First off, tell me how you guys got together. How long had each of you been playing prior, and what bands were you playing in before this one? What inspired each of you guys to play music in the first place?
The band was started by our guitarist Tad Rogers and original drummer Jacob Smith. Bass duties were taken over shortly after that by Jacob Purinton and the second guitar spot was filled by various people until our current vocalist Cody Casillas moved from his home in Texas to play guitar full time. When we parted ways with our old vocalist Cody made the move to vocals and the second guitar spot was filled by Brandon Cheatham. Tad and JP consider Fear the Aftermath the only serious project they’ve played with, while Cody played in various local Texas bands including Blessed by a Curse and Brandon played for various local Arkansas bands including Judging the Silence.
Let's talk about some of the lyrics. I don't really have the book in front of me, but I do know that some of your songs have interesting titles like "The Inventorment", "Year Of The Lion" and "A Glitch In The Machine." What are these songs about, and what inspires your lyrics?
The song “The Inventorment” is just about all the things we feel are wrong with the heavy music scene right now, particularly the people sit around on their computer talking shit about bands while never contributing anything to the scene, not to mention ever picking up an instrument themselves. “Year of the Lion” is about learning from the past and letting things go. It touches on a pretty broad subject that we wanted to leave a lot of room for personal interpretation because everyone has something in their past that they regret and wish they would have done differently. “A Glitch in the Machine” is about how history tends to repeat itself in almost any given situation but most people are too stupid or arrogant to notice they’re making the same mistakes over and over again. Given the chance, we will all wind up that decrepit old person on their deathbed looking back on their life with clarity and peace or regret and wishing we had done more with our time. Whether or not we choose to live a good life and be good people all falls back on us and eventually we all have to live with the consequences of our choices. This one was pretty much us giving advice to ourselves.
What are some things that you really want to focus on for the upcoming album that you didn't get to address on the last one? What are some new songs that you feel really strong about? Can you tell us about them?
In the studio we were very rushed on this last album so we weren’t able to experiment as much as we would have liked to there, but the songs themselves had been written for a while before that so as far as the writing goes, we were pretty happy with it. More than likely that will be the case with this album as well because we will have eight days to get everything tracked so we’re expecting another rushed process. We’re definitely going into it a lot more prepared this time though because of the experience we got with the last album, so we’ll just have to see what happens. It’s definitely hard to predict these kinds of things. As far as the new tracks go, we definitely have a few that we’re really excited about. One of which is titled “Here Lies Omega Street” and it’s definitely one of the more progressive songs we’ve ever written and has some stuff that is new territory for us. It’s also very personal lyrically because it was a big part of Brandon facing a lot of things going on in his life and learning to grow and move on from it. “Heart of Fear” is another one we’re ready to show people. The interesting thing about that one is after watching the April and Wayne YouTube videos talking about how all metal bands were Illuminati members and Satanists we read about the 13 all powerful families in the Illuminati or whatever it is and based the riffing and rhythms off of patterns of 13 and worked it into 4/4 timing. It wound up creating a really interesting vibe and gave that song its own unique flavor. The last one I’d like to mention is one called “Badlands” which is probably the most pissed off and relentless sounding song we’ve ever done. It’s really fast and aggressive and was a good outlet for us to get out a lot of the anger and frustration we’ve been dealing with. There’s definitely a good bit of variety on this next album and a wide range of emotion that we are trying to get out with these sounds so we’re very excited to release them for everyone.
Let's talk touring. Have you guys toured yet and if you haven't, who would you like to tour with? What bands would you like to meet in person?
We haven’t been able to tour yet because of different circumstances, but it is definitely something we plan on doing in the near future. Specifically once we release the next album and have time to become financially secure enough to do it without being homeless when we get back. As far as whom we’d love to tour with, there are definitely a lot of the bands from around here like Once Exiled, Us and the Ship, Bound for Lyra, and Legions Await. We’re good friends with all of those bands and they all kill it live and it’s always a blast sharing the stage with them. National touring bands that we’d love to eventually tour with include Norma Jean, Within the Ruins, The Color Morale, Between the Buried and Me, Oh Sleeper, Deftones, Monuments, Stray From the Path, Architects, and At the Throne of Judgment.
Obviously, you're in the Bible belt where some people literally still believe that you have to set rock records on fire and pray over them to let the demons out. What are your opinions on playing raucous heavy metal in "God's Country?"
This is kind of a tough question to answer because it’s something we’ve had to deal with since day one and any band locally or nationally for that matter can attest to how much bullshit a lot of your common bible thumpers around here throw at you. It’s not everyone, but a lot of the people from around here that claim religious affiliation just don’t get it. Maybe because to them it may sound evil, angry, etc. but for us that aggressive sound is kind of our outlet for releasing those emotions that pretty much every human being deals with in a positive manner, as I’m sure it is for most bands that play heavy music. Everyone in the band has different outlooks on religion but at the end of the day we can all agree on a basic set of morals. People around here have referred to us as “that damn devil music” but the funny thing is the last lyric on our debut is “Love all that’s good before it’s too late. Before we expire and return to the dirt.” People can take it however they want but we’ll still do what we love doing regardless.
Some might say that things are looking grim for us in the future. Whether or not you care about the comedy of politics, there is something seriously wrong with this country, seeming like we're treading on thin ice. What is your outlook on society? Do you think we're totally fucked, or is there some kind of redemption or hope for mankind? If we're doing something wrong, what do you think it is and how can we fix it?
There’s definitely a lot in today’s society that we think should be looked at. We usually don’t like to talk politics just because more often than not these kinds of conversations turn into arguments but really what it comes down to is people just need to do what’s right instead of what’s easy or profitable to them. The war on drugs is definitely something we all personally want to see ended. It’s costing us hundreds of billions of dollars each year and it’s not solving anything, not even the problems that drug use causes in today’s society. You can’t regulate a personal behavior if it’s not hurting anyone other than the potential person doing said behavior. It just doesn’t work and history has already proven that with alcohol prohibition. We’re by no means advocating meth or heroin use, but you can’t tell us that someone lighting up a bowl of green is hurting anyone and you can’t punish people for something that hurts no one. Then you take privately owned prisons, which is ridiculous. There’s definitely something very wrong and depressing about people profiting off of other people’s misery. A lot of people belong in those prisons but certainly not anyone there for simple possession, or even selling drugs for that matter. We also need a non-intervention foreign policy. I’m sure there are a lot of countries that are going to be war and power hungry regardless of how much you involve yourself in their business, but it would certainly slow it down. if we were more worried about a strong national defense instead. But this is all just our personal and we usually try to avoid politics within our music. Music to us is an escape from the world and all the bullshit in it. I’m sure our opinions on these things may find their way in one way or another but again we do this to get away from thinking about those kinds of things. People should just learn to love each other and treat each other the way they want to be treated. Live and let live.
Thanks guys for your answers and I hope that you'll continue making music for many years to come.
Thanks again for the questions and promotion man!
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