The Quarantined Talk New Album, Future Plans And More

 

 

The Quarantined is me, Sean Martin- I sing and play guitar. I’m the main content creator and executive producer. Right now the musicians who recorded on the record are all session musicians.

 

 

Singing in my children’s choir Bryan Adams “Everything I do I do it for you”. I sang the ending tag, it was really heartwarming, I was told.

 

I started songwriting when I was 13 years old, not long after I learned how to play every song I wanted to learn and felt like I had something to say.

 

You have your new album ‘Aversion To Normalcy’ out now. How did you want to approach the making of the album?

This album was written in different pieces from 2012 to 2016. Some of these were songs that didn’t get recorded for Antiquate Hate in 2016. In 2018 I started recording the instruments and vocals for Aversion to Normalcy myself, hiring different musicians for studio work to prop the songs up so I could see if they worked or not. I re-recorded the parts for all the songs multiple times, tried mixing it myself over the course of a few years, thru the pandemic and knee surgeries. In 2025, I was finally ready to record it all in Nashville.

 

 

We recorded it at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, TN. It was produced by Nathan Yarborough (Korn, Alice In Chains, Evanescence, Halestorm).

 

With the session players in Nashville, when it was work time it was work time, barely any tangents and completely focused on the task at hand. When it was off time, it’s a joke parade that never ends, stories of sessions with interesting people (some famous, some not). It was everything I’d hoped to see from idolizing these kinds of recording sessions in music school, and also spent your whole life preparing for.

 

 

I always use my Schecter Blackjack ATX guitar on all my records. This time we used a new Gretch guitar that I found that has 3 humbuckers (very rare). We used Bogner and EVH amps.

 

I don’t have a song with me at my happiest… I don’t even know if I have a happy song yet, lol. But I’ll say Instagram Hell because I’m being cheeky, that’s close to happy.

Angriest- Trendsetter

Most reflective- Nemesis, for sure.

 

Actually it was harder to record than it was to write it. The writing was easy comparatively to the long arduous process of trying to produce and engineer it all myself- it took years of active work, whereas writing took mere hours, a day or two tops. I knew I had to say what I needed to say, all it took was focus and the courage to face it.

 

It was designed by Serge Martinenko.

 

It comes from a quote, “when tyranny is the norm, to survive you’ll need an aversion to Normalcy.”

 

 

One of the tracks is ‘Skeleton Chair’. What was the story/inspiration behind the track?

Skeleton Chair is inspired by a series of events over a few months of my deployment that became one of the greatest tragedies of war that I have ever seen personally. The short version is this- There was an abandoned house near our patrol base in Iraq that was a potential overwatch position and therefore a threat. We decided to expend some extra ammo and blow up the house. But, the house burning then caught a few trees and a field on fire, and eventually spread mildly around the area, it did cause damage, which then was used to radicalize a village, who, in their anger turned to insurgency, which took over their town with murders and brute force. We then set off an ambush they set for us, we counter ambushed, which led to A-10’s blowing up a lot of the village. The survivors brought their dead thru our patrol base checkpoint, and when I saw a mother, screaming bloody murder she was soaked in, holding the two hollow halves of a baby over her head. She was just one in a line of cars with desiccated bodies that went to the treeline about a mile away- well, that is when I checked out mentally from ever thinking we had a righteous reason for being there.

Skeleton Chair is describing the processing of this experience. That’s what the inspiration for Skeleton Chair came from- it is what I wrote when I was doing therapy for the guilt of that incident, and indeed facing the unspoken dirty secret that defined our generation of soldiers as having the highest suicide rate in modern history; that the war in Iraq was for the cruelty, and not for any Americans benefit. no filter, no cap.

 

 

 

As of now, it’s in a state of limbo, but I have some. It’s a situation I can’t really discuss as of now.

 

 

Fort Bragg, CA. Beautiful coastline, redwood trees galore.

 

I have a multitude of vocal exercises that I do to keep my voice open. I have brought my voice back from a few different seemingly catastrophic voice losses in my life, techniques I’ve learned from studying with the some of the best vocalists and coaches. It’s something that I pay very close attention to and exercise it daily, along with breathing exercises that also double as meditation for nervous system stress management.

 

As of now, no, but it’s a major goal that I plan on making happen as soon as I can.

 

 

Given an evocative performance and did my absolute best.

 

 

I have a white and ebony fretboard Schecter Blackjack ATX with custom pickups that I use on every record and most live shows. When I was starting at Musicians Institute, I had a program for veterans education in which they would buy school supplies. I told them that a guitar was a necessary school supply. The VA bought me that guitar, and I have used it on almost every gig, and every recording I’ve done for The Quarantined. I have a Breedlove 12 string that I’m loving playing now. I usually sound great thru Telefunken Mics, and AER Tommy Emmanuel signature acoustic amp is my go to for live shows, along with a Teton 6-String acoustic guitar.

 

 

There’s a vampire novel by Nancy Collins called the Sonja Blue Series. It’s violent, sexy, cerebral, and a powerful female main character, and a great arc for the male main character. It could definitely rival the current market if done with the authors vision of the world the book creates. It’s a bit shocking and continues vampire lore in interesting ways, as well as other creatures in vampire mythology.

 

My musical influences are Jimi Hendrix, Soundgarden, Sublime, Green Day, Metallica, Pantera, Avenged Sevenfold, Harry Nilsson, Rage Against the Machine, Dr Dre, Eminem.

Recommendations: RX bandits “Gemini, Her Majesty”, Alter Bridge “One day Remains”, Stryfe, Black Tide “Light from Above”, Dale Turner “Mannerisms Magnified”, Cherry Poppin Daddies.

 

 

What makes me happy- peace, walks with my dog, when a good plan comes together, hitting that high note, playing guitar, relaxing with a good bowl, a deep conversation that people can be real in.
Unhappy- genocide, injustice, abridging rights, when everything falls apart, being too sick to sing, “why is the weed always gone?” Shutting up because we’re all too scared to be ourselves.