The 2015 All Stars Tour was a collection of more heavy (mostly) young, hungry bands than you can shake a stick at: Upon A Burning Body, Dance Gavin Dance, A Skylit Drive, Oceano, Within The Ruins, Dayshell, Come The Dawn, Chasing Safety and Conquer Divide.

Those who wanted to braze the blazing sun outside were privy to a full day’s worth of local bands.

On this particular day, we had a chance to catch up with All Stars veterans iwrestledabearonce who were also a part of the tour. When we spoke to guitarist Steven Bradley in 2011, the band was in a good place, just having released Ruining It For Everybody.

Between then and now, a lot has changed: they got a new singer and guitar player and have released two albums that have taken them from being an odd band with an odd name. Now they are an unrepentantly heavy band with an odd name.

For this tour, they were shorthanded, Steven was off on other adventures, but I was lucky enough to speak to the newest additions, singer Courtney LaPlante and guitarist Mike Stringer. Partway through, we were even joined by bass player Mike ‘Rickshaw’ Martin. We talked about their new album Hail Mary, collaborations, working out and we learned a lot about Canada, among other things.

Interview by:

When J.J. Ellis isn’t writing as the Allentown DVD Examiner, his Decent Exposure Radio can be heard on the air every Friday night from 10:30 to midnight (EST) on WXLV 90.3 FM or wxlvradio.com!

Photos by:

Henry Chung – When Henry’s not busy updating this page and speaking in third person, he’s busy shooting and editing pictures from concerts and designing logos for bands.