Social Security Rock
Missing Since Yesterday are good with numbers
Go ahead and call Brennan Roach and Luis Camberos of Santa Ana’s Missing Since Yesterday music nerds. They can take it.
How long has Missing Since Yesterday been around?
Brennan Roach: We’ve been a band for about six years. We started playing music in high school, the summer before sophomore year, and we’ve never really stopped. We started playing covers in people’s back yards. We played what we liked. That’s what we’re still doing. We’ve been on three tours, and we released an EP that’s for sale at Hot Topic. We just finished recording a full-length.
Are the band members the same as they were six years ago?
Roach: Three of the four are the same. We were always trying different bass players. We’ve been with Mikey Sanchez for about two or three years, and we’ve known him since middle school. So we’re all really tight friends.
Have you gone through different phases as Missing Since Yesterday?
Roach: We had the name and just decided to keep it. We’re influenced by a bunch of different things, but we grew up through different styles as well. Our name didn’t bother us too much, but we don’t really like it. We don’t care enough to think of a new one.
Luis Camberos: We started off almost punk rock. It was fast power chords and bashed-out 4/4 drumming.
Roach: We had our screaming phase, where we were into harder music. But we just grew out of that and other styles. We found who we were through all these different stages. We’ve been working really hard on our album, and everything before that is practice, for the most part. We like change. We make songs through time signatures, too.
How do you make songs through time signatures?
Roach: We had this era where we thought we should really work on time signatures. We thought that it was a new way to write music. We’d practice doing a five, then a six, and going into a four—we’d pick certain numbers and just jam on top of the timing. We did our Social Security numbers once. We did that, then started writing songs in time signatures.
Could someone steal your identities if they knew which songs you used your Social Security numbers for?
Roach: Probably. [Laughs] Mine started with 567. We’d just start songs and count five, then six, then seven. It was just fun.
How would you describe Missing Since Yesterday for people who haven’t heard you?
Roach: I usually just say progressive experimental rock. It’s rock. We’re never going to stop thinking of new ways to write songs and thinking of things to put in songs—experimenting. We want to progress and make our songs better. We’ve been in love with music since elementary school. I’ve explored music history. We love it all.
So is it fair to call you music nerds?
Roach: Yeah, definitely.
Camberos: Oh, completely. At one point, I’d listen to a certain genre for a month, then change the genre every month for a year. I’d listen to doo-wop for a month, and from there, I’d go to math rock.
Does that make your band appealing for fellow music nerds?
Roach: I think so. I hope we relate to anyone who loves music. When we play music and write music, we do it because we love it. I think it shows.
Even with your experimental tendencies, to my ears, it sounds like you could be lumped into the “indie” category.
Roach: I can see how people could describe us as a kind of indie.
Camberos: Indie means independent. And we are running ourselves independently.
Roach: We’re just doing our thing because we love it. I’m not bothered by the label “indie.”
Camberos: A label’s a label.
Is Orange County a good home for Missing Since Yesterday?
Roach: It’s got a lot of music history. A lot of great musicians have come out of Orange County. I love Orange County. It gives off a good vibe.
Camberos: I like Orange County. There are pay-to-play places, art galleries—as long as we can get a show, we’ll play anywhere. There are a good amount of venues.
For more information, visit www.myspace.com/missingsinceyesterday.
