from a variety of musical backgrounds and we wanted to express that more this time,” Vodinh says. “I grew up studying classical music, which is a far cry from heavy rock. The one thing we all agreed on was that we wanted to write classic, timeless songs. There are a million fads out there that come and go but timeless, good songs never die.”
There’s no shortage of good, timeless material on Division. “Actions and Motives” is a fist-pumping rocker interwoven with atmospheric guitar tendrils, the first single “Beautiful” is brooding and evocative, suffused with ringing, distorted guitars and melancholy harmonies and “Dying Youth” starts with a poignant classical guitar progression and yearning vocals before weeping strings and a stirring chorus take the track over the peak and somewhere between euphoria and despair. Then there’s “Alabama,” a psychedelic-tinged song flavored with sitar, Indian percussion and acoustic guitar.
As refreshing, accomplished and united as Division sounds, there was a period when it looked like 10 Years might never finish the record. “The title of the album is self-explanatory in the sense that we had to become so divided as individuals - and as a group - to create this,” Hasek explains. “Because we all have such strong personalities and opinions, we had many different directions to look at things from. But when we all came together as a unit, we were able to make our best music ever.” The band felt the added pressure of growing as musicians while living up to the success of The Autumn Effect and its hit single “Wasteland.”
Ultimately, 10 Years overcame their insecurities by worked together as a cohesive songwriting team, and vibing off each other instead of following anyone else’s advice. By trusting themselves and shooting from the gut instead of writing to fit any sort of mold, they were able to transcend pre-existing boundaries and take flight.
“We got so fed up we just said, ‘Forget everybody,’ and we started only listening to each other, which we hadn’t been doing at all,” Vodinh says. “We didn’t care about each others opinions for a long time, and suddenly we all joined hands and said, ‘We have to become a brotherhood again. We have to bond together.’ And that’s when everything finally took shape.”
In June 2007, 10 Years entered a Seattle studio with producer Rick Parasher (Pearl Jam, 3 Doors Down) and started tracking Division. Parasher was far more hands-on than Josh Abraham, who had produced The Autumn Effect, and, while it took a while to adjust to the change in approach, the band members benefited from his intense interest and experience. “Rick was in there every second of every day and he had a real vision,” Vodinh says. “When we first got there, it wasn’t exactly the same vision we had, but we slowly found a medium where we could all be on the same page.”
Much of the debate that arose surfaced because they band members were so passionate about their songs. Hasek was equally passionate about the lyrics for Division, which are less esoteric than those from 10 Years’ major label debut. “Autumn Effect was very metaphoric and internal to where it was not easy to understand and explain,” Hasek says. “This time, I wanted to do something more straightforward because I’ve found that when people can relate to a song easier, it affects them more strongly.”
“Action and Movies” addresses the government’s role in war and murder, “Russian Roulette” and “Drug of Choice” are about Vodinh’s past history with drugs. “I’m totally clean now, but I was pretty into it for a while,” he says. “A week would go by easy and I was still straight up awake, spending money left and right. And the people I would end up with and places I would end wouldn’t even have been close to what would have happened had I been in the right mindset.”
Not everything on Division is dark and dour, but it’s all fairly sobering. The first single, “Beautiful,” for example, addresses celebrity culture and the reality TV craze that has turned shallow, reckless individuals into role models. “Just as beautiful as you are/ It’s so pitiful what you are,” sings Hasek in the chorus. While the singer wrote the song, it was Vodinh who came to him with the idea.
“I was sitting with my wife watching some program where this chick in a bikini is running across the screen,” explains the drummer. “And these girls are stereotypical Hollywood numbskulls. Gosh, they’re gorgeous, but a lot of them are pitiful people. And we’ve met a lot of them first hand on tour. I’ll tell you, the girl next door is definitely not a role model anymore.”
“It’s just horrible to me,” agrees Hasek. “In this culture, you get rewarded for being an idiot and for how much you mess up and how much chaos you create.”
10 Years have never favored chaos. Vodinh formed the band in 1999 with guitarists Ryan “Tater” Johnson, Matt Wantland, bassist Lewis Cosby and singer Mike Underdown. In 2001, the band replaced Underdown with Hasek, who had been singing with another local group and their lineup has been stable ever since. In 2004, 10 Years released the independent record Killing All That Holds You, which featured the songs “Wasteland” and “Through the Iris,” both of which received strong local radio play and led to a record deal with Universal/Republic. In August 2005 10 Years released The Autumn Effect.
“Really, we wrote The Autumn Effect before we ever set foot out of the practice room and toured,” Vodinh says. “We were young, and I think we had a lot of growing to do.”
A lot of that growth happened on the road. Soon after their album came out, 10 Years opened shows for Disturbed, Breaking Benjamin, Mudvayne and Sevendust. Later, they played with Static-X, Velvet Revolver, Korn and Deftones, and no matter who they were on tour with, they gained a wealth of knowledge and experience. “We learned a lot of what to do and what not to do from those bands,” explains Vodinh. “And we learned a lot about each other and what it takes to stay together on the road.”
Somewhere between the songwriting heartache, studio struggles and personal issues of the past 18 months, 10 Years found their muse. Division is the kind of album that heals and elates by confronting hardships and washing away the poisons of the past. And at the end of the day, the title is misleading.
“It was through this album that we really found ourselves,” “Hasek says. “We needed to really go through that hard time to really respect each other and the life and opportunity we’d been given. A lot of people get thrown into this kind of lifestyle and they just use it up real quick and take it for granted and then use it up and it’s gone. And they’re left scratching their heads going, ‘What happened?’ I’m pretty sure now that’s never going to happen to us.”
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