Automatic was a melodic hardcore band that came out of the Louisville, Kentucky scene of the '90s. The group was fronted by Matt Weider, the former guitarist of New Jersey straight edge outfit Mouthpiece. Though their discography included several EPs, Automatic never released a proper full-length album before breaking up.
Tomorrow (August 30th), Indecision Records will be releasing The Limits of Control, a discography which collects all of Automatic's original material as well as a couple tracks that never made it onto any other releases.
"I think idea for what became Automatic actually started in 1994," Matt Weider tells No Echo a few days before the new collection's release. "When I was living on the East Coast and playing in Mouthpiece, I met [drummer] Thommy [Browne] through the some early internet hardcore bulletin board or something. I ended up coming down to visit and we figured out that we shared a love for pretty much anything melodic that was even loosely hardcore affiliated.
The Louisville resident continues: "When I ended up moving down here in 1996, we decided to record a demo of a few ideas I had. Those are the songs that ended up being the first 7" on Capsule Records. A lot of things with Automatic just kind of happened and we figured out the details later.
"I remember Vince from Capsule agreeing to do the record before he even heard the songs and if you look at that first record it lists Ryan and Evan Patterson as band members even though I handed them those records the very first time we practiced with them. Ryan has been a constant member since that day though and it's been great because he's one of the few people I've met that can just naturally play this type of stuff in the way that sounds 'right' to my ears."
The self-titled debut EP came out on Capsule in 1997, so No Echo was curious about the state of the Louisville punk community during that time. "The scene was pretty strong at that time," says Matt today. "I mean, Louisville has always had (and still does have) a strong and diverse scene, I do think we were a bit of an oddball band at the time though.
"We were playing a DC/Southern California-inspired type of melodic hardcore and a lot of what was happening here was either a Midwestern emo vibe or more Hatebreed, Earth Crisis, etc. You also had the At the Drive-In thing starting to happen. That being said, I've never had much to complain about when it comes to Louisville Hardcore. It's a pretty special place."
With The Limits of Control coming out on Indecision Records tomorrow, Dave Mandel from the label has sent us a stream of the track "Paradise Cafe" for our readers to dig into below:
"'Paradise Cafe' is one of those songs from the lost 2014 LP sessions. Our bass player, Will Allard, actually found a hard drive with files on it in a box in his attic while we were discussing this release with Indecision. The music was recorded in 2014 but I did the vocals recently. When it comes to the song itself, it's 2024 me writing from the perspective of 2006 me, about mistakes made in 1998," laughs the vocalist.
If you look beneath the hood, you'll notice that there were big gaps between the recording dates for some of the tracks on the new anthology. "Automatic has always been a side project for everyone in the band so it just kind of happens when there is time and motivation," explains Matt.
"In 2010-11, we got together and played a couple of shows and decided to record a new song and then a few years later we recorded the music for a full-length album that I never ended up putting vocals on. Really, it just boils down to playing music like this is fun."
With so many other hardcore bands playing reunion shows these days, should we expect Automatic to follow suit?
"Well, there are still more songs recorded that need to be finished and we've talked about possibly doing another 7" with those. Honestly, with the way Automatic operates pretty much anything is on the table. If someone wants us to play a show or do a record they should just ask."
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The Limits of Control will be limited to a single pressing of only 250 copies on vinyl, and is available for order now via Indecision Records. All vinyl copies purchased on this site come with a free download. The album will also hit all streaming outlets tomorrow.
Tagged: automatic, by the grace of god, mouthpiece
