Empire Cinema are coming out with a new album. After having opened for Cursive and Bad Veins, Empire Cinema are releasing their own inaugural self-titled EP. To discuss the band’s changes, turmoil and early notoriety on the Tampa music scene, Bulls Radio interviewed the band’s lead singer Brenden Hock and bassist Jeff Dominguez.

What is the name of the new album?

BH: It’s actually self-titled. We dabbled with the name and decided to start from scratch. It’s all about a new process, a new line up, a new band.

A lot of the songs on the new record seem to talk about life changes. How does that relate to your band personally?

BH:There were a lot of changes with the band, the new line-up and stuff like that. I was just getting out of a long relationship, we lived together for three years. I was under more pressure because I wanted to take myself more seriously. It took a little while, but when the new guys came in, they just really ran with the songs and made them their own.

JD: It was definitely a different grouping of people. I met Brenden and he had a few songs he was working on. One of the songs, “A Man, A Plan, A Dream”,  we started working on cooperatively. We started feeling really good about the recording.

BH: We’re all really a lot alike too. We seemed to be going through a lot at this point in our lives together. It’s interesting when you get four guys that are on the same wavelength that can do that together.

What inspired the vocals on the album?

BH: We started working on the songs eight months ago. On one of the songs, the chorus was a completely different melody, and it almost got cut from the CD. Then in the middle of recording, one of us started improvising and we really liked it.

I’m also a huge fan of early 80s post punk. I love Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen. Then you can look at some bands that are more modern, they’re influenced by that as well. Music ians are always evolving, trying new things, getting more comfortable with themselves.