Posted: July 7th, 2008
Contributed By: Jay

TuneLab Music: Jumping right into it, where are you now and what’s going on with the band?

Brock Lindow: In Europe. Just did two and half months with Devildriver and Napalm Death and then we had about three weeks off. I was home in Alaska and back in Portland for a couple days, then headed out.

TLM: Who are you hitting Europe with?

BL: We do all the off dates with Bleeding Through and Throwdown, but the majority of the dates are all festival dates, so you know, millions of bands.

TLM: All those typical European festivals like Rock am Ring and such?

BL: We’re doing Graspop, which, uh, anyway, and Download Festival which is pretty big in England. Those kinda deals.

TLM: You guys do quite a bit of touring in Europe, do you not?

BL: Yeah, yeah, definitely. We spent a pretty good amount of time over there in the last few years.

TLM: Is there a good reaction? Do you see the same familiar faces coming out to the shows?

BL: You know, it’s been our bread and butter if you would. We’ve been touring there since 2001 extensively since the beginning years. On the last album we only did a few tours over there and concentrated a little more on the states because I think it had kinda been an area we hadn’t concentrated on in a while, so we decided to do a couple more tours here instead. But yeah, Europe’s been amazing for us since the beginning of going over there. We’re extremely grateful of that.

TLM: And when you head back to the states do you have any time off before you hit the Rockstar Mayhem tour?

BL: Yeah, like six days, which is not much.

TLM: Are you guys really looking forward to that? Is it just another tour or what?

BL: No, no, it’s an excellent opportunity for us. We’ve never been a part of any of the US festivals. We’ve definitely tried to be a part of the Warped Tours, and the Ozzfests, and never really got the nods. We really think it’s gonna be an excellent tour, it’s a great deal to be a part of it.

TLM: You’re actually on the Jager stage, right?

BL: It got changed actually. We’re on the Hot Topic stage. We’re with Underoath, Suicide Silence, Red Chord, Black Tide, and somebody else… I can’t remember.

TLM: Yeah, Black Tide, you better watch out for them. They’re like little kids and they have the foulest mouths I’ve ever heard.

BL: Ha, yeah, I don’t know much about them, but I’ve heard one song I think on Headbanger’s Ball the other day. It’s cool that they’re young and playing, like, Metallica jams.

TLM: Who would you say you’re most looking forward to going out with on the Mayhem tour?

BL: Um, you know we’re real good friends with Walls of Jericho and Machin Head, so it’ll be real nice to hang with those guys. We’re doing a lot of the off dates with Walls of Jericho, and we’ve been friends with them for a long time. It should be a lot of fun. And Underoath is one of my favorite bands right now, so I’m really looking forward to seeing their show everyday.

TLM: The off dates that you’re doing with Walls of Jericho… are they announced yet?

BL: Yeah, they’re on our myspace sites.

TLM: When you’re playing out in Europe, are you playing a lot of the new album, older tracks, or what? How are you mixing it up?

BL: Old and new for sure. We’re not trying to pound everybody with shit they don’t know. It’s never a really good ingredient I don’t think. You know, the record’s been out one day longer over there, but, so it ain’t much, but with the Internet these days, people that are interested in us have definitely heard it prior to coming out. But we’ll definitely mix it up with the old and new and try to balance it, but definitely try to support the new record. Try out some of the new songs on people’s heads I guess.

TLM: Speaking of the new album, on “We Gave It Hell,” a lot of people that commented on our site were wondering if you guys had a new vocalist, because your voice was so much different. Did you approach this a different way or did it just kinda come out that way?

BL: That’s kinda funny, we kinda got that too in the beginning. You know, the album though, I don’t really know what… it doesn’t seem really different to me, but maybe it’s a little heavier vocally, with the screams, I don’t know. I’m with myself every single day, so it’s hard to step away from it and see myself the same way other people do, hear it with different ears. We just wanted to do… basically, I never felt so free writing a record before, where I think I had other things in my mind that, man, I hope they’ll like this song, cause this song might help us get a little more promo, you know, those types of things before when we were on Roadrunner, because those things were what seemed to be emphasized for so many years. Once we got to Ferret, all that… you know… crap was gone, and they were like “hey, do whatever you guys want and we’re behind you 100%, we love the band.” They immediately made us feel totally different, amazing really. So I think in turn, we just, when we got into the room, we said “hey, if we wanna do a straight up metal song, let’s do it. If we wanna do a moody rock song, let’s do it.” We just covered the ground with everything that the band’s capable of doing. It was a lot of fun. I guess vocally, yeah, some of the screams are definitely different from others cause I wanted to make it a little more brutal, and I love metal, but you know, we’re kind of a rock band that flirts in metal here and there. Maybe some people were like “whoa, what the hell is going on here,” but it’s still the same four dudes from Alaska playing this rock/metal thing.

TLM: That’s cool you guys got that freedom to do what you wanted with the album. Is there sort of an overall concept or theme with the album? Anything you set out to accomplish? Or is it just all individual songs?

BL: I don’t ever try to write something that’s gonna envelope an entire album on one theme. I obviously am trying to connect with people in a positive way. I’m trying to bring hope to my own life by remaining positive. In turn, maybe that’ll get passed on to someone that’s looking for that in music, maybe. I think I’ve brushed on a lot of things, like love, struggle, victory, despairity. I didn’t have one thing, but the title itself is about how we’re going through these difficult times in our lives, and they’re gonna come and go like the tide, and hopefully we get through it, which we usually do unless we die. Um, sometimes when you’re dealing with things like “oh my God, this is the worst thing ever, I’m not gonna pay rent this week.” But, you know, you get through that week, so that’s what the title is about. Anyway, that was just my little word play on it I guess.

TLM: When I first listened to it, one of the tracks that really jumped out at me was “Only A Year or So…”. Who is the female vocalist on that?

BL: She’s just a friend of ours in Portland, this artist that we’ve been friends with for three years. The entire thing about that song is, it’s actual letters written between a husband and wife, the husband being in Iraq for two years, that I befriended on the Internet, and he’s a fan of the band, and I had this idea, and I asked him to send me some letters they had been sending back and forth. And they were gracious enough to do it, and they were some super intense letters that they sent me. And I felt like I was totally like prying into their life a little bit, but in the end the first verse is a letter that she sent to him, and I did the spoken word letter from him back to her, and then the chorus, and so… That song is totally something I had never done before, and it was this crazy idea. And at the end, whether everyone gets it or not, or anybody feels the way that feel the way I do about it… I recently went to Ft Bragg on tour and got to meet Adam, the soldier for the first time. He had all his buddies with him and we sat down in the RV and turned on the song so he could hear it for the first time, cause he had never heard it. And he started crying, and I was kinda crying, and it was like the weirdest, most powerful feeling I had ever had being in this band. It was pretty killer. It turned out pretty cool, so I’m glad we got to do it.

TLM: Yeah, hearing your experience of it makes it even more emotional. I was wondering if it was maybe about you going on tour, or something…

BL: Yeah, I’ve heard that from other journalists, and I wish there was a disclaimer right before the song so they didn’t think that, haha. But yeah, no, I know what you mean. It’s totally not about that.

TLM: Wow. I’m sure there’s gonna be a lot of people that are gonna be interested to hear all that. The first single, “We Gave It Hell,” what made you decide on that one?

BL: Well, the first single on the last album was “I’ll Go Until My Heart Stops,” and this song is kinda similar to that one. “We Gave It Hell” is similar I think. To me, it reminds me of this dirt-rocker track, sounds like you’re cruising down a dirt road on a motorbike, so that was my initial laughter to it when I first heard the music to it. Then we put the lyrics to it, and thought it was cool, not super-super heavy, but still raw and aggressive, so we put that out first. We always wanna come out, you know, smashing people in the face. We don’t wanna come out with some…. I don’t know…. some more melodic rock song. For any of our records, we don’t open any of our records like that. It’s some people’s thing, but that was the idea. It wasn’t super heavy, but heavy enough so that people would hear that song and know it’s us. Did you see the video for it?

TLM: Yeah, I was gonna ask you, who was the dedication to at the end? I was gonna ask you about that.

BL: Yeah, those were two of the guys that were in the video that were pro snowmobilers that passed away a couple days later in an avalanche snowmobiling. That was the whole reason behind the dedication at the end. That was a really shitty deal. But the video was such a good time to do and have all those guys come, you know they just got back from X-Games, so it was pretty rad to be around those guys.

TLM: Yeah, I think that was the other reason people were asking about whether there was a new singer. You had the voice thing, and in the video you’re rocking the full beard. People weren’t sure. They are now, of course.

BL: Hahaha. That’s funny. You know, you take pictures every once in a while for a record, and then that’s how people think you’re gonna look like for the rest of your life. Where in turn, really, I almost always have a beard, hahaa. So anyway…

TLM: Are you guys planning on a next single yet? Or riding this one out for the time being?

BL: There’s a song on the record called “Waiting on a War,” and we’re pretty much all in agreement that that’s gonna be the second single. We’re gonna shoot a video for it when we get back to the states. That was the collective thought. There’s a couple different ones I would throw in the air, but we’ll see what everybody thinks is the best idea I guess.

TLM: Do you guys do that by committee? And do you guys have the freedom to do that, without the record label telling you what to do?

BL: No, I mean, at Roadrunner it was always them asking what we thought, and there was always a collective thinking. Obviously before they throw the money down they have to believe into it too, so you gotta have their input somewhat. But I’ve never come up with a “you guys must do this one,” so we’re definitely taking any of these ideas and see what happens as far as what people think is best. But in the end, we get the final say I think.

TLM: Cool, well alright man, that’s about all I’ve got. Anything else you wanna add?

BL: Hmmm. Not really. Just thanks a lot for spreading the word about our band and streaming our music. Same goes for anybody that visits your site.