The Almost

The Almost
The Almost performing in Sydney, Australia in 2011. From left to right, Dusty Redmon, Joe Musten, and Aaron Gillespie.
Background information
Origin	Clearwater, Florida, USA
Genres	Emo,[1] alternative rock,[1] alternative CCM,[1] post grunge[1] post hardcore[1]
Years active	2005–present
Labels	Virgin, Tooth & Nail
Associated acts	Underoath, Dead Poetic, Beloved, Swans of Never, Advent, Pacifico
Website	thealmost.com
Members	Aaron Gillespie Dusty Redmon Jay Vilardi Joe Musten Jon Thompson
Past members	Kenny Bozich Nick D'Amico Alex Aponte

The Almost is an American Christian rock band from Clearwater, Florida, best known for being fronted by former Underoath drummer and vocalist Aaron Gillespie. Formed in 2005, the band's current lineup consists of Gillespie on vocals, lead guitarist Dusty Redmon, rhythm guitarist Jay Vilardi, bassist Jon Thompson, and drummer Joe Musten. The band has released three albums and two EPs on Tooth & Nail Records, with 2009's Monster Monster peaking at No. 67 on the Billboard 200 and the most recent Fear Inside Our Bones released June 2013.

History

There is no definitive date as to when Aaron Gillespie started The Almost. He made a Myspace for The Almost on October 1, 2005 before he had released any of the songs to the public.

On October 4, 2005, he released two of his songs which were the demos for "I Mostly Like to Copy Other People" and "They Say You Can Never Write I Told You So in a Song But Here I Go".

Aaron worked with Kenny Vasoli to record a song called "Yule Be Sorry" for Happy Christmas Volume 4 on Tooth & Nail Records. It was in stores on October 25, 2005.

Gillespie wrote all of the songs himself while recording Define the Great Line with Underoath.

In 2007, the band embarked on Paramore's headlining tour, RIOT!, alongside The Starting Line and Set Your Goals (who played for the first half of the tour.)

In addition, according to their MySpace, The Almost went on tour with Emery, Envy On The Coast, Army of Me for all of June and parts of July. In May they also released the B-side song 'Hold On', which was originally only available as a bonus track on iTunes.

Shortly after the announcement of their new EP, drummer Kenny Bozich, quit the band. It was announced sometime in November via their MySpace. Dusty Redmon (the band's guitarist), made this statement in the AbsolutePunk.net forum: "Kenny quit. He's getting married and didn't want to tour at all. It happens..it's happened to me twice with Beloved and Dead Poetic. It's a personal choice and we're cool with it. He was going to be playing drums on the next record, but made the choice to not be in a band at this point in his life. No big deal." The Almost played at Soundwave 2010 with bands such as HIM, Whitechapel, A Day to Remember, Paramore and others.

Southern Weather (2007-2008)

Their debut record, Southern Weather, was released on April 3, 2007, and was recorded in February and March 2006. The first single, "Say This Sooner", can be heard at The Almost's PureVolume and MySpace pages, along with "I Mostly Copy Other People" and the demo version of "Never Say I Told You So" (originally named "They Say You Can Never Write I Told You So in a Song But Here I Go"). Aaron recorded every instrument on the album, except for bass on a couple of tracks, with which Kenny Vasoli from The Starting Line helped.

The Almost released their first video for "Say This Sooner" on March 19, 2007. The video premiered on MTV2's UNLEASHED, which ran all day long on the hour. The video is also available on MTV2's website.

The Almost embarked on the "It's All Happening" tour from December 17 to January 20, 2006, joined by Jay Vilardi (guitar), Dusty Redmon (guitar), Alex Aponte (bass) and Kenny Bozich (drums). The tour showcased new songs from the upcoming recording of Southern Weather.

Since The Almost has formed, the band has reached over 11,000,000 plays on their MySpace music page and the band's song "Say This Sooner" has reached No. 1 most played on all of PureVolume.^{[citation needed]}

A video has been made for the second single Southern Weather. It can be seen on the band's Myspace.

No Gift to Bring EP and Monster Monster (2008-2011)

The Almost released a new EP titled "No Gift to Bring" on November 24, 2008.They were originally going to release it on November 25, 2008 but they changed the date to the day before. The EP was released to tide fans over until the release of their next album in the summer/fall of 2009.^[2] It includes a new song titled "Awful Direction", a cover of the Christmas carol, "Little Drummer Boy", a cover of "Your Love Is Extravagant", a new version of "Amazing, Because It Is", and an exclusive mix of "Dirty and Left Out". The EP is almost entirely recorded by Aaron, and it is produced by Underoath guitarist Tim McTague, who also created the remix of "Dirty and Left Out."^[3] In May 2008, founder and frontman of The Almost, Aaron Gillespie, announced that The Almost would be entering the studio in the winter of 2008 to record their follow-up album to Southern Weather. In the November 2008 Tooth & Nail Records podcast, Aaron stated "the new album will be more of a complete band effort", suggesting the whole band will be involved in the recording process.The band went into the studio at the beginning of May, recording in Nashville TN. Monster Monster was released through Tooth & Nail/Virgin on November 3, 2009 featuring the singles "Lonely Wheel" and "Hands"

There are several bonus tracks for this album. Users who downloaded Monster Monster from iTunes received the bonus track "Me And Alone". The fan pack version of the album sold exclusively at Best Buy contains the tracks "West" and "Wrong". The Monster EP contains two bonus tracks entitled "July" and "Birmingham" The album charted at No. 67 on the Billboard 200 and No. 3 on The Christian Album Charts.^[4]

In February 2010, The Almost played the Australian Soundwave Festival. The Almost toured across Australia nationally playing alongside the three festival headliners; Faith No More, Jimmy Eat World and Jane's Addiction, as well as other bands such as Paramore, All Time Low, A Day To Remember, Escape The Fate, Enter Shikari, Meshuggah, Anthrax, Trivium, Whitechapel, Set Your Goals and other alternative, rock, metalcore and hardcore bands. Along with Soundwave, The Almost played club shows in Melbourne and Sydney with All Time Low and Dance Gavin Dance.

On July 31, 2010, The Almost played at iMatter Festival, in Elmira, New York. Along with Secret and Whisper, August Burns Red, Oh, Sleeper, MyChildren MyBride, Texas in July and The Glorious Unseen.

On October 25, 2010, The Almost released the Monster Monster EP, which contains the five bonus tracks and the music videos for "Lonely Wheel", "Hands", "No I Don't" and "Monster Monster" from the album Monster Monster.

Fear Inside Our Bones (2011 – present)

During their set at the O2 Experience in Denver on June 1, Aaron Gillespie announced that the new album would be titled Fear Inside Our Bones.^[5] Frontman Aaron Gillespie has also announced via Twitter that the band is finished recording the album in full as of June 10, 2012.^[6] The album is expected sometime early 2013.^[7]

It was announced in January 2013 that the new album would be released on April 16, 2013 via Tooth & Nail Records.^[8] Accompanying the announcement was a song premiere of the single "Ghost".^[9]

On April 1, 2013, the band posted on their Facebook page that the new album was pushed back to June 2013, due to Tooth & Nail becoming an independent record label.^[10]

Band members

Current

• Aaron Gillespie – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards, percussion (since 2005)
• Dusty Redmon – lead guitar, backing vocals (since 2007)
• Jay Vilardi – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (since 2007)
• Joe Musten – drums, percussion (since 2008)
• Jon Thompson - bass guitar (since 2010)

Former

• Alex Aponte - bass (2007–2010)
• Kenny Bozich - drums, percussion (2007–2008)
• Nick D'Amico - rhythm guitar (2007)

Discography

Albums

EPs

Demos

Singles

Music videos

References

External links

• Official website