6771 (Demo)

Let's emulate
The god damn kings
Fly so high were out of oxygen
There's a freedom to misunderstood flight!

Where's my old home?
On the ledge there
No I'll never be there again
No I'll never see anyone again

Born into a cult of glorified Scientologists
I've held the keys to your hopes and dreams
Manipulated by fear, I could fall at any moment
I am fought for and died for
I am beaten and wounded
In this new land I exist for a mere two centuries
In a lust of flawed philosophies it's the beginning of the end
In the darkness I run for my life
The end is coming

The end is coming (Hallelujah)
The end is coming (Hallelujah)
I love you so (Hallelujah)
I love you so (Hallelujah)
I spill my secrets to you
In the darkness I call
For this to be heaven
To make sense of it all

Let's climb the mountaintop
So we can see all we've done
Crowning achievements
From hell and beyond
I know its out there
I'm waiting to see what life can still do for me!

The end is coming (Hallelujah)
The end is coming (Hallelujah)
I love you so (Hallelujah)
I love you so (Hallelujah)
I spill my secrets to you
In the darkness I call
For this to be heaven
To make sense of it all

A Year in Perspective



It has been almost a year since the punk rock quintet Reported Failure got back together and began working on new material. A year ago today the band would probably have been in four pieces. At that point they were the band that had had a good breakthrough album and then fallen apart just when it seemed they were about to get massive. At this point all of the seems ancient history. Right now Reported Failure are at the highest point they've ever been with a multi-platinum selling EP, a few successful singles, and absolute domination of the music video charts.

"It all really started with Post-Grunge Catastrophe" says Matt Collins. "sure we met up and played old songs and loved it, but it was a mutual desire to create that album that brought us back together as a band". When the album Post-grunge Catastrophe did come out it charted very oddly. Singles like "The Cure to Growing Older" and "Manufactured Radio" both became anthems of the punk scene and were met with moderate success, and the album itself debuted at number eight. "At that point we were all thinking 'Great! It will expand our fanbase a bit more and then we can get another record out later and just keep at it'" says Vin Peters who not only plays guitar but also runs Nomad Records where the album was released. After a month it looked like the album would be successful but not near their previous album Disarm and nothing that was going to make them a super massive band. What no one could have predicted was the album staying in the top 20 for months after it's release, and not peaking until after the band had finished releasing all of the singles. "I don't really know why there was a delayed surge in this album, but somehow there was" continued Peters.

The success came with a spot on the When all Else Fails Run Tour over summer, and the release of Reported Failure & Friends in August. The best of album was a great collection of songs that introduced newer fans to the band's older songs. It also was loaded with guest vocalists on new versions of old songs and a few new songs. "The album was really to close the door on our first four albums because we knew that next our sound would change. We wanted to sort of group the first four together because they are all basically pop punk records and our sound basically left that for a darker heavier sound" says frontman Billie Beckett.

Then in September the band hit a rather massive bump in the road. "I just dont't think September is our month haha" says Collins. It was a September that Reported Failure officially split up. THis September though was a much worse tragedy. Almost simultaneously Billie Beckett was hospitalized for overdosing on lithium which he would later admit was a suicide attempt, and Matt Collins, who says himself that he will "Say whatever the fuck I want no matter how much hot water it gets me in", had an attempt on his life. Although unsuccessful Matt came away with a bullet to the arm.

It would seem that a day like this would cause Reported Failure to stop and try to figure things out, but instead it fueled them. "After that I was just like, fuck it man if we stop now then why did we ever try to keep going and put out a fourth album" says Collins. After a few weeks of recovery Reported Failure announced a new lineup adding KC James on guitar and the release of an EP in October.
The EP which ended up being called "My Name is Freedom/My Name is William" was a prequel to their fifth full length album due out in February of next year. The EP was darker and heavier as the band had promised. The EP debuted at number six and sold around 250,000 copies every week and still is. The release of the EP came along with Reported Failure headlining The No Venues Tour. The singles from the EP have both charted rather well, but it is in music videos where Reported Failure found they truly dominated. The video for the single My Name is William was the #1 video for four weeks in a row.

At the moment Reported Failure mania is at an all time high. "The days of Disarm seem so distant" says Peters. Post-Grunge Catastrophe is obviously the crowning achievement of Reported Failure in 2011, and the EP is just a sign of what is to come. 2011 was the year Reported Failure really got recognition for what they can do, but 2012 promises to be the year that as Vin Peters puts it "We will take everything that people think they know about us and what we can do then we will take it all to a level that no one expects".