For more information on the bands featured in this issue, check out the following links:

Airbourne - http://www.airbournerock.com/Chimaira - http://www.chimaira.com/Five Finger Death Punch - http://www.fivefingerdeathpunch.com/Hail the Villain - http://www.hailthevillain.com/Megadeth - http://www.megadeth.com/home.phpSlayer - http://www.slayer.net/us/homeTestament - http://www.testamentlegions.com/Twelve After - http://www.rpm-bands.com/Twelve_After/info/

Been There, Done That for the 1st Time:The American Carnage Tour

Page 4

The Heroic Side of Hail the Villain

Page 11

All Work and No Play Make Chimaira Fucking Brutal

Page 18

Airbourne:In With the Old, Out With the New

Page 22

Rebel Souls: Interview with Jason Hook of Five Finger Death Punch

Page 26Got news for The Original Shred Report?Send it to:

shredmynews@rpm-bands.com

Send music for review to:zine@rpm-bands.com

orRagin’ Pit Magazine

1750 S. Price Rd. #259Tempe, AZ 85281

All submissions must include:Album/demo cover, track list, band photo, bio, and website. Press kits preferred.

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Thrash metal. While it isn’t my per-sonal favorite genre one can’t argue when you claw as far back through the

bloodliness that it spawned almost all the oth-ers. Deathcore? Black metal? Shoegaze metal? Modern metal? None of it would be here with-out the early heralds of thrash from the 80’s. So when the 2010 American Carnage tour was announced with some of the biggest names in 80’s metal, namely Slayer and Megadeth, I figured it would be a good history lesson to see these icons. Luckily three months before the date, I scored incredibly cheap tickets that wouldn’t break the bank so my victory was se-cured. All it took from that point was the slow crawl of time…

Time moves faster than one thinks though, and before I knew it was the afternoon of August 29th, 2010. The concert was being held all the way south at Cricket Wireless Amphitheater, one of the farthest venues in San Diego that hosted metal shows from my home. So, try-ing not to play the time game too close to the chest, I hopped in my clunking Subaru Legacy and left an hour and a half early.

I had not been to Cricket Wireless Amphithe-ater since its remodeling, but I figured I would be able to find the ‘will call’ area where I had to get my photo pass with ease. As I walked to-wards the entrance I saw the box office looming right before me. Considering that Uproar Fest was in a few weeks I wanted tickets. I walked up to the entrance and asked, and the woman kindly directed me to go inside the theater it-self where they would be sold for ‘extra cheap.’ Who am I to deny a golden opportunity?

The trade area of the venue was packed. Cute girls with banners were selling Uproar Fest tickets - one I promptly bought - while differ-ent food and beer outlets were already gain-ing lines. I ignored all that because I had a pur-pose and only twenty minutes to figure it out. I eventually found a service rep. and showed him my photo pass. “Oh just go to the first row and they’ll tell you,” she said with a cheerful smile. I thanked her and went down to the front entrance where I was promptly blocked. “Ticket?” the guard asked. I showed him mine. “You are all the way in section 304. You have to go to the back.” I showed him the photo pass. “I’m supposed to be taking photos for a maga-zine… never done this before so I have no clue where to go…” “Probably over at guest services.” The guard pointed across the stage. “It is on the other side. You have to cut across.” “OK, great.” I started to take a step forward but he stopped me. “You have to cut across at your section. Go behind the brick wall.” I headed back down the steps and cut all the way across the venue towards the area the guard had directed me. I scanned the plaza, but didn’t see any guest services. So feeling like a total noob, I walked up to someone else. “Uh… hi. I have this photo pass and I have no clue where I am supposed to go with it…” The man, who looked like a photo journalist himself, squinted at it. “I don’t know. Go ask guest services.” “OK, where’s that?”

by Colin McNamara

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“All the way across the venue near the en-trance.” He points back across the stage are-na. Right to where I had just come from. Well that’s just dandy. “Thanks,” I nodded. “No problem. Here just cut across there. Just show the pass and they’ll let you go through.” I took his advice and walked all the way to the closest side area and showed my pass. The guard shook his head. “You need to go to your section and go through…” “But that guy just told me…” I turned back and saw to my dismay he had disappeared. The guard shook his head again. “You need to go to section 304,” he indicated of my ticket. I shook my head, bit my lip, and worked my way back the way I came towards guest ser-vices, a white tent with only two people work-ing the booth. I showed my pass. “They said I had to go here to find out where I’m sup-posed to go…” I said. One of the girls, who did not look like a supervisor, took the pass and frowned. “Sorry… I have no clue where you are supposed to go with this.” NOW I was get-ting frustrated. “You guys have been sending me all over the place! Isn’t there a supervisor I can see?” I grated trying not to start yelling. The woman looked over my shoulder. “Here, go talk to that guy in white right near the en-trance. He’ll know.” I nodded a thank you and walked over to the man she pointed at. As I approached him, he put a hand up and had me stand off to the corner while he talked on his radio. I sighed, checking my time. I had two minutes. While I waited I stared at the triangular photo pass, the source of all my trouble. You had better be worth it… After about four minutes of him talking, he walked over. “What’s wrong?”

I showed him the photo pass. “I was told to talk to you about this… I just need to know where to go.” He stared. “Go to guest services.” “I was just there. They told me to go to you,” I said, exasperated. The guard squinted at the pass again. “Oh… just go right to the front of the stage. They should let you in…” “Thanks,” I said, finally thankful someone had knowledge on the subject. As I turned I heard the sound of guitars, bass and drums. Oh shit, the show is starting. I rushed back to the area I had gone to first and nodded towards the guard. “Hey, me again! I was told to go to the stage.” From what I could tell the band on stage wasn’t Megadeth or Slayer, so they had to be Testa-ment. Even though I had never heard them before, they sounded awesome, like a death-thrash metal band. A woman near the security railing had a clipboard and a look of author-ity, so I approached her. “Uh, I’m here for the photo pass.” “What’s your name?” “Colin McNamara.” She went down her list. “OK. Only the first song of each band. Can’t do Slayer through.” “That’s fine,” I nodded, trying not to sound dis-gruntled. Slayer was the band I really wanted to take photos. “Where’s your camera?” I pulled out my small digital camera and she

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frowned. “Ooookkk…” Now I REALLY felt like a noob. I had no idea I was supposed to have a specific camera. I’m a virgin at this formal photo press stuff, come on now! As she let me in the pit area just before all the screaming fans, I saw that many other press coverers had huge cameras. I was a little ashamed, but once I realized how close I was to the stage, I was replaced by a new feeling - awe. I was less than five feet from Chuck Billy, the vocalist of Testament. So I just started taking pictures, moving around, saying hello to other people in the pit, and also interacting with fans by having them pose for photos. They were cer-tainly pleased about it. As I moved around I felt the energy of the music rip through me and just get me pumped up as metal usually does. I had no idea what songs the band was playing, but they all sounded awe-some and I made a note to pick up a few once the show was over. Between the gui-tarist, bassist, and vocalist, each moved around on the stage, allowing clear angles for shots. Damn, this was so worth the run around! The first song ended quicker than expected and I was led out of the press pit. I

made my way back to my extremely far seat and I sud- denly felt very alone and naked.

It was just so FAR compared to where I had just been. Fortu-nately, my camera had a sniper rifle equivalent of a zoom so I was able to get some shots from afar. This would certain-ly help me when Slayer came on stage. With the photos out of the way, I took time to focus on the music at hand. Chuck Billy is one of those great vocalists who can growl and also have that raw thrash metal voice. From the tempo of the music, it felt like

this was more groove oriented death metal than thrash. Whatever it was, it was very enjoyable. The backdrop banner did not look like any of their album covers so I could not really pick up a trend to any album they followed. Compared to Megadeth, who were sup-posed to perform everything from their Rust In Peace album and Slayer was supposed to perform all of the Seasons In The Abyss album, Tes-tament remained pretty obscure. I didn’t mind; all the better to collect their music and play the ‘match that song’ game. The only song they re-ally announced was the

last one which was the self titled from their latest album, The For-

mation Of Damnation.

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After Testament finished their set I noticed that the pit was starting to fill up a lot faster. Testament’s banner dropped and was replaced by Megadeth. Not wanting to be late and only end up being able to take photos for half the first song, I walked from my seat to the main plaza and headed back to the front entrance of the stage. The guard recognized me and let me through, but not before adding, “You need to put that thing on your shirt!” Great, another piece of press etiquette they forgot to mention. I tried to fig-ure out how to get the pass off, but there was no flap to let it come off like a sticker. I frowned, checked the back, and licked it to see if it was like a stamp. Nope, just pa-per. Damn! Feel-ing like a dum-bass again, but glad no one saw me, I kept picking at the edge, muti-lating the poor thing until finally, somehow, it peeled a bit and I was able to get the sticker part on my sweatshirt. I made my way to the same woman with dark hair and her clipboard. She nodded and let me in and right as I slipped past the gates the lights went dark and fog billowed across the stage. One by one the performers of Megadeth made their way onstage, but the chanting crowd only had one person in mind. “Mustaine! Mustaine! Mustaine!” The roar was beautiful and finally Dave Mustaine, of the most famous icons in

thrash metal, and particular famous in San Di-ego because he was a native, came on stage in his usual white dress shirt and flowing or-ange hair. And he was right there in front of me. I snapped the best shot of the night and kept moving around, trying to get a shot of at least every performer. The crowd behind me was going wild; people were press against the gates, screaming the lyrics, and there was even

crowd surfing. This made it a little diffi-cult to get good shots because se-

curity kept bumping into me to help people slide down

so finally I just staked a corner out away from

the action and took whatever pictures I could. Again, I didn’t know any of the tracks, but knew they were from the Rust In Peace album due to the ban-ner. When the song

was up, I stayed hidden in my cor-

ner. I was enjoying hanging out up front

too much to leave yet. The other photo journal-

ists left, but the security guard who had bumped into me

and offset my shots a few times let me stay, probably because he felt bad. I thanked him and apologized for being in his way; he shrugged it off and let me resume my pho-tos without distraction. Woohoo! No blur and having the pit all to myself. I felt like a kid on Christmas. If this was to be my last photo shoot for the evening, this was the way to close it. I also took time to focus on the crowd, who

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put off a lot of fun, but blurred poses because everyone was moving. Once the song closed I slipped my way out to the side. On my way out I thanked the press coverage director, who for-tunately hadn’t noticed my lengthy stay. I also thanked the security guard who had given me so much trouble and the attendant who had let me in. She seemed a bit taken aback, like I had done one of the most un-expected, nicest things for the whole day. She even hugged me. I had to grin. Metal is best when it is embraced from the community side. Back from my hawk-eye vantage point, I could see the circle pit was really in effect, but what really was the treat was when Megadeth finished their Rust In Peace set and played my favor-ite song: “Symphony of Destruction.” Finally, a song I can sing along to! I banged my head like crazy and let out all the energy I had pent up while hanging around fo-cused in the pit. Mustaine changed to a dark shirt and his dual red guitar after the song; I had kind of hoped he would have done it sooner, but photo beggars can’t be choosers. Megadeth also performed a song from their latest album, Endgame and the first to really ask of any crowd participation. Of course, the

crowd was very enthusiastic; it was obvious that they loved their Megadeth. Some strang-er even came up to me, slung his arm over my shoulder and we both started headbanging to-gether. He was obviously drunk and stoned off his ass and more annoying than fun, but who

was I to spoil his fun? I treated him like my best friend the rest of the song, putting up with the nonsensical rants un-til he stumbled off to some other group of people. They, unfortu-nately were not as nice and called security to have him ‘taken care of.’ Megadeth closed on an-other crowd favorite, “A Toute Le Mond.” I had not heard the original; only the remade version with Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil as a guest vocalist. It felt a little strange to not have her voice there and it would have been awe-some to have her on-stage, but the original version was still just as good as the remastered. Megadeth really knew how to get themselves to sound like they did in the studio with just the right ‘live show’ vibe added. Another aspect that made

Megadeth a hit of the night was Mustaine’s charisma. He took plenty of time to talk with the crowd in between songs and touched on notes that only the San Diego crowd would know, such as surfing and the ex-

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cellent weather. Of course, on this particular night, the weather was clouding over with the threat of rain so that was an exception. How-ever, true or not, Megadeth’s charisma had its charm. When they took a final bow together, the applause was deafening. I didn’t bother to leave my seat during the change over from Megadeth to the headlin-ing Slayer. Instead, I slowly tried to inch my way row by row closer to the stage. I finally

reached the guarded area to the next section. “Ticket?” the girl asked. I showed her mine, and the photo pass. “I know I’m not supposed to be in this section, but I do have a photo pass and am supposed to go to the front…” “Sorry. I can’t let you through. If you need to get to the photo area you have to go to back through your area and down to the front.” Damn! Well, worth a shot. I wasn’t about to play the whole ‘run around’ game again so I just went back to the closest seat in my section I could find and experimented with the zoom on my camera. It seemed to get a decent enough range, and if I leaned over to the point of fall-ing face first into the row before me I could get maybe a fraction closer. I also noticed the huge time difference between Megadeth’s set and Testament’s set. Testament only performed for half an hour while Megadeth performed for a whole hour. I suppose all is unfair in music and

stage politics. I just hoped Slayer would get the same amount of time Megadeth did, if not more. During Slayer’s changeover

they covered the stage with a big white curtain, leaving an enticement of mystery. When the lights went down many different versions of the logo lit up the curtain, an extremely artistic touch in

my opinion. The first song the band performed was from their latest album, World Painted Blood. If there was ever a live band that sound-ed just like they did on their albums, Slayer was it. Every note and vocal tone was down to the nil. Tom Araya had his looming stage presence in the center; unlike the other bands he tended to stay rooted while Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman moved around, trading solos, sometimes dueling it out in front of skinsman Dave Lombardo. It was a very cordial process; no one took over the other or tried to steal the show. It was an excellent blend of musicianship and sportsmanship and one of the many rea-sons why Slayer had stayed as strong as they were at this point with a very steady lineup. Slayer kept the mood extremely ambient and mysterious throughout their Seasons set. They followed the CD track list exactly, opening on “War Ensemble” and closing on “Seasons In The Abyss,” a personal favorite of mine especially for the heavy use of fog, neon green lights, and

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almost cascading laser show. Below me the pit never stopped moving and everyone around me was matching the band’s artistic intensity in lighting and catchy music tempos; there was so much groove that people were dancing around me. It was almost sad to listen to such good mu-sic; compared to the World Painted Blood songs, they were bland and lacked the melodic groove that Slayer’s earlier work con-tained. Although the crowd reception was not as mighty as they were towards Megadeth for their charisma, Slayer certainly stole the show for their artistic and historical talent. The band closed on “South Of Heaven” and

the staple “Raining Blood” before a very curt goodnight and disappearing without much chance of an encore performance. While I was bit disappointed they hadn’t performed anything from God Hates Us All, my favorite

album, I was still happy with the entire setlist. As I left for the night I took a seat on one of the plaza benches and just watched people come out. The crowd dynamics were stunning. Usually I was used to a younger crowd, but I saw people in their sixties with grandchildren about eight coming out, and the kids al-

ways had the biggest smiles. That’s always a joy to see. I made a note for the night that I would take my own kids, if I had any, to an American Carnage Tour to understand how the spirit of metal began. It’s good to hear original music every once in a while.

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No one makes an idiot of themselves on stage like I do,” says vocalist Bryan Crouch as he sits across from me on a

drum stool while pulling up a crumpled folding chair for me to sit on. “It’s part of what makes being a singer so much fun!” I took off my hat briefly and wiped my forehead, not only clear-ing the sweat, but also the nervousness. I found it hard to believe that just moments ago, the Canadian Hail The Villain’s vocalist had been acting like madman on stage and now here I was sitting in front of him while he looked as calm as ever with a cigarette sticking out of the corner of his mouth. It was slightly unnerving and intriguing at the same time. Some of the best musicians or performers are those who really let it all out during a show and become what the fans expect out of a hard rock band and then revert back to a regular, down to earth kind of person rather than try to let their

stage ego get in the way of reality. And they understand it when that sheer rock n’ roll atti-tude can be intimidating, so they try not to let it represent them entirely.

“Nervous?” Bryan asked, noticing my hesita-tion.

I nodded. “First time doing an in person inter-view with someone as famous as you…”

“Ah, hell, I’m not THAT famous. Don’t worry about it. You’ll do fine. Not like you’re inter-viewing the President and will get shot if you ask the wrong questions. Just ask whatever you need to.” He smiled encouragingly.

“You know,” I laughed, “Funny thing is before I even knew I was going to get to talk to you, a tennis buddy of mine let me have your CD.”

“Really?” Bryan’s eyes lit up. “What did you

by Colin McNamara

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think?”

“Original and awesome. I definitely enjoy the concept and think it’s a fresh sound finally amongst all this alternative rock crap that dominates the radio these days… and the sto-ry flows well.”

“Hell yeah, I’m glad you liked it.”

“What made you want to be a part of Uproar fest?” I asked, wanting to get engaged with the interview questions I had prepared earlier, but was now starting to forget.

Bryan: It’s not about really wanting to be a part of it, it’s more about being asked to do it and it’s also about having the honor of being allowed to do it. We’ve been blown away by this opportunity and definitely use every day to our advantage.

Did you know any of the artists on tour?

Bryan: I’ve never met a single one of them. We’ve played on a tour with Hellyeah before, but no… never knew or heard of any of the bands on this tour before.

Anyone you think is awesome?

Bryan: Oh, everyone’s fantastic. Airbourne is a favorite… they’re energetic and we always have these ridiculous competitions about who can outperform the other. Disturbed’s also great… they’ve come down to watch our shows. It’s nice to get that sort of attention.

When starting Hail the Villain, what were your intentions?

Bryan: I did a solo record by myself to get peo-ple together in hopes of getting a band and through that band getting a record deal so my

music could get out to the world a lot easier. I don’t think I really understood what this was seven years ago by putting in the work and pain that’s due… but I do now for my love of playing music and entertaining people, and those are my initial reasons for becoming a musician.

How long have you been playing music for?

Bryan: About fifteen years. My whole life, ba-sically. Guitars and vocal mostly, but I haven’t touched a guitar in years.

Did you know any of your other band mem-bers currently with you before Hail The Vil-lain came to be?

Bryan: I knew my bass player since kindergar-ten, and Joe - I met while bartending. He was wearing the same shoes as me and I thought since he played guitar and I sang it would cool to have a band together. We already had our bass player, and we picked up our drummer along the way.

Being a vocalist, what do you think are the core duties of that individual? Do you think it is an ice breaker for those who hear music because I know a lot of people who say it is the vocals that make them decide if a band is great or not?

Bryan: There’s a huge weight, that’s for sure. It’s both a good and bad weight. I’ve embraced being a showman and the center of attention and it has its ups and downs. The anxiety of the stress of being that center of attention and keeping up with melodies is overwhelming… sometimes I just shut up and don’t talk to any-one, not even my own band brothers on the bus. I just put myself in my own world in my head and focus. It’s a big job and one I take very seriously.

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On your website, the whole production of your latest album, even the artwork, is most-ly done by the band? Do you find there’s a lot more creative freedom and ability to enjoy it rather than have someone else step in and help?

Bryan: We were lucky enough when we signed our record dead, we gained some major inter-est. We want to keep creating this universe that we want people to get involved; if you’re not in our universe then you’re not with us. Our record company loved the idea - the album concept, the interactive website, the comic book… they gave the funds and said, “Go for it.” We’ve had a great relationship with them because of that. We’re willing to do what it takes to get them what they need and they’re willing to do the same.

So Population:Declining is the first chapter of an ongoing story?

Bryan: It’s all Population:Declining! We’ve drawn up a movie, characters, and everything. And I’m really excited how it’s going to look. We went down to Buffalo and a city called Hamilton in Ontario and got the city backdrop for our setting. For our characters we based our main character off Adrian Brody… anoth-er character named Randal is based off Kris Kristofferson. There are a lot of different peo-ple that went into the focus of creating these characters.

So why Hail the Villain? Usually people like the hail the hero.

Bryan: I’m tired of seeing the hero win. For us, we were always outcasts in our scene… we wanted to fight hard and rose above all these genre trends. We didn’t want to be just punk, or emo, or heavy metal… we wanted to be Hail the Villain. We carved a path in our country,

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Canada, and the cities we’re from and we’ll keep carving.

Why didn’t people like you?

Bryan: Well we weren’t assholes, you know. We just didn’t want to be attached to anything or anybody. We want people to like us for our music, not for the image we portray or who we know. We wanted to do it our way and we did it our way. People saw it was something differ-ent and they liked it. Plus, part of that includes how much of an idiot I can be on stage. No one acts more of an idiot than I do, but it’s part of what helps us be individualistic.

So what do you believe about being a rock star?

Bryan: I believe in putting on a good show and then shutting up after. We aren’t here to party

after and be jerks or act out… we’re here for the music and that helps. Since we’ve started on this tour, slowly but surely people noticed how much we are about the music. Stone Sour came over, Airbourne came over, Disturbed came over… they all started watching our sets and I think that attitude really helps. We want to prove ourselves on stage, not off it.

Is this your first U.S. tour?

Bryan: No, we’ve toured with CKY and Seven-dust earlier in April and finished in late May before going to Japan and Singapore after a short reunion back home in Canada.

In all your touring have you seen much dif-

ference in how fans react here as opposed to Canada or Singapore and Japan?

Bryan: Oh definitely. Overseas it’s really dif-ferent. In Singapore they speak English, but in Japan they don’t. So the relationship is more a star struck thing because they don’t get to see bands from American and Canada very often. But it’s still a great experience and the fans are just as appreciative there as they are here. In Canada, though, it’s been an especially hard road. When we play hard rock in Canada it’s difficult to get noticed because we don’t have metal radio or stuff like that which is here in the U.S. or elsewhere. We Canadians just have indie rock and rock n’ roll up there. Here in the States there’s been much warmer receptions because there’s those outlets. I was totally struck by the fact that bands like Godsmack and Papa Roach are hits here. They aren’t in Canada.

Why’s that?

Bryan: There’s no market there. Papa Roach did

well for a year… Puddle of Mudd did too, but just fell away. Godsmack and Sevendust nev-er really made it there because there’s just no real mass production of what they do and sales. We were lucky to get as much promo-tion out of Canada as we did.

So it’s mostly just by word of mouth then how things work back at home when it comes to hard rock and metal, huh?

Bryan: Totally word of mouth only. The only bands that really make it big in Canada are the indie or punkish bands like Franz Ferdinand or the Strokes. Other Canadian bands like Three Days Grace and Nickelback have been some of the other bands that are really promoted.

“We want people to like us for our music, not for the image we portray or who we know. We wanted to do it our way and we did it our way.”

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Well Three Days Grace is considered a hard rock band here in the U.S., so then a band like Hail the Villain, Godsmack, or Papa Roach should have had it easy!

Bryan: Three Days Grace IS heavy… but softer than what we as Hail the Villain are aiming for. Here in the U.S. the fans are more open minded and welcome in a variety of music, es-pecially the harder stuff. The kind of hard rock that’s embraced here is exactly what we want. Plus, there’s a larger population here in the States as opposed to Canada, so hard rock and metal is more marketable with more people available to listen and buy.

So what do you think of music politics in the States then? Even here hard rock, punk, and metal aren’t really seen in the mainstream daily paper or charts for magazines such as “People” or “Union Tribune.” It’s all about hip hop and dance music these days.

Bryan: Well that’s the current trend these days, but that’s just how it happens. You need these sections of ‘errors’ for the good stuff to come in. If it wasn’t for shit like the Backstreet Boys, hard rock would have never come in and swept it away. Right now it’s the whole Lady Gaga and Katy Perry rage, but one day they’ll get knocked off their horses when the next big thing comes along.

What do you think about that kind of music?

Bryan: It’s catchy as hell and fun to sing along to, but I’d never buy it. It lacks substance and real meaning and is more about show and looks. That’s one of the reasons I’m so grateful I grew up in the era I did, when hard rock was still at its peak and taking over. Nowadays I’m not sure how lucky people are with what they discover. The good news is that there is a lot of

stuff out there to choose from.

So, going back to the debut album, are there any songs on there that you feel deserve spe-cial mention to the fans?

Bryan: I’d say “My Reward” would be a favor-ite… it’s what we want to be one of our hit singles. The riffs are the best on the album and the lyrical content is just smashing. It’s re-ally cool. I also think “Social Graces” is a really great because it is our ‘pit song.’ It really gets the fans going due to the energy. When writ-ing the record we didn’t know how to write ‘hits,’ so we just decided to make a record of good songs rather than try to make one just that massive, monster song that stays on the radio for months and months that people like.

When listening to the album, Hail the Villain definitely has their own style, but are there any particular influences that you’d be willing to name that inspired your sound.

Bryan: Punk rock definitely has been a huge in-fluence for me, with bands like Circle Jerk and Bad Religion and even Green Day. Lots of So-Cal bands. My vocal style is a dirty punk rock voice and I can’t change that. It does what it does. Joe was more into Megadeth and Iron Maiden and Metallica, so our riffs our more metal oriented. It’s a great mix of punk and rock and metal altogether.

Compared to when you started doing Hail the Villain and now, what’s the biggest change that you’ve seen in how bands sound or fans receive their music?

Bryan: I think all music is going through a huge change due to the music market. The mar-ket is a different place today than compared to five years ago. Anyone can be a rock star these days on Facebook and MySpace or You-

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Tube. And it has produced a lot of rock stars. The problem is the ‘shit filter’ is gone and it’s both good and bad. A lot of bands that might normally not have gotten noticed are getting noticed now and it allows fans and listeners to hear a bunch of different styles that are differ-ent from the usual media trend. On the other hand… again… there’s a lot of shit that gets out there too that may ruin the idea of music or turn people away from a style that is actu-ally great to hear by people who actually know what the fuck they are doing, but overall, it has completely changed the face of music. It is open for all who want to hear it.

What defines hard rock for you?

Bryan: For me, I understand punk rock more than hard rock. It’s not just about rebellion, it’s about having something to say and that’s one of the creative concepts of Hail the Villain. I can’t stand bands that don’t have anything really relevant to sing about. They sing about love, they sing about teenage angst… and they’re fucking thirty years old! They’re way past that and what teenagers felt fifteen years ago is different from how teenagers feel now. There has to be passion behind the music and if what you have to say is important, then stick by and go with it. My life has been changed by rock n’ roll and the things bands have said or inspired with their music. If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know if I’d have anything to say. Most of my learning came from bands like Propaghan-di or Bad Religion and Green Day. They make it important… all the way back to the Beatles and Elvis. There’s nothing like hard rock or punk and that’s one reason it has survived for so long.

Do you think the music values are placed dif-ferently now? In the 90s it was Marylin Man-son and his shock rock antics… black metal was a big extreme… but nowadays wearing

corpsepaint or makeup and having a gritty guitar sound has all been said and done. For Hail the Villain, what do you think it takes to stay on top without falling into a pit of mo-notony?

Bryan: That’s a fantastic question, but your guess is as good as mine, but new things keep popping up all the time. During the eighties it was all metal and no one saw Nirvana coming. One day it’s this skinny guy who looks dirty in a plaid shirt with a guitar and then grunge shocks the world. Then it was Manson who shocked the world again, but we need bands that have substance more than shock. I’m not saying we are trying to be that band, but we definitely want to be appreciated more for our passion than our ability to be rock stars or get girls and be rich. We want to have a message to listeners that will make them listen.

Obviously the fans are the most important thing to help generate this musical engine. Is there anything that the fans have said in par-ticular that have really influenced the direc-tion the band has gone in?

Bryan: It’s more of an everyday thing. Seeing things like “You’ve changed my life” or “I want to be just like you” really inspires morale and keeps us going for each comment we hear or see. Fans have done some crazy stuff too. When I was in Tokyo I stood on the railing and came into the crowd and almost lost all my clothes. There’s so many different reactions from people; some are just in awe and some just think you’re a cool, down to earth guy and get an autograph and walk away… they make you feel humbled, but it isn’t a bad sort of thing, you know?

With MySpace and YouTube and Facebook, it is so easy to leave comments and get messag-es as opposed to in the past when it was just

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email or letters. Do you think it makes things easier or more difficult?

Bryan: It makes it easier to keep in touch with fans, yes, but it is also very trendy. That’s one of the reasons Hail the Villain created the in-teractive website to show fans that social me-dia can go in different directions and still be creative without falling into any niches. Face-book was great two years ago… now hardly anyone cares. Our website is definitely a more interesting way to interact with the band than Facebook. You can leave video messages rath-er than simple comments and we can watch it like TV from anywhere in the world. It’s really fun.

It must be difficult to manage.

Bryan: Oh certainly. Yes. Very time consum-ing, but easier than collecting fan letters and writing each one back individually. Less hand cramping and no paid postage!

Speaking of time management, what do you think is better? Studio fun or on the road?

Bryan: I find peace in the studio rather than the road, but a show is so much more satisfac-tory over finishing an album or a record and it’s another way to get out and get noticed while meeting tons of fans.

Any stories from the road you’d like to men-tion?

Bryan: We broke down in Pennsylvania one time, and it was our only chance to get back to Canada while on the Sevendust tour. The tow truck driver was Jimmy’s brother from Blood-hound Gang and I just thought it was really cool that he helped us out to get our car back up and running.

When not touring or focused on the music, what do you like to do for downtime?

Bryan: Video games. I’ve been keeping up with Lost… great show, keeps you guessing. Unlike shit such as Jersey Shores! I also watch He-roes, Dexter, and stuff that keeps watchers on edge, but relaxed at the same time. Gotta keep the wheels turning in the head, you know? If I turned to something like Nip Tuck or those other drama shows that don’t really have any substance to them… all that I believe in turns to mush!

Any last words you’d like to say for listeners and our rocking RPM readers?

Bryan: Stay evil and raw! Go out there and check out our new album and listen to ALL the tracks! Not one, not four… ALL! There’s a great story out there to be told and it’ll change your life!

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All Work and No Play...

Make Chimaira Fuck’n Brutal

With ten years of hard hitting beats and infectious riffs Chimaira takes the stage on the 2010 Mayhem

tour to deliver their latest works from The Infection. Due to their hard work and perse-verance Chimaira has been labeled as one of the hardest working bands in the business. As scores of mind melting metal rang through my head I contemplated just what it was that made them the hardest working band in the busi-ness. Perhaps it is their tenacity, or perhaps it is their media onslaught on social networking sites. Their advertising creativity is unmatched by that of bands working today. With a wide range of influences and a sound incomparable to any one specific style, Chimaira has never failed to deliver as they claw their way to the forefront of metal. They have become, so God damn powerful.

I know in a video you were talking about, I think it was for Coming Alive or was it for the new DVD that’s coming out?

Rob: We have a new DVD coming out called Coming Alive, yeah.

I saw on MySpace how you’re obviously much more excited for Infection than you were for Resurrection. Seeing as Resurrection debuted at 42 and Infection debuted at 30, do you think that you’ve accomplished your goal by making this album bigger than Resurrection?

Rob: Well we look at goals more long term. I don’t know if know if we even had a goal to outdo Resurrection. We hope we do, you know it’s our absolute heart and soul in every single way. We just kind of hope that it can do its po-tential, but what is that potential you know? As time goes on and better things happen to our band and successful things happen, we get great tours, we still never take the time and pat ourselves on the back and say, ‘oh we did this or anything like that.’ All it is, is just part of the process to get to that goal, which we don’t even know what that is. Of course we’re happy that t h a t h a p -

p e n e d with the Infection. We hope that the next one debuts even higher you know. All of this is just part of the process, been working hard to just be the biggest band we can possibly be.

If you did have to say that you had any kind of goal in all of this, would you say that it is just trying to make yourselves bet-ter?

Rob: Sure, we would love for each one to out-do the previous record.

With Infection I noticed that you guys did a

All Work and No Play... Make

Chimaira Fuck’n Brutal

All Work and No Play... Make

Chimaira Fuck’n Brutalby Charity Parker

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lot of promotional work like SpreadtheInfec-tion.com. How did you guys decide how you were going to promote this album?

Rob: Actually Mark our singer and Chris our keyboard player, that’s kind of their depart-ment. Chris handles all of the artwork and

Mark gets all of the ideas for how he wants things to go. I guess we just work with the

label and they have their ideas as well, and we just try to put these things

together. We try to get the so-cial networking stuff going as

much as possible and just let people know the re-

lease is coming.

Speaking of social net-

working I was

on

t h e w e b -

site and I noticed you

guys have all kinds of social net-

working things that I’ve barely heard of like

iLike and vimeo. How im-portant is that to make sure

that you guys get your word out there?

Rob: I think it’s extremely important espe-cially in this day I mean everybody’s with their phones checking stuff out constantly, getting updates and everything. We feel that we do maybe 10% of what we should be doing for those social networking sites. There’s always more work to be done we need to do it.

You guys seem to have a diehard attitude, from any interview I’ve ever heard about you guys you are the hardest working band around in my opinion. Where do you find that drive to keep feeling that you have more to do? That your work is almost never done?

Rob: Thanks for noticing. I guess simply it’s, my favorite bands like Metallica, although we won’t ever be as big as Metallica maybe that’s the motivation. As a kid I wanted to be that, we all did, so that’s what keeps us going and keeps us working hard because we know that is possible. Just because you see bands on big-ger levels you know it’s out there, the minute you let your guard down or take a break or whatever like that someone else is going to step in because all of these bands are going for that same thing, you know. Everybody wants to be super successful and respected so that pushes us today.

I noticed you guys all have a pretty eclectic group of influences including Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Tool and Alice in Chains. How im-portant is it for you not to be married to one particular style?

Rob: I don’t know, I don’t really think it’s im-portant at all. Morbid Angel, you know they’re big in their genre and I don’t think they ever say, ‘Oh we need to branch out and do more of this emo stuff of more of the metalcore stuff.’ They just do their thing and so I don’t re-ally think that’s important. We do have those different influences and perhaps that is what makes Chimaira and our sound.

With the special edition tins that you guys made for Infection with the flag and the sy-ringe, is the content on the USB is the same stuff that was on SpreadtheInfection.com or is that all brand new and unreleased stuff?

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Rob: Actually I have no idea, but I know there is a lot of artwork stuff and some B-sides on there, stuff that didn’t make the actual album. Other than that I know there’s other stuff, but I don’t know what it is.

Do you have any ideas in mind where you want to take the next album?

Rob: To the top is all I can say, but that’s how we feel about each one. We haven’t really sat down and started formulating what we want it to be like. We never really do, it’s kind of like we get into the practice space or getting front of the rigs and just seeing what happens. It’s like that with all records, everything is just kind of natural culmination of what we’re feeling and what we feel like playing at that moment when it’s time to write a record. Our sched-ule has kind of been like that for ten years: write, record, tour, write, record, tour. When the touring ends you’ve mainly been focused on that prior album cycle and those tours and everything. When you get off the road it’s time to make another record and that’s when you really start thinking about it like, ‘let’s just see what happens.’ You start playing some guitar and the riffs that come out, the ones that catch people’s ear, that’s kind of how we keep work-ing with things and develop a record. There are certainly different stages maybe midway through the writing process, there might be some song that happened we all think was re-ally awesome so we may focus the next batch of songs based on that or sort of skeleton. It’s all just spontaneous and natural for what’s happening at that time.

With this tour you’ve definitely gone balls to the wall and made sure that you’re every-where that you can. They said it was your first arena tour with Music as a Weapon, you did the Dubai Desert Rock Festival for your first Middle Eastern tour and you also went

to Russia. How has it been on this tour versus all of the others?

Rob: Every tour is different depending on the circumstances, the bands you’re out with, whether you’re playing clubs or outdoor festi-vals like this or arenas. Big ticket tours like this is just a really fun one that we look forward to. Not only is it extremely well attended, which is the name of the game, getting as many people as possible to hear you at one time it’s just great being here with all your friends outdoors. It’s just fun and it gets you out of the grind of going into back alleys behind clubs and going into weird cities sometimes.

Speaking of weird cities where is the weird-est city you’ve been so far along this ten year process?

Rob: Well we never thought we would go to the Middle East and the Dubai Desert Rock Festival was absolutely incredible - everything about it was bad ass. Never thought we would go as far East as Bosnia and Estonia, their cities are still left war torn; destroyed buildings, maybe they weren’t destroyed in the war, I don’t know, but those are places you’d see in the movie Hostel. They’re places I never thought we’d be.

Of all of the places that you’ve seen now and the different opportunities you’ve had what has been your favorite venue to play on the Infection tour or just in general to play?

Rob: I have a favorite show in mind, but for the Infection tour, all of the arena tours with Dis-turbed. It’s been a dream of ours and there’s something so cool about pulling your buses inside somewhere being locked down. I’m a huge basketball fan so we played some NBA arena and stuff like that being in that environ-ment. Walking around and going into the lock-er rooms and having great catering all of those

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awesome things that lead up to a big bad ass show. It’s jam packed and tons of people, get-ting to play in places where you saw your idols play growing up and in DVDs like Metallica and Pantera. That month and a half of shows was totally awesome.

Did you ever dream, growing up as a kid be-fore you guys got together that you would be that iconic as Metallica or Disturbed?

Rob: Well of course I dreamt it and that’s what fueled the fire. Also when you’re young you have no idea what it’s about. You think it’s just going on stage and playing guitar and all these people will love it, but it’s so much more involved with it. From the business to every-thing that happens throughout the day to make these shows possible. All of the productions, getting gear shipped places, flights there are so many things that you just don’t think of as a young naive kid that wants to be a rock star. So yeah I always had the dream and being here I know is a lot of luck and a lot of determination and hard work.

Well you guys definitely have the en-thusiasm that is absolutely infectious and it shows. When you’re not busy try-ing to make it to the top or working on the next album or working on new proj-ects what do you just for fun to unwind?

Rob: Chill at home. I think that time is gold-en where I can sit on my couch and watch TV which is rare. Like I said I love the NBA, I love it when the basketball season is going on and I get the chance at home to watch or even on the bus if the satellite is working that day. I love to fish, but really the band takes up about 99% of my time. If it’s not doing music it’s doing business, but I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining either.

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Airbourne are an Australian rock n’ roll band that have a strict creed: if it isn’t rock n’ roll, it ain’t worth listening to.

When hearing these guys, one may think that they’re listening to AC/DC clones. No surprise there, as AC/DC is one of the band’s biggest influences. They were a unique addition to the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar festival because no one crawled as far back into history as these guys have to really reach into the roots of rock music these days and remind fans where it all be-

gan. With a love for getting close to the crowd, drinking and partying, and of course, rocking out in front of hundreds of fans, they really bring the party to the shows.

I got a chance to sit down with lead vocalist/ guitarist, Joel O’Keefe and discuss the history of Airbourne, their latest album, No Guts, No Glory, and the band’s opinion on how music has changed over the years and how they’re fighting to keep rock n’ roll alive and kicking!

So after hearing a bit of your music, you defi-nitely seem to have a bit of AC/DC going for you. Is that the influence you were going for?

Joel: Oh yeah, when we started out playing we just wanted to play hard rock. That’s the kind

of stuff we grew up with.

What other influences started Airbourne?

Joel: Oh, the usual… Metallica, Black Sabbath, Robert Johnson, I could go on forever mate…

First time touring the States?

Joel: No, we’ve toured here a few times. This is probably our sec-

ond tour here.

What made you want to be a part of Uproar?

Joel: Well, one has to get out and play some-how! This is a great tour to be on because it goes all around the U.S.

Did you know any of the bands like Disturbed or Stone Sour before this tour?

Joel: We’ve known a few of them. They’re a lot of nice people. Really fun. We’ve had fun with everyone… always there at the party.

When did Airbourne start exactly? Did you expect to become this big?

Joel: We started without thinking too much about it… we didn’t like school, we didn’t want to do anything… it was fun just to rock n’ roll

by Colin McNamara

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and jam. We wanted to do gigs and that’s just what we did. We travelled thousands of miles just to play a show. It’s what we were meant to do, as a band.

Did you know all your band members be-fore you started Airbourne or were they just picked up along the way?

Joel: Well my brother, Ryan, definitely I knew him. Dave was working at the same pub as I. I met Justin at a party. So far it’s been a good roll, no one’s tried to kill each other yet.

When did you start playing an instrument?

Joel: I started when I was eleven. Started with guitar and mostly been playing the same type of music ever since.

Being a guitarist and vocalist for Airbourne, do you find it hard to juggle both duties as opposed to just having one of them?

Joel: Sure, it’s hard. You fuck up here and there, but it’s fun. They fall hand in hand most of the time and you can really get into the crowd and just jam away.

During your tour in the States so far, how has reception towards the music been?

Joel: It’s been great. Everyone likes rock n’ roll, it seems. It’s a universal connector… like a beer everyone enjoys to drink. On a hot day like this it is especially great!

Is there a big hard rock scene in Australia that’s just as big here in the States or bigger, smaller, etc?

Joel: Over in Australia, there are lots of differ-ent kinds. Huge and diverse. Part of it is due to Myspace and YouTube that makes it so acces-

sible. It’s a great connector between the band and the fans… the Internet, I mean. It’s like a one on one experience that doesn’t require you to actually be there.

No Guts, No Glory is your latest album. How was recording that different from the EP?

Joel: Well, for one we basically lived in our studio during the entire thing. We were ready every day right from the start. No bullshit in between. When you go to a hotel to stay, there’s bullshit in between. There’s travel time, there’s ideas that can come up and you can be like, “Well fuck, I’m at home and not at the studio and I’m so damn tired. I don’t want to go back.” Either that idea can get lost or you go back to the studio and record it and it just sounds like shit when it could have been so much better had you JUST STAYED IN THE STU-

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DIO! When you’re there, you can act on im-pulse. No breaks in the mood. We’ll definitely do future albums like this.

Did you have a direction in mind for No Guts, No Glory that made you want to take it in a different direction from your past albums?

Joel: We definitely wanted to make it similar. No keyboards or anything, but we did want to capture ‘the room sound.’ It helped harness the energy we were feeling during recording.

On the Uproar bill, you’ve seen the different styles each band brings to the fans. What does Airbourne do differently from the others?

Joel: There’s a difference in themes and lyri-cal content. You’ve got bands that’ll sing about good times, sex, romance, personal struggles… we’re a ‘beer drinking, rock n’ roll’ kind of band. Now that’s what we do! We just bring a shit load of rock n’ roll.

What kind of audience have you gained so far? Is there a wide range of age?

Joel: It’s pretty broad. Basically includes every-body. There are a lot of old rockers out there, but younger kids too and it’s always cool to see them get into our music.

What defines hard rock for you?

Joel: “Hound Dog” by Elvis. Motorhead. Iron Maiden. AC/DC. What one can do with rock n’ roll… everyone does everything different, but it’s that one song. “Hound Dog.” I can’t explain why, but each time I hear it… that’s the song that gets me thinking about rock n’ roll. When Elvis is performing it, he really gives it to the fans.

What’s your opinion of the touring life?

Joel: It’s the most fun. An adventure. Get to run around the world!

But surely, you miss family.

Joel: Yeah, I mean sure you miss family, but touring becomes addictive. The road becomes home and you want to keep going on it. You go home after tour and it becomes a problem. You just want to get out there again and you go stir crazy thinking about it. It wasn’t easy, but we got used to it. It’s great to get out and go see our fans.

What’s the best thing a fan has done for your guys?

Joel: I like it when the fans really get into the music. When they sing the words, when they crowd surf or get in a circle pit or jumping up on stage… it’s really inspiring.

Compared to how rock and metal is now compared to twenty years ago, how has it changed the most for Airbourne?

Joel: Well, there are two different forms. I don’t really call today’s music hard rock or metal. Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath… that’s metal. That’s hard rock. It’s what I still listen to. The current music these days… I don’t know what to call it. It doesn’t register on the radar. I don’t feel anything for it. I mean I love some bands like Halestorm… but they’ve got an old school feeling to their music, like we do. Some of those other bands… I just don’t really get it sometimes. I’ve been more stuck with bands in the past such as Sabbath and AC/DC, but I do like new music. I just heard some Johnny Cash the other day, but it still has that ‘old school’ flavor, you know?

So what do you think bands in the past like

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AC/DC have that a band like maybe Slipknot wouldn’t as of today?

Joel: I don’t know… it’s just the particular sound. A band like Slipknot is… heavy metal, modern metal… whatever you call it. AC/DC is rock n’ roll and that’s just really what I like. Why should I put up with something I don’t? I’m a beer person… not a coffee person. I don’t drink coffee ‘cause I don’t like it. So why should I listen to something that isn’t going to get me excited? I’m not agnetized to the mod-ern stuff.

Do you think that then modern music has nothing good to offer, then?

Joel: Oh no, that’s not what I meant. There’s plenty of great bands out there who are still putting out music, even by modern standards. Meat Loaf’s new album is great. Tom Petty’s another. Lynard Skynard just put out a new album… it’s just good to see them still doing their stuff. Sure, music changes. Meat Loaf’s new album is nothing like their Bat Out Of Hell album, but it still nails you to the wall! “Peace On Earth” is just a fantastic track from that al-bum. The production is so elaborate, just like “Bat Out Of Hell” was. They haven’t changed; just improved. Now THAT I can understand about modern music.

So how does Airbourne dodge the music politics to keep that old-school sound? Does the music industry try to push you around to sound a certain way or do you find that easy to handle?

Joel: Well, when you start out, it’s always you against the world. Over time you build up a ‘tough skin’ to deal with that kind of crap. You don’t have to appease anyone but the fans. I mean there are people out there who will say, “We’ll promote you if you do this,” but if it ru-

ins the music in any way then it isn’t worth it. Might as well tell them to get fucked! The mu-sic we do isn’t for them. It’s for those who are going to sing it for what it is, either in their car or at the shows. They appreciate it for what it is… they don’t want it edited for length or have the swearing taken out. When bands stoop to have their song ‘radio edited’ to get air time or attention, it’s basically fucking yourself. You do the radio, fans, and yourself an injustice be-cause you limit the potential of how the song could have been! If you think it’s right, stick with the original!

Got any advice for those out there who want to make it big in this rocking world?

Joel: Stay true to yourselves. Do what you love. Fuck everyone who tells you that you can’t do it and stay the course. Have an awesome time also while you’re at it! Rock n’ Roll is all about the fun, so make it your top priority.

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Ragin’ Pit’s Charity Parker got an op-porunity at 2010’s Mayhem Fest to sit down and talk candidly with Jason

Hook of Five Finger Death Punch. We were able to get great insight on what that band’s experience was like in Iraq, talk shop, and ad-dress why it is that trouble seems to follow these guys everywhere.

The video for your latest single “Bad Compa-ny” was a collection of clips from your visit and performances for US troops in Iraq. Were there any scary moments during that tour?

Jason: When we were in these armored SUV’s. The glass windows were maybe two inch-es thick or three inches thick. I mean they

were heavy duty customized SUV’s and what I thought was kind of interesting or slightly scary was whenever we would leave the base because everything inside the US base was safe, but we would go on trips outside the base through Iraq - Baghdad stuff like that and the people that were driving us - two of the marines that were driving us - they would go literally 150 mph with these heavy duty SUV’s. And we would be like, “why are you driving so fast?” It was literally crazy because it was surface streets and it was like... (so here Ja-son makes the sound of a super, loud fast car - wasn’t sure how to spell the sound effect)... and it’s because you’re less of a target when you’re moving that fast. So there was danger, yeah, for sure.

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You got to test out some different weapons while there. What would you say had the big-gest punch?

Jason: We shot some 50 cal on top of a tactical vehicle, I can’t remember what it was called, the V-Rab or V-Rat. And they drove us off to the side where there was a dirt mound... (and here Jason makes the sound of a really loud and huge gun - again wasn’t quit sure how to spell that effect)... It’s pretty heavy. It’s amaz-ing to think that anyone would be on the re-ceiving end of something that violent and that powerful.

What was the coolest thing you got to ride in while there?

Jason: I really wanted to go up in a Black-hawk, but they couldn’t pull it off. We got to fly around in the C130’s which is the military cargo plane, but we got to ride up in the cock-pit when there was take off and landing and stuff like that. I think Zoltan even got a chance to sit and fly for two seconds.

Nice. Since I was a kid I always wanted to, my mom was in the service for a long time and my brother just got back. So has your perspective changed about our troops now that you’ve gotten to spend some time with them?

Jason: Oh yeah. Living in the states it’s sort of unclear what’s happening. We get little bits and pieces, but military work - it’s hard work. Everyone, all the soldiers live in trailers. They’re these metal boxes, basically. It’s sev-eral guys per box, community showers, com-munity bathrooms and some of these guys; their job might be to drive a tractor for a year. So it’s not like cowboys and Indians, it’s not the glamorous war film kind of thing. It’s hard work. It’s brutal. The conditions over there are

brutal. We were fortunate enough to be there at a point where it wasn’t too hot, but it is the desert.

These guys were so appreciative. A lot of guys were saying that this was the highlight of their whole deployment. Apparently they do get entertainers over there, but a lot of like club bands or top forty bands or country bands, country artists. The guys, just from talking to them because I spent a lot of time talking to them getting information, they were saying that they don’t typically bring a lot of heavy metal there and that’s what the guys like. It’s high testosterone driven, high energy, male oriented metal. They like it.

You’ve released five singles so far off the lat-est album War Is the Answer and two singles for UK release only. What exactly is it about a song that makes it a single?

Jason: It’s the ones that are most likely to suc-ceed. I think it’s a popularity game. We are try-ing to be popular. I mean anybody who says, “We don’t care about being popular,” that’s all fine and dandy, but anybody in any business wants to be popular. If you’re selling hamburg-ers, you want to be McDonalds. If you’re sell-ing running shoes, you want to be Nike. You want to be popular. We love what we do first, but if we can make it popular, that keeps us all alive, that keeps us in business. So when we pick singles, it’s basically the committee, our inner committee, sort of goes down the list and says, “What can we all agree are the good songs?”

Is it more of what you guys think should be a single or is it a collaborative effort between you and the record label?

Jason: It’s a collaborative effort. They sort of stand out, like when you make a record of ten

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or twelve songs, it’s like throwing darts. You’re aiming for the bull’s-eye every toss, but you’re just not going to nail it every time. So out of twelve songs, or twelve dart throws you go, “Wow, we got four bull’s-eyes.” That’s not bad. And they kind of stand out like ‘that song is your winner’ or ‘that song would be a killer single’ or ‘that song’s going to huge’ or... You can just tell. How well has the new album been received here and abroad?

Jason: It’s been great. We debuted at No. 7 on the Top 200 Billboard Albums.

Congratulations, by the way.

Jason: Thank you. This is a huge deal for a metal band especially on the second record. It’s been awesome. Bad Company, the latest single, I think is already at No. 3 on the active rock charts. So that’s really good. It’s rocking.

Of all the festivals you’ve been too, where are the most brutal fans?

Jason: Brutal. Well, the Germans are pretty awesome. The German festivals are pretty awesome. Download in the UK - Download to me is the festival. It’s just such an amazing event and there are just so many people there and so many bands. It really is the grand-dad-dy of festivals - Download in the UK.

Speaking of the Download Festival, why did your set get cut short this year (2010)?

Jason: Oh. Well we started doing this thing in the clubs. We have a song in our set called “Dy-ing Breed” - it’s the opening track from War is the Answer. The song is up tempo, it’s like 190 beats per minute or something like that and it’s kind of chaotic. When we were play-

ing our headlining shows in the states, in the clubs, Ivan started doing this thing where he says, “I want you all to crowd surf up here and shake my hand.” And so it started to develop into this thing where, in the clubs, people would start piling forward and it would cause a huge riot and you know security would have to usher them off. It was pretty out of control. It was fun for us and if the kids wanted to do it, it was up to them, but when we tried to pull that off at the Download Fest. Now you’re talk-ing about 70,000 people and they’re all flying over the barricade and bum rushing the stage. We all were sort of like, “oh this is getting out of control because all of these people are not supposed be up here.” They all were hopping the barricade and coming forward and trying to climb up the stages. So the promoters got scared and they pulled the plug on us, only temporarily though, just to calm things down.

Are you looking forward to playing the Loud Park Fest in Japan with Ozzy and Motorhead? Is this your first time to Japan?

Jason: I’ve been to Japan a few times. The last time we were there we played some festivals and it was a 120 degrees, much like today ex-cept the humidity was crazy sticky. It was un-bearable. It was so ugly, but it will be fun to go back. I find Japan to be a bit of a challenge.

Why a challenge?

Jason: Because there are language barriers, there are money barriers, and there are no cell phones and there’s driving on the opposite side of the street. It’s very crazy; it’s kind of like Planet Japan. You’re completely foreign.

Do you ever get a chance to go site seeing while on tour? What are some of the coolest places you’ve been?

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Jason: Yeah, I try to see some key things. I went to Elvis Presley’s house. I went to the St. Louis Arch, but I’ve been touring for several years so I kind of banged out a lot of that stuff early on. Now, a nice air conditioned hotel room with an internet connection appeals to me.

What items do you absolutely have to have while on tour?

Jason: Right now it’s my motor bike and my laptop.

Do you have any pre-show rituals or anything you do before getting on stage?

Jason: Yeah, I typically drink about five to six sugar free Red Bulls before we go on. And I’ve been warned that’s not healthy.

The brass knuckles seem to get you in trouble everywhere you go. Would we ever see those eventually phased out of the band?

Jason: No. Well we kind of blew it because we weren’t thinking clearly. Matt has a bass guitar that has a pair of brass knuckles sort of coun-

ter sunk into the bass - real brass knuckles. When we went over to play the German fes-tivals, the bass guitar went through the x-ray without thinking about it because normally an instrument isn’t a threat to anybody. On an x-ray brass knuckles look like brass knuck-les, especially in wood. So then the next one - Ivan’s got a microphone with a set of brass knuckles custom made on the mike. We don’t think about this stuff because to us it’s just stage props and it’s part of our thing. We’re not using them as weapons, but of course on an x-ray in an airport they get a little touchy. Especially when you’re going over to Germany and stuff like that so we got in trouble. Yes, we got in trouble.

With all the trouble you guys get into, how much of it is an accident and how much of it is kind of on purpose?

Jason: I think it’s all on accident. I mean no-body likes trouble. We’re just troublesome.

Five Finger Death Punch is everywhere and with that everyone is talking about you and has opinions, but there is one opinion that is not changing we hear most often so we are just going to ask the question - if you’re fans want a more brutal and faster album, would you make it?

Jason: Yes.

Is there anything else you’d like to say to ei-ther aspiring bands or any of your fans out there?

Jason: I would say to any younger people that are trying to get into the music thing or are trying to make their own band, I would say ex-ercise extreme quality control. Pay attention and whatever you decide to do, do it better than everyone else.

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It’s never too late for good metal. Ragin’ Pit is pleased to bring to you this month’s featured video by Twelve After.

The song is called Lockdown and the video premiered in June 2010.

Winners of the “Best Metal Band” at the 2010 717 Music Awards, Twelve After just may be played on a radio station near you.

Scan the barcode with your cell phone and view the video from your phone!

Featured Video: Lockdown