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I Hate Kate
Alternative Press - Rob Ortenzi on 1/29/09 @ 4:39 PM - altpress.com
NOW PLAYING: Embrace The Curse (GLASSNOTE; glassnotemusic.com)
WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW 'EM: You may already know Justin Mauriello from his time with rap-rockers Zebrahead, but with I Hate Kate, he's giving up the old school and embracing a new wave.
YOU LIKE? YOU'LL LIKE: THE FAINT / SHINY TOY GUNS / THE KILLERS
STORY: Julie Seabaugh
PHOTOS: Kevin Knight
It wasn't too long ago that hip-hop-influenced Orange County ska-punks Zebrahead were huge in Japan-and that was about it. Sure they'd shared stages with Green Day, Less Than Jake and Goldfinger, but after a nearly decade-long run with the band he helped form, vocalist/guitarist Justin Mauriello began searching for a new musical direction. Suddenly, I Hate Kate, the decidedly less-hip-hop-heavy side project he was working on seemed like a more attractive full-time outlet. "If you've had sex with [the same person] for eight years and then all of a sudden you start having sex with a new person, you realize, 'Wow, we don't have to move right into missionary. We're going to throw this into it? That's exciting; that's new.'"
Teamed up with guitarist Jeremy Berghorst and bassist Scott Hayden (drummer Abel Vallejo recently rounded out the lineup), Mauriello quickly stirred up attention for his new project with the band's debut EP Act One in 2006 along with a steady stream of opening gigs for the likes of My Chemical Romance, Hot Hot Heat and Social Distortion.
After signing with Glassnote Records, I Hate Kate got right to work on their first full-length Embrace The Curse with producer Mark Trombino (Blink-182, Jimmy Eat World) when irony set in-the very country that once embraced his former band almost inadvertently ended Mauriello's career. "We went to Japan and I got this crazy stomach sickness," he says of an unspecified illness that afflicted him for six months. I lost almost 60 pounds, I couldn't get out of bed for like two months, I had to see all these specialists and we had to put everything on hold." But, as he sings on the album's title track, "If you embrace that problem or challenge in your life and you go about it with a different attitude, it's easier to overcome." The illness might have been the best thing for I Hate Kate and the one-time hard-charging Mauriello. "I ended up having to change my entire life around," he says. "I've been sober for a year, which is unheard of for me. I had to do it in order to get healthy again."
It's a good thing, too, since he's going to need his energy to perform any of the 11 songs from Embrace The Curse, which features frenetic, genre-defying tracks that are simultaneously dark and defiant with elements of New Wave and dance mixed with Mauriello's trademark sly humor. Now the frontman is looking forward to introducing I Hate Kate to the masses, complete with a newfound appreciation of what he's been given. "To be able to play music for a living is the best thing you could ask for," he says. "I'm essentially starting over."
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