One More Time Around: An Interview with Jon Bunch

I first heard Sense Field back in 1997. The owner of the skate shop in my town gave me a promo copy of their album Building.The album had come out on Revelation Records the previous year and I remembered hearing a song on the In Flight Program Sampler that they had put out. I was pretty familiar with their catalog having been in the hardcore scene but I never ventured into the post hardcore sound that included such artists as: Texas Is The Reason and Shades Apart. I remember instantly loving that CD, it was constantly on my Discman. At that point in my life I was really into angry music; I guess the teenage angst was driving me crazy and I needed a way to calm down. When I was younger I was really into Grunge, but that music was a different kind of rebellion. I needed something with a message, that’s how I found hardcore. Sense Field still had a message in their music, they just had a different delivery. The sound they were playing made it okay to have a melody in your hardcore/punk. I went back and bought two of their earlier releases on Revelation Records, Sense Field and Killed For Less. Finally, I realized what I had been missing. Musically, this opened up new doors for me and I sometimes wondered what my musical palette would be had I not been given this promo CD. I recently contacted Jon Bunch, who spent much of his music career fronting Sense Field, and he was kind enough to answers some questions for his Out of Step fans.

Building
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S/T
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What have you been up too since the disbanding of Sense Field and Further Seems Forever? Are you still involved in music?

I have a son who is eight years old. I spend a lot of time hanging out with him. I’m working on a history degree, and I’m writing songs. I’m always trying to create new songs, my mindset is to keep creating and keep moving forward. It’s interesting to hear songs from the people in bands from my generation and from the scene I came up in. It seems like most of us can’t stop writing and playing music, maybe it’s because that’s all we know.

Did Sense Field find the transition over to a major label easy?

No, around that time (1995-1996) everybody we new were signed to major labels. Rocket From The Crypt, Jawbox, Jawbreaker, Green Day, Shudder To Think, 7 Seconds, Sublime, No Doubt, Jimmy Eat World, and Samiam… just to name a few. It was pretty natural for us to make the jump to a major label after putting out our own CDS and releasing three records on Revelation Records. For some reason after we signed to Warner Bros. we decided to take a year off to write a record, that was the first big mistake. Our drummer Scott left the band and that hurt us. It was difficult to replace him because he played such an integral part in our band on a number of levels, we recruited Rob Pfieffer on drums and he was great, but that took a long time to recover from. As much our major label told us they loved our music, they had no concept of the scene we came from or that there was an underground post-hardcore scene at all. Back then, Korn and Limp Bizkit were the biggest bands in the world and Sense Field had a very hard time being “Professional” in the way other bands were.

Did you guys find it challenging to be one the pioneers of the 90′s post hardcore scene?

It was challenging, there were only a handful of bands from our scene that were playing melodic punk inspired rock. We would play with bands similar to Earth Crisis and Snapcase which we sounded nothing like and the hardcore kids would watch and they had no idea what we were doing there, they didn’t get it at first. But the girls from the scene tended to like our music because they could come down on the floor and not worry about getting their nose broken or teeth kicked in, because it wasn’t violent down there when we played. But the scene started to change, many of the bands started playing music with more melody. That’s when kids from the scene started throwing the word Emo around, the term Emo or Emotional Hardcore started to be used to describe our particular part of the 90’s hardcore scene. We grew up listening to the original Emo bands of the 80’s, like Rights of Spring and Embrace. So we were the bands/kids who were the second generation of Emo bands so to speak. Back then it wasn’t embarrassing to be called Emo. It wasn’t until the word Emo started to be used outside of the hardcore scene, when people who had no idea what Emo was or where it came from started calling everything Emo, that’s when the hardcore scene of the 90’s rejected the term, as hardcore always does.

Did Sense Field find itself involved in any of the scenes politics like Straight Edge, Religion, Animal Liberation and Human Rights?

Each member of the bands had/has their own views on issues, some of us were vegan/vegetarian and some of us weren’t. Some of us partied and some of us didn’t. Some us believe in God and some us don’t. None of us had particularly strong political views, we weren’t out bangin’ the drum as they say.

What bands influenced you the most?

We all came from punk and hardcore so that had a huge influence on us. Dischord Records was always putting out music that was inspirational and influential. But there are just too many bands to name. Our peers inspired us, because it’s always great to see your friends making good music. We were inspired by our the music we grew up on too.

Out of all the bands you’ve played in is there one that best fits your musical tastes?

There are different aspects of each band I played in that I still like. The early Sense Field records like the first EP we put out in 1990-91 still hold up for me. I like the energy on the Sense Field record Building. There are things I like still like on the Further Seems Forever record Hide Nothing. But to be totally honest, I haven’t listened to my old recordings for years. I think most musicians want to move forward and create new ideas. I don’t know too many people in bands that sit around and listen to their old recordings, it’s just one of those weird things we don’t do. It’s weird but it’s true.

I’m sure Sense Field get’s offers for shows all the time. Are there any plans for a reunion?

We do get offered to come to Europe every summer to do festivals and I certainly appreciate being asked. Sense Field had its purpose and had its moment a long time ago. Sense Field was a good band that had great moments. It is more important to create new moments with new ideas than it is to try and recapture old ones, know what I’m sayin’?

Yeah I understand, a lot bands go away and come back sometimes to relive the glory days when they don’t need to. The legacy should speak for itself.

Do you have any upcoming projects for the near future?

I’m working on an EP/record called Generation X is Why. You can here the songs and download free on soundcloud.I’m planning on doing shows at some point when the record is done and when I have a set of new music to play.

Well thanks again for taking the time to do this interview, and we look forward to hearing new music from you in the future.