New Noise Magazine - Issue #15 by New Noise Magazine

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SNODGRASS PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALAN

WNA WITH SHA INTERVIEW

Y Y B R I T TA N POTTER B

M O S E LY

hen Shawna Potter started War On Women, she set a challenge for herself. “Everything would be filtered through this feminist lens. Can I write a bunch of songs like this? It turns out I can, because there’s a lot of shit going on in the world,” she says emphatically. War On Women—comprised of Potter, guitarists Brooks Harlan and Nancy Hornburg, bassist Suzanne Werner, and drummer Evan Tanner—are only four years old, but they’ve already made a name for themselves as a band that has no problem loudly sharing their views on sexism, abortion, rape, and many other issues affecting women. Look no further than “Say It,” the second track on their recent eponymous debut full-length. The song is a call to arms urging women who have been raped to come forward. In an album full of hot-button subject matter, “Say It” is easily the most controversial. Potter readily admits that talking about rape is rarely a black and white discussion. “For me, and I think for a lot of women, we know it’s a nuanced conversation. I get why someone would not want to speak out,” she says. “But at some point, that starts working against us as a whole. It starts working against people who experience gender-based violence, because it starts to eat itself. Where do you break the cycle?” “I’m all about diverse tactics,” she explains. “Obviously we need to educate the general public on real rape statistics and what really happens and how it’s not a stranger in an alley. But I think there’s also room for saying, ‘Hey, fucking say it. Say that you were raped. Say it out loud.’ Start the healing process. It doesn’t matter who you tell or how long it takes, but start that

process. This thing happened to you, and that’s not your fault. And maybe by saying it out loud, you’ll start to heal.” Potter’s introduction to feminism came at age 20. “I always knew sometimes I was treated differently because of my gender, and I knew that was wrong. But I was young and it didn’t matter, and I was gonna do whatever I wanted anyway—you know, real snarky,” she says. That all changed when she got a subscription to Bitch Magazine and learned about then President George W. Bush’s desire to limit women’s reproductive rights. “I was like, ‘Wait, that’s not cool,” Potter recalls. “You can never be pregnant; I don’t think you should decide how other people who get pregnant should live their lives, so fuck you, fuck this.’ I think that gelled it for me. I better start paying attention. I better care about this stuff, because you can’t expect anyone else to stick up for you. You have to know what your rights are and work to change them if they’re being taken away.” In 2010, Potter and Harlan—who previously played together in AVEC and also run an amp repair business called Big Crunch—formed War On Women. They released their Improvised Weapons EP, six songs of raucous riot grrrl-inspired punk, in 2012. For their debut full-length, they teamed up with producer J. Robbins, a longtime friend of Harlan’s whose studio is in the same building as Big Crunch. The band’s music clearly benefited from Robbins’ help. The guitar riffs are more intricate and pronounced, and Potter’s voice— while still completely her own—rings clearer without the distortion present on Improvised Weapons. On War On Women, the band cover both big-picture issues like exclusionary feminism (“Second Wave”) and abortion (“Roe Vs. World,” “ProLife?”), as well as issues personal to the band, such as sexist Internet trolls. On “YouTube Comments,” Potter gets the last laugh as she speedsings a handful of some of the worst comments people have left on the band’s YouTube videos. “When most people have a complaint [about our band] that I actually hear, it’s usually, ‘Why are you so angry?’ I said this to [vocalist and guitarist] Chris Hannah in Propagandhi, ‘No one would ever say, ‘Chris, why are you so angry?’” Potter says. “They’re just not used to it. They’re not used to hearing female vocals that are angry or yelling… I’m happy to be the thing that makes them go, ‘I don’t know if I like that,’ in hopes that more women come out later and sing and scream in their own voice and not be ashamed of that.”

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WAR ON THE ROAD by shawna potter

missed him during the holidays.

12/30 - pensacola, florida Sue’s Reviews! Wherein [bassist] Sue [Werner] reviews all the chips Nancy buys, (e.g. “You guys, YOU GUYS! They’re really salty!”). The club had ping pong backstage, which was awesome, and since “backstage” was up three flights of stairs, we spent a lot of time there to avoid climbing up and down.

12/27 - AUSTIN, TEXAS The first show! We were all so excited to meet back up: there was so much “Heeeeey!” and hugging, and “How was your holiday?” Seems rare to have the same lineup on short tours that are months apart, even more rare that everyone is super nice and funny and talented. When we showed up at Mohawk, the crew was totally nice, professional, and accommodating. We loved the layout, it felt good on stage, people came out early—thank you!—which made us feel very loved. Really, the only issue was that it was an outdoor stage and 39 degrees! Holy shit! Oh, [guitarist] Nancy [Hornburg] wants me to quickly say how beautiful I think she is, with golden hair like a goddess, and everyone wants to be like her. OK, Nancy? OK. Anyway, the show was fucking freezing, but it went well, so I can’t complain.

12/28 - dallas, texas Totally forgot Trees has a curtain that opens when you start playing. Hilarious. Ate some great sushi with Merch Goddess Mel, felt totally energized for the set. Loved seeing so many damn women in the audience. My jean shorts, which I wear for optimum reach and movability, started ripping up the front of my left leg during the show. Luckily, it stopped before we had to start charging people more.

rando from a rando town. Also, not Texas specific or anything, but don’t fucking touch people in the bands! Just because you saw us on stage does not mean we are up for grabs. Extend your hand for handshake, ask for a hug, I will totally be into that, but don’t put your arm around my shoulder or waist—ugh— and don’t grab my body—even if you are a lesbian, that’s fucking groping! I’m not as scared for my safety when a woman does it versus when a man does it, but I am still forced to feel like an object, less than human, with no autonomy of my own, and that’s a really shitty feeling that I should not have to deal with.

12/31 - gainesville, florida NYE in GAINESVILLE! Evan called me a prom queen, because I was all dressed up. We all bought six dollar bottles of champagne at Pop A Top across the street, played our hearts out, and kissed everybody while The

1/2 - ORLANDO, florida Saw and stayed with our good tour friend Tierney [Tough], [vocalist] from The Pauses. We’ve had a lot of van discussions over the past week, mostly about the works of JRR Tolkien, feminism, whether or not— and how—to respond to trolls online, and Longmont Potion Castle. The stage in Orlando was really interesting: super shallow, high up, and in front of an actual pit. I was convinced I would fall off during our set, and made a very nice gentlemen up front promise to catch me if that should happen. People had the nicest things to say, and many said they had been or would be at multiple Florida shows. Even got some folks singing along to songs from our upcoming unreleased record!

12/29 - HOUSTON, TEXAS I’m from H-town. Really hoping folks like us. I haven’t lived there in a long time—what’s up, Campbell Junior High!—so I know I won’t know anyone but family, but I’m still excited. Gave mom and dad a shout-out from stage and got the entire crowd to cheer for them; it was cute. So glad I got to hang out with them backstage and shoot the shit. It was great. I had just seen my mom, but neither of them had ever seen this band play, and it was great to see my dad since I

We sold a lot of merch, and overall, had a great night, but the funniest thing was that all the members of all the bands just started signing everyone else’s merch, so there are definitely some Improvised Weapons EPs in Dallas right now with notes from RVIVR, and I sure as shit signed an old Propagandhi record. We’re only two shows into tour and we’re already noticing a trend: people are asking us, as a band, to have group sex with them. Did not know that was a thing! I guess, as a general heads up, it will most likely not happen with a @ NEWNOISEMAGS

I’m not sure how, but Mel convinced me to wear blue lipstick, then she jumped on stage to sing some guest vocals. She was good! Maybe too good… Before we left the club, I hopped in the Propagandhi van and was really trying to convince [frontman] Chris [Hannah]and [guitarist Dave] Beav [Guillas] to kiss at midnight tomorrow. A girl can dream, can’t she?

Wooly played an old NYE ball drop clip—with Lilly Tomlin! So fun! Then, we danced to Prince for a bit, got fancy by splurging for a hotel room, and partied with Propagandhi and RVIVR for a few more hours in the rooms. Lots of pictures were taken which cannot be shown publicly, but mostly because we all have that eyeshalf-open drunk look.

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1/3 - ST. PETERSBURG, florida Last show! Our bassist Sue played for RVIVR tonight—one night only!— and totally nailed it. […] Of course, Propagandhi killed it—AGAIN! It’s always sad to leave this fine group of folks, so of course, we did the super long inefficient goodbye, taking tons of pictures and hugging a million times and wishing we could play 10 more shows. I can’t wait for Propagandhi to write and record a new record so we can do it all again.

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INTERVIEW WITH DRUMMER HARLEY COX BY DUSTIN VERBURG

Choke Up is a punk rock band from Boston, Mass., that combines the intricate melodies of post-hardcore and the ferocity of ‘80s anarcho punk. Black Numbers will release their debut LP, Black Coffee, Bad Habits, on Feb. 3. Though their last record, Pilot Passenger / Joaquin Murietta, came out in 2013, some of the songs on Black Coffee… were written as far back as 2011.

“The oldest song on the new record, ‘Coldest Brew,’ was written in 2011,” explains drummer Harley Cox. “Some of the songs are really old, and we started the recording process in May of 2013. We didn’t get the masters until May [of 2014]. We recorded with Ryan Stack, who did [albums for] The World Is A Beautiful Place And I’m No Longer Afraid To Die, Dads, and some other stuff. He’s a friend of ours from high school. He moved the studio while we were recording, so it was a really lengthy process. There are also tons of vocal harmonies. Some of the songs are really old, and some of them we wrote right before we recorded the record.” With all of that time spent planning and recording, Choke Up seized the opportunity to experiment. Black Coffee… features several songs with string arrangements. “We had a cello and violin played by two 15 year old kids who are twins,” Cox says.

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“We had them come in and do a couple of things for some more acoustic songs. It was pretty cool. It was strange working with musicians who are really talented, especially when they’re that much younger than us.” Despite the three year songwriting process and year long recording and mastering process, Cox says the record flows nicely. “It all fell together pretty well,” he says. “It’s funny that ‘Thicket And Vine’ came out first, because we thought that was the weird one. When we were going in to record it, [guitarist] James [Christopher] didn’t even want to put it on the record. There are certain songs that sound different because they were written far apart. One song, ‘Woke Up Drunk,’ [vocalist] Sam [Johnson] wrote as a folk song a few years ago. I heard it and thought we should try it as a full band. He was super opposed to it at first, but then it turned into the fastest song on the whole record.”

H Y G I E N E

INTERVIEW BY CHARLIE STEFFENS

commences.

It’s a Wednesday night at The Echo, a nightclub in the arty Echo Park-vicinity of Los Angeles that has been key in the development of Criminal Hygiene. Guitarist Michael “Magic” Fiore, bassist Michael “Chili” Hiller, and drummer Sean “Bird Man” Erickson—who all share vocal duties—had a Monday night residency at the club earlier in the year. The Echo Park locals make the rounds. After a brisk and impressive set and a quick load-out, they are back amongst friends, and the party

Fiore, cooling off on the back patio with Hiller and Erickson, says that he and his bandmates just want to play good rock ‘n’ roll with some substance. “We want to play some music without some hype and bullshit trendy shit,” he insists. “We’re just trying to make a living playing music. We’re musicians. We’re songwriters. There are no frills. There’s nothing to us more than the songs. We don’t want that bullshit immortality—at least I don’t. I don’t want to have any fame or any of that crap. If I could sit around, and no one knows who we are, and play shows and have a good time with my friends—that’s what I want.” There are lots of appealing sounds in Criminal Hygiene’s musical soup. “Turpentine,” an accessible song in which Hiller sings and plays guitar, is like a punk-propelled Gin Blossoms tune with some Neil Young and Crazy Horse elements mixed in, dis-

playing the trio’s instrumental repertoire. Since its inception in 2011, Criminal Hygiene has released a full-length self-titled album and an EP titled Withdrawn. They have toured extensively throughout the U.S., recently sharing stages The Orwells and Twin Peaks. Making an appearance at last year’s SXSW at the CMJ Music Marathon last October, the band has garnered a following outside its L.A. base. A release of the 7” “Turpentine” vinyl is tentatively scheduled for early 2015. “I get drunk and forget the technique and just try to play along with them,” Erickson admits. “I’ve never been to school for drumming. I’m a history major. I can’t tell you a thing about drums or drumming, but I can tell you about when the Chinese population got kicked out of Tacoma, Wash., in 1885. That’s true,” he insists. “Dude, Tacoma is a very diverse city. But, still to this day, it’s the only major city on the West Coast that doesn’t have a Chinatown. There

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When music site Brooklyn Vegan streamed the album’s first single, “Thicket And Vine,” it took Cox by surprise. He had known a song would be available for streaming somewhere, but had no idea which song or venue. “That was totally crazy,” Cox admits. “We didn’t even know it was happening until it, you know, happened. I was at work, and then, all of a sudden, Brooklyn Vegan was playing the song, which is awesome because that’s where I get a lot of my news and stuff. The comments section is ridiculous. The anonymity makes it easier for people to say whatever. No one even talked about our song, just about [bassist] Nathan [Richardson]’s flip flops in our promo photo. It is what it is; it’s the Internet.” Black Coffee, Bad Habits will be Black Numbers’ first release of the year. Cox says working with the label is a natural fit. “It’s working out great. It’s a great group of guys helping us work on the record and its release.”

was a huge Chinese population because of the railroad the railroad originally went to Tacoma, not Seattle.” Fiore and Hiller interject, “Does this guy know how to party or what?” slyly referencing “Wayne’s World.” Hiller—like his bandmates—is a classic rock aficionado. He cites Gerry Rafferty’s “Right Down The Line” as his second favorite song of all time and says “America” by Simon and Garfunkel is the best song ever written. The three, all of whom are under 30, have a wealth of musical knowledge, old and new. During a set, they’ll often rip out an unexpected cover, like Devo’s “Uncontrollable Urge.” The cohorts—who share the rent in their Echo Park residence—are constantly making music. “He hums, like, a weird trumpet line in his head,” Fiore says of Hiller’s writing style. “It makes no sense to me, but it works. He ends up pulling it off. His head is a trumpet section, which is funny because he’s never played a trumpet in his fuckin’ life.”

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F A L L O C H INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST SCOTT MCLEAN BY NICHOLAS MADRIPOOR

The lyrics are based around life, death, Scotland, and the earth, and how they have influenced us over the past few years.

Falloch’s follow up to their impressive debut Where Distant Spirits Remain was released on Jan. 27 in the U.S on Candlelight Records. Their new album This Island, Our Funeral features seven heavy tracks paying tribute to their native Scotland with intense themes that anyone can relate to, such as life and death. Founder and guitarist Scott McLean speaks about the new lineup, goals for the band, and how Falloch has improved with their new album. What is the meaning behind the lyrics on This Island, Our Funeral?

Does everyone have equal input on what goes into a song? With this album, the majority of the music was written by me. Then, we would work on it together as a band. Lyrically, it was mainly Ben [Brown], our bassist, who wrote the lyrics, but I contributed a few. There is no set rule as in who writes what though, it’s mainly a case of whoever has the inspiration. For the next album, I think quite a lot of the music will be written by Ben, as he already has loads of great ideas ready to go! What is the average Falloch practice session like? We’ll jam for a while, then we’ll just work on getting our songs tighter. We’ll often change parts of songs and the arrangements just to continue to keep old songs interesting and fun to play. We never practice a whole set; we always like to decide on

the day of a show what we will play. I find it extremely disappointing when you see a band and they are just playing the same songs every night on tour. How has the addition of Tony Dunn’s singing style changed the band? Tony’s singing is much more direct and confident. I think his singing style brings the vocals a bit more to the forefront of the music. What is the significance of some of your songs having Gaelic titles? We chose to use a few Gaelic titles, because it’s a native language to Scotland and we wanted to bring a stronger connection to Scotland through the use of it. How did you feel about recording with Jamie Gomez Arellano (Ghost B.C., Ulver, Cathedral, Primordial)? In what ways has he improved the band? Recording with Gomez was great. Initially, we were planning on just recording the drums with him, but after enjoying the process so much, we decided that we would

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PHOTO: YUYO PECO TAKEDA

INTERVIEW WITH JUSTIN WILLIAMS BY JOHN B. MOORE

but this was kind of my foray into really putting myself out there both lyrically and musically.”

Justin Williams played in bands in his native Long Island for years, but it wasn’t until he left his last group, Gracer, in 2008 that he found his voice. “I left Gracer because the guys wanted to continue to tour full time, and that wasn’t the direction where I wanted my life to go anymore.” Solo for the first time, Williams started writing stripped down, acoustic songs under what would eventually become the moniker Bearchild. “Bearchild wasn’t really so much of a conscious decision,” he explains, “but rather finally feeling comfortable [enough] with myself to release my own songs. Previously, I was always in bands and contributed to the writing,

With an EP under his belt, he started putting together a band and a slew of songs that ultimately ended up on his debut full-length, Wishing Well. “Growing up on Long Island and playing in many bands over the years, I have always been around many amazing musicians,” says Williams. “Ryan Blecher—drummer of Fellow Project [and] Yes Sense—was always someone I looked up to musically. He was at a few of my solo shows before I had a band, and one day, I was like, ‘Hey dude, I have a full-length’s worth of songs, wanna help record a record?’ He said, ‘Fuck yeah.’ Lou Fontana—also of Fellow Project— played guitar in one of my favorite bands of all time: On The Might Of Princes. Seeing them play live was a unique experience, and helped shaped how I feel music and community should be intertwined. Having Lou add his touch to the record really rounded it out. Kristen MacDougal sang some accompanying vocals on a few songs; I played in a band with her a few years back called Make It Plain. She

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is also an awesome visual artist.” He adds: “I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the person who engineered the record, Ian Bryn. He sings back-ups on most of the songs, and his ability to coax a good vocal performance out of me is uncanny. He also plays bass live.” Though the album is a collection of stuff he has done over the past six years, all of the songs on Wishing Well sound like they were meant to fit together. “I write songs based on my life experience, [so] I think they just all naturally fit together,” says Williams. “It’s more of a documentary of my life over the past six years. Some songs take three or four years to develop, some three or four months. That being said, there were a few tunes that were cut once I realized during tracking that they just weren’t sounding good.” The album is also united by the songs’ melancholy sound. “That’s kind of how things come out naturally for me,” says Williams. “I always gravitated toward more melancholy music. For example, stuff like Carissa’s Wierd or Mono: most people would consider it sad music, but

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INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST MARINOS “MAZ” KATSANEVAS BY NICHOLAS SENIOR

blistering riffs, soaring choruses, and air-guitar-inducing leads, making 2015 look like it could become the Year of the Shark.

A metalcore band with a silly name could be a recipe for aural disaster. Thankfully, Feed Her To The Sharks takes their music very seriously, and their newest release, Fortitude, is an absolute treat. The tide is high with

Fortitude feels like an amplification of all aspects of your sound. What was the writing process like for the album? When we were writing Fortitude, we had one word in mind: BIG. We wanted to take what we loved about the first two albums and build on it to create a powerful record. Some songs are much heavier, others are way more melodic, and we think the mix of the two makes for a very diverse record. We tried a lot of new things to really refine our sound. New layers of synth, acoustic guitars, and atypical guitar effects have made an

appearance on the new album. What about the album cover? Why didn’t you choose to use a shark this time? Because that’s what people would expect! Although, yes, the band name really calls for a nautical theme, it just doesn’t represent what Fortitude is about. We have taken our sound in a new direction, and we feel the power of the cover really shows that. Do you have any favorite tracks, musically or lyrically? “Burn The Traitor” definitely stands out to us. We had a lot of fun writing the track, and it’s HEAVY! Honorable mentions go to “Shadow Of Myself ” and

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work with him for the rest of the album as well. He was really easy to work with; he knew exactly what sounds would work in what situations. I think also just working with somebody who has worked with so many great bands, it makes you want to up your game that bit extra, as you know they are used to working with bands that have recorded countless albums and been on long tours. You want to try and push yourself up to that level. What are your hopes for the U.S. release of This Island, Our Funeral? It would be nice if more people get to know us. We eventually want to travel over and tour America, so it would be nice if this album could bring us closer to achieving that. What are the keys to Falloch’s success? The only reason for any sort of success is hard work and continuing on. You don’t just talk about ideas, you actively make plans to make these ideas happen. Sometimes, they might not work out, but in those cases, you just learn from them and use that knowledge in the future.

it doesn’t make me sad, it makes me feel good.” Though, he admits that his stylistic choices weren’t completely borne of happenstance. “I was looking for a contrast to the 10” EP I released prior: those songs were more happy and the cover of the album has all these bright colors. The full-length kind of contrasts that with the stark black and white cover. Also, song topics on Wishing Well range from what end of the world would feel like to having imaginary relationships with people who don’t even exist.” The album’s art comes from a surprising source. “All of the album art was done by my mother, [Beth Vendryes Williams],” Williams explains. “She is a retired teacher who is now solely focusing on her art. I partner with her to develop all the art associated with Bearchild.” More of her art can be found on her website, bethvendryeswilliams.com. Now that the record is out, when and where can we see Bearchild? “We did some touring in November and December, right when Wishing Well came out, and that was fun,” Williams says. “Currently, we are planning a 10 day Northeast tour in March with our buds in Remnants—featuring members of Capital—so

“Let Go,” which lyrically stand out to us. “Badass” is probably the most fun to play, and we went for a whole “Pretty Fly For A White Guy” [by The Offspring] kind of vibe, so we think that one will go down well on the live stage! Are you looking forward to taking over America? You already have a significant following in Australia. Damn straight, we are! Since signing to Victory [Records], we have had a lot more interaction with people in the States, and we feel our music will go down well over there. Australia is a VERY small country, especially when you talk about the music scene. Just the state of California has more people living there than the whole of Australia, so heading to America will be a massive change of pace, and we can’t wait to do it!

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H O M E W R E C K E R INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST/VOCALIST MATT BARNUM BY HUTCH

PHOTO: ELENA DE SOTO

Homewrecker’s name has been printed on many flyers. A relentless touring machine, they have floored audiences and incited frenzied pits across the U.S. and several other countries with their intoxicatingly hatred-fueled blend of crust, hardcore, and thrash. Their second album, Circle Of Death, is on A389 Recordings, as was their first cheery output, Worms & Dirt. Guitarist and vocalist Matt Barnum says they’ve had a relationship with A389 since

Homewrecker’s infancy. He praises label head Dom Romeo, and the support system Romeo has cultivated to help DIY bands. This security aided Barnum’s focus as Homewrecker went to record their second fulllength. Barnum elaborates, “With Worms & Dirt, we were just having fun writing and recording it. When it came time to record Circle Of Death, we put a lot of work in it, because we had lost the singer. It was a debut LP, again. We spent close to a year writing it, and the response we’ve been getting to it so far is outstanding.” Homewrecker is from Ashtabula, Ohio, about 50 miles northeast of Cleveland. “Ashtabula is cool,” Barnum says. “We live right on Lake Erie, pretty much. There’re a bunch of junkies, but that’s everywhere. We would always go to Cleveland and Erie, Pa., for shows when we were younger. We still do, but I feel like we owe Cleveland a lot in regards to our ‘sound.’” They do harness a

heavy Integrity and Ringworm sound, with a grittiness akin to Midnight, but this influence is environmental. Homewrecker devastate amps and ears uniquely. After adding a guitarist and becoming a five piece, and then shrinking back to a four piece, Homewrecker decided to promote from within, taking over vocals responsibilities themselves. That momentum and camaraderie pushed them through a killer tour with labelmates Pharaoh this past fall. According to Barnum, “seeing Pharaoh every night” was a highlight, adding “They are an amazing band to simply put it: great, real guys. We were lucky enough to see some cool places: Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountains, Everglades, etc. We also got to race high- speed go karts and [take] air boat tours through the Everglades. The only low point was when our van broke down on our way to play the most anticipated show in Montreal with Death and Obituary. That sucked.”

tween engagements with the duo’s other bands. “The songs on Knife Wounds were written and recorded over the course of about two years, as Mike and I both travel for our gigs,” Stroetzel explains. “We basically got together and wrote and recorded whenever our schedules permitted. […] Up until this point, it’s really been a project for Mike and I, always with the hope that we would eventually find some label interest and try to take it to the next level at the appropriate time. We are thrilled to have Knife Wounds coming out on Nine Mile Records. Obviously, we’d love to get as many people to hear it as possible.” Now that they’ve reached the next level, will Brothers Born become a more permanent endeavor? Stroetzel hopes so. “We have loosely been working on new material over the past several months,” he says. “It seems to be an ongoing creative outlet for both of us. I know we both really hope to have Brothers Born continue for many

No matter how far the project progresses, Stroetzel is thankful for the experience. “Brothers Born has really been a joy to be part of and a great creative departure for both of us,” he says. “Hopefully, folks will dig it as much as we do. Ultimately, it’s really about having fun and being creative. And trying to step outside the box a bit.”

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that has been so influential to us.”

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INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST/VOCALIST JOEL STROETZEL BY JOHN B. MOORE

As the longtime guitarist for Killswitch Engage—and Aftershock, before that—Joel Stroetzel has a reputation as a founding member of modern metalcore. So, it may surprise longtime fans that he is now one half of mellow indie duo Brothers Born, who utilize influences as diverse as Tom Waits and The Church. “Brothers Born came about when my good friend Michael Wyzik [of Red Door Exchange and Storm The Ohio] came to me

Though Stroetzel and Wyzik form the core of the band, playing most of their shows as an acoustic duo, the Brothers Born family is expanding. “We do have a rotating group of guys in Massachusetts who we jam with and have done some shows with,” Stroetzel admits. “We’re looking forward to doing some more full band shows as we move forward with promoting the record.” This record is Knife Wounds, out now on Nine Mile Records, and it evolved in be-

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The grizzly sound is echoed in the dark urgency of the lyrics. Barnum utilizes this outlet as an opportunity to question, “Why is so much bad stuff happening? Why aren’t people being held accountable? Why is everyone following blindly? Why do they need someone to follow?” Barnum sees the lyrics as demanding that “everyone who is conscious should be thinking.” years. Hopefully touring, and more records to come.” Touring? “We definitely plan on doing some touring,” Stroetzel confirms. “Probably as a duo to start out. As we move forward, we’d like to get the full band involved, but it’s tough to say exactly what the touring plans are at this point. We are looking forward to getting the record out there! […] The next step for us is really going to be spending some time getting our live show together and finding the best way for these songs to translate live, as a duo or as a full band. The songs are very much open for interpretation live, which I find pretty exciting! All along the way, we’ll be writing and recording. That’s kinda just what we do these days.”

B R O T H E R S to record a couple of demos of some songs he had written,” explains Stroetzel. “I immediately liked his songs, and we had a good chemistry recording together. I presented him a few of my tunes that I had on the back burner, as they obviously weren’t intended for Killswitch! He wrote lyrics and recorded some parts over my demos, and that led to us writing together. We had something that we were excited about that was nothing like the bands we had either been a part of.”

The influence of Death and Obituary can be heard in Homewrecker’s chaotic version of death metal mixed with fast hardcore. Barnum also lists “The Who’s section [of] ‘Rock And Roll Circus,’ G.I.S.M., Integrity when [vocalist] Dwid [Hellion] was on Acid, [and] Tragedy” as influences that inspire them to go out and destroy. Those influences may also explain the completely analog recording of Circle Of Death. Headed by producer Kevin Bernsten at Developing Nations, the album took on an atmospheric quality. “We experimented with some weird ambient noises to make the filler between the songs,” Barnum explains. “We set up amps and pedals, and he just hit record!”

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/BASSIST JARVIS LEATHERBY BY ERIC MAY

Leatherby recalls “seeing Nikki Sixx from Mötley Crüe sitting at a dark booth in the corner with some stripper-looking girl,” and thinking, “‘Fuck this Hollywood bullshit!’” He adds, “I grew up in this crap and never identified with this kind of fake attitude.” He took matters into his own hands and started a different kind of band.

Ventura, Calif.’s Night Demon started out purely as “a labor of love,” says vocalist and bassist Jarvis Leatherby. Sick of the glam metal scene, these three gentlemen came together to craft a classic NWOBHM style that sets them apart from all the Southern California excess.

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Along with guitarist Brent Woodward and current drummer Dustin Squires, Leatherby decided to call the unholy and un-glammy creation Night Demon. “To be completely honest with you, we had no idea that anyone else in the world would even care about three guys from California playing in a band that sounded like early [Iron] Maiden and Angel Witch,”

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laughs Leatherby. Not only did people care, Century Media took notice, releasing the band’s debut album, Curse Of The Damned, on Jan. 27. Not resting on any laurels, Night Demon secured an opening spot for English metal legends Diamond Head and Raven. “When we heard the tour was coming to the West Coast, we did everything we could to make sure we got on as many of those shows as possible,” says Leatherby. “I think agents, promoters, and club owners got so sick of the harassment from us that they put us on the gigs just to shut us up! Nine weeks and nearly 19,000 miles later, we have a great feeling of accomplishment having toured that extensively in the States with a band

Forgoing a prolonged studio time, their focus for Curse Of The Damned was to capture the live feel and sound of the band as closely as possible. “It ended up being the three of us in a tiny room, playing at full volume without the aid of headphones, click tracks, and overdubbing mistakes. When we felt we got the feel of a performance, we just let it stay as is,” explains Leatherby. “This kind of music was intended to be played live, so we feel that we need to sound good enough as a live band at its core to be able to put it on tape as is. The end result is something that we are very proud of, and I know our fans will appreciate it just as much, if not more.”

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INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST JORDAN BLACK BY MORGAN Y. EVANS

Toronto, Ontario’s Like Pacific are creating a new era of glory days for pop punk and rock. The band began picking up steam with their 2012 EP Homebound and its standout track “Retail Hell”- featuring vocalist Brendan Murphy from Counterparts. Now, teaming up with Pure Noise Records for their new self-titled EP, Like Pacific are bringing sing-along worthy melodies and riffs that are bigger than ever. This EP is both more polished and a bit

gruffer in places. How did you approach writing it? Writing this EP was… a process. I kept flipping back and forth about what the concept should be for certain songs’ vocals. The rest of the guys would hammer out their parts at practice, and then bring it to me when it was instrumentally finished. Sometimes it took hours or days to finish; other songs took months. We would write half of it, then put it on the backburner while we worked on something else. We tend to lose track pretty quickly when the creative juices are flowing. In a way, it’s a concept EP. [I’m] not gonna give exact details, but would rather let people relate to it in their own way. “Clarity” is one of my favorite songs we’ve ever written. It’s about my ex and how much of a complete asshole he is, and how we really only bonded over Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity and sex. What do you like about Pure Noise, and how’d you know they were a good fit? Pure Noise have a bunch of different bands on the roster. I started to pay attention

more when they grabbed Rotting Out. I was like, “Whoa. Diverse. That’s gonna be huge,” even though they were already doing fucking amazing. To be honest, I didn’t think a label like Pure Noise would pick us up. I didn’t think our band would get this far in general! We started doing this for fun, then things got more serious after every year. We just started rolling with it. We were thinking of shopping this release around, so naturally, I put as much effort into the lyrics as humanly possible. Pure Noise has been known for having bands that have a lot of heart, bands that give their everything in their records and live shows. We strive to do the same. We put a lot of heart and emotion in our music, and we try to translate it the best we can live. These songs mean a lot to us. Both [bassist] Chris [Thaung] and I are currently dealing with having sick parents. It’s tough. This was our way of expressing our emotions. All the depression, anger, and pent up emotion, it all just came out.

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“We’re all city rats and I personally never had a problem with the urban setting I’m evolving in. Although, I’ve got to admit that I’m growing weary of having unwanted interactions. The faceless masses in cities tend to lack even a primitive sense of manners.” While most Americans think of Paris as the city of love and croissants, Cowards guitarist Adrien L. weaves an

The album cover of Cowards’ new release, Rise To Infamy, is an evocative sketch featuring an image of a man’s hands wrapped around a woman’s throat from behind. The implied violence of the art is as hard as the noise rock, black metal, sludged-up chords of Cowards’ music. “We wanted something striking, but open to multiple interpretations. If you look closely, that woman doesn’t seem too worried. Those hands could as easily be a gentle caress of love as they could be moving for strangulation in a rough sex manner, but that still wouldn’t imply misogyny—unless, of course, she’s unaware and unwilling. That’s entirely up to you.” Rise To Infamy is a harsh, abrasive album. Screamed vocals buried in feedback and

G E N E R A T I O N

dissident riffs, and rushed rhythms push the listener to a frenzied, uncomfortable place. Francis Cate produced this album alongside Cowards, extracting the balanced tension that pervades the album. Adrien has worked with Cate many times. “He knows us, how we work. What we want, he understands. When we explain sounds to him in words that have no technical meaning, he knows how to get there. On the other hand, we know how he works and where his comfort zone is. It’s getting smoother and smoother every time we go back to him. The recording was extremely exhausting.” It must have been exhausting. This album feels like a live show, with sweat and spit excreted like breaths. The atonal breaths of “Beyond My Hands” and the punishing savagery of “Anything But The High Road”

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V I P E R S

Generation Of Vipers are a Tennessee trio that summons the ghosts of ‘90s noise rock, twisting it through crunching metal riffs and motifs. Josh Holt slings those riffs alongside bassist Travis Kammeyer. Drummer Billy Graves also plays with Holt in the folk group U.S. Christmas, and Holt has helped out on a few tours with A Storm Of Light, Graves’ sludge rock band on Southern Lord Records. These side projects and Generation Of Vipers’ 10year existence have created a synchronicity between the two musicians. “His drumming is so distinct to me,” Holt

Those infectious rhythms are a tribute to and subconscious channeling of what Holt calls “the usual suspects” of heavier ‘90s noise rock. “The Jesus Lizard, Unsane, Melvins.” Holt expands on the band’s influences, noting “a lot of industrial too: Ministry and Prong.” The listener may also note some tonality and techniques of a low-tuned Tool, a la Undertow, all the while delivering sinister metal riffs and formidable growls. This crossing of the streams elevates Generation Of Vipers to something unique in the landscape of metal today. Holt’s lyrics on their prior album, Howl And Filth, focused on “a lot of allusions to witchcraft and spirituality,” he explains. “This time, I dealt with numerology. Certain numbers are important to all of us [in the band].” Along with numerology,

underscore Cowards’ efforts. The lyrics, aided by the sinister atmosphere, address Cowards’ growing misanthropy. “They’re a symbol for pure, uninterested cynicism and irony, an echo to the laughter from which I refrain observing my fellow man. It’s the expression of what’s followed me up until now in my short lifespan. Between being ignored and hated, I’d rather choose the latter.” With such a vitriolic perspective, one might expect a more aggressive moniker. Adrien explains, “The first idea was to get a name that would not carry any of the traditional values that heavy music band names usually convey: greatness or darkness or obvious violence. My life, at the time, had me dwell on cowardice: mine and others’. The word imposed itself on me that my band should carry that name. Once again, it doesn’t necessarily mean we define ourselves as such, it just as easily be a shout out to you. Or them.”

Out Of Babies—then mastered it. He has our sound down to a tee.”

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/GUITARIST JOSH HOLT BY HUTCH

states, outlining their camaraderie. “With us, it starts with a drum beat. We come up with a weird rhythm and we just jam on it.” That organic process unveils a raw, visceral experience. The rhythms—as a foundation—lend the tribal savagery that drives the music on their newest release, Coffin Wisdom.

Do you think “Eviction” is naturally a potential problem for punk bands? Being evicted is probably the worst possible thing. You feel helpless. Without a home, what/who are you? I mean, I’ve heard of other bands writing similar songs, but you can never really relate until it actually happens to you. It’s an awful feeling; you feel so empty and worthless. That’s exactly how I felt, so I wrote about it. I’m not sure how many “punk” bands have gone through this, but we know tons of people—and [I] have experienced this myself as well—who have been faced with this, because they had made some bad decisions or just had some bad luck in their lives. That’s where this song stemmed from.

“Suffering” is a monster track. Do you

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST ADRIEN L. BY HUTCH

ominous vision of friction and resentment.

think the masses of humanity will always have to suffer? Everyone “suffers” in their own way. Could be personally, or could be through someone close to you. When you care for someone who is suffering, you tend to suffer with them. It’s heartbreaking, man.

Holt retreated from sorcery and supernatural and trudged through more introspective subjects. “There is some outside force, whether good or bad, in the world. Lyrics on this album talk about my experience trying to battle that force. I have been seeing a therapist, and quit drinking. A lot of my views come from figuring out who I am late in life and becoming sober.” This lends to a visceral and dark composition of music. Holt quickly dismisses his approach, though. “It’s not a unique situation,” he assures. “It’s a common story, especially among musicians.” Still, their music resonates with an emotionally caustic tone. Their personal experiences were channeled through the mixers’ knobs.

The teamwork between these vicious wielders of instruments has created a solid collection of tracks. Holt reflects upon the songs proudly: “This is the first time we recorded on our own and became happy with it. We expected it to sound like a wellrecorded demo, and that is where Andrew comes in. He polished it and brought it to life.” Hopefully their extra effort and honesty will reverberate through the metal scene and beckon the attention they deserve.

Generation Of Vipers are D.I.Y. to the core, distributing their previous releases through their own imprint, Red Witch Recordings. Coffin Wisdom will be available through Translation Loss Records, but the band still recorded the album themselves. “We have a small studio here in Tennessee,” Holt explains. “Travis recorded, we engineered. Andrew Snyder—who has worked with Cave In, Unsane, and Made

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A N G E L U S

A P A T R I D A

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/GUITARIST GUILLERMO IZQUIERDO BY NICHOLAS SENIOR

Angelus Apatrida embodies thrash metal to a tee. By tackling the world’s issues over fast riffs and wild guitar solos, the Spanish band is out to save the world, all while headbanging, of course. Their fifth release, Jan. 19’s Hidden Evolution, showcases the next step in the, well, evolution for a band that already knew what they were doing. Prepare your necks and get your metal horns up, because Angelus Apatrida is here to thrash like it’s 1989.

What was your writing and recording process for Hidden Evolution? We got huge experience all over these years, so, since writing these new songs was a hard and long process, we just want to write the best songs we can, knowing that our previous albums—The Call and Clockwork—were pretty good and hard to beat. We just let our creativity and inspiration flow, and that’s the result: hopefully, the best we can do, so far! We spent more than a month in Moita, Portugal, with the same creative team from our previous albums. It’s so easy and cozy to work with them. They are very close friends to us, and everything went so cool! Good weather, cold beer, BBQs, video games, and, of course, some heavy metal! [Laughs]. What do you want listeners to take away from Hidden Evolution? What’s your mission statement?

We are a metal band; that’s the main statement. I write a lot about social issues, and [our] lyrics are full of messages. We want to share it with everybody. So far, I think Hidden Evolution, of course, is our very best album, and it’s perfect for new listeners to start knowing the band and its story! Are there any lyrical themes or stories you’re telling on this record? I just need to turn on the TV or read the newspapers, and I got something to talk about in a song. There are many songs talking about that idea of conspiracies and strange things happening in this world, but mostly I write about social issues, personal experiences in life, and in general, things that happen and should worry every normal, walking person.

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST ANDREW ELCHINGER BY ANTHONY CHANG

The band is coming off a huge fall season, running three consecutive tours while dropping new EP, All In My Head, on Pure Noise Records all in the last three months.

Canada’s punk and pop punk talents have been making bigger waves in the world circuit recently, taking their high energy wares both to the States and out of North America with significant success. One such Canadian export is Ontario’s Seaway, a pop punk quintet hailing from a suburb of Toronto known as Oakville.

“It’s tough to tour for two months straight, but it’s what we want to do, and to do it with the bands we’ve been out with, there’s no way we could ever complain,” says guitarist Andrew Eichinger. “We’ve run into our fair share of troubles, like van break-ins and trailer damages, but it’s all worth it.” The band shows no signs of slowing down in 2015, already gearing up to take on the U.K. with Neck Deep in January. This dedication to their craft is reflected in the new material as well. Eichinger says, “For All In My Head, we went up to my family cottage with our producer

Anton Delost and spent a week putting together the songs and doing preproduction. By the time we went into the studio, we knew exactly what we were doing.” The result is a tighter, more confident offering that picks up where 2013 fulllength Hoser left off, and fans have noticed. “We usually play two or three of the songs live and people are always into it, which you just love to see,” says Eichinger, noting that the recent tours with Bayside, Four Year Strong, and Transit have helped Seaway find themselves. “All of those guys were so great to us, and it was very beneficial to spend time with bands who have really succeeded in doing what they do. I feel like we’ve grown immensely both as a band and individually over the last couple months with those dudes. Whether it be musical, intellectual, or practical growth,

P O W E R N A P INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST HUGO MUDIE BY JOHN B. MOORE

cord them and maybe play five to six shows a year.” Powernap may be a side project, but Mudie is still having a blast. “We are super busy with Miracles, so it was just to have fun and hang out. The answer has been so good so far, that we might end up playing a little more.” What do you do when your longtime bandmate goes on vacation? If you’re Montreal, Quebec, vocalist Hugo Mudie, you start a new musical side project. So began Powernap. “We did this band while my partner in songwriting Fred Jacques [of Sainte Catherines, Yesterday’s Ring, and Miracles] was on vacation somewhere warm,” he explains. “So, me and [guitarist] Dan [Cesare] started writing songs, and asked some of our friends to play them. We wanted to re-

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How does Jacques feel about all this? It could be uncomfortable to tell your bandmate you started a new project without him. “No. Not at all,” Mudie dismisses the question. “Fred is very supportive of whatever I do. We are best friends, and we just want the other one to be happy doing whatever he does.” In 2014, the band wrote and recorded a six song EP called Oreosmith, which took “a couple months to write, and a couple days to record,” according to

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Are you planning to tour the U.S.? How do American shows compare to Euro or Aussie tours? This is something we are working very hard to make it happen! [It] would be like a dream come true; it’s something that we always wanted to do! We definitely want to compare Europe and Asia with America so, American promoters, help us out!

How does the fantastic sci-fi motif of the cover fit in with the lyrics?

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PHOTO: TAYLOR RAMBO

It’s not about sci-fi in the whole concept; it’s totally enchained to the title, Hidden Evolution. Everything’s around the concept of how large corporations, governments, banks, and other First World leaders hide and secretly push back discoveries, technical developments, and some other progress that would make a better and “free” evolution for the human race, always making business from people suffering, controlling the power, and keeping the people on a leash.

Mudie. “[Marc-Andre] Beaudet [formerly of Sainte Catherines] came and recorded the basic tracks in my basement,” he says. “Then we recorded some overdubs, and I did the vocals in an afternoon, [while] wearing jogging pants.” Now, the EP has found a home in the U.S. on Asian Man Records, but will Powernap’s neighbors to the south get a chance to see them live? “We would love to tour the U.S. a little,” says Mudie. “Especially California. But, we are at a point in our lives where it needs to make sense and be a super positive experience. No more suffering.” Is may be a little early to talk about future releases, but Mudie admits, “We are already writing new songs, so I guess it’s possible. I’d like to hear more for sure. I think Dan is a super good and original music maker. I’m curious to see

we’ve all definitely matured as people.” That growth comes at a perfect time, as All In My Head represents the band’s first release with the trendsetting Pure Noise label. “It’s great releasing music through a label that has so many devout fans who will like your band just because you’re on the label,” Eichinger says. “That seems wild to me, but it speaks to what a quality label Pure Noise is, and we’re very happy to be a part of that.” It’s all systems go for Seaway moving into the next year and touring cycle. “[2015] is shaping up to be our busiest year yet,” Eichinger notes. “We’re starting with the Neck Deep tour, then we come back to North America and tour with Bayside. After that, we head into the studio to record our sophomore full-length, and then we just hit the road forever. Love to see it.”

where he’ll go next.” First thing’s first: “We will release this [EP]. Then play some shows in February for the release. I know we are doing Pouzza Fest and maybe some other summer shows.” Regardless of what the future of Powernap holds, Mudie will be a busy man. His upcoming projects include “two new Miracles records. Also working on Pouzza Fest. Me and Fred got another secret project with some dudes from the U.K. that should come out in 2015. I’m also doing a reggae record with the dudes from The Beatdown that should come out in 2015. Also, another side project with some friends in famous metal bands; some kind of stoner, Mastodon, punk thing. Very cool stuff.” Most importantly, Mudie would like to “paint more, eat better, and stress less.”

PHOTO: BETHAN MILLER

M O O S E How do you feel about the reception of your debut album, I’ll Keep You In Mind, From Time To Time? It’s been quite overwhelming to be honest. The reception has been beyond anything we ever expected, and we’re very thankful for that.

Many feel that British bands do everything just a little better. Apparently, that also goes for the emo revival, as Moose Blood is the best Brand New-style band since, well, Brand New. With energetic tracks, earnest but not cheesy lyrics, and a firm grip on songwriting, Moose Blood is everything you could want from a modern alternative/ punk band.

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INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST MARK OSBOURNE BY NICHOLAS SENIOR

What was the writing and recording process like for this record? Well, some of the songs that ended up on the record, like “Gum,” were written very early on. We wrote the record over the course of about a year, and once we had a bunch of songs, we demoed them with our good mate Rich. We had an incredible opportunity to record the album in L.A. with Beau Burchell [of Saosin], thanks to our label, [No Sleep Records]. We put a bit of pressure on ourselves to get the songs totally finished before going to demo the album, so we were fully ready to record once [we were] out in the States. That made it some-

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what stressful, but it was definitely worth it. What was your opinion of your time in the States? It was mind-blowing. We couldn’t believe we were actually out there making a record, and it was like a dream come true. I was literally grieving for about three days after leaving the studio to come home! The guys at No Sleep and our manager looked after us so well; we couldn’t have been more happy or more grateful at that time. What do you think sets you apart from the rest of the emo or punk scenes? I think there are a lot of bands around jumping on the emo bandwagon, and good for them, as long as they’re doing it well. I feel like we’re doing something a little differently. What are the lyrical themes of the record? Are there any tracks that are espe-

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INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST KRISTINA ESFANDIERI BY LORD RANDALL

California’s Bay Area has long been a bastion of creativity… but try living there, says King Woman’s Kristina Esfandieri. Esfandieri talks of the beginnings of the project, livin’ in ‘The City’, the current doom-shrouded EP Doubt, and the difference between spirituality and religion. Being in the Bay Area, there’s of course

a wealth of talent to draw from. What made you decide to take advantage of it by morphing King Woman into a full band? A wealth of talent? You mean a wealth of garage rock? My experience (until very recently) has been every man for himself. All of the best venues have been shut down. My favorite venue is very hush hush, we can’t give out the address. It’s so expensive here and people are busting their asses just trying to get by. When I first started doing this I couldn’t find a musical community that I belonged with. It made me so sad. I never sat down and decided to put a band together. I was having one of my best friends play guitar live because my hands would get too sweaty and shaky to hold the guitar. After that my friends Sky and Joey asked

to jam with us. The rest just happened. Using non-musical terms, what is the sound of Doubt to you? I’ve lived under religious oppression well into my twenties without knowing how much it was damaging me. I was born into it and didn’t have a choice. I’m still deprogramming from the brainwash[ing], and I have really bad days, very often. At the time, I thought there was something wrong with me because I wouldn’t dare question what they were doing. I didn’t understand where my confusion and anger were coming from. Every listener feels different emotions, I only know how I felt while writing Doubt. I felt overwhelmed by so many emotions, not just one.

S U M A C

What happens when you put together three of modern heavy music’s most respected talents? Well, you get SUMAC, the new project featuring guitarist and vocalist Aaron Turner of ex-ISIS, Old Man Gloom, and Mamiffer; drummer Nick Yacyshyn of Baptists; and bassist Brian Cook of Russian Circles, Botch, and These Arms Are Snakes. This underground music lover’s dream team was formed simply out

It didn’t take long before he came to a realization. “I need to make heavy music,” Turner says. “In some ways, I feel I was made for that, so it was just a matter of time before choosing to pursue it again.” He just needed the right team. “Another factor was finding the right people to play with,” he continues. “Once I’d started writing for what I knew would be a new band, I wanted to find exactly the right people to help me make the sounds I was hearing in my head. It wasn’t until seeing Nick play with Baptists, and making contact with him a year or so later, that I started to actively put things into motion.” In fact, Turner can’t stop singing the praises of Baptists’ drummer. He knew he had the right person to be the lynchpin in his new project. “Seeing him with Baptists was an eye opener,” says

If you could resurrect one emo band, whom would you choose? If I could resurrect one band, it’d be Nirvana, absolutely. They’re not really emo, though. I guess I’m the most excited to hear Mineral again. I hear you are all lovers of coffee. Do you have a favorite style or brand, and does all that caffeine contribute to the extra energy in your sound? I love a lot of different coffees, and trying as many new ones that I can. My brothers are pretty big on coffee, too, and have the sweetest coffee machines. [Laughs] I’m not sure it helps with our sound’s energy, but it probably seeps through! ligious instruction, of spiritual things? I think there are helpful and beautiful books of The Bible. It’s private and not something to be forced on others. When I first woke up to what was happening to me I wouldn’t go near a Bible because I was so hurt and confused by everything I was feeling. Spirituality is intuitive and full of life. Religion is dogmatic, cold, dead, [and] loveless. Did Doubt turn out as planned? Do you see the EP as a complete work, or as a beginning? The recordings didn’t come out exactly the way we wanted. I was very sick during the recording process and we were on a time crunch. Now we have our sound on lock and we’re super excited for what’s to come. Doubt is the beginning of something beautiful. And for that, I love it.

Do you feel like any good can come of re-

plenty more, once the record comes out.

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/GUITARIST AARON TURNER BY THOMAS PIZZOLA

of Turner’s desire to play heavy music again. After the end of ISIS, he needed time to focus on more experimental music, and wasn’t able to write riff-orientated music that made him happy. He needed some time to decompress and let ideas percolate.

cially meaningful? The lyrics to the songs are literally about my and [vocalist] Eddy Brewerton’s lives, our relationships, and the things we’ve been through. All of the tracks are really meaningful, as the lyrics all come from our real life experiences. “Chin Up” is about my dad passing away, and how I couldn’t deal with it.

Turner. “I’d been casually looking for drummers in the Seattle area, and just didn’t see anyone playing who projected the feeling and energy I was looking for. Nick’s style, ideas, and ferocity make for the ideal drummer, as well as his willingness to experiment. I knew I had some good parts written, and Nick’s drumming helped turned those ideas into music, giving it definition, character, and energy. This is meant to be visceral, living music—it was absolutely crucial that it be made with someone who could deliver power, and just as importantly, ingenuity. Nick has both in abundance.” Once the core was established, Turner and Yacyshyn fine-tuned the music Turner had written and brought in Cook to add his stamp on the proceedings. Through these sessions, the band’s killer debut The Deal took shape, and it comes out Feb. 17 on Profound Lore. Turner stresses that SUMAC is not just a one and done project, and they plan to commit as much time as possible to the band. They’ve already played their first few shows and have plans to do

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Turner understands the expectations people have, but he is confident that once they hear the new record, they will be blown away. Still, praise was not the reason for forming the band. “The goal is to make good music with good people, to have fun while doing it, and to dig deep as a creative collective,” he says. “The fact that we’ve all made music in other successful bands certainly doesn’t hurt, but was not the impetus for us coming together.” This doesn’t mean he’s ashamed of their success. “I’m fine with our other bands being mentioned in connection to what we’re doing, especially if it will help turn ears towards what [SUMAC is] doing,” Turner assures. “I also feel that our music is very strong in its own right and is good enough to stand on its own, independent of our other accomplishments. Hopefully, after hearing the music, people will just sink into the experience and be consumed by it, rather than focusing on who made it. Total immersion is the goal, and whatever gets people to the threshold is great as far as we’re concerned.”

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D A I S Y H E A D INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/GUITARIST MICHAEL ROE BY NICHOLAS SENIOR

As mighty punk band The Offspring once told us, “You’ve got to keep ‘em separated,” and that absolutely pertains to the huge crop of emo revival bands. Nashville-based band Daisyhead is not just worth your time, their upcoming debut LP for No Sleep Records, The Smallest Light, is downright buzz-worthy.

project. We were just going with the flow and playing some local shows. Then, somehow, our music falls into the hands of No Sleep Records, which is my favorite label of all time. We haven’t been a band for very long, and we have had opportunities that I never thought I would have, so we have been very lucky so far.”

Musically, the band sounds like they’ve been together for years. So, what separates Daisyhead from the rest of the pack? “I think what sets us apart is our luck, honestly,” vocalist and guitarist Michael Roe states. “Daisyhead was initially just a side

Lyrically, the band is both raw and mature, which makes sense given how new the band is. “This was my first time ever writing lyrics for a full-length record,” admits Roe. “So I think that’s what I was more worried about than anything while going

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INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST TYLER KNOERSMAN BY MORGAN Y. EVANS

feel that the band really wants everything to be all right. From the Armor For Sleepmeets-metalcore hooks in youth friendly track “I’ve Got Secrets,” to the punch-tothe-skull riff rattle of “School Of Bleeders,” this is fun stuff. The screams are genuine, the lyrics evocative—if bleak—and even the clean vocals don’t feel wanky.

“Life doesn’t fight fair, so why should I?” screams Tyler Konersman on Tear Out The Heart’s “Feel Real,” the first real song on their new Victory Records release Dead, Everywhere. As angry as that sounds, after listening to the record, you can’t help but

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“Pretending we’re not liars, cowards, thieves/ Always in search of the all mighty villain.” The Dead, Everywhere intro and the cassette tape manifesto from the “Feel Real” video are brilliant. Do we always hunt for enemies and fail to take accountability? I feel like it’s our natural first instinct to point fingers and blame someone else for our actions. “Growing up,” to me, is be-

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coming the person who stands for what they believe in, backs what they say, and takes the blame when necessary. The opening track is a statement to find your own individuality, and become the best version of yourself as possible. The album features a mix of styles— “Curse You” has a street punk scream over metalcore and a melodeath solo part, for example—and the songs have loads of character… We all come from relatively different backgrounds, both musically and culturally. I personally grew up listening to a lot of punk rock and grunge. That’s what makes our band unique in my eyes, and hopefully it’s what draws people to us.

into the writing and recording process. I used to write songs whenever I was in some sort of depression as a way to cope, but I was in a good place in my life when we wrote this record.” When it comes to favorite songs, Roe doesn’t hesitate to choose right away. “A song that means a lot to me is ‘East Bend,’” he says. “I wrote it about my mom and everything we went through to get to the strong friendship we have now.” The Smallest Light is really the first taste listeners will get of the four-piece, but judging by the record, it won’t be the last. Daisyhead plan to spend the year touring, so you’ll have your chance to see what they’re all about soon. Do you think moshing has gotten ridiculously macho? It’s always been violent in some circles, but after Lamb Of God singer Randy Blythe’s trial, it seems a bit out of hand. If you’re going to jump around, crowd surf, or even mosh, then you have to respect that other people around you might not have the same agenda. It’s that simple. The reality is there’s just as many douchebags in the pit as there are at a mall or something. Everyone just needs to mind their own personal space and, above all, have fun. Was recording the gang back-up vocals fun? They’re always a good time, mainly because they’re pretty much the last thing you do on a record before its finished. Nothing like celebrating the “home stretch” by yelling your head off with your friends.

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SONGS FROM FAT MIKEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S NEW MUSICAL PERFORMED BY NOFX and MEMBERS OF: No Use for a Name, Alkaline Trio, Mad Caddies, Frank Turner, The Living End, Old Man Markley, Dropkick Murphys, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Dance Hall Crashers, Bad Cop/Bad Cop, The Aggrolites, Limp, The Real McKenzies, Mariachi El Bronx, R.K.L. and Hedwig & the Angry Inch.

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eiress might be heir to the great post-metal throne formerly belonging to the late Isis—pun intended—however, this Seattle five piece does what most other post bands have forgotten how to do: play around with established sounds and styles. Sure, there are moments that are familiar on their new release, Of Great Sorrow, but it is a marked progression of Heiress’s post-metal evolution. Was it your goal to embrace the doom elements of your sound on this record? Everyone in Heiress loves slow music, and we have definitely become more comfortable with open space as we get older. I think after we put out Early Frost, we realized we could dig deeper into slow grooves on our next LP. Early Frost was very focused on loud/quiet dynamics, and while we haven’t abandoned that approach, I do think Of Great Sorrow lets individual songs breath more before pulling the rug out from [under] listeners. What was it like recording with Tad Doyle? I can never say enough good things about Tad and his recording style. We spent a long time on this record with Tad, which let us get the sounds we wanted and also gave us the freedom to pick the most cohesive 10

ALCOA

What influenced the music on this album? Was it fun playing around with typical hardcore and metal styles? Our musical influences are all over the place, which is reflected in the various directions we take individual songs. And while we’ve never tried to reinvent the wheel, we do let ourselves use all four wheels instead of just one. We’ve always written with the idea of following ideas wherever they go, rather than staying within the confines of any particular genre. Also, hardcore has never had the same kind of negative connotations for us that it seems to have for a lot of other people. Some of the most innovative and heavy albums I’ve ever heard can be described as “weird hardcore,” which is a label that suits us just as well as post-metal, sludge, or anything else. You seem to play around more with your shorter songs. “Old Haunts” is a striking segue, while “Dehumaned” is a full-throttle banger. How do you tackle songwriting? I agree completely. I sometimes use the term

ALL PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTIAN NAPOLITANO

INTERVIEW WITH SINGER-SONGWRITER DEREK ARCHAMBAULT BY MIRIAM USMANI

erek Archambault, frontman of Defeater, has been creating music on his own for as long as he can remember. His solo side project, Alcoa, is set to release a new, full-length album in February. What made you start this side project in the first place? It started, I don’t know, 12 years ago now, 11 years ago. I did it while I was on the road with one of my old bands. We were on an 80- day tour and I was getting a little restless and started writing songs. I never really did anything with them. When we really started utilizing my songwriting with Defeater, I decided that I was going to pursue it a little more, because people seemed to really like it. I started taking it seriously around 2011. Alcoa is more acoustic, and Defeater is more of a “hardcore” band… What made you want to have two very different

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HEIRESS

songs to put together. We kicked a song off the record right away, replacing it with one written in the studio, which was later replaced with a third song written and tracked months after the primary drum takes had been recorded.

projects? Well, I grew up immersed in punk and hardcore, obviously. But I’ve also been listening to, you know, many other genres of music my whole life. Some of my favorite songwriters are Bruce Springsteen, Todd Rundgren, and Oasis. I’ve always wanted to be in a good rock band at some point in my life. But, I’ve been writing songs like that since I was a kid. I’ve always been trying to write catchy, jangly pop songs. I guess the acoustic stuff on Empty Days And Sleepless Nights [by Defeater] isn’t too wildly different than some of the other songs I wrote for Alcoa when it was in its early stages. Some of the songs on Empty Days… were just older Alcoa songs reworked. Do you prefer playing hardcore shows or acoustic ones? Are there any big differences between the two? I’d say it’s a fair, even split. […] Being involved in [punk and hardcore] to the point where my band does well enough

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I N T E R V I E W W I T H G U I TA R I S T W E S R E E D B Y N I C H O L A S S E N I O R

“audience punishing” when talking about how we throw curveballs at the listener, such as withholding resolutions, abrupt tonal shifts, and underplaying our crescendos. We want to hold your interest, even if that means subverting your expectations. But we don’t do that as much with longer songs, since they’re more of an investment of your time and energy. We can then approach our shorter material with the freedom to try different sounds and structures, using them as a palate cleanser or punctuation mark in our set. What’s the significance of the album cover? You worked with Demian Johnston again… Demian Johnston is an amazing artist and

to be able to support itself, being able to go out on tour all the time, and kids coming out to see us and support us… It’s a really flattering thing. Being able to play those songs live, it’s a release that I don’t necessarily get from just playing an acoustic guitar. It’s much more cathartic than just me and an acoustic. But the songs I write for Alcoa are a different kind of release. There’re different feelings and sentiments with each. And for differences at the shows, no one is fucking stagediving to Alcoa. [Laughs]. You had major hip surgery recently, and your fans donated funds to help you out. How are you feeling? How did that campaign go? Fantastic. Doing well, literally 100 percent better. With the campaign, it was obviously an amazing, incredible thing that people cared enough to donate any money to me. When I think about it, and when I talk to people outside of my immediate family and friends who did donate, it’s an incredibly humbling thing. I didn’t want it to look like I was trying to use my band’s popularity to get the money. […] I just wanted to be back out on the road.

wonderful guy. He did the fantastic cover art for our Naysayer EP, and I was hankering to get him back to have a go at one of our recurring visual concepts: mixing animal and human characteristics in an unsettling way. Just as we try to mix melody and dissonance, triumph with sadness, quieter passages with loud parts, etc. Overall, the art is a take on duality: a man surrounded by light, with a centipede coming out of his mouth on the front; a woman surrounded by centipede legs, with light coming out her mouth on the back. It seems that the most compelling aspect of mutually exclusive binaries like these is that we’ve all felt like an outsider: the monstrous Other to someone else’s Self.

from not being able to walk, or sit down. […] I was a miserable son of a bitch for a year while touring. I think that’s the only time I’ve ever been ready and willing to just say, “I gotta go home.” I never did. I muscled through a few tours. […] I know I need to do everything in my power to keep it a positive thing. How do you plan to balance both of your projects—Defeater and Alcoa—in 2015? Defeater is coming back to touring. We’ve announced a few things here and there. We’ve posted that we’re in the middle of writing the fourth LP as well. We’ve needed to wait for my leg to heal as much as possible, then we’re going to buckle down with the writing and recording for a while. Then, if all goes according to plan, we’re going to tour. After that, it’s all up in the air.

Did you ever just get tired of touring? Like, “Wow, I really wish I did not have to do this anymore”? [Laughs] Well, the only time I ever thought that was while I was in pain. There were a bunch of times in 2013 where I just wanted to hang it up and go home. It all stemmed

B L A C K S TA R R I D E R S

I N T E RV I E W W I T H V O C A L I S T R I C K Y WA RW I C K B Y M O R G A N Y. E VA N S

hose who want the hard rock legacy of Phil Lynott upheld can’t go wrong with the earnest, realer than steel vocals of Ricky Warwick from new Thin Lizzy incarnation Black Star Riders. The band’s second record The Killer Instinct will drop Feb. 23, and their U.K. and Eire Tour begins in March. You will believe!

lyrics that I hope everyone can relate to, regardless of class, creed, or religion. That being said, we all come from working class backgrounds in BSR, and that brings with it a hard work ethic and sense of realism. I write about what I know and what has affected my life. Everyone will take a different meaning from a song and that’s okay, as long as they take something from it.

How does it feel to start establishing Black Star Riders’ own legacy? The classic Thin Lizzy sound is there, but your songs shine on their own… It feels really good. We have now been together as BSR for two years, and all the touring we have done has made us tighter and better as a band. We write all the time; it’s an ongoing thing with us. We will always retain that Thin Lizzy spirit, and that’s important to us. Scott Gorham is a huge part of the Thin Lizzy sound in the way that he plays guitar, so of course, that’s going to be a big part of BSR.

Noel Gallagher recently said that it’s a shame Kasabian and Arctic Monkeys haven’t inspired more English, working class bands to follow in their footsteps, and that shows like “X Factor” have made music more middle class and watered down. Do you agree? Yes, I do. “X Factor” is Satan! Do not look any further! It offers kids a quick, instant fix of a brief burst of stardom. There is no substance to it; it’s a soulless, banal form of musical treachery, stripping the contestants of their integrity before they have even realized it. I really wish it would inspire more kids to pick up an instrument, use their voice to take control of their own destiny, and replace the fame factor with a desire to create and write music that will give them a career that will last their whole lives.

How has the chemistry between guitarists Scott and Damon Johnson grown? The whole band sounds focused. The chemistry between Scott and Damon has always been there, right from day one. It’s a natural chemistry and, just like it should, it has grown and gotten even more spectacular as time progresses. The whole band is very focused and driven, that’s the key thing right there. We are a band, and all of us believe very strongly in what we do and what BSR stands for. “Soldierstown” has the blue-collar storytelling quality of Thin Lizzy’s “Cowboy Song.” Do you think the working class needs good, direct material that speaks to them? I would never write a song solely aimed at one particular class of society. I try to write

What earns a song a spot on Black Star Riders’ setlist? A great melody, great lyrics, a great guitar riff, and a true sense of dynamics that makes you feel. Was it a relief to receive support from longtime Thin Lizzy fans, as well as new fans? It’s been unbelievable the support we have had. They stuck with us throughout the name change and are the reason that we are continuing today. They voted with their feet!

L O R D DY I N G

I N T E R V I E W W I T H G U I TA R I S T / V O C A L I S T E R I K O L S O N B Y H U T C H

Portland, Ore.’s Lord Dying recently finished a West Coast tour with San Francisco doom slingers, Castle. Guitarist and vocalist Erik Olson notes the crowds doubling in size since touring for their first album, Summoning The Faithless. This tour saw them hit a few new cities and gather some South of the Border metal heads, dipping into Mexico. Olson transmits an engrossing excitement. Part of this energy is due to the anticipation of their new Relapse Records release, Poisoned Altars. “The new album was written intentionally as an album,” Olson explains. “That is, opposed to our first album, which was comprised of songs written over four years. These were written faster, helping our album be more cohesive.” Not that it is a concept album, but the proximity spawns a common thread between the angry songs. Olson says the band never tries to string the songs together through ideas or concepts, but these tracks were all written “to be meaner and faster songs that work well together.” As far as sound, Lord Dying roll out thunderous riffs that spew ardent enmity and a rumbling anxiety. Olson cites “no specific influences. But there are certain bands we all love: [Black] Sabbath, Slayer. We all like different subgenres, but we all love a powerful riff. [When writing], if we like the riff, we go with it, regardless if it is more thrash or death or whatever.” A similarity to High on Fire is embedded in the tension of the growl, the rolling, epic songwriting around a frenetic riff, and the production.

asked what we would like, and we replied that we loved the sound of the Toxic records.” Olson has nothing but accolades for how Grind handled the production. The sound is a big one, pushing bold riffs through strained speakers. Another factor contributing to Olson’s excitement is his sobriety. While Summoning… certainly spoke of evil and demons, Poisoned Altars is “a lot more personal, [about] battling addictions and overcoming inner demons.” But fans should not tremble. There is still a strong theme of “anti-religion, as all four of us come from that.” Olson has been honing his lyrics to “deal with alcohol and being sober.” Why, at 32, has this become a focus? Olson plainly replies, “[I’m] just trying to succeed in life. I want to face these factors head on, without fearing the outcome.” It seems touring must test his resolve. “[Being] on the road is difficult, but, personally, it is getting easier,” he says. “These recent tours have been easier.” Olson can’t say it was one specific event that pushed him towards abstaining, simply “partying too much for 16 years. I want my life back. I’m too young to feel like shit all the time.” This West Coast tour reinforced his decision as an invigorating one. “It’s great,” he attests. “I love not being hung over everyday. Now I am ending a tour and remembering everything. This is truly eye opening.” That attitude is crucial for moving forward professionally, as Lord Dying have 250 shows planned for 2015.

The production focuses on the delivery, and is never clean, crisp, or polished. Band friend and fan, Joel Grind of Toxic Holocaust, accomplished these duties. “We have been friends. He has been going to our shows as a fan of the first record,” Olson says of Grind. “We played him demos of this record. He was excited. Six months later, May 2014, we went into the studio. He

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n 2004, long running poppunk band Madcap petered to a standstill. With nothing else to do, frontman Johnny Mastantuono moved out to his dead grandma’s house, located in the desert of Palm Springs. “There was so much inner turmoil in Madcap, and no one was into it anymore,” Mastantuono—now going by Johnny Madcap—says. “We weren’t having that much fun and that’s what it was all about. So then, I kind of disappeared for four or five years.” Out at his grandma’s desert cottage— where he assumed the mortgage (only 600 dollars a month!)—Madcap sank into a life of leisure… too much leisure. He says, “It was nice to not be busy for a couple of years and just write. In the desert, you just do nothing. You jerk off a lot, I guess.” “But, I entered a sort of self-destructive period,” he continues. “I was partying all the time. I was boozing it up, doing stuff, out every night until the morning. It wears on you. But, I’m not going to be one of those guys who says, ‘Don’t do it!’ If it happens, it happens.” While he was out in that expansive nothingness, Mr. Madcap began to work on songs with the guitar he brought

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along. A continuation of the end of Madcap the band, the new songs bore a stronger new wave influence, borrowing Elvis Costello’s earnest vocals, Blondie’s clean, snappy guitar lines, and a bit of Richard Hell’s nihilism. “I have an older brother and, when we were little, we had rooms next to each other,” he explains. “He didn’t want to hang out with me. But, he would close his bedroom door and put on music. I would put my ear on the wall to listen, and then, sneak in the bedroom when he wasn’t around. That’s where I first really got into music: The Ramones, Billy Idol, OMD.” After putting together 10 songs, Johnny Madcap moved back to the city and put together The Distractions, including Justin Chester on bass, Jan Benesch on drums, and Patrick Jam on guitar. Indebted to those early CBGB years, the band blends sparkling power-pop with some punk rock grime. Their new single “Bad Decisions” underscores this vibe. The song’s video features Madcap bound and gagged. As he wrestles with his binds, he smokes, eats fatty food, drops acid, does some blow, and even sets off a hand grenade. Meanwhile, the band belts out the poppy refrain, “Let’s make

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JOHNNY MADCAP & THE DISTRACTIONS PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALAN SNODGRASS

INTERVIEW WITH JOHNNY “MADCAP” MASTANTUONO BY JOHN GENTILE

some bad decisions!” Despite the poor choices being made, the band doesn’t seem to regret the deviant behavior— they seem to relish it. “Everything that has happened until now just seems like it was meant to happen,” Madcap explains. “If I hadn’t moved out to the desert and gone through a destructive period, I wouldn’t have had these songs or this band.” In fact, the band has just finished recording their new album, Bring It Back. Cut over the course of three days, the band went up to Laurel Canyon—famed recording site of Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, and… Charles Manson—and worked with producer Tim Hutton, son of Three Dog Night’s

Danny Hutton and contributor to Jimmy Cliff, Alicia Keys, and Bat For Lashes records. “The opening track is called ‘American Weekend,’” Madcap says. “I think rock ‘n’ roll is dying. I don’t think it will ever go away, and I hope it comes back. Kids on the beach, rock ‘n’ roll, and partying. That’s what I like. I don’t even mind if it’s to excess. I mean, I’m kind of a selfdestructive person as it is. I like to have a good time. The world is a hard place. People die every day. We’re living every day like it’s our last. A lot of people say they do that, but they don’t. We do.”

THE SIDEKICKS

ALL PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAUREN OBADIAH

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST STEVE CIOLEK BY JOHN ESQUIVEL

he history of The Sidekicks starts off like most young punk bands, but all comparisons end there. The Ohio-based band began while they were still learning to play their instruments. “It started with us just hanging out in our friend’s basement, playing Rancid covers,” says singer and songwriter Steve Ciolek. Following those early days, the band shifted toward songwriting and gained a strong desire to be a part of a thriving punk community. Even when Ciolek relocated to Columbus for school, he saw the potential in becoming a part of the music scene that was being shaped in the college town. He experienced the excitement of playing various house shows, which were more enjoyable than gigs at bars. Soon after, the rest of the band followed him. They’ve remained busy ever since, releasing a handful of EPs and albums, and touring

ylosis was already a great band, so it’s plainly unfair how fantastic Dormant Heart is. Writing about the world’s ills has clearly lit a creative fire under the Brits’ butts, as this is everything you loved about Sylosis turned up to 11. Prepare for the world takeover, accordingly. What is the concept behind Dormant Heart? The title refers to people going through life on autopilot and not really thinking for themselves, or not taking a step back and analyzing the world around them. We can all get wrapped up in our own little worlds, and I’m no different from anyone else in that respect. People are either scared of change or like being ignorant to serious issues, I think. What do you see as the central issues facing the world? Are there any solutions to turn it around? There is so much tradition within all types of cultures, and people hate to break away from that or question it. “Why change now? We’ve been doing it this way for thousands of years,” either in politics or society. I guess I’m being pretty vague, but I don’t like the idea of forcing my opinions on other people. One issue that really interests me personally

with the likes of Against Me!, Say Anything, and Hop Along. Now, The Sidekicks are kickstarting the New Year with their latest record, Runners In The Nerved World, released by Epitaph Records. Ciolek acknowledges that this new deal with Epitaph Records allowed the band to explore new territory. This includes inviting Phil Ek to produce the record. Ek has kept busy by producing bands like Fleet Foxes and Band Of Horses, but Ciolek says Ek’s earlier work with Built To Spill, Modest Mouse, and bands on K Records is what caught his eye. With a new producer onboard, the band created a different dynamic in the studio. “Working with him was cool because he was someone who was not afraid to say if something wasn’t going well,” says Ciolek. “We went in with a game plan, but it was easy for him to convince us to try something else. It was pretty cool to sort

is how animal agriculture is the leading cause—51 percent—of climate change, but is rarely addressed. To me, the movie “Cowspiracy” is the most important documentary ever made in terms of how it’s changing the world. This feels like your tightest release yet. Did you guys push yourselves while writing and recording? The writing process is a slow, ongoing thing. We never want to rush to write an album, so the moment we’re done writing one album—maybe even before we enter the studio to record it—we’ll have started writing for the next one. [We] just let it come naturally and don’t force it, but at the same time, analyze every little detail within the songs. In terms of recording, we pride ourselves on our musicianship and want it to sound as tight as possible, but we want it to sound tight and human. Loads of bands rely on technology: chopping riffs up, copying and pasting riffs, or playing riffs in note-by-note and cheating. We try to record as if we’re tracking to tape, and try not to spend too long in the studio so it sounds honest. If we can’t get a riff “inhumanly” tight after an hour, then we’ll leave it as it is and move onto the next one. All the rhythm guitars were done

of put it into his hands and see what we’d come up with.” The end result is a record that is much more layered than the band’s previous work. Ciolek says most of the songs have four or five guitar parts, but it is subtle enough that the vocals and themes are prominent. “I knew I wanted to kind of make it cinematic. I wanted it to be a pop record. You can be a rock fan and still make a pop record,” says Ciolek, citing Bruce Springsteen as one influence on this approach. While creating a new approach to their sound, the band worked on creating something that was also thematic. Ciolek says, “I knew I wanted there to be different characters. A lot of the songs aren’t written [in the] first person necessarily. They are about different characters who are living in the world that the record exists in: the nerved world.”

With this theme, Ciolek says he looked at different ways that people explore these problems and the different ways they run away from them. He says that some of the characters on the record create some sort of movement to get away from their problems, whether they are going to a bar or sitting at their computer, but they end up in the same position where they started. Ciolek’s explanations are illuminating, but they aren’t needed for Runners In The Nerved World to be understood by listeners. “I hope the takeaway from this new record is that sometimes there is no answer,” he says. “Sometimes, the answer is just that we are alive.”

The stories in Runners In The Nerved World are ones that Ciolek says get played out all too often. “The general theme of the record came from the inertia or the motivation to just create movement in your life,” he explains. “For me, it was more from talking to friends and finding yourself in this place in your mid 20s, where you’ve had a first kiss, you’ve had a first love, and you’ve done all these things that, when they are new, its like living.”

SYLOSIS

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST/VOCALIST JOSH MIDDLETON BY NICHOLAS SENIOR

in three days, which is pretty quick for a long album like this one. We want it to sound as tight as possible, but capture the aggression and vibe. Were you aiming to push your sound throughout the album? We really wanted to create a mood and vibe for this album. We’ve established our sound on our previous two albums, and now we can start to make each album have its own “thing.” This album may be bleak and have a few more doomy elements, but it doesn’t mean that’s where we’re heading. We could do a purist technical thrash album or a total prog album in the future. It’s about giving each album its own vibe. We wanted to bring out some more of the prog influences, for sure. We’ll always try

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and expand on the progressive side of the band. What is the theme behind “Leech”? Is the sludgy, doom-y sound intentional? Yeah, it’s pretty inspired by bands like High On Fire and Crowbar. In terms of modern music, that’s pretty much the type of stuff I listen to. I’m not one for modern metal unless it’s got some balls to it, like High On Fire. Those influences just creep in organically. The chorus was written first on an acoustic, then worked backwards to try and make it heavier and see what riffs accompanied the chorus in the right way.

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CHERUBS

BLIND GUARDIAN

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST/VOCALIST KEVIN WHITLEY BY THOMAS PIZZOLA

ustin, Texas, noise rockers Cherubs are back after a lengthy hiatus with a new album, 2 Ynfynyty, and the same sarcastic attitude you either loved or hated about them the first time around. Since the release of the their classic Heroin Man album in 1994, the band—which features vocalist and guitarist Kevin Whitley, bassist Owen McMahon, and drummer Brent Prager— have been busy living their lives, but just recently decided it was time to get back in the game.

it was indeed us and that we acknowledge our past, while accepting the fantastic darkness of our future or lack thereof,” he continues. “We feel like it has done this. It’s got a perfectly slippery cover, and a warmly geeky inside sleeve with lots of touchy feely moments of us. And then, there are exactly five good songs out of 10, and one too exposed moment, which is standard ops for LP formatted music releases.”

…Why? Blame the Internet. “The Internet told us that people liked us,” says Whitley. “Little pockets of people all over the place. There is nothing like the validation of complete strangers to make your day. It seems sad when you acknowledge it. Wiz Khalifa said he just wanted people to be talking about him and to be in the middle of things; that is boldly honest, and seems victorious when he says it. I don’t know why it seems pathetic when I say it. He’s cool though. Wiz is a cool name. He is a palette for all of his self-determination: a fenceless frontier of tattoos and Afghani Wheelchair weed. What were we talking about?”

He needn’t be so critical, as the new album is an excellent and timely slice of bad vibes and feedback. Noise rock—or whatever you want to call it—is currently enjoying a bit of resurgence in the underground. But don’t assume any of this was planned. “It only matters if people like the record,” Whitley says, plainly. “If it sucks, it won’t matter when we recorded it. I wish we would have skipped this one and just recorded the next one. But we’re responsible adults now, so linear and first things first. When you are sitting with Nancy Peavy and Eden Marshall over on Pearl Street, you know that there will never be this unique glory again—so first things first. Got to enjoy that shit. We’ve only ever had good timing when it was the furthest thing from our minds.”

So, it was just time for a follow-up? “Well it’s not a follow-up is it?” Whitley corrects. “20 years surely beats the statute of limitations on ‘follow-up.’ It’s a new thing; it might as well have saxophones and electrocumbia. It’s still us… Don’t have a little panty problem.” People will most definitely not have a “panty problem” with the new album, because if anything, it picks up right where the band left, while adding a bit of hard rock muscle to the noisy screeds. Was there any trepidation going back into the studio after such a lengthy hiatus? “Yes, we have trepidation in everything we do,” Whitley admits. “I’m the most trepid of the three of us. I wouldn’t call any one of us intrepid. We are either ‘distrepid’ or ‘untrepid.’ At least it’s done, so we don’t have to secondguess it anymore.” “This [record] needed to establish that

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“The next record will be different,” he adds, ominously.

They may sound jaded, but don’t buy it. They’re enjoying their return, and recently had a revelation at the show of a newer noise rock band. “We saw Pissed Jeans at Fun Fun Fun Fest, and they were the best,” raves Whitley. “They don’t get out much apparently, and took full advantage of their bumpkin status. And it was pure joy. They were beautiful. The audience loved on them. The kids are still punks! Homemade t-shirts and haircuts, terrible pants—it made us feel welcome.” “You come along at the wrong time, and you are just an idea whose time is butt time,” he concludes. “We’re hoping this is a fortunate circumstance, and people shower us with these Benjamins we hear so much about.” One can only hope.

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INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST HANSI KÜRSCH BY BRANDON RINGO

ince their debut almost three decades ago, German power metal luminaries Blind Guardian have continued to push the envelope well past metal’s comfortable boundaries. Their music features grand, epic storytelling, and makes a great soundtrack when lost in a bad neighborhood with a crackhead to whom you accidentally offered a ride (true story). With their 10th album Beyond The Red Mirror, the band has travelled back in time 20 years to create a sequel to their classic Imaginations From The Other Side. It’s the perfect album to bring along to your next “Dungeons & Dragons” game… or on an uncomfortable car ride. Do you typically write lyrics first and form the music around them, or vice versa? No, music—including all melody lines— comes first. I am singing freestyle when I do my vocal melodies and their layers. So, whatever comes into my mind will be sung. But, of course, I am already designing moods and first magic words there, which later on, may become a part of the lyrical concept for the song. In many cases, I am influenced by the first musical elements I am provided with, because they already speak a very strong language. At other points, there is also a hint given by the person who came up with the idea and gave a name to the song for working reasons. The first two songs that come into my mind here are “Holy Grail” and “Ashes Of Eternity.” [Drummer] Frederik Ehmke named his song “Holy Grail” and I kept that idea, which at the very end, fit into the concept very well and gave me some direction about how to get to the final plot of the story. I would probably never name a song “The Holy Grail” in normal cases. Here it was just perfect. “Ashes Of Eternity” was originally entitled “Encrypted Time” by [guitarist] André Olbrich. This gave me inspiration to think about the meaning of this working title. I immediately started creating a story in connection to The Holy Grail and the main concept. “Twilight Of The Gods” is an example of spontaneously choosing the right words while performing freestyle. Were there difficulties trying to match the tones and themes of an album that’s

20 years old? Lyrically, it was no problem at all. At different spots, I also found it very easy to weave in the whole lyrical Blind Guardian universe in a more philosophical way. “Truth” and “Time”— which are very often elemental parts in my songwriting—became a major part of the concept. Musically, I would say, we never considered the capturing of Imaginations’ links [to be] a big necessity for the songs, because they were already revealing their own individual magic. Production-wise, we agreed on bringing back the intensity of the band members’ performances, the way we’d supplied it on Imaginations. In my case, I have to admit that the performance 20 years ago was also heavily influenced by innocence… How has your songwriting approach evolved over the past two decades? I started to understand that straight storytelling is—especially when I am dealing with individual songs— quite a challenge, which is difficult to overcome. This is due to different reasons, mainly because of the frame given within a song. I, therefore, tried to develop my style into something more open, by giving space to personal insights or just by revealing particular situations of a story. I have also been able to find a way to coordinate the multiple voices in my head. [Laughs]. What or whom do you feel has had the greatest impact on your ability to create such elaborate stories? As far as storytellers go, I still say that Stephen King and J.R.R. Tolkien have had the biggest impact. This is not only because of the stories they create, but also because of the way they seem to approach things and how they relate to their own stories personally. I also like their philosophy about the value of storytelling. I have started to understand that the universes they have created become realities within themselves: a reality which will have to define its own truth, strong enough to be the foundation of the story, and by that, secure its own universe’s existence. This brings me back to Christian mythology, religion in general, and all related philosophies, which can be very helpful sources of inspiration, too.

ithin seconds of listening to Hierophant’s latest Bridge Nine Records banger Peste, you will straight up have no face. It will have been rocked off. Guitarist Lorenzo Stecconi from the Italian force to be reckoned with fills us in on their intimidating release, a chaotic calculation of unbridled audio devastation that will reignite your faith in extreme metal and punk rock. Did you really push yourselves to make Peste super heavy, especially “Masochismo”? Yes. The main intention was to write an extreme metal album, and we did. How did you choose the unsettling image of piles of bones for the cover? The cover art is a handmade visual and personal interpretation by our very talented friend Daniele Castellano, realized after he

What did you want to express with this release? We wanted to express violence. How did you know Bridge Nine was the right fit to put out the record? We already worked with Bridge Nine for the previous record. We liked how they work, and we totally trust them. The slow distorted end of “Egoismo” into the onslaught of “Inferno” is the heaviest part of the album. Did you road test these songs pre-studio for maximum impact? Nope. We just rehearsed a lot. Are there any other Italian bands you feel a kinship with? Italy is actually full of good bands. I’d keep an eye on Il Ghiaccio: crusty power violence

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INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST NOORA LOUHIMO BY NICHOLAS SENIOR

elsinki’s Battle Beast sounds exactly like you’d expect a band with that name to sound: big melodies, bigger riffs, and an overall retro feel. That’s a perfectly good thing, as the end result is incredibly satisfying. For these Finns, it seems like their third album, Unholy Savior, is definitely a charm. What was the writing and recording

witzerland’s Kruger has been plugging away for over 10 years now. Their special high-octane blend of riff ‘n’ roll has done battle with bands as stylistically disparate as Deep Purple and Dismember, and they’ve largely come out on top. A healthy dose of forward-thinking shit akin to Kylesa and the much-missed Quicksand rounds out the quartet’s attitude on their newest cautionary tale Adam and Steve. You used PledgeMusic to fund the recording of Adam and Steve. How do you feel crowdfunding has changed the landscape of the music business? Crowdfunding is one among the solutions to compensate the lack of budget from the labels themselves. I’m pretty sure, though, that to imagine it can totally replace the traditional way to produce albums is a romantic dream. [It’s unrealistic] to think that funding by the public can be “the” solution, but it can indeed help a certain range of bands whose budgets aren’t that of the pharaohs, and who have a faithful fanbase.

HIEROPHANT

listened to the whole record.

process like for Unholy Savior? The writing and recording processes happened during last year. We had very challenging times during the recording process, because we were on the road a lot, and we had to fit the schedules between shows. Unholy Savior has been the hardest to make so far. This is your second album with the band. Did you feel more comfortable

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST LORENZO STECCONI BY MORGAN Y. EVANS

vibes from [the] middle North East part of Italy. In Tarot, The Hierophant is associated with a link between higher and lower energies. What drew you to the name? We are full of high energies, and when we formed, Hierophant sounded so good. this time around? Yes and no. Yes, because I had already come up with my style in the heavy metal arena during the last album. No, because I wish I could use my whole potential as a singer in the new album. Your voice sounds more raw and comfortable on this record. Did you push yourself vocally? Actually, I was under extreme stress during the whole time recording the new album, so yes, I pushed myself! I almost lost my mind [laughs]. If you’re not allowed to do your own thing the best way you see [fit], it makes things pretty hard. However, I’m glad everybody has taken my performance so well! Remember that I’m very critical of myself. What influenced this record? It seems to be the most varied Battle Beast record yet. [Guitarist] Anton [Kabanen] wrote about himself, and in his words, this is more like a concept album. He went through some kind of phase in his life during last year,

In the U.S., the “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” motto is used

a journey that he wrote about. In the album, there are also a couple songs based on [Japanese manga series] “Berserk,” and a song based on the movie “Scarface.” Were you involved in the lyrics at all? If not, what roles did you play in the process? Anton kept the songwriting to himself. My part contributing to the songs came in during the vocal recordings, but in the future, this is going to change. We are going to do music with the whole band, utilize the whole potential. Do you have a favorite song on the record? “The Black Swordsman” is definitely my favorite. Unfortunately, it is only an intro for “Hero’s Quest.” I wish it could’ve been a full-length song, but “Far Far Away” is definitely a good option, too. What are your plans for 2015? Lot of shows, touring, and hoping to conquer the world! [Laughs].

KRUGER

Since your last release, For Death, Glory And The End Of The World, have you been focusing on this new release? Four years is a long time to sit on your ass… [Laughs] We are ridiculously slow at writing songs, plus we did lose two guitarists in that time. Like all our previous records, the new one is just the product of five guys trying their best to create songs they like. No big thought process involved, or any kind of concept we would use as some guiding light. We just jam riffs endlessly, hoping to get somewhere. It is disappointing not to find any actual disco on “Discotheque.” You couldn’t have slapped a funky bass line in there? You got a point here! Except some shakers on the middle part, that song lacks a great deal of percussive bass frenzy and groovy ass beat. We’ll maybe consider doing some disco remix to include on our next limited greatest hits compilation.

There is much debate lately about extreme music being more open-minded. Why do some people think racism, homophobia, and sexism are more “extreme” than unity? Closed-minded people are the “peste” of the world. “Humanity is the Devil.”

INTERVIEW WITH INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST RENAUD BY LORD RANDALL

in Christian Fundamentalist circles. Is your album title a stand against bigotry? I saw on the news, some time ago, one of those Tea Party idiots with a banner with that slogan, during an anti-gay protest. I immediately thought, “Holy shit, that is a Kruger title!” and it finally became the album title. Of course, it is a good occasion to make fun of all your countrymen who still think in 2015 that

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Darwin is a cheat, and that God actually created a couple of people in a garden. Your song “The Wild Brunch” is clearly a play on Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch,” but what would a truly wild brunch include? A Bloody Mary! [It’s the] best drink in the world to fight a hangover!

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or all intents and purposes, Drug Church serves as lead singer Patrick Kindlon’s yin to his Self Defense Family yang. It seem like Kindlon gets his punk rock jones out in Drug Church, while Self Defense Family offers him a chance to push the boundaries of what is considered punk rock. He views the differences between his two bands in a different light. “I get my professionalism jones out with Drug Church,” Kindlon clarifies. “By day four of a tour, Drug Church is a machine. Everyone is hitting their parts perfectly, and the goal becomes to outdo that level of precision each night. That’s entirely different than Self Defense, where you could safely say the goal is to get looser each night. By the end of a Self Defense tour, we’re jamming on each song and I’m moaning new lyrics as we go. By the end of a Drug Church tour, I’m the T-1000.” This difference of approach also extends to Kindlon’s songwriting for each band. “I write in the studio,” he explains.” As a band is recording, I sit there thinking of what to do with the songs. When they finish, I sit and listen to the songs for a few hours. Then, I write and record the same day. It’s how my brain works best. Because the bands are so different musically, the lyrics have an entirely separate tone for each. A Self Defense song could never be a Drug

CALIFORNIA X

Church song, and vice versa. I’m going sound like I play hand drums in the park and wear a baja [hoodie] when I say this, but I just let the music decide what I do with it.” For the uninitiated, the band—which features guitarists Nick Cogan and Cory Galusha, along with bassist Pat Wynne and drummer Chris Villeneuve—plays aggressive, noisy rock, that references the louder side of indie and the poppier side of noise rock. It rocks mightily, but is also very catchy. This is definitely on display on their debut full-length, Paul Walker, which came out in 2013 on No Sleep Records. They also garnered their fair share of accolades, which is a bit surprising to their frontman. So, he was taken aback by all the rave reviews? “Yes and no,” Kindlon says. “I don’t expect anything good to be recognized as good, so it was surprising. But, if you look at it practically, you can see that record has the feel people are into right now, but pulls from a more interesting set of influences. So, it just sort of rules real hard.” One wonders if there was any negative backlash to the album’s name, as its titular movie star met his end in a fiery car crash months after the record’s release. “Nah,” Kindlon dismissed the

ALL PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALAN SNODGRASS

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST/VOCALIST LEMMY GURTOWSKY, BASSIST DAN JONES, DRUMMER COLE LANIER AND GUITARIST ZACK BROWER BY JANELLE JONES

n Nights In The Dark, California X’s sophomore LP, the Hadley, Mass., based four-piece take their cerebral and passionate brand of indie rock to a whole new level. On this record, you have so many different sounds. It seems like it was a big undertaking. LG: It definitely was a complicated record to write, and it took sort of a long time. Most of the time, [it] was because a couple of us were at school and just had other things going on. This one is a lot more complicated because we added another guitar, and a lot of it has more complicated arrangements with lots of layers. Working out all those issues gets tough to resolve into a streamlined product that doesn’t seem excessive. The first record we recorded in like two days, and this one took seven days. You lead with “Nights In The Dark.” Did you name the record after the song, or

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DRUG CHURCH

did you have the title first and then write the song? LG: We definitely had the title first. DJ: It’s kind of our little secret mystery from Zack’s childhood. ZB: The long and short of it: there was a game of naked tag that was played with a neighbor of mine that was called “Nights In The Dark,” and I think the “night” started with a “k.” It’s just something that stuck with me. I cherish it as a memory. It’s also the first track you’ve previewed. Why’d you choose it? LG: For a lot of reasons, it was the obvious one. It’s not necessarily the one I personally wanted. I actually wanted “Hadley, MA.” But the consensus was to do “Nights in the Dark.” We’d been sitting on it for a while. CL: Also, because it has a lot of diverse parts that reference other points on the record. That’s why I thought it was a good choice, because it’s a good preview for the record as a whole. It shows people what we’re gonna do.

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concern. “[A] couple people barked about it, but when we explained [it] to them, they got it. If anything, I’d offer that it now has a meaning it didn’t before. Let it be the Paul Walker eulogy that we just happened to write and record ahead of time. And, for anyone reading this who thinks we have the power to kill by naming records after people: I don’t know, maybe. I’m scared to try it again.” When it was time to record a followup, the band turned to ex-Jaxbox-man and producer-in-demand J. Robbins to record their follow up EP, Swell, which comes out Feb. 10 on No Sleep. This five- song rager is their biggest sounding record to date. It contains one of their catchiest songs, the Pixies-esque lead track “But Does It Work?” Hardcore

LG: That’s definitely true, because it’s got all the new elements: a lot more layers, a lot more twin lead guitar parts that do harmonies and stuff, there are vocal harmonies, there’s general spaciness and more expansive songwriting. In a lot of ways, it’s a good choice for the first song. It’s more indicative of the scope of the record than other songs. How’d you get in touch with Justin Pizzoferrato, your sound engineer? He’s worked with some pretty well known people: Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth. DJ: We first put out a 7” on a U.K. label a while back, and they heard about Justin and got in touch with him. Right away, I think we all really clicked. He’s just the best guy; really fun to work with. LG: He’s super integral to getting the songs we want, not in a superficial way, but in a totally fundamental way. How the songs work—or don’t work—depends on the recording he does and the way he makes us sound.

fans shouldn’t worry, as the album also features many aggressive—which has become their calling card—songs, such as “Mall SWAT” and “Work-Shy.” If you think this the last you’ll hear from Drug Church this year, you are dead wrong, because they are far from done. “The new LP is already recorded,” Kindlon reveals. “We just finished it with Jay Maas a couple weeks ago. If there’s anything I hate, it’s a lazy band. I’d have another LP recorded by summer if it was up to me.”

point. There’s guitar distortion, there’s a guitar solo, and suddenly it’s [Dinosaur Jr. vocalist and guitarist] J. Mascis just because of that. LG: He’s the only person in the whole world who plays [like that]. [Laughs] It’s not a super negative thing. If anything, it gets a lot more people to listen to us. If they see [we’re like] Dinosaur Jr., they’re more likely to click on it than if it says [we’re] not really like Dinosaur Jr.

Several sites mention you having a ‘90s alternative sound, then—because of who you work with and where you’re from— they mention Dinosaur Jr. Do you mind any of that? DJ: It’s not bad, because we love Dinosaur Jr. […] It doesn’t make any sense in a way. I listen to Dinosaur Jr. and I listen to our record, and very few aspects of our recordings sound like Dinosaur Jr. There’re a couple things here and there. It’s also this extension of the idea that there are so many different stylistic variations in rock music and they really hit a wall with it at a certain

hil Labonte has been performing and writing music in metal bands for over 20 years, but he still continues to challenge himself vocally. On Feb. 24, All That Remains will be releasing their newest album, The Order Of Things, on which producer Josh Wilbur worked with Labonte to write the best songs they possibly could. For Labonte, the songs come before the solo, the image, or the breakdown. Labonte speaks about working collaboratively, and goes in-depth about honesty in expression and the politically correct landscape of America. How do you strive to get past lyricism and song meaning getting lost in guitar solos and breakdowns, as sometimes happens with metal and heavy music? With this record in particular, it was the first time that anybody else had input into lyrics other than me. All of our career, I have always written all of the lyrics. There was never any kind of collaboration with anyone else in the band. This record was the first time that somebody else had input, Josh. As soon as we started working with him, he made us feel really comfortable. Because I’ve always had such a big input into All That Remains’ music, the first two records I wrote almost all the music and the lyrics. Once the band got a little more solidified, [lead guitarist] Oli [Herbert] stepped up and started writing stuff on The Fall Of Ideals. I think that it’s always been a situation where I’ve had experiences that were the subject of

songs. The lyrics have never been an afterthought. On Jamey Jasta’s podcast, you said that you think your 2012 release A War You Cannot Win “generally sucked.” What’s the contrast with this newest record? I just think that overall, the quality of the songs is better. […] The stuff just wasn’t as compelling to me personally, and I think other people in the band are gonna have a different opinion. I’ll say something and [people] apply it to everybody in the band. It’s really just my opinion. It’s really not that big of a deal that it’s not my favorite record. Other musicians wouldn’t always be so brutally honest… Everyone’s a goddamn pussy! Literally! It’s hard to sell a record nowadays, obviously, and nobody has any balls anymore. You don’t want to say anything that could hurt whether or not you sell that one extra record, and you know what? I can’t be that guy; I can’t make believe that I’m something I’m not. I can’t sit there and be like, “Oh, this is the greatest thing ever!” I’ve been a salesman; that was the last real job I had before I was in a band. I was never the guy who would try to give someone something that they didn’t want. You can’t sit there and just bullshit people and make stuff up, like, “Oh, this thing is gonna change your life.” I just believe in being honest and telling my opinion, and sometimes that’s not what I’m supposed to think or supposed to say, but I’m OK

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JUSTIN BORUCKI

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST PHIL LABONTE BY DEREK SCANCARELLI

with saying things that I’m not supposed to say. ‘Cause apparently, I say things that I’m not supposed to say all the time! [Laughs] What do you think about the “politically correct” shift in American culture? The thing is, no matter what position you take on anything, you’re gonna piss someone off. And the Internet gives people who are pissed off their own platform to tell everybody. You can say something and get people riled up, and it becomes a big deal because you said something. Which is totally ridiculous, what happened to “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? Apparently, since now you can sue someone for saying something that hurt you, now words can hurt you. I just feel like it’s such a bullshit, pussified society that’s just so afraid of saying what they really think for fear of offending somebody. Who gives a

fuck if you’re offended? Shut up! OK, so you were bummed, it doesn’t mean that you need to take action to rectify the situation because you heard words that made you unhappy. Shut up. Sit down. You’re an idiot. Do you think this policing of language has affected the world of metal? I don’t think it has yet. I think that there is a possibility that it might. Actually, let me say that again, it’s not a possibility; eventually, if we continue to have a political correct kind of barometer as to what you can and can’t say, eventually, yes it will get to metal, but right now, metal is a fairly small area that’s not too high on the radar of people who are worried about what you’re thinking and saying. I could see it happening. There is no frontier that social justice warriors will not try to push.

THE CLIFF 12” vinyl “The Cliff” is a new “vocal driven” 12” /EP release from Chicago’s esteemed instrumental quartet Pelican. The 12” vinyl is fresh reimaginings of ‘The Cliff’, a highlight from their most recent album, 2013’s Forever Becoming, and one recently completed new song. The four track EP includes remixes from Justin Broadrick (of Godflesh, Jesu), Aaron Harris and Bryant Clifford Meyer of ISIS/Palms, and, for only the second time in their fourteen year career, vocals. Allen Epley (Shiner, The Life and Times) once again returns to the band’s fold to transform, in a complementary manner, the concept and overall outcome of what we have come to know as Pelican.

HALSHUG Blodets Band LP HALSHUG unloads some of the most traditionally-styled but urgently unloaded crust punk/d-beat hardcore to be found. Fueled by society’s modern-day ills, HALSHUG is already in line with Nuclear Death Terror, Wolfbrigade, Skitsystem and the best of the movement’s current top acts.

Tierra Y Libertad CD/LP The Los Angeles California five piece are proving once again that their colossal clout outweighs the sum of their contemporaries. Tierra Y Libertad finds Xibalba in their most threatening form yet, forcibly colliding elite 90s death metal with reckless down-tuned doom tones and fist-swinging beatdowns which slam harder than a head-on collision. The breakdown, once stigmatised but now a crucial signifier of a savage new breed in extreme metal, has become Xibalba’s crippling modus operandi, refined over the course of their career and reimagined as a new terrifying beast, creating a nefarious intensity on Tierra Y Libertad.

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As Heaven Turns To Ash LP Reissued and back on vinyl after 14 years of silence! Evil doom at its bleakest! This crushing exclusive vinyl release compiles their “As Heaven Turns To Ash” album and the “I Am Dying” 7”.

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“Full of dexterity and metal hooks, it sounds phenomenal!”

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erek Grant doesn’t live the fast life he used to. Each morning, he wakes up to the sound of birds chirping. Each night, he’s asleep by the time the sun goes down. He lives in an 1860s farmhouse in Central Vermont, across the street from a scar y red barn, but that’s all part of its charm. He’s a far cr y from the man who once feared a slow Internet connection or poor cell phone ser vice. The 21 acre farm became Grant’s home last July after he and his soonto-be wife migrated to the rural area. Within two weeks of the move, they were married. Their transition from urban Chicago to countr y life was celebrated with a casual mountaintop wedding, at which his fellow members of Alkaline Trio played acoustic guitar. But it hasn’t always been fresh air and blue skies for the 37- year old drummer. His debut solo effort, Breakdown, portrays what he refers to as a snapshot of a moment in time, when a messy divorce and a struggle with addiction almost took away ever ything he cared about and had worked so hard to accomplish. “I pushed things about as far as I possibly could,” says Grant. “If it would’ve gone on a little bit longer, I don’t think I’d be with the band, I would not be married, wouldn’t live in Vermont, wouldn’t be putting out a solo record. I might not even be alive.” His struggle with substance abuse coincided with and carried on for a few years after writing the songs on the upcoming release. Looking back, he feels the songs mean even more to him now than when he wrote them. It was a cathartic process at the time, and introducing this music to the world will be his cleansing. Grant says that when it came to drinking and drugs, he would take “pretty much anything [he] could get [his] hands on.” He’s thankful that he was able to turn his life around before ever ything completely fell apart. “I had never been a

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CHRISTOPHER AMOTT (EX ARCH ENEMY) GRAND RETURN! “Captivity and Devourment” is Heavy, melodic, technical, and groovy: this is creative metal songwriting with one foot in deep in the classics and and one eye gazing towards the distant future.

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heavy drinker and, all of a sudden, I was drinking ever y night and ending up in hospitals. [I was] having experiences where I was recording records and not remembering the recording sessions,” he recalls. “It got to a really terrifying place, and I’d become really dependent on being altered to be at a social situation or to perform.” Though he started touring at the age of 15, he’d never partied. In fact, he’d often had to leave clubs after performing his set because of his age. Grant joined Alkaline Trio when the band was touring for their 2001 release From Here To Infirmary, and went into the studio as a formal member to record Good Mourning. Prior to 2008, when he started writing and recording his own songs, he says nearly a decade had gone by without writing his own lyrics. “I just felt like I didn’t have anything to contribute,” he says. “Alkaline Trio is the kind of band where, if somebody writes a song, they generally are the one who sings it.” But when things started to spiral out of control, he began recording tracks in locations all around the countr y : New York, Portland, and Michigan, to name a few. Breakdown features tracks that have been remixed and re-produced, but the bones of the songs are the original recordings. Now clear and sober, Grant can look back on the alcohol-induced hospital visits and frightening incidents that separated him from the people he cared about the most. “I pushed away ever ybody in my life,” he admits. “Ever ybody who I cared about and loved and ever ybody who cared about me.” His struggles with substance abuse not only induced fighting, heartbreak, and disappointment, but also affected his ability to perform on stage. With the support of a strong network of family and friends, therapy, and by participating in a recover y program and attending meetings, Grant now says that his life has fallen into place. He is proud of his sobriety and thankful for the people who have helped him achieve it.

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hicago hardcore four piece Harms Way—Chris Mills on drums, James Pliggue on vocals, Bo Lueders and Jay Jancetic on guitar—will roll out their new LP, Rust, through Deathwish Inc. on March 10. Rust, as imagery, relates to organic patterns of decay. What inspired the title of your new album? We personally like the symbolism rust provides, with ideas of decay, death, and dying. This was congruent with a lot of the lyrical themes that can be found on the record. In addition, the album deals with themes of interpersonal and intrapersonal struggle, as well as self-doubt and the ongoing mission of achieving selfactualization. We personally felt like choosing rust in the literal sense, as it meshed and fit well with the overall

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direction on the record. For a dark, heavy band, the album cover is surprisingly light. Counter intuitive? The artwork was done by our close friend E. Aaron Ross. Jake Bannon contributed some elements in the later stages. While the cover of the record is definitely a departure from our previous releases, the packaging as a whole encapsulates many of the dark elements the band has become known for. In addition to this, the packaging as whole has taken us to a new realm that we have yet to explore on previous releases. Is “Ease My Mind” a nod to Straight Edge? Forever. You play hardcore fests and

shows—are you just hardcore kids playing different music? While we stray further and further with each release from the proscribed boxes hardcore has established, we’ll always carry a punk/hardcore ethic within our band. That music scene is where we as individuals grew up, and where the band first had its start. It would be really hard to completely detach from it. Was it always your intent to incorporate the industrial, noise sound? The evolution of the band has been pretty organic over time. We never really set out to do one thing in particular sound-wise with the band, aside from when we first started and wanted to vocalize our disdain for frat boy culture. The industrial/ noise element of the band came around naturally, and has always been something done collectively.

These elements have typically come together while experimenting at practice or during post-production when recording. How much does being from Chicago shape your sound? Chicago can be a very cold, dark, dreadful, unforgiving place… Which is definitely apparent in our sound [laughs]. But, in all seriousness, Chicago can be a tough place for bands to come through. The hardcore and punk scene was a very exclusive place when we all started going to shows. Certain bands would come through that were blowing up all over the U.S. and no one would give a shit about them in Chicago. This sort of culture instilled an attitude in us where we really didn’t give a shit what anyone thought outside of our city or group of friends. We were just going to create the music we wanted.

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wedish punk-metal hybrid Atlas Losing Grip had no intention of letting four years lapse between 2011’s State Of Unrest and the recently released Currents, but being a band in demand took up a lot of their free time. “We started writing songs for the new album as early as 2012, I think.” says guitarist Gustav Burn. “We were caught up in a lot of touring. Then we couldn’t agree within the band on stuff like where to record, how to record. Then finally, when we were done with the music, all the lyrics weren’t finished.” The lyrics on this record seem more personal than ever. Burn says that only frontman Rodrigo Alfaro—of Satanic Surfers fame—knows what’s behind these emotional songs, but Alfaro has said “that he is tired of writing political or sociopolitical lyrics, because he just thinks that there are people who do it way better.” Burn believes that Alfaro’s lyrics have “always been a way to express what he feels, since he has a hard time expressing feelings in other ways. There are events in his lyrics that actually kind of precede events that haven’t yet occurred. […] Nostradamus style.” Burn thinks this revelatory writing is therapeutic for their frontman, but “[doesn’t] know for certain. [Alfaro] is a man of many mysteries, many of which are kind of dark.” There seems to be a religious theme on Currents, but Burn assures that none of Atlas Losing Grip had religious upbringings. “Sweden is a very secular country,” he explains, “and we are all atheists.” When pressed further for the overall concept of the record, Burn says, “We don’t like to explain to people what the songs are about, but encourage the listener to find their own meanings within the songs. Though, it’s kind of obvious that there are a lot of metaphors about ‘watery’ stuff.”

abundance of material. “We actually have three to four songs that didn’t even make it to the studio,” he explains, “but there are demos of those songs, and we might work on them and use them for our next release, or something else. We were so stoked, just exploding with energy and creativity when we wrote the album. We were aware that it probably had to be a double vinyl, but we didn’t care; we just thought it was cool.” Downsizing the record would have thrown off its balance. “Some of the songs were really slow, downscaled, and ballad-y, so we had to have a certain amount of different songs to cover the whole spectrum,” he reveals. “What we ended up having was maybe the best mix of songs we’ve ever had. We never backed off on our belief that we can do any song we want as long as we believe in it. We never write a song for a purpose, like, ‘This song could be on the radio if we cut of 20 seconds of the outro.’ Fuck that kind of mentality! It’s not for us. We write a song because we think it’s great. Period.” Despite the long wait, Burn assures all the hard work was worth it. “I don’t regret the way we did it, because I am super happy with the result,” he says. “But it was a fucking pain in the ass. All is water under the fridge now. Now, we’re just harvesting a lot of nice, sweet fruits. Now comes the fun part: the touring!” Burn says the band has no concrete plans to tour the U.S. (yet!), and their next step will be “band practice. Our two first headline tours through mainland Europe start on [Jan.] 22, and the album is released on [Jan.] 16, so that’s gonna be a fucking blast.”

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Regardless of the content’s meaning, one thing is for sure: there is a lot of it. The album clocks in at an hour long, which Burn says resulted from going into the studio with an over-

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Equal parts emotion and musicianship, New Hampshire’s Youth Funeral delivers heartfelt and heavy music that recalls the emo emissaries of the mid ‘90s and ‘00s. Although no one in the band is old enough to have actually participated in those scenes, the heart and technique of bygone eras is ever present in the band’s recent EP, See You When I See You, which hit the streets via Twelve Gauge Records on Jan. 27. “As the current oldest member of the band at 21 years old, I can safely say that none of us participated in any music scene until around 2007,” admits vocalist and guitarist Casey Nealon. “Certain late ‘90s and early @ NEWNOISEMAGS

‘00s ‘screamo’ bands have affected me in different ways. What they all collectively taught me is that the music scene they operate in is widely accepting of different interpretations of the associated music. […] Appreciation of variation fosters creativity, and I find that to be extremely valuable.” With Will Killingsworth (Orchid, Ampere, Magrudergrind) engineering, mixing, and mastering the record at Dead Air Studios, these young men are no tribute act, but they do prove that vitriol and proficiency are timeless. “All of the music we have released so far has been recorded, mixed, and mastered by Will,” explains Nealon. “He’s a master of his craft and a gre-

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garious fellow. I expect that we will record with him again, and again, and again, and again.” From their name to the content of their music, Youth Funeral seems preoccupied with mortality. Is this obsession a product of fear? “I’m not so sure if I’m afraid of dying,” Nealon says. “I must confess: I do spend a lot of time thinking about death. It’s really interesting how difficult death is to understand, yet it has a constant presence in the world around us. I’m certainly not saying anything new, but it intrigues me.” The band will begin their DIY tour for See You When I See You in January. “I personally booked all of the shows,” Nealon says. “I’ve booked

little tours for my bands before and met enough people that I have a decent circle of friends willing to help us set up shows in their respective states. We’re primarily playing houses on this tour, with some bars and DIY spaces sprinkled in there.” Fans of Youth Funeral will be pleased with the EP, but may still be wondering when they’ll see a full-length. “I think I have six or seven brand new songs written that we’ve been slowly toiling away on,” assures Nealon. “We’re taking our time to make sure that whatever we release next surpasses what we’ve already released. I’d like to have an LP done by the end of the year or next year, but we’ll see what the future holds.”

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I N T E R V I E W W I T H B A S S I S T S H A M E E M B U R Y B Y J A M E S A LVA R E Z

apalm Death need no introduction. To extreme metal fiends and members of the mohawk set alike, Napalm Death have been a boisterous beacon of grindcore for the past three decades. Landmark albums like Scum and Harmony Corruption cemented the band’s status as underground metal icons, while modern day classics like Enemies Of The Music Business and The Code Is Red… Long Live The Code only served to reinforce Napalm’s legacy of extremity. Now, Birmingham England’s favorite grinders are back with their 15th studio album, the more than aptly titled, Apex Predator – Easy Meat. Equal parts ferocious and sonically dazzling, this new record finds the band honing their trade like never before and exploring some interesting new terrain as well, proving once again that when it comes to this crazy metal stuff, Napalm Death truly are at the top of the food chain. Napalm’s origin is the stuff of legend… And a really lengthy Wikipedia page. Long story short, the band employed a revolving door of musicians in its formative years, but bassist Shane Embury has been one of the group’s main architects since he came aboard in 1987. Describing the smorgasbord of malevolence that is Apex Predator, Embury says, “I really just wanted to continue the hybrid of grind and alternative noise that the band has been forging ahead with over the last few albums. I feel we are getting better at making each song sound familiar, but also, that the song has some diversity.” The

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band’s 2009 record Time Waits For No Slave, and 2012’s Utilitarian, saw Napalm Death serve up their trademark grindcore with hefty doses of industrial tinged noise thrown in, offering some of the most diverse Napalm material in recent memory. Apex Predator – Easy Meat, continues the band’s exploratory streak, and seamlessly integrates these two opposing sounds into one bloody vicious package. “I do think we are refining our sound,” Embury says, “and also have the balls to experiment more as each album comes to light.” The album’s self-titled opening track warns listeners early on: you’re in for something different on this record. Songs like “Dear Slum Landlord” and “Hierarchies” showcase the band’s new vison, with droning guitar wails and chanting choruses featuring some truly haunting clean vocals in the mix. “Cesspits” might be the best example of Napalm circa 2015; it’s three minutes of hyper speed grind, with inventive time changes and the creepy, non-growling chorus work they’ve mastered. Of course, after 30 years of blasting, Napalm Death still bring the heavy better than anyone. Check out bashers like “Smash A Single Digit” for proof. “We certainly haven’t mellowed with our age,” Embury reassures. “We are conscious of wanting to write heavy songs for ourselves and our fans, but we also want to shake things up a bit within the realms of a new extreme, so making something harsher and more in your face is a big appeal.” Speaking of which, Apex Predator –

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Easy Meat has some serious mass appeal—for the extreme music set that is—and it has it in spades. With topnotch songwriting, a killer production sound, and jaw-dropping album art, Napalm Death’s latest record is generating the kind of buzz meant for album of the year entrees… And we’re barely into the new year. The process starts when Embury and guitarist Mitch Harris get into writing mode, crafting the bulk of Napalm’s material independently from each other before convening with the band and jamming things out before recording. Once again, the Napalm crew went into the studio with longtime producer Russ Russell at his Parlour Studios in Northhampton, England. “I say this every time,” Embury gushes, “but Russ gets better and better at producing our records. We think so much alike… He is like fifth member of the band, I think.” That leaves us with the startlingly awesome album cover. The handiwork of Danish artist Frode Sylthe, the face of Napalm’s new record is a gooey slab of human entrails crammed together in a nice, neat supermarket ready meat package. It’s the kind of work that catches the eye and makes the stomach turn at the same time. “This artwork took a long while, and we barely made it in time for the release schedule,” Embury reveals. “Frode has been a longtime friend of ours and is a huge Napalm Death fan, so when the title and concept came about, we gave him an outline and he went to work!”

What exactly is this oh-so-gnarly artwork and album trying to say? Napalm Death always bring the noise with message in tow on each new album. With Apex Predator – Easy Meat, Napalm Death launch a diatribe against the hypocrisies of 21st century man, the most cunning and apathetic creature to ever walk the earth. “We, as consumers, just eat up the newest thing,” Embury explains, “discarding the supposed ‘old’ feverishly, with little thought of its creation and what it really means in the grander scheme of things.” Despite all our great achievements and technological innovations throughout the centuries, it seems as though mankind is destined to remain enslaved to our garish impulses and exploitive nature. “We are losing our natural will to communicate with each other,” Embury warns, “to placate our fixation with cheap replacements for human bonding and real feelings. The human race stampedes forward—hierarchies upon hierarchies—whilst some live life in a dream where they’re supposedly happy with their latest toy or garment, there are those in poorer countries who are forced to live in nightmares and shovel shit for a living, all for the profit and misguided purpose of the companies who sell this shit.” The gospel according to Napalm Death: humanity, we are both predator and prey, to ourselves.

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hen People Grow, People Go is the latest intense and powerful addition to Blacklisted’s impressive catalogue. Before its release, vocalist and sole original member George Hirsch speaks about the hardcore band’s progression over the years, the new record, and why touring isn’t such a priority anymore. Your last full-length was in 2009. Was the band on hiatus? No, we played shows and put out a 7” two years ago, I think. We got older, one of us has two kids, one has one kid, one’s married. Stuff like that. It’s not like we purposely timed it. That’s how it happened. Does that make it hard for you to tour? We don’t really play that much, to be honest. We could tour. I think everybody would be able to figure it out. But I think we did a lot of that while we were younger. We toured a lot more at the time than our contemporaries. We’re all in our 30s now. I started Blacklisted when I was 20. I’m 32 now, so my whole 20s was spent playing in that band, and a lot of it, touring. Now, at this age, I don’t really care if we play live. I’m just happy we’re able to make records. That’s my focus. We got offered to play Alaska in the spring, and we’re gonna do that. So what we wind up doing is… Not that [playing Alaska is] goofy, but goofy things like that. It’s like, how else would we go there?! I’m a little bit weird with playing shows, but we’ll do it.

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Do you have full rein to get records done when you want? I don’t know how any other labels operate. Blacklisted signed to a label right when we first started and that lasted about a year, not even. Then

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It seems record labels want bands to tour… You know what’s weird about that? When Blacklisted started we were one of the first hardcore bands that was really, really touring constantly—eight, nine, 10 months out of the year—and coming home with barely enough money to pay rent. But the reward was being able to travel. Nothing ever came of it aside from experience, which is more important to me than anything anyway. It didn’t sustain itself enough for us to live, so we had to stop. Now that’s what labels want, but when I first started Blacklisted, that wasn’t the standard. We looked like freaks. People I knew in bands were like, “Wow, you guys are always gone. How do you make it work?” I look back on it and don’t even know if it did work, but we kept doing it. Now that is very much the standard, to the point where punk and hardcore music is watered down, because bands aren’t starting because they wanna make great records, they’re starting because, well, “If I start this band and put out this six song demo that has a fast beat, I’ll be able to go to Europe.”

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Deathwish started putting out our records. We just work on our own timeline. When you first said 2009 was our last LP, the time just went by. No one from the label was like, “You gotta make a record,” we just did what we did. There’s no pressure, which as I got older, was the thing I needed; I didn’t ever want pressure, because at the end of the day, it’s not like I’m some artist. I’m just a person who likes punk. [Laughs] It would be ridiculous to look at it from some artistic aspect of music writing. So, there’s no pretension. I’m not John Coltrane. I’m not reinventing jazz. [Laughs]. From the beginning of the band to now, has the songwriting changed? Things have changed. The history of Blacklisted is really scattered with people who like a specific thing. They like one record and the rest it’s like, “Screw this.” […] Sonically, things have progressed, but I wouldn’t say changed. Blacklisted is like a scrapbook of my life starting at 20 years old. I think there was a lot of controversy of “they changed their sound.” There’s people that are like, “They should change their name,” which is offensive, but at the same time ridiculous, because it’s all these people telling the band what we should do because they don’t agree with it. At that point, just don’t listen to it. I never presented Blacklisted and was

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like, “Listen to this.” If it interests you, that’s cool, but I’ve never been a huckster or a carnie like, “Step on in!” And the new record, you’re proud of it? It’s cool. I never really get it when people talk about something they make. I like it personally. I do not expect anyone else to like it. I have to do that, because things will just get too weird if I think too much [about if people like it or not] because for this band, we have such a weird history of albums. We were just friends in a practice space, and people were like, “Yeah, we’ll put out your record.” We were just making stuff. If you’re 5 years old and your mom’s like, “Make your own peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” and you go down and take bananas and Cheerios and put it all in the sandwich, and it’s ridiculous like a “Scooby Doo” sandwich… That’s what our albums were like, because we weren’t thinking about what other people were making or what was happening at the time. [And] I didn’t expect 12 years later to be making a record. To me, hardcore was something that the best bands lasted two or three years, and then they stopped. For me, I was like, “I’m gonna make this record,” and then, “I guess we’re gonna make another record.” Just with that alone, that dictates that things are gonna progress, because are you the same at 30 that you are at 20? I would hope not.

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ith the hubbub about “the emo revival” finally dying down, the cream of the crop has set itself apart, especially Orlando, Flo.’s You Blew It! Since the band’s inception in 2009, they have been ceaselessly pumping out releases and touring. With each new record, they further transform their influences, even releasing a cover album, You Blue It, which colored classic Weezer favorites with their own flair. Their new three song EP, Pioneer Of Nothing, dropped Jan. 27 on the legendary Jade Tree Records, a huge achievement for the band. Is it surreal to have your record coming out on Jade Tree? It feels like a dream. It really, really feels like a dream. They approached us about putting out a 7”. We didn’t have any music at the time—or time to write it—but we bent over backwards, because they are Jade Tree. They put out all the releases that we look up to and base our records off of: Pedro The Lion, The Promise Ring, Appleseed Cast. Just to be a part of that family is completely wild. Looking at an EP as a specific art form, what are your favorite parts about the medium? I think it gives a lot of room for creativity, and provides a medium for a

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band like us to try new things without too much commitment. When you put out a full-length, obviously 12 songs is such a big body of work, you want it all to be perfect. With EPs, you also want it to be perfect, but since it’s such a short spurt, we feel way more comfortable going outside of our comfort zones to experiment, feel around, and make sure we’re comfortable going into a full-length.

What can you tell us about Pioneer Of Nothing? We went into it with a lot more knowhow. I tried to nickname this one the “no screamy vocals EP,” because we want to keep moving forward in our musical… talents? I feel like Lebron James. [Laughs] “Gonna take my musical talents to Pioneer Of Nothing and Jade Tree.” Just trying to do things that scare us, in general.

From your last album, Keep Doing What You’re Doing, to this release, how have you changed as a musician? Writing Keep Doing What You’re Doing, we [just] got off our last “basement” tour. We were playing in basements where you had to crank the amps up to 10 for people to hear you. Everything is so muddy, and you had to write a certain style to be heard in those venues. So Keep Doing What You’re Doing is very based on that. After we put that out, we were lucky enough to play venues with professional sound and microphones that don’t shock your face when you put your lips on them. So I feel like our writing style has gotten more delicate, and more focused on the intricacies that can be heard in those kinds of venues. We have a bigger [canvas] to paint on, I feel like.

Lyrically, what sort of themes and emotions did you want to express with this one? I’m not smart enough to write fictional lyrics and get away with it, like [Jimmy Eat World’s] Jim Adkins or [Saves The Day’s] Chris Conley who write beautiful, beautiful piec-

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es of music. So, anything I write is kind of reactionary to what’s going on in my life at that point. This EP is mostly about a time in my life a year ago when everything seemed uncertain. My girlfriend and I had been dating for about a year, and she got sick and was in the hospital for about a week. Most of it was about how scared I was, and how weird it was to go from feeling you’re invincible to sitting in a hospital for a week. […] It’s funny, because when you’re 18 and 19, you’re jumping off bridges, proverbially and literally. And a switch flips, you go into your 20s, and you’re like, “Holy shit, what the fuck was I thinking?” You learn the fragility of life, I guess.

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Once more the Creature is summoned... Heavy Fuckin Metal That Waits for No One

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AN Y. EVAN S GE R BY MO RG ON SC HIL LIN SIM T RIS ITA BE RLI N AN D GU OL IVE R “O LLI ” ITH VO CA LIS T stuff into them and really let IN TE RV IEW W

espite the preconceived notions you may have about Germany or metal, Finsterforst are a force for good. Their name means “dark forest,” in reference to the band’s hometown of Schwarzwald, which translates to “black forest.” With deference to the greats of classic metal, the band are still bold enough to stir hearts with brave elements of their own, as they carry Black Forest metal to vigorous and thrilling new heights with Mach Dich Frei, available Feb. 10, through Napalm Records. 2012’s Rastlos was an epic step forward for the band, but did you have a goal to raise the bar even further with Mach Dich Frei? Did Napalm Records encourage you? OB: Let me put it this way: when we started talking about the album, Simon simply said, “This one is going to be bigger and better than anything we ever did!” We went with that approach. I think you’re always trying to raise the bar; anything else wouldn’t satisfy us. Napalm doesn’t take part in the creative process at all, which we appreciate a lot. So, they didn’t encourage us, [but] on the other hand, they never try to set limits to what we do. We have a great relationship in that regard.

“Schicksals End” sounds like no other band. Your songs create a whole world. What instruments were used? OB: So, we’re not a mere Moonsorrow rip-off? Fantastic, thank you! [Laughs] I think the most important instrument on “Schicksals End” is the cowbell. SS: [Laughs] The cowbell certainly is one of the more exotic instruments we used in this track. In “Schicksals End,” […] I added some special horn-sounding synth stuff, percussions, and later on, experimented with atmospheric synth-pad sounds, which you definitely can hear during the very calm and acoustic part. Besides the deep heaviness, I wanted to reach some great floating contrast that brings the listener down to some sort of dream-y mood before we strike hard and heavy again.

Album closer “Finsterforst” is 23 minutes, 55 seconds. That’s longer than “The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner” by Iron Maiden! How hard was this song to compose? Also glad accordion is still part of the band. OB: I think songs like that are the easiest ones, to some degree, for Simon. Of course it takes longer and the details are more complicated, but then again, he can put so much different

it flow. [Accordion player Johannes] Hannes [Joseph] is part of the band, so the accordion is part of the band. SS: Indeed, the accordion sound always was and always will be a part of Finsterforst’s sound. […] I even think that the more rare appearances make the accordion something more special whenever it is attacking in a song. The finishing track of our album is definitely the highlight so far. I can’t really tell you how much time I needed to compose this monster, but as Olli already said, for me, it is not really a problem to make bigger or longer songs. I think I had some stable structure and idea of this track already after short time. But then it grew and grew; with each new part I realized that something was missing or I came up with another vision. How has Germany shaped your band? You are folk metal, but in a more serious way than some of the goofier bands. OB: To me personally, there are maybe two or three pagan, folk bands from Germany that I respect in terms of music, though there are some younger bands, which is promising. But I’m much more into German black metal that tries to differ from Scandinavian bands. Think of bands

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like Nagelfar, Nocte Obducta, or Lunar Aurora. These bands are definitely part of my DNA as singer and lyricist. How does it feel to be nearing your 10 year anniversary as a band? Do you hope your music will inspire people to do bigger things? OB: Can’t really answer the first one, since I’m only closing in on five years with the band, but they don’t seem too excited to me. In terms of inspiring people, you’d hope so, of course. It’s always touching when people come to you and tell you how your music helped them get through stuff by providing them with new energy and hope. But, first and foremost, we’re doing it for the fun of it. Hanging out together, challenging ourselves to trump the latest album, playing gigs in front of crazy guys. I think that’s why the band is still around after 10 years. We love what we’re doing, as painful as it can be at times. SS: It feels awesome to be at a point where we will release our fourth studio album and have performed more than 100 shows. On the other side, it also shows how fast this fucking time is passing! I mean, 10 years… Holy hell, I thought that such an amount of time would last a bit longer. I am scared! [Laughs].

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wait to get there! I just celebrated my 39th birthday. As you get older and, dare I say, a tad more wise… I think we’re all at this point where we’re all very hard working, normal kind of dudes who’ve never taken anything for granted. We’re even more appreciative as time goes by.

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How did it feel when Billy Talent II hit number one on the Canadian charts for the first time? Insane. We recorded the record and… Before, there were people who’d see us play. But when we released that record, everything went fuckin’ haywire for a while.

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INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST BENJAMIN KOWALEWICZ BY MORGAN Y. EVANS

fter releasing five albums and passing the multi-platinum hurdle, Ontario’s Billy Talent have proven the best way to success is to “Try Honesty.” While sincerity may not be the fastest route to the top, the band’s staying power and recently released greatest hits collection— simply entitled Hits—prove songs can be catchy, memorable, and sell records without forgoing subject matter that really matters. Any countries that have been particularly welcoming to your band? We’ve been to quite a few places over the last 10–11 years. Germany has embraced us. The U.K., from England to Scotland to Ireland, has always been there for us as well. For the last couple years, we’ve really been allowed to grow. We’ve been to Russia now a few times. Places like South Africa; an amazing place, such an appreciation for live music and lovely people. […] It’s really beautiful when you can travel and have language, cultural, and religious barriers melt and, for one moment, have everyone singing along to something. You’re a band that can unify. You care about human beings. I don’t understand how you could think otherwise. Having loved and lost, and ups and downs in our career, it makes me realize how fortunate we are just to be this band, and to hang out and make the best impact you can while you have the time.

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How humbling is it that many Billy Talent fans are fans for life? Why didn’t you give up during the first decade, before wider awareness of your music was the norm? Loyalty to our fans. Being transparent and never doing them wrong. We made mistakes, but also good choices. [We were] open with your fans about where [we were] at. That’s the beautiful thing nowadays; you can have that discussion with your fans now. That never existed as much. Some people think that’s a detriment. I was one of those people for a long while. But if you can have a direct conversation with someone who likes your band in Poland or Mexico City, that’s pretty powerful shit! When I was growing up, there was no way I would think I’d write Nirvana and they’d write back. It seemed impossible. Now we can do that. We’re normal dudes who play rock music. You could join the Misfits Fiend Club, but it didn’t mean Danzig was going to send murdergrams. Yeah. Or Pearl Jam’s Ten Club. [Laughs] I mean, I was having an interesting conversation the other day with a girl on how to navigate as an aspiring musician coming up. You play music because it is inside of you. You find people. I’m fortunate I have these guys in my band. Practice and hone your craft. Write good songs, and people will find you. Don’t chase “The Voice” and “American Idol” instant gratification. “Look how great I am! I can sing!” [Laughs] It’s not just that you can sing. You should have some-

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thing to say, whether it’s three friends in a basement or being able to tour the world. Billy Talent still writes songs that matter. “Kingdom Of Zod” has more energy and fast vocal cadence than ever! Thank you. I remember being shown the riff and thinking, “That is bad ass.” Old school Billy Talent. Just kind of groovy and you can bop your head to it. I’m sure you may have heard our mayor at the time [Rob Ford] was insane, racist, homophobic, and smoking crack. An extortionist. And people were still applauding him. I’d never seen such a strong divide in my city. When we were talking about being creative, we were angry that we have such an amazing city and are surrounded by wonderful, forward thinking people, but had this individual representing us. People spew whatever they want and lie even though there is video evidence to the contrary. Did it feel weird to get to your fifth album, Dead Silence, let alone to have a greatest hits collection? [Laughs] Yes. Everything has been gravy at this point. Now that we put the Greatest Hits out, breathed new life into these songs and got talking, we’re really on the same page. We’re very excited, and it’s been this cosmic kind of thing that’s happened. A calm within our band. Not that the songs won’t be crazy, but there’s a synergy in the band. It took looking back. That sounds cliché, but it has given us a new perspective [and] lease on life. The stuff we’re coming up with now… I have rehearsal in a half hour and I can’t

You combine punk but with big rock sounds. We love The Clash and Buzzcocks, but also Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. […] It’s an indicator of where people are at. I love hip hop, and it is like punk rock to me as well. It Takes A Nation Of Millions… [To Hold Us Back by Public Enemy] was raw and real. I’d never heard something like that before. You can’t just say, “We are this.” I mean, you can, but there is so much more to explore as a musician. Make yourself more well-rounded and find your voice. We’ve always tried to be pure, but for us, the lyrics have always ben very important. Some people might never care, but at least we are going to say what we want and hopefully people can relate to my belief system. I hope they do, because we promote good messages and being a good person in your community. I think it’s universal. We try to practice what we preach. It’s an interesting thing with songs, and people nowadays, having the Internet allow us to do things genuinely or just to stir the pot. “River Below” is a powerful song. Is it weird, as a Canadian, that in the U.S., shootings and bombings have become commonplace? Or what happened in Pakistan [when the Pakistani Taliban attacked an army-run school in Peshawar]. 141 [casualties], mostly kids. It comes in many forms. Being raised in an environment that breeds hate or mistrust. Not being accountable. I think we need to focus on loving each other instead of hurting, around the world. Listening and helping. Too many beautiful people have been lost. We need to progress and move on as people on this planet. “River Below” was almost censored, right? Yeah, that song was written about a guy making bombs in his basement in a small town outside Ontario. So, I wrote a song about what would possess and drive someone [to do that]. What’s the motivation? You just snap. I remember the bomb detonates at the end of our video, and the video wasn’t shown on TV here. They said it was too graphic, but the same week “99 Problems (But A Bitch Ain’t One)” shows Jay-Z getting shot. So I pleaded our case and said, “This happened down the street.” That year, we won video of the year. It was worth the effort. You get to tell a story in four minutes. If you do that properly, people can connect.

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was scared,” says Marissa Paternoster, vocalist and guitarist of Screaming Females. “It was taking so long and none of the doctors really had any concrete answers.” It was late 2012 and Screaming Females had to suddenly cancel the rest of their tour due to Paternoster’s deteriorating health. The cancellation was a harsh blow. Not only was the band finishing a highly successful tour opening for Garbage, not only had Paternoster just been named one of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time by Spin, but the band were supporting their own critically lauded album, Ugly, released earlier in the year. Ugly had been called a “triumphant call to action,” by The AV Club. Pitchfork even suggested that the album was “redefining” the sound of classic rock. But just as the band— who had seven years of nearly nonstop touring and recording under their belt—was reaping the success of their work, the Fates struck them down. Paternoster’s fingers weren’t working correctly. She seemed to be sick all the time. She was always tired. As it turns out, she had mononucleosis, which usually isn’t that big of a deal for most people. “It was just mono,” she says. “It’s something that a lot of people get, but I had it chronically, which doesn’t happen to most people. Some people get better in two months, and some people need six months or more. I was getting all this blood work done, but the results were not on point. Sometimes they said it was in remission and sometimes I would have it again. I was going back and forth for months and months.” It’s a serious blow for any band when the lead singer is taken out of commission. For Screaming Females, who had worked so tirelessly, it seemed to be a vicious act of God, Vishnu, or whomever you prefer. For the first time since their inception, the band’s future was seriously threatened. The band formed while Paternoster and bassist Mike Abbate were still in high school. After a short stint as Surgery On TV, the duo added Jarrett Dougherty on drums and the band became the power trio Screaming Females. A charging combination of classic rock whomp, punk edge, and singer-songwriter lyrical abstraction, the band was a hybrid of their influences, but entirely separate from their predecessors. Paternoster would wail on the guitar with a muscular snap, while Abbate was her foil, balancing his broad, thick bass lines against Paternostor’s razor-edge. Meanwhile, Dougherty drove the procession forward with his flighty, but hard-smashing cadence. In an era when pop music

was reigning champ of the charts, and underground music was moving towards extreme metal, or calm dream-rock, Screaming Females seemed both retro and new. They weren’t scared to use the same thunder as Nazareth or Angus Young, nor were they reticent to borrow Neil Young’s trippy symbolism, without being bound by the rules of either. It’s no wonder Pitchfork suggested the band might be redefining rock, because really, they were: where else can you find a five foot tall girl who can put both Jimmy Page and Marnie Stern to the test, backed by two highly skilled bashers, shouting lyrics like, “I’ll be sitting on the base swallowing pounds of sand/ the boiler smokes, I hear it blow/ I’ll never let you go”? Nowhere. That’s where. When the band’s mouthpiece became sick, what could they do? “We had to cancel so many dates because I was sick,” Paternoster says. “But, I had to get better and the only way to get better was to take time off. But, taking time off from a band that we were playing in constantly for seven years was super scary. Am I going to get better? How are we going to get through this hiatus?” “We were depressed because we couldn’t play,” Paternoster continues. “We didn’t know how we would get back on track. We were feeling groundless. Me and Mike had been doing this our entire adult lives. It’s just weird to have that taken away abruptly, and just sit at home without a job and try to figure out how to make money.” The band found themselves facing a wall, unsure of how to continue. Like ancient Greek generals, when faced with the gruesome odds, instead of retreating, the band shifted their tactic. After a year or so of planning—as well as the release of The Chalk Tape, a limited run cassette composed of songs written on a chalkboard with no rewrites—Screaming Females formulated a plan. “We usually do a lot of planning before going into the studio,” Dougherty explains. “The new record, especially, was no exception. We wanted to do something different. On past records, the bass and guitar rhythm might be slightly different, which is kind of a manic intensity. But, we planned to do something new this time.” For the first time ever, they worked with an outside producer. Although the band had previously used famed soundman Steve Albini as an engineer, they had always self-produced. But, who should be the group’s first producer? “Selecting a producer was a big decision,” Dougherty says. “We had to stretch out for what we were going for. We wanted loud guitars, but we

wanted them to sound really clear. So, we looked to metal.” In an inspired choice, the band drafted Matt Bayles, he who had given thunderous bands like Mastodon, Isis, and Botch their rumble. Thus, the band got to work on their new LP, Rose Mountain. The result is a new angle on the band’s music, one that has generated the most buzz for them to date. “When we were recording with Matt, we talked shit,” Abbatte explains. “I won’t say about what. I’ve been told that people are excited about the record, but I can’t tell if people are excited about the record, or why. People might be listening to it and thinking how terrible it is, and then passing it to their friends to show how terrible it is. I don’t really know.” Dougherty continues, “The funny thing is that Matt is a guy known for producing metal records, but we came in with our least rowdy songs. I mean, sure, some of the songs still rip, but on some of them, you can sing along.” Of course, the new tunes do rip. In fact, the lead single, “Ripe,” finds Paternoster flying up and down the fret board, snapping out power chords while Dougherty and Abbate crash along behind her. It is true that there is a new precision to the recording. It’s powerful and precise, and, in many ways, a new self-definition for the band. “Even the cover art has a lot to do with the lyrical content,” Paternoster explains. “It shows disembodied hands and a face, with no torso, no limbs. It’s a mind with two hands, floating over this abstract and very empty space. It has to do with me feeling ill physically and emotionally from the previous year.” As always, even if Paternoster is direct, her lyrics twist on a sort of surrealist plane. “Ripe” includes the lines: “I dressed up the horses, set them loose/ Sunk the needle deep and took every drop/ A violent path and inch in time/ and ever my device, the anchor drops.” “I just like horses from a purely aesthetic standpoint,” Paternoster explains. “I was a ‘horse girl’ growing up. I think they are super elegant. They’re powerful and I like powerful images.” What follows seems like a non sequitur, but perhaps it isn’t. “During the whole health thing, we were scared. But we stuck together. Then, we came out on top.” Maybe this juxtaposition of a beast known equally for its power and grace, against a band who bend brain-melting riffs around an earnest, vulnerable core isn’t quite so random after all. Rose Mountain is out Feb. 24, 2015, on Don Giovanni Records.

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hen it comes to pushing the envelope in the realm of extreme metal, few bands do it quite as well as Torche. Though some may argue that Torche should not be considered a metal band due to their sticky-sweet melodies and lack of blast beats, they remain a force to be reckoned with no matter what genre you pigeonhole them in. Initially formed in 2004 by guitarist and vocalist Steve Brooks, bassist Jonathan Nuñez, drummer Rick Smith, and guitarist Juan Montoya after the breakup of Brooks’ other band Floor, their mixture of lumbering riffs and infectious melodies has truly helped them carve out their own unique place in the world of metal over the past decade. Though the band’s self-titled debut garnered them a lot of attention, it was with the release of their 2008 masterpiece Meanderthal that their popularity began to reach absurd heights. Though most of the heavy praise they received came from high-profile blogs and magazines, it was the review by former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Fox News’ “Red Eye,” where he referred to them as “a band with more hooks than a pirate convention. A band heavier than something really heavy… like a tractor or something” that truly demonstrated just how farreaching their sound had become. After weathering a lineup change involving Montoya that led to them performing as a three piece until the addition of guitarist Andrew Elstner (Riddle Of Steel, Tilts), the U2-meets-Melvins sound on their 2012 album Harmonicraft helped them continue to gain popularity and acclaim, despite being on smaller record labels like Robotic Empire, Hydra Head, and most recently, Volcom Entertainment. Unfortunately for the band, while on tour in 2013, they got the call that every musician dreads. They were informed that their record label Volcom Entertainment was soon to be no more. “The company as a lifestyle-skate-surf-snowboard brand is still strong as ever, they just discontinued Volcom Ent,” says Elstner. “We were out on tour—in Cleveland if I remember right—and Nuñez got the call from Mike Nobrega at the label who broke the news.”

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They weren’t free agents for long, and in a wonderful stroke of luck, they eventually signed to extreme metal stalwarts Relapse Records. “After the folding of Volcom Ent., we were without a home,” Elstner recalls. “Some emails were exchanged, phone calls were made, Thai food was eaten, Cadillac’s with tinted windows, martini lunches, offers made, contracts reviewed, and boom. Relapse was an awesome fit. We’ve been super fortunate to work with only awesome labels, and Relapse is no different. We’re all super stoked.”

getting stuck on a part or riff that doesn’t feel right.”

Prior to the announcement of their Relapse signing in February, 2014, Torche had already started the process of recording what would become their fifth album, Restarter. The writing and recording process was made slightly more difficult due to their members being spread all over the country. According to bassist Jonathan Nuñez, their approach to the process had to be very no-nonsense. “When we get together, I feel we tend to focus on being as productive as possible since half the band travels to south Florida from [San Francisco], Calif., and [Atlanta], Ga. We also always have a straight to the point work ethic, which helps us not

Elstner adds, “We could probably write more prolifically if we were all in the same city, but with creative projects, the obstacles have as much to do with shaping the output as anything else does. We’re all dedicated, so we just work around it, and get work done regardless. [The distance] keeps us more focused when we’re all together, and we probably get less tired of seeing each other’s faces.”

One benefit of the band’s strenuous recording process is having Nuñez double as their engineer, recording at his own Pinecrust Studio in Miami. “I think it’s nice,” Nuñez says. “It helps to have a space that you’re familiar with and comfortable at, [where you] have written songs or records with a positive outcome. My recording studio is a home base for us, which makes recording and demoing easy and ideal.”

When coupling familiar surroundings with an increased focus on finishing the job, the immersive nature of their writing process is a huge boost to the band’s creativity. “With very

few exceptions, all the songs are written with the four of us in a room banging it out,” explains Elstner. “Someone will have a riff or two, maybe something happens on accident, Rick has a beat, etc. Everything is very heavily collaborated on, down to the vocals. [Is it] painstaking? Probably. But in this way, each individual is invested, is contributing, and feels connected to the song. All four of us have some seriously strong opinions and often come from different places musically, so it almost cannot happen any other way.” The results of the band’s hard work in the studio is an album that perfectly balances the direction of Harmonicraft with some of their heaviest riffs to date. Though the album is being released on a label more synonymous with extreme metal, this heavier, darker sound is not something that was created intentionally. “As with any band I’ve been in, it’s the same with Torche: moods change, perspectives change, and the desire to progress is always there from album to album,” Elstner says. “You tour and tour on the same songs, so, often I think the tendency is to sort of move away from what isn’t

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exciting you anymore, y’know? To us, Harmonicraft is a decidedly sunnier record. That Restarter is more dark by comparison doesn’t surprise me, but it’s nothing we actively pursued.” With the band consistently increasing in popularity and receiving bigger and bigger tour offers in addition to their signing to Relapse, it’s understandable that their expectations for the future are quite high. However, they are also realistic about their situation. “Expectations are often dangerous,” admits Elstner. “Like, if we were all maxing out our credit cards, literally or metaphorically, because, ‘Hell yeah, bigger label means a shitload of loot is coming!’ you can wind up seriously fucked and disheartened when things don’t go as you expected them to, and [you have] no one but yourself to blame.” Nuñez adds, “[We just want] to work hard and continue to do what we’ve been doing for 10 years now. [We’re] looking forward to traveling to new countries and revisiting the many places that we’ve grown fond of playing over the years!”

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I N T E R V I E W W I T H G U I TA R I S T PAT R I C K A L B E R T S B Y H U T C H

be processed internally. This is what it means to be in a scene of outcasts, to basically be involved with people constantly.

Their widely hailed debut album on Relapse, Ageless, is killer. They have several tours lined up, including a four week West Coast tour with Enabler. Though they are doing well, Alberts states there is constant anxiety persistently challenging their ability to feel comfortable. “We have so much to conquer and prove at this point, that there is not even room to think about being comfortable. The struggle to be comfortable will never end.”

Ageless was recorded by Andy Patterson, and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege.

uitarist Patrick Alberts of Call Of The Void explains their sound as a balance of “just enough punk, sludge, and hardcore to make a good song… Like Converge playing High On Fire songs, if that makes any sense.” It certainly does after hearing one measure of their music.

The isolative lyrics to “Truth In Bone” trigger a caustic sense of anxiety, but touring can be therapeutic. It forces the searing sting of strangers’ stares to

Alberts accepts the irony and utilizes it as catharsis. “I find that when we are on the road, I enjoy human interaction. It is new people with new personalities. Change usually brings fun. If anything, it is when you show up for a gig and all eyes are on you from the local bands’ loading. It is tough to break the ice.”

“Brad has a great ear and he did wonders for the clarity of our recording,” says Alberts. “We are a very noisy, bass driven band, and shit can get lost in the mix very easily. The great thing about Andy is that he likes to let you be master of your own destiny. The band recorded, is the true sound of the band. We have a deep,

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mutual understanding of what is expected of him and of us, and that makes for a very smooth recording process. We had seven days booked, but we were done in five.” Lyrically, a few songs—”Cold Hands,” “Old Hate,” and “The Hive”—deal with inheriting traditions, rules, and guidelines due to one’s societal and familial heritage. Call Of The Void uses music to potentially change these conceptions, rather than retreat into isolation. Alberts elaborates, “I always think about people who are as set in their own ways as a caveman. The enemy is anything that is not normal. That enemy must be killed. As a society, I think that is what we are dealing with now. Progress seems to take a long time. My opinion, though, is if time shows us anything, it is that we must always progress and work hard no matter what the circumstances are. Being comfortable is not always the best choice on a societal level or on a personal level.”

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noise monger Taylor Young works as well. Recording with Young—who as equals. No stereotype, no cop or drums for Nails, shreds for Twitchgovernment is going to be there for ing Tongues, and produces for ACxus when shit hits the fan, so it’s up DCx—at his studio, The Pit, in Van to us to be selfless and not let these Nuys made the usually arduous proprejudiced views get in the way cess a bit less painful. “Working with of what matters most: the people.” Taylor has become such a natural experience,” Rebolledo says, “I couldn’t Like true artists, the lads in Xibabla imagine recording anywhere else. express their nuanced political views Plus, we aren’t the easiest band to deal with a slew of fat guitar riffs and blast with. Something that takes most peobeats. Sonically, Tierra Y Libertad ple a couple weeks takes us months.” feels like the unholy offspring of Bolt Thrower and Obituary on a Red Bull Xibalba’s sonic evolution is perhaps fueled rager through densely popu- best demonstrated by the new album’s lated civilian areas. Rebolledo cred- monstrous closing track, “El Vacio,” its Xibalba’s ferocious and evolving aka “The Emptiness.” The song clocks sound to the band’s diligent work in near the 13 minute mark, and is ethic. “[Guitarist] Brian [Ortiz] and easily the loftiest of the band’s career, [drummer] Jason [Brunes] are con- featuring a beautifully eerie guitar stantly writing,” he reveals. “When melody that sucks the listener into a it comes time to record, we usually cavernous pit of dread and despair. force time off to formulate our al- “Xibalba is a band you listen to loud, bums. We obviously take a lot of time where you have to actively listen to in between records, and I feel the and vibe out to it,” Rebolledo says. progression shows where we are as a “‘El Vacio’ is obviously one of those band. I personally hate recording; it songs, a sad song that will put you puts me in a mindset I don’t want to in a mindset that goes beyond just be in… Lots of whiskey helps.” listening.”

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ibalba have labored in the underground hardcore scene for going on eight years now, and have proven themselves as one of Southern California’s nastiest musical exports. With bludgeoning riffs and head bobbing grooves, cycling through Xibalba’s catalog is a veritable paradise for mosh pit junkies and beat down aficionados. The band’s 2012 album Hasta La Muerte found the Pomona, Calif., quintet veering down a more hardened, death metal path. Their new record, Tierra Y Libertad—released on Jan. 26 via Southern Lord Records—follows this same approach, but is even heavier, more grizzled, and in your face than ever before. Part of this new record’s ostentatious presentation stems from its volatile subject matter. The album’s title, Tierra Y Libertad—which, translated from Spanish, means “land and liberty”—hints at Xibalba’s new sociopolitical songwriting slant. Frontman Nate Rebolledo explains the larger theme behind the album. “‘Tierra Y Libertad’ and ‘Guerilla’ correlate with each other,” he explains, “Conflicts nowadays seem to have a hidden agenda that affects people and our physical surroundings. As people, we often forget about what matters most: compassion and responsibility to take care of and view each other

So, booze works, and collaborating with producer, friend, and fellow

Despite the doom and gloom stylings at the heart of Tierra Y Libertad, things seem to be on the up and up in the Xibalba camp with a slamming new album, a music video in the works, and a string of celebratory record release shows planned for both coasts this winter. Xibabla is also enjoying their status as a premier attraction on the ever growing Southern Lord roster, alongside bands like Nails, Baptists, and Torch Runner, who are reshaping the modern extreme metal and hardcore landscapes. When asked to summarize his opinion of life under the Southern Lord banner, Rebolledo couldn’t help but channel his inner Suge Knight, going on his own 1995 Source Awards tirade: “Any artist that wanna be an artist and wanna remain a star, and don’t have to worry about executive producers trying to be… All in the videos… All on record, dancing… Come to Southern Lord!”

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Shots fired at Bad Boy Entertainment’s metal division.

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You might also find yourself tripping out on the album’s wicked cov-

er art, courtesy of death metal artist extraordinaire Mr. Dan Seagrave [Morbid Angel, Entombed, Suffocation]. This is Seagrave’s second Xibabla cover, and it depicts soldiers and rebels—armed with machine guns and tanks—fighting amongst Mayan ruins. “The guy is a legend!” Rebolledo gushes. “To be able to work with him is surreal, and seeing our ideas come together makes [me] appreciate his artistic views and the process it takes to make his pieces.”

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INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST LIAM CORMIER BY NICHOLAS SENIOR

unk is all about catharsis; it should make you feel something. Canada’s Cancer Bats normally make you want to thrash around a mosh pit, but Searching For Zero is so much more. By channeling all the negativity in their lives, the band has crafted their best effort yet, full of riffs and soon to be live favorites. The added layer of substance really pushes the band to new heights. Cancer Bats have always been fun; now, they’re fun and impactful. What was it like recording with Ross Robinson? It was amazing; it was an awesome experience. I mean, you’ve heard the legend, right? [Laughs] You’ve heard a lot of stories about him, being really intense and really harsh. Then, you meet this really quiet and nice dude. I mean, he’ll get really intense and stoked, but he’s just intense about the project. He’s a real no bullshit kind of guy. If you’re going halfway on something, he’ll be the first one to call you out on it. We definitely were trying a lot of ideas and trying to push a lot of different kinds of things into the album, so us having that mindset and coming to Ross, that’s where he kind of ran with it. He kickstarted some ideas that maybe we would’ve thought twice about, but then, having this guy who was so stoked with us [helped] push ourselves into this new territory and out of our comfort zones.

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Did you force yourselves to try new things? We definitely had the internal mandate to try some new things. As a band, we have a lot of influences, so we loved going from a thrash song to a stoner jam in our tracklist. Luckily, our fans have always been super up for that diversity, so we knew we could try out some things here. Before we were even writing the album, we knew we wanted to touch on so many of the diverse styles we’ve done before, even in lesser doses. However, when we were writing, it wasn’t quite as intentional. We just wanted to pound out as many songs as we could, and whatever the best songs NEW NOISE MAGAZINE

happened to be, we would put those on the record. Were any songs particularly difficult to write? “All Hail” was probably one of the tougher ones, because we didn’t want to write “Pray For Darkness” Part II, you know? We didn’t want to find ourselves getting too comfortable with a certain formula. That was another thing Ross really helped us with: allowing us to take our previous foundation and push ourselves just enough out of our comfort zones. Vocally, were you planning on changing it up this much? How much of that was Ross pushing you? I definitely was trying different vocal styles going into it, as my voice has sort of opened up. When I got to the studio, he was really on board, so we would just try to do whatever the song would call for. Outside of “All Hail,” I don’t scream throughout the songs, and I really liked that. We were just kind of all about going for it. The support from the fans helped, like with “Drunken Physics.” We weren’t sure how the fans would take it, but it’s one of our most requested songs live, so we knew we had some support for trying something new. Lyrically, was it cathartic to write about all the negativity in your life? Yeah, it meant a lot to me to have these songs to work through those things. We took a really long time to write this record, so, as all these things were happening, having these songs were a great way to cope. As I was dealing with the deaths and sickness of people close to me, I could go to band practice and scream and yell about my problems. In “Dusted,” in the chorus, it’s just such a release to I let out all those things. It helped me a lot. I’d like to think that other people could use this record to get over those shitty times in their lives. With a song like “Arsenic In The Year Of The Snake,” we’ve all been there, whether it’s 2013 or just this week. We’ve all had those moments where someone close is gone, and you have to figure it all out. It sucks, for sure.

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we recorded it. We were so young, headstrong, determined, and fuckin’ excited about being in the studio and recording this. I think that is ingrained in the recording. When you put the album on, you feel that.

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/BASSIST CONRAD “CRONOS” LANT BY JULIA NEUMAN

fter 35 years of hellraising attitude and hugely influential music, what hasn’t already been said about Venom? Good ol’ frontman Cronos can answer that. Never short on words, this staunch defender of the heavy metal spirit lays down the law about the new Venom record, From The Very Depths, and why Miley Cyrus is more important than your metal band’s frontman. What excites you most about the new record? Quite a few things. It’s been many, many years since I’ve had a band that I’m really happy with. […] When it came to write the last album, I said to the guys, “Have you got any ideas?” They kind of looked at me as if I was crazy, thinking, “But, you’re Cronos! You write the stuff.” I was like, “Yeah, but we’re a fuckin’ band!” I can imagine what they were thinking, like, “What the fuck could we bring to Venom?” But it’s like, “You’ve already been bringing stuff to Venom since you joined the band. So, start giving me some riffs and some beats.” Then it was like a fuckin’ rollercoaster; one idea after the next. It’s really great to come make the second album with two guys who are super confident with a ton of ideas. It’s like we’re

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Are album sales still an indicator of success for you? We’re selling more now than we ever have in the history of the band, even with all the illegal downloads and shit. So, that says something for you. We’ve been playing more gigs than in the history of this band. I think we have a new, young audience who are into Venom now. On one of our recent gigs, it got near the end of the show and I turned to the crowd and said, “We’ve got a curfew here, so we haven’t got long. Fuck the setlist, what do you guys want to hear? You bought the ticket.” And I was expecting them to start shouting songs off the first couple of albums, but they didn’t. They started shouting songs off fuckin’ Fallen Angels! That was kind of mind-blowing for me. The people who come to hear “Witching Hour”: there’s three of them, and they’re standing at the back with their arms crossed, because they’re in their 50s. It’s the kids who are coming [out] and buying the new album, at the front row of the shows: they’re the Venom fans. Not these guys who are saying they’ve been into the band for 30 years. Because they haven’t [been]. They were into the band for maybe six years, and then they stopped with

the lineup change. Don’t say you’re a fan of the band if you don’t even like the current lineup, for fuck’s sake. [Laughs]. Venom began with the mission to bring the balls back into metal. Do you see any metal today that is in need of a renewal of spirit? Wow, it’s hard because it evolved so much. In the last few years, there seems to be a trend in metal of kids with short hair and, I don’t know, it sounds like Evanescence to me. With these crazy names like Bring Me Tomorrow’s Sunshine. I was looking in some magazines… Tomorrow’s Destiny’s Dream! What? What the fuck?! I just don’t get it. If it’s the part of evolution of metal, then maybe one day, I’ll get it. You know what I’m missing? Frontmen. Where are the Alice Coopers, the Ozzy Osbournes, the Lemmys? You know the frontmen I’m seeing? Fuckin’ Lady Gaga and Katy fuckin’ Perry and P!nk! They seem to have more balls than a lot of the guys in bands nowadays! They’re putting on all these amazing shows and they’re in your face. I mean look at that tiny Miley Cyrus. She’s like a thousand foot tall dragon with her attitude, isn’t she? I’ve never heard one song by her—I’m not interested in the slightest—but fuck me, she’s got some fuckin’ attitude! I think that’s what’s missing in metal today. Where have all the frontmen gone?

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fuckin’ telepathic. The new production style you’ve adopted sounds bigger and thrashier… Once we got into the kind of resurrection style recording—which was all Pro Tools and fuckin’ hard drives and bullshit—I immediately thought, “Yeah, OK, it shows Venom are professional, they can fuckin’ play their instruments and they’re tight, blah blah blah.” But I like that thrashiness. It’s hard to describe it; it’s more live, you know? You can always chop it up in a fuckin’ studio and get everything pitch perfect, but for fuck’s sake, that isn’t rock ‘n’ roll. It’s gotta be a bit wild; it’s gotta be a bit dangerous. When we’re playing gigs, I can’t think of a happier place, and I’m thinking I want that on the album. I want that feeling, I want that urgency, that thrashiness. When people talk about the early Venom albums, you have the critics who maybe weren’t there at the time and listen to those albums now, and they say, “Oh, maybe the tuning could be better, or maybe the timing could be better.” Then you think, “Well, if an album’s lacking in professional tuning and timing, how can it be such a great album?” And I 100 percent believe it’s because of the way we felt when

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JEFF ROSENSTOCK INTERVIEW BY JOHN B. MOORE

014 was a pretty momentous year for Jeff Rosenstock. He ended his DIY music collective Bomb The Music Industry! after eight years together. He produced the widely praised Smith Street Band record Throw Me In The River. And he somehow managed to find the time to write and record his second solo album, We Cool?, which is coming out this spring on SideOneDummy. How tough was it to finally call it a day with Bomb the Music Industry!? It was tough because it was a big part of the past eight years of my life, and it was something I didn’t expect to be doing the whole time. Aside from whatever shitty shows we played—at times in really small venues where people were being dicks— [and] whatever problems we went through as a band, we were really lucky. 90 percent of the time, it felt like I won the fucking lottery. I did this thing that was against everything that all other bands who had been successful did, and it worked. We weren’t trying to do anything, so the fact that we got to tour, and tour internationally, and got

to be a part of such a great community of bands like Andrew Jackson Jihad, Laura [Stevenson], The Sidekicks, Hop Along, and Cheap Girls—all these bands are my favorite bands that are making music right now—so the fact that we got to be a part of that was amazing. Ending that, I definitely became fearful that I was never going to see these people again, including the people in my band. We were all still friends when it ended.

That said, it wasn’t a big dramatic moment when we ended. I don’t think there was anything else Bomb the Music Industry! could do that we hadn’t done before. It was cool to have finality. We ended in a way where we never had to compromise anything. Were Andrew Jackson Jihad responsible for you deciding to release your solo record on SideOne? Well, they said a lot of nice things about SideOne, and we are friends, so I hope

they said, “Jeff ’s an OK guy,” when they were talking to SideOne. But, not really. My buddy makes t-shirts [for the label] and he mentioned to someone at SideOne that the demos I had for the new record were really good, and they got in touch just as I was finished recording. They asked to hear them and they liked them. We talked, they seemed cool, and that was that. It was definitely a heavy decision, because I was either just going to do it myself or Mike Park was going to put it out on Asian Man; those are two options that I am super comfortable with. Mike was encouraging me to give something new a shot, and it seemed like a cool thing to try, because they’re a great label and have put out some really cool records this year. I’m happy to be a part of that group. How did recording this one differ from your first solo record, I Look Like Shit? I did this new record the same way I did I Look Like Shit, which was just a straight demo, because that’s how I write songs. For whatever reason, it ended up being a bigger thing and

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we recorded with Jack Shirley in the Bay Area. That was different than any record I have ever made, because I didn’t have to mix and engineer… To have that pressure off and just focus on music with everybody else was awesome. Stuff just sounds so great when you record with Jack. I think we come from similar places and share a lot of the same aesthetics. It was cool to just plug in a guitar and have him do his thing. Were you hesitant to take on the producer role for the new Smith Street Band record? Well, we’ve toured with them twice and we’re family at this point. When they’re coming to America, they know they can mail things to my house so it’s waiting for them when they get here; they can crash at my place to get over jetlag. It wasn’t weird at all… Honestly, doing that record completely changed my life. If I didn’t have the time to work with them on the record and think about things, I probably would have just gotten a job rather than getting to work on my own record. Working with them in Australia, we were in the most amazing studio. Matt Voigt was engineering it, and I was the “ideas guy.” It was just so amazing. I was so happy I did it. If there was any reluctance I had in doing this, it was, “Oh Fuck, I hope I’m good enough.”

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I N T E R V I E W W I T H G U I TA R I S T T R E V O R D E B R A U W B Y J U L I A N E U M A N

hicago post-metal quartet Pelican has entered into a new era of lineup changes, remixes, and (gasp!) more vocal additions. Founding guitarist Trevor de Brauw reveals the motivations behind The Cliff EP, and the things he appreciates most about Pelican’s creative trajectory. Pelican has been around for about 15 years. What milestones were the most significant for your success and growth as a band? We started this band with very few ambitions, so everything we’ve done has felt sort of milestone-ish. We started the band for fun, but also because we had this compulsion to make music and try to hone it to the best of our abilities. […] Pelican is fun, but it’s also been a tremendous amount of work and [the] nexus around which our collective lives circle. There are ebbs and flows of activity now, but I think dedicating ourselves to progressing our music 52

and our abilities as musicians has helped us to grow as a band and as people. “The Cliff ” is the second ever Pelican track with vocals, the first being “Last Breath” on 2009’s What We All Come To Need. Why do another vocal track? As with last time, we had a song that felt like it would benefit from the inclusion of vocals. From the early stages of writing “The Cliff,” it seemed somehow incomplete in an instrumental arrangement. When we went in to record Forever Becoming— the album “The Cliff ” was originally on—we invited Allen Epley from The Life And Times to sing on it. He’d previously done vocals on our song “Final Breath,” and he did such an amazing job with it that we knew he was suited to the job. When we got to the mixing stage of the album and started listening to how it played in the context of the album, it became apparently that the vocals somehow

interrupted the flow of the record. We made the tough decision to cut the vocals, but pledged that we would find a way to release the vocal version down the road. Eventually, we determined that we should do an EP and pair the vocal version with “The Wait,” which is a song that was in the works for the album, but not finished in time. Why did you choose to bring in Justin Broadrick of Godflesh, and Aaron Harris and Bryant Clifford Meyer of Palms—and formerly of ISIS—to do remixes for The Cliff EP? The EP sort of to hearkens back to some of the records we used to collect in the ‘90s. In a way, Godflesh’s Slavestate would be a good example: a lead track, some remixes, and an exclusive song. The remixer choices were pretty obvious; we just used friends and long-term collaborators of ours. Justin and the Palms guys went in completely different directions with their remixes and both of those are vastly different than the original, so it’s really cool how it turned out. Reading the tracklisting, it looks like three different versions of the same song in a row, but if you listened to it without seeing a tracklisting, NEW NOISE MAGAZINE

I doubt you’d be able to tell. What are your favorite Godflesh and ISIS albums? With Godflesh, I kind of seesaw back and forth between Pure and Selfless, the latter of which is by far the most underrated record in their back catalog. The songwriting and execution on that album is definitely peak. With ISIS, I think they went out on a high note; Wavering Radiant is the perfection of the aesthetic they worked their entire career to define. It’s a beautiful tombstone. What did you learn from parting ways with fellow guitarist of over 10 years, Laurent Schroeder-Lebec? It reinforced a lot of things that we knew, but maybe didn’t think about too consciously: not to take things for granted, [and] that things may not be as permanent as they seem. I’ve found it valuable to approach every moment with the band knowing that, at some point, this will all end, and that every show and recording is lived more fully when I stay cognizant of that sense of impermanence.

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t seems fitting to close out a year full of push and pull between the old and new guards of metal—and those in between—by showcasing the work of an old school avant-garde metal singer who remains cutting edge. On “Goddess Of Light”—a preview of the forthcoming release from her solo venture Gospel Of The Witches—Karyn Crisis sings, “Bear witness to my eternal rebirth,” and it’s easy to believe her. The record, “Salem’s Wounds,” is due out March 10, via Century Media. How did Gospel Of The Witches come together? What led you to your collaborators, your producer Jamie King, and Century Media? Everything about this album and band feels like a wonderful accomplishment of the Law of Attraction, a manifestation of intention. It has not been easy. [Guitarist and composer] Davide [Tiso] and I began working on this album in 2009, and he wrote song after song waiting for me to find my way. He’s a prolific songwriter, but for me, the process is different. I need to be able to see and sense the atmosphere of the songs before I write for them; I need to be able to hear them to know what to sing. It took me a while to understand the vibe, and once I did, I was able to meet Davide’s songs with my vocals. Then, everything moved fast, and I realized [vocalist and bassist of Immolation] Ross [Dolan] needed to be a part of the vocals. This would @ NEWNOISEMAGS

be the first time I’d share vocal duties with anyone, and I felt his voice was the perfect pitch and texture for these songs. From there, after a bit of searching, Davide and I decided Jamie would be the right choice as producer, and we were right! Jamie is really a sonic genius; he’s a pleasure to work with, very intuitive, and a master of his craft. We can’t wait to work with him again. This began as a crowd-funding campaign and people really touched me with their contributions and support. I’m so grateful for all the efforts, but we still fell short of getting all the money we needed, so I thought the right label could be like the final contributor at that point. It just so happened that Marco Barbieri, who signed Crisis, also signed Karyn Crisis’s Gospel Of The Witches, and it feels good to be in such protective and powerful hands. How did this project evolve from Ephel Duath’s final release? Ephel Duath and Crisis brought Davide and I together, but each band had nothing to do with any of these songs. Is this record part of a bigger transformation of your spirituality? You may have been burned at the stake once, and Salem’s Wounds still

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haunt the psyche of our culture, with its social engineering of misogyny. Yes, this album is me coming out of the broom closet in a very big way. While some people choose to learn the Old Ways, or train in magical practices, I was born living this life: seeing “ghosts,” and Spirit Guides, Gods and Goddesses, and being able to communicate with them; having premonitions; being able to heal some people and some animals; knowing someone’s true intentions even if their words say something else; and all the other aspects of being a “Witch.” But I didn’t know what to call these abilities, and I didn’t have anyone to talk to about this. After leaving Crisis, my life became about understanding who I was in these aspects, and learning to work with these abilities for myself and for others, learning the history and understanding the misinformation and the reasons for persecution and genocide of the Witches who came before me. Your spooky melodic voice is more present, as well as your inimitable screams. “Alchemist” is aptly titled, because your chameleon skills are purest alchemy.

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This album has given me the opportunity to use more of my full range. Davide’s compositions are achingly emotional: just when you think he’s reached a pinnacle of heartbreak, he cracks the melodies open into even more darkness and light. I wanted to find my own way to offer even more emotion. […] In the past, I doubled my own vocals, but this time, since I use a more feminine approach, I wanted the songs to be anchored deeply in masculinity in key places, which is where Ross and [Tombs’ guitarist] Mike [Hill]’s voices come in. This record is full of hypnotic, emotional impact. Was it a trial to make, or a thrill? The thrill came from listening to Jamie’s mixes, the thrill of realizing, “We did it!” […] Being that this album is about magic and its very ancient roots, I had to go through many trials and challenges—a classic “quest”—in order to receive these teachings, so the album is a devotional work to the blessing of this experience. It was very challenging work, but the life of a witch is indeed “trial by fire.”

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVE GULLICK

aking dreams surround us. Hyper media, street noise, and flashing lights abound. Gang Of Four’s post-punk dissection of the perils of the modern age has, in some ways sadly, only gotten more relevant since the band was founded in the late ‘70s. Guitar legend Andy Gill tells us What Happens Next. Songs Of The Free came out in 1982. “I Love A Man In A Uniform” was this Trojan horse of a song: dancy and poppy to reel you in, but then satirical of macho patriarchy. When writing, is the message in service to your song or vice versa? “I Love A Man In A Uniform” was exactly a Trojan horse of a song. When I wrote the music for that, I wanted something that married spiky guitar with cool rhythms and pop sensibility. The first thing I came up with was the drum beat—a beat I notice Madonna and her producers have put to good use in more recent years— and then I just found a way to play the guitar that was just moving with the chords. Then [former vocalist] Jon [King] and I set about the lyrics, amusing each other with double entendres. Again, a subject that we had worked on many times: finding parallels in military power structures— who gives the orders—and sexual relations, feminism, and why people act the way they do, out of necessity, greed, lust. So the short answer is the music came first, and then, we found ways to talk about a well-trodden subject, but in a way that entertained and amused ourselves. It was, of course, banned in the U.K. because of the Falklands Crisis. A memo went round the BBC 24 hours before the British troops landed on the Falklands, saying, “Do not play this song at all. We are expecting military casualties.” We learned shortly after that the American military wanted to use the song as part of their TV advertising for the army. I would have been so very, very happy. At the last minute, someone pointed out to the General in charge that there might possibly be a satirical element to the tune.

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Did you know Content would be the end of an era while you were making it? King left big shoes to fill… I didn’t know what would happen with Content or after Content. We had only done a few gigs at the point where Jon signaled it was over for him. I had become tired of his “I’m in. Oh, hold on a second, maybe I’m not” approach, NEW NOISE MAGAZINE

and I knew I could make a higher standard of record on my own, which is what I have done with What Happens Next. How did you end up working with new vocalist John “Gaoler” Sterry? Gaoler just popped down the studio one day to give me a hand singing my vocals in a better way for the sake of making demos. For quite a long time, he was like a session singer for me. As I got to know him better, I liked him more and more. I really liked his voice, and it seemed to be a natural thought to maybe try doing a gig with him. We’ve now been all over the world with him. Is What Happens Next a personal statement or a question about society? What Happens Next is, in a way, kind of a London record, but because London is the capital of the world—certainly the epicenter of international capitalism—it is a record about what happens all across the world. As always with Gang Of Four, it is not about current affairs and it is not about big politics. It is about things that affect us all as individuals and, I guess, also about these identity crises that we are having everywhere. I think America is trying to identify what it is: is it still that racist society from the ‘50s or can it modernize itself? All across Europe, there are arguments about identity: who we are, who’s allowed in, who’s not. In many ways, these things come into the songs, even if, perhaps, obliquely. Whether you are a socialist or a total free market capitalist, it’s clearly in everyone’s interest that society is in some way at peace with itself. If you think you can just pull up the drawbridge, you will find that someone else will come and knock your castle walls down. The album features lyrics about “fake history” and “golden age mythology.” What happens next? Does society have a future? If we live our lives in a lie, we are doomed to live anti-lives: meaningless, parodic. That song “Where The Nightingale Sings” is about the creation of comfortable myths of the way society used to be. Political parties and entire ideologies are often built on these fictitious notions. The world will muddle through.

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MAKE DO

AND MEND

I N T E R V I E W W I T H V O C A L I S T / G U I TA R I S T J A M E S C A R R O L L & B A S S I S T L U K E S C H WA R T Z B Y J O E F I T Z PAT R I C K

ormerly known as part of “The Wave”—an inside joke term for posthardcore bands who are difficult to musically classify, including La Dispute, Touché Amoré, Pianos Become The Teeth, and Defeater—Make Do And Mend have been off the radar since the release of their second studio album from 2012, Everything You Ever Loved. Since then, the band released a split with The Flatliners in 2013, played a few select shows, and took some time to reflect. On Dec. 10, 2014, the band debuted the new single and title track for their upcoming album, “Don’t Be Long.” Feeling the need to retake control of the band, Make Do And Mend have kept the record out of the public eye, and they are releasing it on their own terms, on as their own label with the full support of Rise Records. You have already finished recording your upcoming album Don’t Be Long and will be releasing it Feb. 24, 2015. Where

did you record, and how did you keep it so secret? JC: Well, keeping it secret wasn’t the hard part [laughs]. A buddy of ours runs a studio in Connecticut. We did all of our second EP there. When we did End Measured Mile, we did drums there, and then we did guitars, vocals, and whatnot with our friend Jay Moss. We actually did something very similar this time. We went to our friend Nick Belmore and did drums and bass there, and then we went to Jay Moss and did the rest of it with him. It’s definitely cool being able to work with two people who we like and respect a lot, whose talents we admire, who each have their own strengths that we can utilize to the fullest extent. That was really fun, and I think it was beneficial overall for how the record came out. Why wasn’t it hard to keep it secret? JC: If we don’t tell anybody about it, nobody is going to know about it [laughs]. We just decided early

on that […] it was very much a [personal] endeavor. We let the label know that we were doing it and made sure that was all squared away, but other than that, we didn’t really tell anybody else. LS: When you announce before you even get into the studio, or when you are in the studio, that you are going in to do a new album, people automatically think, “I think it’s gonna sound like this,” or “It’s probably going to sound like this,” and it was just so much cooler to not say anything and just hit them with a song so no one has time to think. […] That’s something we really wanted to do: just hit people with new material.

sort of sentiment was a big part of how the release of Everything You Ever Loved went. We just didn’t feel like we were as “at the helm” as we were used to being. So this was a big deal to us to make sure we made this record for ourselves exactly the way we wanted to do it. We wanted to make sure it was released in a similar fashion, and I think doing the imprint really helps us do that. We get to work alongside Rise, which is amazing. They are great guys who run a great label, and they have been phenomenal to us and have provided us with more than I could ever imagine. So, to work alongside them is cool, but to also be in control is super fulfilling.

Why are you releasing this record on Stay Close, the imprint of Rise Records that you guys started? JC: A big reason of why we started to slow things down and really take a step back was that we felt not necessarily as in control as we could be, as we used to be, or as we should be, and that was not anybody’s fault but our own. That

What are the songwriting concepts on this record? JC: Every record has an overarching theme, and sometimes it’s not as clear, cut and dry. Sometimes it’s more of just a vibe to the songs. I don’t like records where I’m like, “I like the first three songs; skip four; skip five; six is pretty cool; skip seven; eight, nine, and 10 are

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pretty cool.” I’m a big fan of “front to backers.” So that’s something that we always push very, very hard for. Lyrically, there is usually one common strand that ties all of the songs together. On this record, it was actually a lot more prevalent than it has been on any other record. The record is about relationships, and not necessarily romantic relationships. You can tie it into our relationship together as a band, my relationship with my significant other, and also people’s relationship with our band, and vice versa—our relationship with people who dig our band or don’t. […] Most of the songs you can relate either way, because all three of those [relationships] are things that I love truly, and I devote a lot of time and effort to. How does the title track “Don’t Be Long” relate to the overall theme of relationships? JC: The first line of the song goes, “Maybe we lost our place and all I need to say is come and find me like an old crease in the @ NEWNOISEMAGS

page.” That, to me, sort of means that you get going—whether it’s you and your significant other, work, or something you do for fun with friends—and get moving. Every now and then, you check in on yourself and check in on the situation, and you either go, “I’m right on track; this is awesome,” and sometimes you [realize], “Somewhere along the way things sort of diverted in a way that I’m not necessarily happy with.” That first line speaks to maybe taking a wrong turn, and all we need to do is take a step back to where we started from, or the last time things were cool, and not want to keep on going in a negative direction. That sentiment is rampant throughout the record and really does relate to all three of those [relationships] very well. Luke, you play in another band called Loose Planes. Does anyone else have other projects they are currently involved with? JC: I don’t think so. Schwartz is the only one talented enough to do

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anything other than Make Do And Mend. LS: I wouldn’t call myself talented [laughs]. JC: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: thank God we were able to start Make Do And Mend, and I’m able to write the lyrics and have a pretty heavy hand in a lot of the music writing, because I am not talented enough to play in any other band. […] It’s been almost 10 years, and that fact has stood true. Nothing on the side for me, I don’t think. LS: I’m a big believer in “Fake it ‘til you make it.” That’s what I live for.

satisfied by that. So we absolutely will tour; there’s no question about it. But we’re not in the same rush to be like, “Whatever is out there, let’s do it.” We’ll do what feels right and what is the most fulfilling and beneficial to us as a band. We haven’t had the luxury of that point of view in a number of years, and I think it’s pretty cool.

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Beyond Groezrock on April 30, 2015, and Uncle M Fest on May 2, 2015, do you have any tours or festivals lined up for the upcoming year that you can announce yet? JC: We’re still working it out. In the time that we took off, all of us pretty firmly settled down, and not in a “shitty old man” kind of way. We all work jobs, and we all do our thing at home and are very 57

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s there any solid definition of what “hardcore” means in 2015? For Pennsylvania’s Title Fight, it means living in the moment. More than ever before, the band’s prismatic influences deliver sounds and textures that shift depending on your perspective. At first, a track may seem aggressive or grungy, but once you turn the corner, it becomes dreamy and distilled. Their Feb. 3 release Hyperview is sure to confuse some, but for others, the album will be a portal of moods and layers. What does Hyperview mean? The suffix “hyper” appears in the title, and “Hypernight,” which is both a song title and a refrain on the record. So, “Hyperview” was a term invented in the studio. Basically, we were having a discussion, and I said, “I’d like to invent something that can transcend beyond music and be discussed in colloquial terms rather than be associated in music contexts.” We threw around ideas, and I came up with “hyper-something.” Wrote the song “Hypernight,” and we tried to further it, and we came up with Hyperview. What I came up with is: “Hyperview” is a state of existence where you can completely see the truth. It’s a pretty abstract idea, and I’m working out the kinks of it. I just think it’s something I wanted to do: create something and be the one able to define it. What other ideas did you bring to the table with this record? It was kind of unintentional on my end, but after reflecting a little bit, a lot of it is control oriented: trying to control your life, and realizing the lack of control we really have. I think that even pops up in tracks like “Numb, But I Still Feel It”… Yeah, I think that’s always been a thing for us—especially for me—to address the unknown and those emotions and uncertainty. It’s something I especially thought when I was 16, 17, like, “Oh yeah, I’m gonna get a couple years down the line, and everything will sort itself out. I’ll understand myself, the world, and move on.” And of course, none of that has happened. […] Then it kind of comes to acceptance. Was it scary trying out new tones and sounds in Hyperview? I think this batch of songs really took on its own identity, and there’s definitely an aspect of apprehension around the whole thing. Just because we signed to a new record label, our last full-length came out two years ago… It’s stuff that you

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don’t want to affect how you’re writing and what you’re doing, but it’s definitely there in your mind that it’s scary and it’s uncertain how it will go over in a new context. What’s a particular song you’re especially proud of on the record? The song I’ve been most excited about is “Liar’s Love,” I think. […] The chorus melody is really great; I’m really proud of it, and I like the lyrics a lot. With Title Fight being around for over 10 years now, have you ever felt misunderstood? I don’t feel like we’ve been misunderstood. There are certain things we get lumped in with that I’d rather not be. Obviously, I’m unashamedly a huge fan and advocate of hardcore. So many great things have come from it, and I can’t say enough about how great an art form I think it is. But, there’s a lot of backlash from people who feel entitled within it. They feel they’re able to judge people who don’t meet their standards or fit into their agenda. […] It’s a hard thing to navigate, because it’s something that has no real definition. It’s so subjective, and it’s difficult because what I think or what the next person thinks, neither is right, but both are true to what we feel. Can you boil a Title Fight song down to one thing it represents consistently throughout your career? I don’t know if there’s one thing. I really feel like the releases are very different. The Kingston 7” is completely different from Hyperview, and, sonically, almost a different band. It’s hard thinking about the correlation, aside from the obvious of us playing the music. There’s stuff I still love from when I was 17, and those are the influences that got us interested in music. Even stuff like how Ben [Russin] plays drums. At the beginning of our career, it was all about how fast we could play. How he plays was from that energy. He’s the same player, but it’s those things that are the glue of the band. It’s never like, “We’re into this album now; let’s sound like it.” Rather than changing influences, it’s building influences. Every day, you hear something different, and you hear all these new bands in between when you write records. Some of it I really like a lot, some of it not so much. But everything I hear is constantly influencing the stuff we write. It’s hard to say from my vantage point, but I’d like to think that’s the correlation.

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I N T E R V I E W W I T H V O C A L I S T / G U I TA R I S T A D A M T U R L A B Y L I N C O L N E D D Y

urder by Death just finished a Kickstarter for an art book, collecting posters from their shows over the last 15 years. The fundraising doubled as a wildly successful presale for their new album, Big Dark Love, out February via Bloodshot Records. Clearly, the band has die-hard fans. “This is our seventh full-length,” says vocalist and guitarist Adam Turla. “We’ve done a lot of presales.

We’ve been doing our own mail order for a decade now. Kickstarter is kind of the same thing, just with a better backend. The fans have a way of making it interesting. They talk to each other and make it a more interactive experience. During the last hour, a thread was going where a guy was like, ‘I really wanted to get this, but I’m so broke.’ The next person on the thread bought him the CD. It was just a really cool gesture.” Those same fans are getting some amazing rewards for stepping up as backers, including a secret show in a hidden cavern for a lucky few. “We’re playing the Stanley Hotel— the Shining Hotel—for the second time in just a few weeks,” Turla explains. “[Tickets] sold out nine months in advance; 1500 tickets in 36 hours. […] So I said, ‘OK, I want some tickets to sell on the Kickstarter […] for an experience the fans will never forget.’ I ask my buddy, ‘What’s the coolest place to do a show?’ and he says, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but my cousin owns a cavern on his property.’ I said, ‘Let me see it… It’s amazing. We’re booking it.’ So, we’re throwing a party. In a cavern. We’re playing a concert. You’re invited.” The band recorded the album in Kentucky, a state that seems to hold a special place in their heart, as references to the Bluegrass State are sprinkled throughout past releases. “We live here now,” Turla explains. “[Cellist and keyboardist] Sarah

[Balliet] is from Louisville, and her and I just moved here in May. Part of [choosing to record here] was the fact that we wanted to work with the engineer, [Kevin Ratterman] […] and part of it was the idea of moving to this town where we know some people, and just to dive in and get a little more knowledgeable. And it’s classic Midwest. When I asked the [Ratterman] if he knew anyone we could borrow a whirly [tube] from, he was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got a buddy.’ I show up at the house, and it’s Jim James, [frontman] of My Morning Jacket. And it’s like, ‘Oh. Of Course.’” With their gothic American Dream sound and utterly incongruous name, playing in a cave is definitely in keeping with the band’s style. But things sound a little bit different on Big Dark Love, a change that Turla attributes to recent changes in the music scene. “All of a sudden, every fucking band is Americana,” he laments. “I just got exhausted hearing the same songs, the same progressions. So, we had some really cool keyboards in the studio: old Tridents and Korgs, crazy stuff that [pianist, trumpeter, and mandolinist] David [Fountain] was using. I was trying to take some influences that showed up on maybe only one or two songs per record [in the past] and push those to the forefront.” While not explicitly a concept record, the theme is there in the title. These are songs about love, a topic that has been sometimes fastidiously avoided on past releases. “It’s the fatigue thing again,” Turla explains. “Every song on the radio is about pining, and love songs are the standard. But I feel [I’m] in a good place in my life, so I found myself seeing that love […] is a much bigger idea than one person feeling a way about another person. I certainly didn’t intend to make it a concept record. It just started popping up. Things just work themselves into songs and you don’t even know where they come from.” “I start to do interviews for an album, I get asked about songs, and I start to realize, ‘Yes, it’s totally about that,’” admits Turla. “The girl who did the art for our album, she said, “You have a lot of masculine songs; these songs seem much more accessible to women than some of your material.’ I liked that, because it’s something different. I don’t want every record to be the same. Our goal is that as our fans change, so do we, and hopefully some of us can be on the ride together.”

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I N T E R V I E W W I T H G U I TA R I S T J A D E P U G E T B Y A L E X D E L C A M P O

TRMST isn’t just any hardcore band. It’s Davey Havok and Jade Puget’s hardcore band. Havok’s vocals have seen AFI through nearly 15 years of Madonna-esque reinventions, and Puget has been holding down shredding duties since 1998. Rivaling their commitment is that of their fans, The Despair Faction, who seem to have a near religious devotion to the band. In 2007, Havok and Puget established their electronic cred with Blaqk Audio, and they have finally come full circle back to their Straight Edge hardcore roots. Why not reintroduce AFI as a hardcore band for an entirely new generation? It just wouldn’t have been appropriate to have Straight Edge songs for AFI. Adam’s not Straight Edge, Hunter’s not Straight Edge, so it would have been weird and wouldn’t really work. As far as hardcore goes, or whatever you want to call XTRMST, it works for that: for Straight Edge, for those lyrics, for that passion, for that anger. It meshes really well. But, to turn AFI @ NEWNOISEMAGS

back into a hardcore band would be strange. To look backwards like that feels kind of like a creative death. I always want to keep elements of our history, but to completely change AFI back would just be really strange. Was your mindset or approach any different when writing and recording this project? Yeah, it was a lot different, especially the writing. When I sat down and began writing a song, I really wanted to do something that was different than I had done before. I was in a hardcore band in the mid ‘90s, so I’ve spent a lot of time with hardcore music, but I didn’t want to do anything that I had already done before. I just wanted to make chaotic, kinda crazy chord progressions and riffs; I wanted it really lo-fi and dirty and stuff. That was my mindset going in. What inspires you to write about a drug-free lifestyle and veganism? Do you and Davey collaborate on lyrics? As far as the lifestyle goes, very early

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on, when I was about 12 or 13, I realized that drinking and everything else that everyone was doing just wasn’t appealing to me. […] As far as the lyrics go… We are both Straight Edge, but we come at it from different perspectives. All the lyrics are his though, so those particular perspectives are from Davey. Are there other members in the band? We’re playing a show in January and we have a band. We’re getting together with a bass player, a drummer, and another guitarist, which is a little strange for me, since I haven’t played with a second guitarist in almost 20 years. That’ll be an interesting experience. Your fan base is devout. How do you feel about possibly influencing others to consider Straight Edge, veganism, or both? I’m always flattered that people would look at what I do, or what we do, and be influenced by it, whether it’s a fan who starts playing guitar, or someone going vegetarian or vegan or Straight Edge. Those are important life choic-

es, and I want people to make those choices based on their own inclination, not because, “I need to do it, because they did it.” […] I just want people to always be true to themselves. Can we expect a new record this year by XTRMST, AFI, or Blaqk Audio? Definitely Blaqk Audio: it’s something we’re working on right now. In fact, we might have finished writing that record the other day. [It] will hopefully be coming out in the early part of this year. I would hope AFI would be the next thing. XTRMST, we haven’t really talked about doing a second record, but I think it would be really fun and I’d hope to do another. Are there any upcoming tours to look out for? We’d love to tour with Blaqk Audio, since we didn’t really get the chance to do it on the last record. That would be nice. If there is a new AFI record, we always do a tour for it. As far as XTRMST goes, I would love to play more than one show, but I don’t know if we will do a full tour on it.

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INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST BROCK LINDOW BY NICHOLAS SENIOR

hat made 36 Crazyfists stand out 10 years ago with A Snow Capped Romance was smart lyricism and wicked vocal melodies. In their return to form, vocalist Brock Lindow’s strengths have been pushed even more to the forefront. Time And Trauma might be the band’s best record behind Lindow’s best performance to date, coupled with some dark and emotionally devastating lyrics. Like a fine wine, the band is only getting better with age. Time And Trauma is a nice progression for you guys. What was it like revisiting the band after the time off? It was great! I flew down to Portland [Ore.], where we recorded it. I think just being around the boys and getting into the “band” mindset was nice. I wrote my portion of the record in Alaska, using my buddy’s studio for the demos. So getting down to Portland was a good feeling, being with the team, basically. Other than that, I was excited about the new songs. The record was written in like a three-year span, so it took a while, but it was a good feeling to sort of nail it all down.

Are you sick of being referred to as the token Alaskan band? No, I’m not sick of it. I’ve always loved talking about the place. I love that people identify us with Alaska! We’re not the only band, anymore. Well, we are really the only metal band [laughs], but you’ve probably heard of Portugal. The Man. They’re buds of mine, and they’ve had some good success. It’s nice to see that there’s another band getting the chance to tour outside the West Coast. You know, now bands are setting up West Coast tours early, and—not saying we were the only band that ever toured or did that— we definitely did that a lot early on. We’re glad to see it’s been catching on of late. 36 Crazyfists has been around for quite a while. Was there any thought of switching things up a bit with the new record? Not consciously, not really. Honestly, we never think about it or set out to do things a certain way. When we write and record, what happens happens. I do know that we wanted to be on the more moody rock side than on the, I guess, metalcore side. I decided not to scream as much. I wanted to get back to more melodic

vocals, so I guess that played into the record. Were you more comfortable singing? And were you happy to not be screaming, now that you’re not in your early 20s? I think sometimes it calls for [the screaming]; sometimes it seems like it’s there for no reason. I started out singing in the band and eventually went to screaming, so I guess I just wanted to get back to being more melodic. You know, I think the screaming, everyone can do it, for the most part. As for the singing, love me or hate me, a lot of people don’t sound like me when I’m singing [laughs], so that was something we wanted to get back to: what made us unique, which was the melodic vocals. You can hear that in the title track. That’s definitely a moody tune. The overall theme of the record dealt with the passing of my mom and that whole timeframe. It was definitely a dark time, but it lent itself to a lot of material. So I wrote about the fragility of life, and how we’ll all have to go through it in some sense. Unfortunately, that’s life, but, lyrically, it’s just about dealing with probably the heaviest situation in my life. My grandmother passed about

two weeks before my mom passed. It was a crazy bombardment of loss, so it was a very emotional record for me. It’s the most important record for me, lyrically, musically. I just think this record means more to me because it is written about my mom, so I feel really great about that. It sounds like all this catharsis channeled itself into the record. Yeah, man, at least for the therapy of it all. The original title was Lightless, but we ended up switching it to Time And Trauma. I love that song, so it worked out well. It’s a fairly bleak album, but really, in all honestly, I felt a ton of peace from writing it. On a lighter note, you’re one of the few bands that always talk about hockey. Are you ever going to write a song about hockey? Dude, we need to! [Laughs] That would be amazing. We were actually talking about that recently, about bands that have written intro songs for NHL times, like Pantera did one for the Dallas Stars, and Darkest Hour did one for the Capitals. You know, we’re huge Flyers fans, so we should attempt something. We’d probably butcher it, but it’d be awesome [laughs].

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALAN SNODGRASS

definitely have to prioritize. One Man Army, I don’t have to worry about anymore. Dead To Me, I don’t really have to worry about anymore. I think we may try to do something, but I don’t know. So, it’s really only toyGUITAR and Swingin’ Utters, right now. Are One Man Army and Dead To Me in hibernation? Yeah. Dead To Me is in hibernation. For One Man Army, I don’t think I would want to pursue that route. That band is done. So, toyGUITAR is your main band? Yeah, it is my main band! It’s where my heart is, man! The track “Let’s Talk In The Shower”… That title could mean a lot of different things. Yeah! [Laughs] I think we’ve played that song live once. Jesus, I don’t know what it’s really about. I kind of have to sit down and think about it. Let’s see… I kind of wrote it from the perspective of being real. There’s a lot of bullshit that I’m not really honest with myself about.

TOYGUITAR

INTERVIEW WITH FRONTMAN JACK DALRYMPLE BY JOHN GENTILE

ack Dalrymple is a Bay Area punk rock titan. He founded thinking man’s street punk band One Man Army. He fronted the constantly evolving, art-punk band Dead To Me. He brings the thunder to the boozy swing of The Swingin’ Utters. Now, his new—dare we say— supergroup, toyGUITAR, is about to release their debut LP, In This Mess, which may be his most revved-up, most rocking, most kicking release to date. Dalrymple speaks about the LP, his 27 other bands, and roller skating. Is toyGUITAR a tactical move? I have a shitload of songs. I’ve been in a lot of bands in which I’ve accumu-

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lated a lot of songs. There was no plan. Between the two releases—the EP and the full-length—it has been like a year; we’re just recording riffs, sticking shit together, and seeing if it fits. Between this and The Swingin’ Utters, it’s tough to find time for everyone to do it, because everyone is so busy. One Man Army, Swingin’ Utters, Dead To Me, Re-Volts, toyGUITAR… You’re in a lot of bands, Jack. How do you find the time to do this? And I’ve got a 6 year-old son in the mix! It’s kind of a juggle. I’d love to do more Re-Volts stuff. [Vocalist and guitarist] Spike [Slawson] is a busy man also. He has his own thing. I

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When you write, does the music just pour out of you like an involuntary reflex? For me, it’s like therapy. I feel like, sometimes, I’m not a very happy person. When I write songs, it all starts with music first. I’ll have a melody, or maybe lyrics, but then I have to sit down and internalize what I’m saying. I don’t want to be too literal, like, “This is what I’m talking about.” I really just try to write from my perspective, how unhappy I get with shit. So, maybe it’s cerebral sometimes. You consider yourself unhappy? Look, I’ve got a great thing going. Some days, I just don’t like myself a lot. I don’t want to sound like I’m super depressed or some shit. I think I’m just brooding. That’s surprising. All of your bands are pretty well received… I have a hard time, sometimes. I’m self-deprecating. I never really feel like I’m that good. I’m not sure if that’s good or that’s bad. Are there benefits to being overly critical of your own work? I’m overly critical and, after we record stuff sometimes, it’s hard for me to go back and listen to stuff. It’s all so hard for me, sometimes. But, that

sounds so lame. It’s like, “Why record and write, then?” It’s fun. But, I can’t be like, “I’m the best.” I’ve been in so many great bands, it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around it. Do you ever look at your recordings and say, “I nailed it on this one”? I feel good about certain performances and songs, for sure. But, it’s not for me to say, “We fucking killed it!” I am super, super stoked on the toyGUITAR record. It’s one of the funnest records I’ve been a part of. Everyone is on the same page. There’s an ease to this band that makes it really, really fun. Same with the Utters. You surround yourself with these dudes who are easy to hang out with. That comes through on this record. Were you influenced by classic rock ‘n’ rollers? I like that stuff. I was never a huge classic rock guy. I was super into The Clash. I think my first tape ever was a Creedence [Clearwater Revival] tape. I was reading Circus Magazine. I never really got into rock so much. What got me playing music was The Clash, and my cousin turning me onto The Ramones. The album cover features a pair of heavily damaged roller skates. Why? This dude, he took this rad picture of this crack-y dude with these unlaced roller skates. It ties into the title of In This Mess. That picture tied into the shitstorm that [makes up] a lot of the lyrical content of the album—this mess that we live in. Are you a good roller skater? I’m fuckin’ terrible, dude! I could never skate backwards as a kid. I just suck. I’m a terrible roller skater. I’m a terrible ice skater. […] This guy tried to fight me on roller skates, once. There was a show in Portland, [Ore.]. He was pissed off about the line and the kids in line. He was yelling, and I had no idea what he was talking about. He kept yelling about “This line of kids!” He had a bicycle pump in his back pocket, which made no sense, because he was on roller skates. So, did you fight him? No, I didn’t. I mean, he was an… older… gentleman. But, he was really, really agile on those roller skates, let me tell you.

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CRUCIAL READING:

PUNK USA

The Rise And Fall Of Lookout Records

I N T E R V I E W W I T H A U T H O R K E V I N P R E S T E D B Y B R I T TA N Y M O S E L E Y

Joe [Biel, owner of Microcosm Publishing], the publisher, knows him quite well, so he did a bit of fact checking with him, but [Livermore] didn’t really want to be a voice in the book. I know he’s writing his own take on that time, which is completely different from mine. It’s more his personal journey, as opposed to mine is the story of the bands and everything else that went on.

t’s been three years since influential punk label Lookout Records closed its doors. Even before Lookout ceased operation, things hadn’t been going well for the company. In 2005, Green Day pulled their back catalog, ending a 15-year relationship with Lookout, landing a major financial blow to the already struggling label. Lookout tried to continue by reducing the staff and holding off on new releases, but it was too little too late. Although Lookout no longer exists, its legacy does. Credited with creating the East Bay punk sound, the label—founded by Larry Livermore and David Hayes in 1987—is responsible for introducing the world to Green Day, Operation Ivy, Screeching Weasel, and The Donnas, as well as The Queers, The Mr. T. Experience, Pansy Division, and more. Kevin Prested traces the beginning, the heyday, and the end of Lookout Records in his new book, “Punk USA: The Rise And Fall Of Lookout Records.” When did you first become aware of Lookout Records? I’m from England originally, so I started getting into the punk scene and playing in bands in the early ‘90s, ‘91. I used to go to a lot of record fairs at that time, and I noticed the early Lookout singles. There was this label that was putting out very similar looking Xerox cover singles, and they visually appealed to me. It was just one of those things where you start getting catalogs and seeing their other releases and you look on their [album notes] and see all these other bands that existed in the East Bay scene, and it just spread out from there. Larry Livermore only contributed a few quotes to the book, which is odd considering his role in the label. @ NEWNOISEMAGS

Were you surprised he didn’t want to be a part of the book? I certainly tried several times, and I used the argument of, “You could be putting your side of what happened across.” It was disappointing. I was a little surprised originally when he bowed out of it, but I think he knew I was working with Chris [Appelgren, Lookout president from 1997–2012] as well, which might have had a factor to do with it. I think he just wanted to cut himself away from that world.

their current bands—there were a lot of issues with Pansy Division and Operation Ivy, bands that weren’t getting paid—that animosity started to brew. I think that was the biggest problem where once one band pulled their back catalog and another one did, I think everyone thought it was okay to jump off the sinking ship, so to speak. Instead of just being who they were, which is why everyone loved them in the ‘90s, they were trying too hard to find a big release. I think changing their style disheartened a lot of people as well. You talk a lot about the East Bay punk sound that Lookout created. What does that sound mean to you? [The bands] definitely had this urgent, sloppy sound to them, which is what appealed to me. I liked that it was high energy. There was a lot of melody to it, but I liked the fact that it was pretty scrappy as well. You could tell they hadn’t done four or five takes. To me, it made the music really pure, because it was just what they were playing rather than trying to make it a clinical sound. If the people at Lookout had made

different business decisions, do you think the label could still be around today? I think independent labels around the late ‘90s and [early] 2000s really lost their way, because the music world was changing. The ‘90s, when Lookout peaked, was just a special time for underground music. There was a lot of creativity, and people were doing things that were quite different. Hardcore labels like Revelation Records were putting out extremely challenging, new, creative albums in the ‘90s, and I think people weren’t afraid to do that. Obviously, the whole musical landscape changed in the 2000s with digital music, but I think it became a bit conservative—and it’s not just [Lookout]; I mean underground and punk music in general. Whether it would continue… Obviously there were a lot of labels that were successful in the late ‘90s, like Jade Tree Records and Revelation and Equal Vision. They’ve continued through, but I don’t think they’ve captured what they were in the ‘90s. Lookout could still be around, but I think it was one of those labels that was a product of that time.

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Livermore and Hayes never had a good working relationship. Why do you think they teamed up in the first place? I think it was a relationship of convenience in the sense that they were both members of that scene and they were both trying to do labels anyway… I guess combining made sense. David’s iconic artwork was one of the things that propelled that look in the early days of the label. But obviously there was a lot of struggle between the two. The book doesn’t just tell the story of Lookout; it tells the story of the bands on Lookout. Why did you decide to combine both histories? I approached writing the book as something that I wanted to read. I wanted to give a history of all the bands, because that was obviously a massive part of what the label was. People went to those bands, and then they discovered other bands on the label. That was the driving force behind the label. I wanted to write it in a way that was neutral. I wanted it to be more of this is what the bands are, this is what they sound like, rather than me saying, “This is the greatest album and this one’s shit.” I hate that kind of writing. It puts me off what someone is trying to say. What do you think was the biggest contribution to the label’s downfall? I think they were trying to find the next band that was going to get them out of the rut. By delaying dealing with

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BAND2BAND WARREN FRANKLIN AND THE FOUNDING FATHERS & KIND OF LIKE SPITTING

FRONTMEN WARREN FRANKLIN (WARREN FRANKLIN AND THE FOUNDING FATHERS) AND BEN BARNETT (KIND OF LIKE SPITTING) DISCUSS THEIR NEW SPLIT, RELEVANCE IN REVIVAL, AND PUSHING FORWARD BEYOND GENRE BOUNDARIES.

WARREN FRANKLIN AND THE FOUNDING FATHERS

tain influences turn up more in your music than others. Maybe they creep in more because they fit into what’s happening in your life at the moment. I feel like I’ve always been searching for a way to write that is 100 percent honest with myself and the listener. I try over and over again to say things that are very specific to my situation, and not worry about how it may fit with the listener. I don’t want to be broad just so someone can relate. It’s something I’ve tried super hard to resist.

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WF: OK, dude, let’s get to it: What are your thoughts on emo revival? BB: Wow! Shots fired! All right, let’s jump into it! I really don’t feel like KOLS was ever an “emo” band. Outside of Braid being a massive influence, I don’t feel like we were really in that scene. Being out in Portland, we just got in where we could fit in. Although, come to think of it, Boy’s Life, Giant’s Chair, Christie Front Drive, [and] Orchid were all huge influences. [Laughs] I guess I never thought of what we did as anything other than just straight up punk. The way I see it, if a genre of music is having a “revival,” it’s because, at some point, it stopped growing and now its role is to carry on the tradition of itself. It becomes a traditional form of music. Like with bop jazz, blues, classical, Gypsy jazz, funk, metal, grindcore, new country, old country, folk music, etc., you have rules. I’m not gonna go play guitar on cumbia stuff or with a Nigerian Highlife project and throw big, swinging Kerry King [guitarist for Slayer] dive bombs through the changes, the same way that I wouldn’t go play with Voivod or Sacred Reich with an acoustic guitar, ya know? I guess I can’t deny that the things 66

I have written are emotional, and that’s one thing for sure, but as far as feeling like we need to do anything a certain way to be a part of a sound: that just seems stupid. KOLS will not be writing the same record we wrote 15 years ago, ya know? WF: Do you identify with one certain genre? BB: I saw a lot of what got branded as “emo” as being much more about fashion, rather than pushing music forward. I guess I see how we could get lumped in. I think if we were gonna try to identify with any genre at this point in our career, it would be post-punk. The one “rule” of post-punk as a genre is to twist what you’ve heard before until you can find a way to make it yours. The only rule is: if you’ve heard it before, avoid that. Try to make it in some way fresh, playing and thinking at the edge of your ability.

It’s strange, I feel like the old school type of melodies we’re after right now might put us squarely in the ‘‘indie pop’’ category, and I do feel like the ‘‘emo’’ movement has played a role in shaping us as a band. Songs like “You’re Settling” from our side of the split are a hard left compositionally, compared to a lot of our other stuff, and I don’t know how that fits into any overall genre. WF: Tell me about the direction you want to go in for the new KOLS fulllength. At this point, you’ve covered so much ground. It’s hard for me to imagine where the new shit is gonna come from. I know you as a pretty positive guy, and your band are a bunch sweethearts, but you’re in this

band that is associated with being torn up, dude, what’s next? BB: I think it comes back to the idea of the revival. What is a revival and what is progressive art? The real talk about this band is that we have never felt like we’ve ever met our full potential. That’s why [bassist] Brian [Grant] is back in the first place. We both felt like every time we rolled the dice, we crapped out. We feel so lucky to have found [drummer] Dante [Johnson]. He is amazing, not only as a drummer, but when we hang out, he’s just such a positive and insightful person. I don’t know; things feel good. Dante helps us stay fresh, and Brian just makes it feel like it is really the same KOLS and not just me doing my thing. We care about being KOLS live. We plan on playing enough old stuff that no one who’s been down for a while will leave the shows bummed. That being said, musically, we just aren’t that interested in sounding “hip.” If people dig what we’re trying to do, believe me, we want to be heard and I get stoked on praise. But that feeling of accomplishment is diminished a great deal when the art you’re making is somehow designed to be accessible. I don’t want to get discovered because I got lucky and tapped into a trend early. Ideally, I’d like to be heard and have an audience because our art isn’t predisposed to be a hook in your head for a couple weeks, then go away. So, I guess as far as the new stuff goes, I just can’t say what it will “sound” like besides, hopefully, it will sound like three friends playing at the edge of their ability. I want to feel like my life—emotionally and musically—is ahead of me. Going back and trying to pretend it’s 1998 would be suicide. Fuck that.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAN WALLACH

BB: So, how about you? Where do you feel like you fit? I feel like I really hear a love of Americana in your stuff. Like, even though it’s in the ballpark of punk rock, I feel like, any minute, you could drop an alt-country record and it would be rad. What are the components of your current sound? What are you searching for as a writer? How do you feel like you have developed since this all started for you? WF: I think a lot of that impression has come from years of loving Bruce Springsteen! Otherwise, Americana or anything with a country feel has never been my go-to, beyond The Boss and Limbeck. It’s interesting how cer-

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s with many DIY labels, Justin Smith formed Vitriol out to necessity. When a deal with a label fell through before his two bands—Graf Orlock and Ghostlimb—were set to tour, he picked up the slack himself. Many of Vitriol’s records are complex, boasting intricate packaging, and several of their releases are books. There is nothing predictable about the label’s roster, sound, or image. Did you experience any anxiety over the first few releases? The only anxiety is about timing on a record. Since the advent of record store day [a celebration of independently owned record store culture, on the third Saturday of every April], music dispensers clog up all the presses with superfluous copies of Madonna singles and represses of your favorite Fallout Boy demo outtakes. Once you get through your first couple of releases, it is manageable, as long as you have some modicum of organization. What does running Vitriol entail? Day to day activities include answering emails, hanging out with my commercially unconscious dog pack, and mailing things to various folks on the planet. Most of the work comes with new releases, distro-ing, communication, preorders. After that, it is a steady flow of interaction demanding Amazon-esque turnaround times. I’m pretty decent, but not 88,400 employees good. The whole endgame is to do things the way I want to do them, without having to compromise ideas to get them done. What do you look for in a band? For the most part, the releases I put out are my own bands or my

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friends’ bands. For the few times I have put things out with people I did not know personally, I stumbled across something I would want to hear, something that I thought other people should listen to. What is a usual pressing for you? I usually start with 1,000. Many times, I have been surprised [by the sales]. Other times, less surprised at the 500 or so potential vinyl ashtrays I have lying around. Aside from a few slower releases, most the stuff gets out of my stuffed garage in good time. Ghostlimb’s Infrastructure, Graf Orlock’s Backpack and the Doombox special edition have interesting packaging. Who designs them? This goes back to Graf Orlock, and Adam Hunt/Alan Hunter, who does the graphic design stuff for “Gorlock” and the label. For Gorlock’s Backpack and Doombox, the ideas stemmed from how ridiculous we could make something. We would bounce ideas around of something no label would try to do, because of expense or the mean logistics. I have to give it to him for the Doombox. It was a stupid idea to begin with and a brilliant idea in execution.

shows, put records out, book things, or write about it. I do have an Instagram with photos of the Terrierist dog pack that I sometimes use to tell people new records are out.

The Ghostlimb records were an attempt to make something more muted. A lot of the crazier layout records are for our own bands. For some other ones—with die-cuts like Birds In Row’s Collected)—it is an attempt to make the physical item worth having. Otherwise, I should just have a digital download label. You have a great website, plus Soundcloud and Bandcamp. Do these avenues have pros and cons? I think digital media is an important thing. It has put a lot of people in

adversarial positions over the politics and economics of downloadable music. I grew up with tapes, had CDs, had vinyl. But, if you travel a lot, that is obviously problematic. The truth of the matter is that this is a way most people listen to music. Limiting that element would cut out a huge amount of people. I get into this conversation often. I think there are benefits inherent, but the mindset that comes with hyper-tradable music minus involvement in its creation leads people to have short-term interest.

What does 2015 have in store? What are you excited about? In February, 2015, Griever has a new LP coming out called Our Love Is Different, which is a killer fulllength. I think it will be challenging and appeal to a lot of people. Lagging a bit, but coming up also, is a new Graf Orlock, Crime Traveller. A Ghostlimb LP, an Everybody Row LP (ex-Comadre), a Dangers LP, and whatever else I can do before my cranium implodes à la the “Total Recall” Mars scene.

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How do you use social media? I made a Twitter once; lost the password. Facebook is as useful as MySpace was 10 years ago. It has limited breakthrough in our world of white noise. I still think the best way to be involved is to go to shows, play 68

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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

ELIRAN

KANTOR INTERVIEW BY HUTCH

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liran Kantor’s artwork is dark and complex. His apocalyptic landscapes and religious themed heretical visions are perfectly matched for the myriad metal covers he has illustrated. Thick colors and chaotic elements have been collected on his canvas for GWAR, Testament, Evile, Sodom, Hatebreed, Kataklysm, and Iced Earth. Kantor brings to life layered visuals that rival the dense, heavy music he illustrates. Do you go to shows? How is the local scene? In Berlin, it does look like less of a community thing. Maybe it’s just me, not really being socially involved as I was as a teen in Israel, looking to make friends. These days, I just go to gigs with my wife or an old friend, maybe meeting one of my clients at the gig. I do go to gigs quite often. We’re actually gearing up right now to go see Triptykon and At The Gates tonight. How do you get hired to do album covers? Do bands contact you? My schedule is always booked for months in advance. Now, I have to get picky with the offers I agree to take on. With that said, I am a big music fan. If an opportunity arises to get on board with a great record, I’ll still get active from time to time and ask my contacts for an introduction. I illustrate music, and it’s extremely important to me to not only end up with a great painting, but to also take part in great records. I’m more of a music fanatic than of visual arts, actually. You did the art for Testament’s Dark Roots Of Earth: did you come in with the idea? How closely do bands work with you? For Hatebreed’s Divinity Of Purpose, you gave credit to vocalist Jamey Jasta… [Testament guitarist and vocalist] Eric Peterson was in England demoing riffs, and came across a figure of the forest god Cernunnos. I came up with the idea of having the forest god all huge, coming out of the ground, with worshipers below, summoning him by the fire. I initially had in mind five worshipers in hooded cloaks, but Eric asked to have an entire “repenting scene,” with people praying and getting on their knees.

free hand, sometimes just the general theme, and sometimes it’s very detailed and hands on, like with the Iced Earth cover I did. With Enders Game’s album art, you based it on lyrics. Is that a frequent process? Yes, the cover to Enders Game’s What We’ve Lost was based around the album’s lyrics dealing with grief. I did about eight extra pieces for that project’s booklet, with each one of them dealing with some kind of loss: death in the family, a failed marriage, losing someone in the war, etc. Lyrics play a crucial part in my process, as I usually start with getting to know the basic topics and themes that will serve as general guidelines. All I usually need, concept-wise, is to go through a few titles or lyrics sheets to understand the direction the album is headed towards, thematically. Music plays an even bigger role, as I always listen to the available material and make the motifs, style, and colors match it. What process did you use to create the cover for Dirges of Elysium by Incantation? I love that record; [it’s] one of my personal 2014 favorites. Laurent [Merle] of Listenable Records got in touch with me to do it. The Incantation guys and I found common ground pretty quickly. [Drummer] Kyle [Severn] and I immediately started peppering the dry, business-focused emails with random “666!”s and “Hail!”s to lighten the mood. They sent me text explanations of their lyrics, dealing mainly with folklore and the occult. I came up with the cover concept. It’s a combination of Norse and Greek mythologies. Angrboða gives birth to Fenris, the wolf, and Jörmungandr, the serpent. She is squeezing her pregnant

belly, and the pre-labor liquids and placenta form the rivers of Elysium. The color scheme, and Angrboða being covered in tar, both were derived from the way I perceive Incantation’s sound, rather than the actual concept. Your personal works are a departure from the metal covers. Will you compare and contrast style of the images? My personal work does tend to be simpler and less busy than my commissioned work. They are based more on fleshing out a single metaphor and creating symbolism, than on telling a complex story. I never do details just for the heck of it; to me, it’s a storytelling device, just a tool. If it’s a complex one, more details are required. When bands come to me and say upfront they love the effect my busier works give, I respect that, and add more to the story, so the extra details will still be logical and not just random.

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Hatebreed’s concept all came from Jamey Jasta. He said, “I was thinking about having a figure with its soul being pulled upward towards the sky by an angelic looking figure, while being pulled downward by a dark figure towards hell with smoke and fire.” It varies from a project to another. Sometimes I get just the title and a @ NEWNOISEMAGS

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SEE MORE OF ELIRAN’S ART AT ELIRANKANTOR.COM

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FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT:

SACRIFICIAL A PUNK YOUTH MUSICAL

I N T E R V I E W W I T H F I L M M A K E R J O E L O S U R D O B Y J O E F I T Z PAT R I C K

n the independent punk rock musical “Sacrificial Youth” from Regressive Films, young T.J.’s band and local music scene are torn apart by the evil S.Y.S. Industries. Writer, director, and producer Joe Losurdo discusses the support he received from both friends and strangers within the Chicago music scene, as well as how he feels the music industry has gone astray since the era of 1980s punk rock. The film was locally produced in Chicago, but how much of the cast was local? Most of the cast was from the Chicago area. Most of them played in bands. I think only a couple were pursuing acting. I was trying to find people who actually “got it” and understood the punk rock world, more so than thespians. We had a couple people audition who were legitimate actors. How did the idea for the film originate? It just kind of grew out of a stupid idea: punk rock songs kind of sounding like show tunes. It’s weird. I wrote the thing really quickly, and I realized it was more layered than I thought. […] I used a lot of incidents from my own experiences playing in bands and just being in the punk rock world. It’s about the good parts, as well as the things that were kind of @ NEWNOISEMAGS

silly. T.J., the main character, kind of represents the super serious, “my way or the highway” hardcore singer of the early ‘80s. How much of yourself did you write into the character of T.J.? T.J. doesn’t represent me. The only similarity was that when you’re that young, you think you know everything when you don’t know shit. […] I’ve been in bands with people like T.J. That’s why he’s not really a sympathetic character. He’s kind of a pain in the ass for a good part of the movie. Also, everyone hates being in bands with guys like that, but they’re usually the movers and shakers. They’re the guys making stuff happen for the band. In addition to writing, directing, and producing, you also wrote the score and performed some of the songs. How did you choose the bands featured in the film? They were just friends, mostly. I’ve been playing in bands for so many years that I could actually pick and choose people who I thought would be good for a particular song or a particular part, or people I just wanted to play and record with. Are any of the cast members also in Chicago bands? Yes! The bass player—the guy who plays Jud—Sam Porter, plays in a

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band called The Howl. They’re really good. He is actually a really excellent guitar player. Dante [Reyes]—the kid playing guitar—has played in bands, but I don’t think he’s in a band now. The drummer, John Kopanski, used to play in bands, but now he is more of a filmmaker himself, and Rob [Bakker]—who plays T.J.—actually plays bass in some band as well. You did a Kickstarter to make the film, but how exactly was it funded? We just self-funded the whole thing. I understand why people raise funds to do movies the right way—which should be shooting it all at the same time—but it just kind of felt like no one was going to give me money to do a hardcore punk musical. I didn’t feel right taking people’s money if I couldn’t pay it back. So we just counted on the kindness of friends and strangers. A lot of people helped us out; we called in a lot of favors. Everyone was so cool, and some people I didn’t know at all, like the people who ran the Lucky Gator Loft where we shot [the scenes in] the youth center. […] A lot of friends helped by being on the crew, being actors, being extras, whatever help they could give. Without that, there is no way that I could have done it. The movie is very satirical. Do you think it’s good for the punk and hardcore “scenes” to be able to laugh at themselves? I think it is what is sorely lacking in a lot of punk rock today. […] The way I read it online [makes it seem like] there is a strict way to be punk rock, and from my experience in the early ‘80s scene or whatever, it was never like that. I don’t think it will ever be like that; it’s unrealistic. I think the people who take it so seriously are completely missing the point. Part of it was releasing aggression and frustration, but there was a lot of joy. People were having good time too.

cert promoters. It’s just kind of how the business is today. I think only six corporations own everything at this point. So it’s kind of representing that. Also, it’s funny how bands that are considered punk rock with their tattoos, and their spikey hair, [who] say fuck in their songs, how they just happily sign up to be part of those corporate conglomerates and don’t even think twice about it. Are you going to be showing the film? Yeah, we’re gonna set up some screenings. I have a screening set up in Berlin, Germany, but that’s not till May. We’re gonna try to do some other screenings. We’ve gotta do it on our own, on an independent level, so it’s hard getting some of these places to show the film. Right now, we’re gonna focus on doing some East Coast and West Coast screenings, and maybe [some] in the South as well. The film ends as a cliffhanger. Have you started writing “Sacrificial Youth 2”? I don’t know [laughs]. I don’t have any immediate plans. Right now, we’re working on a documentary about Wax Trax! Records, which was a Chicago record store and record label. They were known for industrial type stuff like Ministry, Thrill Kill Kult, and stuff like that. That’s a pretty huge project. We’re still interviewing people. That’s gonna take up the majority of our time, and there’re a couple other fictional film ideas I want to tackle before I would tackle [a sequel]. But, never say never, I guess.

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What part of the music industry does S.Y.S. Industries represent? That’s just a conglomerate. S.Y.S. is the main corporation that owns all the little cor p orations. They own the BLÜÜD energy drink. They own the Live Channel con73

Metal Gods PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALAN SNODGRASS

hen looking back on the year in metal that was 2014, there were a lot of great records that came out, but for me, Pallbearer, Godflesh, and Horrendous stood out above the pack. When looking at the huge list of big name bands scheduled and rumored to drop albums over the next year, 2015 stands to be even better than the last. PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALAN SNODGRASS

here are some bands that just refuse to die in the world of heavy metal, and one of those is Motörhead. Despite the health concerns that come with being 69 years old (!!!), Lemmy has mentioned that work has begun on a new album, and it seems likely it will happen this year. If near-

ly 50 years of Jack and Coke, loose women, and unfathomable amounts of amphetamines haven’t stopped him yet, it’s unlikely a producer or record label can. Another band that is entirely too tough to be killed by the music industry or anyone else is Iron Maiden. Despite their members’ ages ranging from 56 to 62, the band has announced they are entering the studio to record the follow up to 2010’s The Final Frontier after recently finishing their massive year long Maiden England World Tour. Though Maiden and Motörhead are still surviving and in pretty great shape, the same can’t be said for fellow Brits/deities Black Sabbath. Throughout 2014, Sabbath has been making news by subtly hinting that they have been working on what might be their final album ever (for, like, the third time). There’s nothing concrete indicating that a new album will drop this year, but due to Tony Iommi’s increasing health concerns and various other obstacles, they’re likely going to make it happen sooner rather than later.

Returning Legends

The Big 4

hen looking back on all of the things that the “Big Four” of U.S. thrash have accomplished, there is still one thing they’ve never done: released albums in the same year. There have been years where two or three have albums out at the same time, but never have Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, and Metallica put records out in the same calendar year. This could be changing in 2015. One thing we know for sure is that Slayer will have a new album. It’s also been mentioned that Anthrax has been writing a new one, and it is very likely to be completed by the

end of the year. One of the potential wrenches in these gears could be Metallica’s notoriously slow pace in the studio, plus their relentless touring schedule. The biggest obstacle by far is the current uncertainty in Megadeth’s lineup, with the recent departure of drummer Shawn Drover and guitarist Chris Broderick. However, the two Daves’—Mustaine and Ellefson—have for sure been writing a new album, so there’s still a chance that whomever they recruit could still help get a new record out by the end of the year.

ith all the hubbub in past few years about huge reunions, it was a little disappointing that At The Gates, Sanctuary, and Godflesh were the only major heavy bands to drop reunion albums in 2014. However, 2014 did see the release of three very important singles that indicate 2015 may be a little more interesting. The most important of these was the 7” single “Motherfucker” by alt-rock legends Faith No More. It has since been confirmed that the band will be releasing their first album of new material in 18 years, and if their first single is any indication, it looks to be a real… Uh… Motherfucker. Another ‘90s rock titan confirmed to put out a new album in 2015 is Failure. Considering that this is their first new material since the release of Fantastic Planet almost two decades ago, there’s no telling how the album will stand in their discography, but Ken Andrews is a genius and new song “Come Crashing” rules, so I cannot wait! Another likely huge entry in 2015 could come

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALAN SNODGRASS

from Bay Area doom overlords Sleep. With a new High On Fire album in the works, there’s no telling if Sleep’s album will actually happen, but they did release a new song called “The Clarify” through the Adult Swim Singles Program in 2014, so there’s a chance. If it does happen, it will be amazing. Lastly, I won’t hold my breath, there’s a chance the perpetual kings of “Most Anticipated Album of the Year,” Tool, might release a new one as well.

HERE IS A LIST OF OTHER AWESOME BANDS THAT MAY DROP NEW ALBUMS IN 2015, BUT MIGHT NOT, BUT PROBABLY WILL… MAYBE.

Testament, Meshuggah, High On Fire, Between The Buried And Me, Clutch, Nuclear Assault, Dark Angel, Enslaved, Nails, Portal, Cephalic Carnage, Paradise Lost, Fear Factory, Kylesa, Royal Thunder, Immolation, Vhöl, Power Trip, Sourvein & Leviathan 74

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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

KEITH ROSSON W R I T T E N B Y B R YA N S P E A R R Y

You may not realize it, but you have already seen Oregon native Keith Rosson’s work. As a freelance artist in Portland, he has created illustrations for flyers, zines, books, and album covers, including artwork for a diverse roster of bands from Tuck And Roll, to Ten Foot Pole, to The Goo Goo Dolls. He also works with Portland indie institution Microcosm Publishing, and has been publishing his own zine, “Avow,” since 1995. How long have you been creating art, and how did you get started? I started drawing as a kid, and sort of got serious with doing comics and drawing shit when I should have been doing schoolwork and all that. Punk came along, and I just kept with it, and it just sort of expanded. I think I [used] to just randomly—as a fan—send bands illustrations. You know, just being a total nerd, buying a 7” and being enamored with the band, and just, out

Without naming any names, have you had any nightmare clients? I’ve had a few where, yeah, people have been very difficult. Walking creeps, you know what I mean? Where they go, “Oh, thanks for doing that, could you also sort of lay it out for a t-shirt, too? Or could you also send it in five different colors?” There’ve been very few cases where I did the majority of the work, all the illustrations and everything, and then I got the lyrics and they were so offensive that I had to be, like, “I can’t do this, guys.” But that’s happened, I think once. Now I always preface everything with making sure I

That really came about just by being involved. Statistically, you get a break once in a while. Whenever there’s a lull in work, I’ll send a couple blind hooks out there to various labels and bands, saying, “Hey, if you’re needing any work done, let me know!” I did that with Adeline Records and they responded, and I did some work for them. Adeline is run by some dudes from Green Day and Green Day’s manager, so he really liked my stuff. He threw me some work with The Goo Goo Dolls and Rusty Surfboards. So yeah, I got some bigger work to come my way. Are you able to sustain yourself through your artwork? Yeah, I mean, I’m lucky because I have savings. I’ve been able to save money, but it’s still a real month-to-month hustle. I just started working at an elementary school as a literacy instructor thing, but I took last year off for the

Who are some of your biggest influences? Probably old comic books, like Bill Sienkiewicz and Jae Lee. And then, I love the sense of angularity and the work on the figure that Egon Schiele and Gustaf Klimt did. So visually, I guess comic books and old Viennese dudes from the 1920s. What are some of the pieces you’ve done that you’re most proud of? There’s this Todos Caeran LP that had a die-cut moon in the center of it. So, there was a cityscape with the moon in the middle of it, and you could make it a half moon or quarter moon depending on which side of the lyrics sheet you put in front. It looked really cool. And then there was the Shit Week LP I did, which was unusual because [it was] a photograph. I rarely do that, but I love working with photos, manipulating the hell out of them and adding illustration elements to them, that’s super fun.

of the blue, sending them a piece of art that sort of correlated with the lyrics or whatever. It started from there. Do you think you’d be doing this had you not discovered punk at a young age? I don’t know. It’s been, like, 20, 25 years at this point that I’ve been involved with it. I don’t even know what kind of person I would be, or how different I would be beyond art. It’s just such an all-encompassing part of my life, you know?

see the lyrics, and that everything is up to snuff with not being offensive and fucked up. Do you have to make compromises regarding clients, or are you pretty steadfast: if you don’t like it, you don’t do it? I don’t like all the bands [musically], per se, that I work with, but I know how much work goes into making an album. So, the sheer force of will that it takes to be in a band and the effort involved? I really respect that. It’s really hard. I’ve been in a number of shitty bands, so I know how hard it is to be in a good one, you know? Or at least I can imagine. For compromises, I really don’t care if they’re not my thing, but if [their work includes] sexist stuff or any of the “isms,” I won’t work for a band. You’ve recently started doing some work for some high profile groups…?

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physical artwork? Painting is so hard, because it never… It’s just such a challenge to get it down even remotely the way I drew it in my head. […] So you just keep trying new things, and hopefully, there’s a moment of, “Oh, that’s remotely what I wanted it to look like!” Whereas digital, you can just mess around with it until you’re happy with it.

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first time ever, and just did freelancing. You know, it worked out money-wise, but it was too boring, and it wasn’t really fun at all. I missed working with kids, so I’m doing that part time again. Are you self trained, or did you go to school for art? I’m an art school dropout twice removed. […] I obviously don’t flourish well in the academic world, but I think I learned a lot of the basics of composition and even the applications involved, like Photoshop and Illustrator. I had a couple of really good teachers for those years. Again, I’ve been doing the actual hand-drawn illustration since I was a little kid. I think that for any artist, whether you do solely design or anything, it really helps to have a background in illustration. You paint as well. What’s the difference between doing digital work and

Do you have any advice you would give to an aspiring artist? I guess any advice I have is stuff people have heard before, but: don’t be afraid to fail, and don’t be afraid to do something over again if it sucks. Use a pencil, and understand that it takes… I still am improving markedly. Each project, I’m still getting better and better. And that’s cool, versus just starting out, getting flustered and feeling like there’s no way you’re going to actually make it work the way you see it in your head.

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25 YEARS OF

I N T E R V I E W W I T H L A B E L O W N E R M AT T J A C O B S O N B Y J A N E L L E J O N E S

ccording to Relapse founder and owner Matt Jacobson, it’s hard for anyone to keep a business going for 25 years, let alone a record label. It’s hard to fathom that a teenager in his parents’ basement started this now legendary label, boasting a roster of bands like Death, Neurosis, Pentagram, and Dying Fetus. This monumental 25th anniversary year will be punctuated with deluxe silver editions of records, beginning with Lord Dying’s Poisoned Altars in January. Does it blow your mind that it’s been 25 years? [Laughs] It totally blows my mind. It makes me feel old a little bit. I started as a teenager, so I’m not too terribly old, but still, 25 years is just mindboggling. How did this even start? In high school, I didn’t care about anything except music and wanted to be involved with music in any way I could. I was a big tape trader and did a fanzine, [“Horrendified”], I printed shirts and made stickers for bands. [Then] I asked one of my friends’ bands if I could put out a 45 of their band, and of course, they were totally into it. Then, after that, I asked people I tape traded with if they’d be into me putting out their bands. Sometimes, I’d get a demo in the mail for the fanzine. This was the case with Suffocation: they sent a demo for review and I was blown away. I got

ahold of them and asked, “Hey, can I put out a record?” […] Things gained traction when the death metal stuff started coming out, with Incantation and Deceased and things like that. Has the criteria changed for signing bands? As far as the criteria, that’s largely the same. We just look for something that gets us excited. It’s harder and harder to do something fresh and new, although we’ve definitely been fortunate to work with some bands that have done that in their time. But when someone does something really, really well—is at the top of the subgenre, the best in class, or is bringing a fresh element—those are the kinds of things that get our attention, for sure. You put out so much vinyl: different colors and limited run… One of the things I’m really proud of is that we’ve always done vinyl from the beginning, even during the period of time when vinyl was considered “dead.” Not every single release came out on vinyl, but most of them did. We’ve always approached things from a fan’s perspective, which is why we often have lots of crazy colored vinyl and special packaging. Being able to reissue the entire Death catalog is such an honor for me. When I was 16, I had a ‘76 Nova; I had three stickers on it and one of them was a Death sticker. To now be able to reissue the catalog—and do it with the

rare recordings—is such an honor. For the anniversary you’re doing special deluxe releases? Everything that comes out in 2015, whether it’s a new release or a reissue, there’s gonna be a limited 25th anniversary silver edition. […] We have a whole bunch of other things in the works, because we’re planning on celebrating this through the year. There are a lot of things that aren’t finalized yet, so I can’t announce all the details. But I’m really excited. There are going to be a number of special things we do, [including] the special celebration at the Maryland Deathfest [where] Agoraphobic Nosebleed is playing their first ever show, and we’ve got Amorphis coming over to play their entire Tales From The Thousand Lakes album. We’re gonna have a bunch of other special things there. And we’re also hoping to do some other shows in other parts of the world that are gonna be in conjunction with festivals or standalone shows. Are there records you’re especially proud to have put out? Of course. There’s a long list. I can tell you some, and I’d like to emphasize these are some of them—a random assortment—because it’s really hard to pick your favorite children. I’m especially proud of Neurosis Through Silver In Blood. Disrupt Unrest. Pentagram First Daze Here. Nasum Inhale/Exhale. The list does NEW NOISE MAGAZINE

go on and on. Mastodon Leviathan might be on the list. I’m joking, because of course it’s on the list. I feel so fortunate. We’ve been so lucky to work with so many amazingly talented bands that have put out so many incredible records. To have so many of them already be a bookmark in music history—like the Death catalogue or a band like Dillinger Escape Plan when they put out that first album—that changed a tiny bit of the world. I feel really honored that we’ve been able to do that kind of thing. There’re a lot of really great records that come out that don’t change the world, but there are some of those that are extra special and become that reference point, or really the definition of a particular subgenre. Even the things that didn’t get the attention I thought they deserved or didn’t resonate with people, I’m really proud of the diversity and range of things we’ve put out. With that diversity, was there ever a release you were worried to put out? One of the things we’re known for is putting out really weird, crazy, leftof-center [stuff]. I had someone who runs another label once tell me, “It’s incredible what you guys did considering so much of what you put out is ‘difficult.’” It’s not easy-listening, it’s not pop music. It’s “difficult.” I think he meant it as a compliment.

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oncerts. Festivals. Reunions. Acoustic jamborees. If you’re devouring these pages, you probably love live music as much as we do. Here some of the premier shows going on this season, in your neck of the woods.

ELECTRIC WIZARD w/ SATAN’S SATYRS

The supreme lords of doom metal are back with their first North American tour in over a decade. Catch Electric Wizard and their infinite pile of riffs on this monumental trek across the states as they support their latest album Time To Die, least you wait another ten years. 3/31 - UNION TRANSFER - PHILADELPHIA, PA 4/1- BALTIMORE SOUNDSTAGE - BALTIMORE, MD 4/2 - WEBSTER HALL - NEW YORK, NY 4/3 - ROYALE - BOSTON, MA 4/4 - CORONA THEATRE - MONTREAL, QC 4/5 - LEE’S PALACE - TORONTO, ON 4/7 - METRO - CHICAGO, IL 4/8 - MILL CITY NIGHTS - MINNEAPOLIS, MN 4/10 - SUMMIT MUSIC HALL - DENVER, CO 4/11 - URBAN LOUNGE - SALT LAKE CITY, UT 4/13 - NEUMOS - SEATTLE, WA 4/14 - RICKSHAW - VANCOUVER, BC 4/15 - HAWTHORNE THEATER - PORTLAND, OR 4/17 - SLIMS - SAN FRANCISCO, CA 4/18 - THE OBSERVATORY - SANTA ANA, CA 4/19 - THE ROXY - LOS ANGELES, CA

ENABLER & CALL OF THE VOID

w/ The Drip on select Western dates.

Prepare for close quarter combat this winter when metal bashers Enabler team up with grind core fellows Call of The Void for a co-headlining brawl across the country. Expect lots of booze, sweat and strained vocal cords on this run, especially in the Pacific Northwest dates when The Drip joins the tour. 2/6 - CARABAR - COLUMBUS OH 2/7 - THE DEMO - ST. LOUIS, MO 2/8 - HITONE - MEMPHIS, TN @ NEWNOISEMAGS

2/9 - THE LINKS - DALLAS, TX 2/10 - WALTER’S - HOUSTON, TX 2/11 - TBA - SAN ANTONIO, TX 2/12 - RED 7 - AUSTIN, TX 2/13 - HOUSE SHOW - ALBUQUERQUE, NM 2/14 - 51WEST - MESA, AZ 2/15 - TOWER BAR - SAN DIEGO, CA 2/16 - YOU REVOLUTION BAR - TIJUANA, MEX 2/17 - 5 STAR - LOS ANGELES, CA 2/18 - JERRY’S PIZZA - BAKERSFIELD, CA 2/19 - THE BLUE LAMP - SACRAMENTO, CA 2/20 - GILMAN ST - BERKELEY, CA 2/21 - HIGH WATER MARK - PORTLAND, OR 2/22 - 333 - VANCOUVER, CAN - W/ THE DRIP 2/23 - HIGHLINE - SEATTLE, WA - W/ THE DRIP 2/24 - THE HOP - SPOKANE, WA - W/ THE DRIP 2/25 - SHREDDER - BOISE, ID 2/26 - TBA - SALT LAKE CITY, UT 2/27 - HI DIVE - DENVER, CO 2/28 - WEST WING - OMAHA, NE 3/1 - ENCOUNTER - PEORIA, IL 3/2 - COBRA LOUNGE - CHICAGO, IL

NO WARNING After a decade of silence, hardcore champions No Warning are back from the grave. To celebrate their recent resurrection, they’ve got a special reunion show planned in early April for hardcore fiends on the Northeastern seaboard. If you’re within driving, flying or running distance, be sure to catch No Warning shed Ill Blood onstage once again. 4/10 - GAMECHANGERWORLD - HOWELL, NJ

SUICIDE SILENCE w/ EMMURE, Within The Ruins, Fit For An Autopsy You can’t stop Suicide Silence. They’ve said so a zillion times on this last album cycle. Catch the band, alongside mosh titans like Emmure, Within The Ruins and Fit For An Autopsy, as they perform yet another victory lap

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around the country, celebrating their latest album and reincarnation.

out for those rumbling floor boards though.

2/17 - THE CATALYST - SANTA CRUZ, CA 2/18 - ACE OF SPADES - SACRAMENTO, CA 2/20 - EL CORAZON - SEATTLE, WA 2/21 - HAWTHORNE THEATER – PORTLAND, OR 2/23 - MESA THEATER - GRAND JUNCTION, CO 2/24 - THE AGGIE THEATRE- FORT COLLINS, CO 2/25 - BLACK SHEEP - COLORADO SPRINGS, CO 2/26 - BOURBON THEATRE - LINCOLN, NE 2/27 - WOOLY’S - DES MOINES, IA 2/28 - MOJOES - JOLIET, IL 3/1 - MILL CITY NIGHTS - MINNEAPOLIS, MN 3/3 - THE INTERSECTION - GRAND RAPIDS, MI 3/4 - EMERSON THEATRE - INDIANAPOLIS, IN 3/5 - THOMPSON HOUSE - CINCINNATI, OH 3/6 - ALTAR BAR - PITTSBURGH, PA 3/7 - WATER STREET MUSIC HALL - ROCHESTER, NY 3/8 - HIGHER GROUND - BURLINGTON, VT 3/10 - WEBSTER THEATRE - HARTFORD, CT 3/11 - THE CHANCE - POUGHKEEPSIE, NY 3/12 - EMPORIUM - LONG ISLAND, NY 3/13 - REVERB - READING, PA 3/14 - BALTIMORE SOUNDSTAGE - BALTIMORE, MD 3/15 - THE NORVA - NORFOLK, VA 3/17 - ZIGGY’S BY THE SEA - WILMINGTON, NC 3/18 - ZIGGY’S - WINSTON SALEM, NC 3/19 - FREEBIRD - JACKSONVILLE, FL 3/20 - ZYDECO - BIRMINGHAM, AL 3/21 - NEW DAISY THEATRE - MEMPHIS, TN 3/23 - JAKES - LUBBOCK, TX 3/24 - TRICKY FALLS - EL PASO, TX 3/25 - SUNSHINE THEATER - ALBUQUERQUE, NM 3/26 - THE ROCK - TUCSON, AZ

3/3 - KOROVA - SAN ANTONIO, TX 3/4 - ELECTRIC BANANA - EL PASO, TX 3/5 - LAUNCHPAD -ALBUQUERQUE, NM 3/6 - NILE UNDERGROUND - MESA, AZ 3/7 - THE ECHO - LOS ANGELES, CA 3/8 - METRO SIDEROOM - OAKLAND, CA 3/9 - RBU DAVIS UNIVERSITY - SACRAMENTO, CA 3/10 - HOLLAND PROJECT - RENO, NV 3/11 - KILBY COURT - SALT LAKE CITY, UT 3/12 - MARQUIS THEATER - DENVER, CO 3/13 - VAUDEVILLE MEWS - DES MOINES, IA 3/14 - MINNEHAHA FREESPACE - MINNEAPOLIS, MN 3/15 - BORG WARD -MILWAUKEE, WI 3/16 - BEAT KITCHEN - CHICAGO, IL 3/17 - FOUNDRY - CLEVELAND, OH 3/18 - LEGENDS - COVINGTON, KY 3/19 - THE DEMO - ST LOUIS, MO 3/20 - THE CONSERVATORY - OKLAHOMA CITY, OK 3/21 - WALTERS - HOUSTON, TX 3/22 - SOUTH BY SO WHAT - GRAND PRAIRIE, TX

THE GET UP KIDS

w/ PUP & RESTORATIONS

The upstart punks in PUP are joining forces with thoughtful rockers, and label mates, Restorations, when they open for legendary emo kingpins The Get Up Kids, this Spring. The rawk, the feels, and the memories will be in full effect this March.

3/24 - GROG SHOP - CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, OH 3/25 - THE WAITING ROOM - BUFFALO, NY 3/26 - CHAMELEON CLUB - LANCASTER, PA w/ Suburban Scum, Bent Life and Mizery 3/27 - STONE PONY - ASBURY PARK, NJ Hardcore, get ya hardcore here! Rot- 3/28 - THE PARAMOUNT - HUNTINGTON, NY ting Out and Expire are joining forc- 3/29 - THE MET - PAWTUCKET, RI es for a co-headlining jaunt across the USA in early March. Prepare for a night of pile-ons, sing alongs and dance moves galore at a preapproved hardcore destination near you. Watch

ROTTING OUT & EXPIRE

I’m not even sure where we’re at with this dumb column. This is like #5 or #6 or something... I don’t have the time or energy to fact check and I’m pretty sure you don’t care either. Let’s face it, it’s the beginning of the year and not a lot has come out yet, so this issue’s column is gonna be a little short, but I promise you I will make it up to you nerds as soon as the next issue drops. PINKY PROMISE! Okay, now for a combined total of 35 inches I bring you this little doosey.

BEACH SLANG - CHEAP THRILLS ON A DEAD END STREET 7” 2014. Topshelf signed Beach Slang sometime last year and didn’t hesitate to put together another wonderfully packaged record. With Beach Slang, you can expect certain things. 1) The tunes will rock. 2) the packaging will be fun and different. Cheap Thrills On A Dead End Street

Let me start this off with a little amusing thing that happened to me. When I was laying out the records to take photos my grandmother walked into my room, picked up the album sleeve and said, “ARE THOSE BOOBS HANGING OUT?!” and I immediately burst into a hideous cackle and told her I was going to write that in the magazine. She just laughed and walked away as if I was joking. I hope you’re reading this Grandma, so you know I don’t mess around and will take this opportunity to point out your hilarious vision problems. I love you, but get your eyes checked. Anyway, I finally got my 5 copies(yeah, I bought all 5 copies) of this record sometime around the new year and upon opening the package I immediately wondered why I had actually ordered all 5 variants. I’m glad I did because this has become one of the most sought after releases of 78

this first pressing as well. 150 band exclusive copies on white with blue starburst, 150 opaque orange/red (label exclusive), 300 opaque light purple, 350 opaque blue and 550 black. They’re all right there. As of this moment, the first pressing is sold out but a second pressing is on its way.

With both of Beach Slang’s releases seeing some great packaging variants, I’ve got to wonder what their first full length is going to be like. Can I start getting excited yet? Sit and spin, homies... “I’m here to save you but who’s to save me” - Eazy-E

doesn’t skimp on the goodies with a 2 and a half foldover sleeve with some wonderful words printed on the half page. Inside you’ll find the usual lyrics and thank yous, but a few of the copies also came with different colored inserts of artwork printed on thick tracing paper saying “We are nothing like them.” Pretty sweet there are multiple colors, I wonder how many I don’t have... The color variants are numerous for NEW NOISE MAGAZINE

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rom out of light and into dark: the festive flurry of feasting and family and friends that makes the latter months of every year a whirlwind of activity has peaked with New Year’s Eve and the enduring hangover of January. And so, in an attempt to ignore the uneventful weeks and bitter cold, we shall began with a retrospective of 2014’s November-into-December thrash assaults, ‘cause some nifty records made their way into or returned to the scene. Let’s begin with New York City’s speed metal warriors Iron Force and their Dungeon Breaker EP (Dying Victim Records, November). Relentless, violent, vicious, and raw—need I say more? Probably not, so onwards we shall go. Swedish thrash machine Entrench came next with the appropriately titled Violent Procreation (War Anthem Records)

on Nov. 21. Sounding stronger than ever, following their split with Insane back in March, …Procreation is a terrifyingly brilliant hybrid of scythesharp death metal and blood-hungry barks courtesy of guitarist and vocalist Fredrik Pellbrink. Sweden, yet again, strikes the nail on the head. Next up, despite seeing a European release back on Dec. 1, German thrash legends Sodom are poised to unleash the Sacred Warpath single EP in North America on Jan. 27 via Steamhammer/SVP. The title track—as founder Tom Angelripper informs us—was originally written for their upcoming full-length, but in wake of “the world falling apart,” they decided to release the track while there was still time. Assuming he knows something we don’t and world downfall is indeed imminent—maybe he’s just a lil’ cautious, nothing wrong with that—the EP is a short but sweet anthem to our doomed civilization. It’s wonderfully old school, too, featuring three live

tracks and a rehashed old demo cover originally designed by Angelripper. Hopefully, the physical release will retain enough value to barter for goods after The Fall. For those with a hankering for something even more old school, Xtreem Music Records very kindly rereleased Detente’s muchloved, forever obscure, and eternally raging 1986 classic Recognize No Authority in December. Hopefully, the reissue can reignite interest in the female-fronted L.A. thrashers, as their hardcore-stomping, metal-driven fear of global destruction remains as goddamn potent as all the other thrash greats from the period… Like Venom, without whom none of this gloriously speed-addicted noise could’ve existed. For better or worse, Cronos and co. are still outputting records, the most recent of which is From The Very Depths (Spinefarm, Jan. 27). Though mixed reactions abound regarding the more contemporary Venom studio outputs, From

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The Very Depths isn’t all that bad—it’s, y’know, a solid metal record. Nothing special, nothing bad, even a little bit cheesy, and that’s okay. At time of writing, the track “Long Haired Punks” can be heard on various platforms and almost makes it seem like

the Geordie black metal gods are staking their rightful claim to the entire metalpunk-black ‘n’ roll-crustyheavy-metal crossover recently popularized by the likes of Darkthrone, Midnight, et al. Which, again, isn’t a bad thing. If only Metallic would write records at least attempting to sound like Kill ‘Em All. Maybe they will, but if they don’t, there are some pretty sweet releases coming in the first quarter of 2015 anyway. Until then, cheers!

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IN STORES

FEB. 10, 2015

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“FEED HER TO THE SHARKS TAKE MELODIC METALCORE BACK TO ITS RIFFY, GROWLY ROOTS.”

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