Therefore I Am Rocks Hometown Crowd

By: Angelina Berube
Posted In: Entertainment

Over a hundred bands play the Vans Warped Tour every year, but only a few bands can call Boston home. Therefore I Am, a Boston post-hardcore band, played in front of hundreds of hometown fans at the Massachusetts stop on this year’s Vans Warped Tour.

“People come up to us and are like, ‘oh you’re a band from Boston, oh that’s awesome,’ and they’re so interested because people know that music community here is amazing,” said Alex Correia, lead singer for Therefore I Am, said. “It’s enormous and there’s no other place like it. It just doesn’t compare to anything.”

Philosopher René Descartes once said, “I think, therefore I am.” Correia said the band thought the phrase was cool and decided to name themselves after it. Now, he believes the phrase has evolved to represent the band itself.

“It sums up who we are as individuals, what we are trying to accomplish with our band and that’s you know, making a statement saying and letting people know we are here in the present,” Correia said. “It’s real and it’s not contrived and it’s not overproduced in anyway. It’s here we are, we’re making music, therefore we are.”

This past June, Therefore I Am released their debut full length album, “The Sound of Human Lives” on Equal Vision Records. They recorded the album in January and February with producer Mike Poorman at Strangeways Recording in Providence, R.I.

“The Sound of Human Lives” has a wide variety of sounds for this hardcore band. “We have a song called “I am Only an Island” that’s really abrasive and has a lot of hardcore influence,” Correia said. “Then we have other songs like “You Leave,” that are very mellow and they use a lot of ambient sounds.”

Correia feels that the album cannot be defined by one song, but should be thought of as one entity. “It’s one cohesive unit so when we wrote it and put the songs together and the order and everything, we did it specifically,” Correia said.

Therefore I Am plays the entire Warped Tour. For a band traveling in a van from city to city, the tour brings long days. “You play all day which is 7a.m. to 8 or 9 p.m. and then you drive all night,” Correia said. “It’s non stop.”

Although the days are long, the experience of meeting and connecting with new people is what Correia enjoys about Warped Tour. “Getting to hear other people’s input and other people’s opinions and just sharing conversations, I feel like that’s the best part of life, meeting people.”

Correia also feels that there is a special bond that connects all the Warped staff and bands. “We’re all here to because we love music,” Correia said. “You just get talking when you’re in the catering lines or at the barbeques at the end of the night or just walking through tent city which is where all the merch tents are, like, ‘oh hey how’s it going, you catch this band today.'”

Therefore I Am wraps Warped Tour on August 23, 2009 in California. The band plans to tour in the fall and the winter in support of their album, “The Sound of Human Lives.” Check out Therefore I Am’s music on their Myspace page, myspace.com/thereforeiam.