The Fader, Ep. 7: Ryan and Christian from Acceptance

acceptance band

In 2006, I was working as an engineer at Spectre Studios when my friend Troy played me a couple of tracks from Phantoms, the debut full length album from the Seattle band Acceptance. It was one of the catchiest and most well crafted pop rock albums I had heard in a long time and was convinced this band was going to be big.

Produced by Seattle’s Aaron Sprinkle at The Compound, it was also sure to be the major label debut of one of the most talented producers I knew of. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go as planned, and Acceptance disbanded after trying to write their follow up to Phantoms, which somehow got lost in a series of marketing missteps that prevented it from reaching the masses as everyone had hoped.

Now ten years later, a small window of opportunity opened and the guys are back together working on new material and playing a few sold out shows in New York and Seattle.

I had the chance to talk with Ryan the bass player and Christian the guitar player (who spent the last seven years playing with Anberlin, who also recently called it quits). We have a chance to talk about writing together while living in different states, how working with Aaron Sprinkle in the studio has developed their writing and how music has evolved in the last ten years since Phantoms was released.

Zach Varnell

Zach began recording in his parents basement in Denver with a two track reel-to-reel and a mixer from radioshack. In the summer of 2014, Zach went back to education, working with CreativeLive as a content producer for the audio channel.