Article by Danny Coleman

“It’s a bummer when you write a song at 16 and people are still requesting it at age 24. Nothing against Hanson, but those doors get closed, and you have to start fresh,” said Brandon Phillips, guitarist and vocalist of Kansas City-based band The Architects.
Formed from the ashes of their first band, The Gadjits, The Architects are a four-piece punk rock band with classic rock influences such as The Who and Bruce Springsteen. Three brothers comprise the core of the group which began as a ska band. “When we killed The Gadjits,” says Phillips, “we killed it because our band and sound had transformed. We had to move on to something easier to deal with long term. So we were like, let’s just have a rock band—we can go in lots of different directions that way, so it should always be fun. When we were a ska band, we fit into hyphenated genres and as a group we are against being labeled that way.”
Touring in support of their latest disc, Border Wars, the band is doing something so unique that even they marvel at what they’re The Architects 2accomplishing. Border Wars is a series of five “connected episodes, told through a collection of comic book stories and accompanying soundtrack releases.” The band is hoping to create a different concept, and interest in their music through this new method, and so far they have been quite successful.
“We reached a point where we were tired. We were feeling intuitively that we were not doing ourselves justice.” This thought process evoked an idea that was both bold and intensely creative. Phillips recalls exactly when the concept came to be: “As a band, we were tired of putting out four-song CDs. I suggested on the last tour that since our songs are more narrative, that we should try something different. Since we have no money for a movie (laughing), we decided to package our material into a comic book, a graphic novel. We gave the story to (illustrator) Mallory Dorn and said, ‘Do it your way, not somebody else’s,’ and she’s just fantastic! She is doing an amazing job. It’s been preposterously challenging, the logistics have been overwhelming, but it’s been so rewarding.”
They are about to launch a tour to test the waters beyond their hometown and surrounding areas. “We’re doing a short little tour, kind of a ‘Let’s have fun before the holidays’ type of thing. We’re hitting Detroit, Cleveland, New York City, Boston, Pittsburgh and the Philly show. We wanted to add Asbury Park, we have lots of good friends there, but we didn’t have time.”
I asked Brandon what it’s like touring with his brothers. Is there ever any tension or rifts while on the road? “Awesome! We are such the opposite of what’s portrayed of traditional brothers. Others may always be fighting, but we rarely, if ever, do. We genuinely enjoy each other’s company and if there’s ever brother drama, it never invades our band space.”
To find out more about The Architects, please go to www.facebook.com/THE-ARCHITECTS.

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