KAMPlifornia - The Mayhem

KAMPlifornia - The Mayhem Interviews Submitted by World MD on Mon, 07/16/2012-1:21pm mayhem_flyer.jpg [1] On July 1, I, Debased God, had the opportunity to interview some members of some of the biggest names in modern metal as they converged on the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA for the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival. Read as The Devil Wears Prada guitarists Chris Rubey and Jeremy DePoyster, Whitechapel guitarist Ben Savage, and As I Lay Dying drummer Jordan Mancino share information on new projects, live instrument setups, and what kind of masks they would wear if their bands wore them like Slipknot. [2] [3] Chris Rubey and Jeremy DePoyster (The Devil Wears Prada) Debased God: So this is the second stop on Mayhem. How did the first stop in LA go? Jeremy DePoyster: Very good, man. We had a great show, broke it in a little bit, got to go watch Slayer and Slipknot, and it was kind of unbelievable, really. Chris Rubey: Yeah, it was the first time I had ever seen either of those bands, so being able to go to play, and then walk out and watch them play and be like, I was standing right were Kerry King is standing right now! was pretty crazy to me. DG: I bet. How do you feel about the fact that you re opening up on the main stage? CR: Honored. JDP: Flattered, really. I mean, that s a huge position. Especially Slipknot and Slayer, man. We grew up with those guys and them being the pinnacle of all things metal so CR: I m pretty sure that if you said, Build a show, we couldn t build a better show for us to be on playing to these fans and stuff, so we re just trying to uphold our end of the deal. DG: Now when you found out about the rest of this lineup, did you get kinda confused at the fact that Slayer, Motorhead, and Anthrax were opening for Slipknot and not 1

the other way around? JDP: Ehhhh, in a way, but then we considered the fact that Slipknot is probably the biggest merch band ever in the history of the world, and I think obviously, it s just how it goes man. They just appeal to such a massive amount of people and age ranges from all the scenes that, I guess it makes sense. CR: Yeah, being in the music industry you kinda see the bands that just come out of nowhere and just become huge. I mean, I m only 23 right now, so Slipknot has always been that kind of big, huge, monumental band whereas somebody who s a bit older, as a lot of the people here are, may not even care about Slipknot. JDP: Like, I don t even know if we were even born when Slayer was started, and the fact that they re still cranking out what they do is more a testament to metal than anything else. Like, pop acts right now are still playing 25 or 30 years later to this many people every day. DG: Alright, well who are some of the other bands you ve been enjoying on tour? JDP: Being day one, it s hard to say. We ve just been kind of focused on getting our stuff off the ground, but we re really good friends with the Whitechapel guys and we know the As I Lay Dying guys, so we re looking forward to watching those dudes, and we really want to see some Anthrax. Right now we re actually playing right after them on [the main] stage and they re on [the second] stage, so I wouldn t be able to cross over that way. CR: We plan on spreading out the friendship throughout the tour but, like you said, it s day two. DG: I ve heard somewhere that Slipknot like to play dominoes before they do a show. Does The Devil Wears Prada do anything atypical before going on stage? JDP: Uhhh, I mean, we re a goofy bunch of dudes. We re pretty much best friends, the five of us together, so we kind of just hang out and chill and act like a bunch of idiots. CR: Before the first show we did turn on Slayer. Really, really loud. JDP: Yeah, we were really rocking out hard to South of Heaven and some Reign in Blood, just getting the blood vessels moving. [We were] hoping that they wouldn t walk by the bus and hear us blaring them (laughs). DG: Alright, well you guys just released your most recent album last year and you have a new logo that kind of looks like a triangle with three lines. What s the story behind that? CR: Well, our band name is The Devil Wears Prada. We are aware that that s probably not the best band name in the world JDP: It s probably the worst. CR: If not the worst. No, but we ve been forced to move along with it and people don t seem to hate it as much as we thought they would. But anyways, we re trying to figure out a way to kind of group it into a logo. We just wanted a logo instead of writing The Devil Wears Prada or TDWP anywhere we just go put it up there. So, the guy that designed The Sopranos logo with the gun, we actually hired him to do a bunch of different stuff, and he just made random stuff and he was like, If you had to give me *anything* to work off of, just give me something. And we were like, Uhhhhh devil pitchfork! So I guess, in theory, the three prongs on top were his representation of a pitchfork. We just wanted something simple that people could remember, kids could draw it on their notebook, people could spray paint it, and out of all the different things that he made, that was the one that was simple enough, catchy enough, caught our eye, and we just went with it. It doesn t really mean anything, it s just our logo. DG: Alright, well the video for Born to Lose looks like it has a lot of symbolic imagery. What s the meaning behind all the stuff that appears in front of the symbol? CR: We don t really normally come up with the ideas for our videos but I think the director s idea was more like, you re not supposed to care about money and then it shows a goat. That s supposed to be like a sacrifice. JDP: Because the lyrics are like, We put the world on a dead throne, so I think it s like, all these people are bringing these things to this dead throne in the hopes that that will be like.. CR: It s like they re making offerings to our logo. Our logo basically means like, there are only all these false offerings to all these false gods. I guess that was the intent. DG: Is there any reason why the logo bleeds and then turns to ash at the end? CR: Yeah, I think it s because it s saying, Don t look up to us. We, as people, are not the ones that you need to look to in troubled times. The whole idea behind the album is no idols. It s the fact that there s only supposed to be one idol, and that s God, you know? It s basically saying, Don t worship your girlfriend, or don t worship all this kind of 2

stuff, because at the end of the day, that stuff may not be there. So, money doesn t matter. We don t matter at the end of the day. DG: Well, Dead Throne sounded like some of your most mature material to date. What kind of bands were you listening to while you were writing it? CR: As far as metal bands go, it s kinda funny because we are in a metal band. Everyone just kinda listens to indie bands and instrumental music. Either that or the further end of the spectrum, like Pig Destroyer and other kinds of grind. But I still listen to a lot of the classics. We still listen to As I Lay Dying. For me, Unearth is a big band that not a lot of people talk about as an influence, but Unearth influences my metalcore side a lot. Killswitch Engage, It Dies Today, lots of bands that we grew up on. We started out just kind of emulating those things and now it s kind of more like, I know how to play guitar now, I know how to write my own songs now. Let s make our own version of that, so that s what we re trying to do now I guess. DG: Alright, well I also noticed you stopped using funny song titles. Do you think that was more intentional for this album and the Zombie EP or is it just part of your evolution as a band? CR: Well, seriously, when we did it in the past it was just because all the bands that we listened to did it, so we were just trying to be like them. Once we came into our own shoes we were like, Well, we don t have to do that anymore. We can just do whatever. We don t have to try to be like Underoath or try to be like As I Lay Dying JDP: It just got so old to see it in every single new record that comes out and every single thing. It s just like, they ve got the breakdowns and then you ve got this part and then you ve got this and then you ve got the funny titles. It was just like, This is so lame now, man, there s no point. (laughs) I m not saying we re cool or anything but we still get the opportunity to do something so it might as well be cool instead of the repetitive same-old thing over and over again. DG: Alright, well one of the songs from Dead Throne that really stuck with me was Chicago. Did you think it was kind of tricky putting screaming vocals over such a quiet song? CR: It was weird because when we wrote that song we didn t have any vocals at all in mind. JDP: I don t even Mike (Hranica, singer) necessarily wanted to vocals on that song. We just asked him to. He thought it was going to be like an instrumental. CR: It was. It was gonna be an interlude, almost. It was like, Let s write an interlude that isn t just an interlude, it s a whole song. And we actually have the other song Kansas that s a lighter song on the album, and Chicago was supposed to be like Kansas but then we were like, Mike, you should try to do something over this and him and Adam (Dutkiewicz, producer) just sat down and kind of worked out the vocals and it turned into what Chicago is, which I think is kind of a new, different direction for us. JDP: It doesn t have to be in the confines of having the breakdown here and this thing here and all the things that have become generic now. It s just a heavy, emotional song. CR: Yeah, we re just trying to convey emotion, and that s what came out. DG: Cool. Well, I m sure you ve already heard about Randy Blythe and his situation in Prague. (The Lamb of God frontman was arrested in the Czech Republic on June 27 and has been charged with manslaughter in connection to the injury and death of a fan at a gig in 2010). What do you make of his situation? CR: It s pretty ridiculous. Just the fact that it even happened is crazy. It kind of blew my mind. I hear that he s not in jail at the moment? DG: That s what I heard too. CR: The last guy that interviewed us said that he s not in jail but he s just sitting there awaiting trial, so I m not exactly sure. I hope that he doesn t get thrown away because that s just ridiculous. JDP: Yeah we hope the best for him. I definitely understand the position of being onstage and not knowing what s going and just trying to be defensive and be protective. You never know who s coming up there and what they re going to do, and obviously it s not like he just bailed and fled the country for no reason. He had no idea, so I don t envy him in that position. CR: Yeah and it also sucks that somebody died, you know? But I m sure he wasn t trying to kill the guy, so I think it should probably be treated as such. So hopefully everything turns out alright. DG: Let s hope so. Well, do you guys have any other plans for this year after Mayhem is over? JDP: Yeah, we re going on tour with August Burns Red and Whitechapel in Europe and the UK and actually we re kind of just blocking out the rest of our year right now but I think 3

we ll probably get started on some new stuff. CR: Yeah, we re gonna write new material. DG: Alright, well I just have one more question for you: If The Devil Wears Prada performed in masks like Slipknot, what kind of masks would you wear? CR: Ooooh, I would wear a Boba Fett helmet. Or something Mandalorian. Some sort of Mandalorian armor. What about you, Jer? JDP: I would like a really tribal mask made of wood but that had sticks and real earthy stuff on it. So we wouldn t have a really great thing going together CR: You better believe there was no hesitation. We have thought about this before. (laughs) DG: Oh I believe it. JDP: There s so much responsibility that goes into it. I m jealous of them. And I like how they brought it back to the throwback [costumes] on this tour. CR: It takes a lot for me to not wear a Boba Fett helmet on stage. JDP: He has honestly asked before. I don t think they re going to keep it away from him. CR: Yeah, my guitar picks have the Mandalorian logo on them (laughs). [4] Ben Savage (Whitechapel) Debased God: This is the second stop on Mayhem. How did the first stop in LA go? Ben Savage: It was awesome. Apparently it was the biggest show in the history of Mayhem, so it was a big show. DG: Wow, that s crazy. Well, when you first found out about the rest of this year s lineup, did you scratch your head at the fact that Slayer, Motorhead, and Anthrax were opening for Slipknot and not the other way around? BS: Yeah, but Slipknot has a bigger appeal, you know? Slayer is automatic respect. I m sure everyone in Slipknot knows that, and Motorhead too. I don t know, I think it s whatever betters the tour. I think it s cool how it s laid out. DG: Who are some of the other bands that you ve been digging on tour? BS: Slipknot, Slayer As I Lay Dying is on there, I like them a lot. DG: I ve heard somewhere that Slipknot like to play dominoes before they do a show. Does Whitechapel do anything atypical before going on stage? BS: No, each one of us just kind of does our own thing. DG: Alright, well you just released your new self-titled album which, I gotta say, is the best material I ve ever heard from you guys. What were you trying to do different on that album from A New Era of Corruption? BS: Thank you! Well, on A New Era of Corruption, we were touring a lot and we didn t have much time to write, so we kind of just wrote our own individual songs and kind of put them together at the end. I m still proud of that album, but 4

on this one we had more time at home, and we recorded the record at home, too, so were weren t out of town doing it. Since we had more time to experiment, we felt comfortable being there, and I felt over that time we wrote better riffs and focused more on songwriting and we worked more as a group, so it was all-around just a better record. And it was darker, we all went through some dark times during that record, and I feel like it definitely shows. DG: Wow. Well, Make it Bleed is one of the more melodic songs on the album. What kind of bands did you have in mind when you wrote it? BS: Hmmm I don t know. I didn t really have any bands in mind; I kind of just wrote the riff. The initial riff was knocked around for a long time. It was definitely structured differently and over time you fall into what you think sounds good, so you kind of just go off that. It was definitely a lot of Swedish and Norwegian influence. DG: I definitely heard a little bit of Opeth in there. BS: Yeah, I love Opeth. The acoustic part was definitely inspired by them. DG: What made you want to make the video for I, Dementia an homage to Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes? BS: Well, I, Dementia is basically about having this one idea, and it s not a good idea but it s taking over your head, so it s like an endless sort of rotation until you find something to get over it. But it sort of deals with the mind and how the idea comes in waves, and that s what the video is: us coming in waves. It s also the first video that shows us off as individual players rather than split screen. There s a lot of elements to it. We don t like shooting music videos, but this was easy because we got in front of a green screen and did it, and I guess we kind of copped Seven Nation Army because it had the same vibe. It s like a slower tempo, and it s different. I ve never seen a metal video with that sort of presence. DG: How did the acoustic version of End of Flesh come about? BS: I was recording a bunch of acoustic songs one day and I figured that was a good song on the record to do an acoustic cover on just to see another side of the band. Some see us as a heavy metal band that kind of just chugs a lot but a lot our songs, especially on the new record, can be translated to lots of instruments, played in full, and actually sound like a solid piece of music. DG: Do you write most of your riffs on electric guitar, or do acoustics play a bigger role than most people would think? BS: You can write it on anything. You can write it in your head and hum it into your phone then work it out on acoustic or electric. It doesn t really matter. DG: Alright, well I am also a guitarist. Do you think you can run me through your live setup for this tour? BS: Yeah, I m running an ESP Horizon with DiMarzio deactivator pickups through a pedal board which has a tuner, a noise gate, and a whammy pedal that has an octave thing on it, so I click it and play up and down octaves. I also run through a Kemper profiling amplifier. You can basically hook it up through the head and then also mic the cab and it actually steals the guitar s tone. You play on it for a little bit and it does this weird buzzing thing, but it actually takes the tone of a Peavey 5153 amp head through a Mesa cabinet, and that s the tone we profile. Then we run it through a power amp and on through our cabs. We have inears in which we hear everything, and then the cabinets actually let us feel our guitars. I feel it s the best we ve ever sounded. I ve been happy with our onstage sound ever since. DG: Oh wow, that s pretty amazing. Well, I m sure by now you ve heard about Randy Blythe and his whole fiasco in Prague. What do you make of that whole situation? BS: I feel for Randy. I mean, God, that has to be a terrible situation to be in another country where people don t really know where you re coming from and you just have to deal with officers who are trying to do their job, you know? I mean, I feel for the guy. I don t think he should be prosecuted at all for what happened. DG: Alright, well do you have any other plans for this year after Mayhem wraps up? BS: Yeah, we have a tour with Hatebreed a month after Mayhem, and after that we go to Europe with August Burns Red. DG: I just have one more question: If Whitechapel performed in masks like Slipknot, what kind of mask would you wear? BS: I don t know, I never thought about that (laughs). I don t know if I d do a scary mask, I d probably do something plain, like Corey Taylor s yeah, something plain like a 5

dehumanized mask. [5] Jordan Mancino (As I Lay Dying) Debased God: How did the first stop in LA go? Jordan Mancino: Amazing, absolutely amazing. Both shows have been incredible and I couldn t ask for more, you know? I mean, this is the first time we ve been in the US in over six months, so it feels good to be back out here on such an awesome festival. DG: When you first found out about the rest of this year s lineup, did you think it was kind of weird that Slayer, Motorhead, and Anthrax were opening for Slipknot and not the other way around? JM: I mean, it s the times. I don t think any one of those bands has lost respect or popularity. It s just a different time. Slipknot has obviously grown to a pretty huge scale, so it s natural that they re going to be closing a show. Those guys know what they re doing. They bring such an amazing production, and it s incredible, you know? DG: Who are some of the other bands you ve been enjoying on this tour? JM: Actually, I haven t really been able to enjoy much yet. It s only the second day so it s still been a little chaotic. Obviously, LA and San Francisco usually are big press days, and that combined with meet and greets, warming up for the set, playing the set, showering I haven t had time to watch anybody. I caught Slipknot yesterday, but that was it. DG: I ve heard somewhere that Slipknot like to play dominoes before they do a show. Do As I Lay Dying do anything atypical before going onstage? JM: I think we all kind of have our own individual routines. The best way, I think, to compare our personalities is have you ever seen That Thing You Do? DG: No I haven t. JM: I m just joking (laughs). Anyways, I think we all have our own routines. Because drums are, more or less, a physical instrument, I take a while to warm up and stretch. It s usually about an hour, sometimes more, and some days you just wake up and go straight to the stage, you know what I mean? So yeah, it s different for everybody. DG: So you guys have been around for a while. Do you think you re kind of becoming seasoned vets for the whole festival scene so far? JM: Yeah, I think so. We ve been around for a long time, we ve done a lot of these festivals. You start to feel more seasoned when you show up to the beginning of a festival and you recognize half the people like the crew and the staff and all that kind of stuff and you kind of feel like, Wow, we ve done this a lot of times. We know a lot of these people. At first, when we did Ozzfest, for instance, we d go out there and not know anybody but now you go out and be like, Oh hey, what s up? So yeah, we re starting to feel like seasoned vets. It s a good thing. 6

DG: Yeah, I mean the last time I saw you guys was on the 2006 Sounds of the Underground tour, and I caught your set right here and you definitely seemed a lot more mature as far a sound goes. So how do you think you ve matured as you progressed the last few years? JM: I think we ve matured as individuals as part of the process of getting older, and I think because we ve been able to do this for so long, that s developed another type of appreciation that has not existed before. There s that, plus we ve evolved as musicians. We re always pushing ourselves, and I think it comes out in our records and in our live performance. I think our live performance, although we re getting older and more beaten up (laughs), I think we re able to bring even more energy now than we ever have. And better sounds, you know? I think we re just getting tighter as a band because we ve been playing for so many years, so it s a natural process. DG: Do you think you can run me through your live setup for this tour? JM: Yeah. On this tour, I brought out a PDP kit. I ve got 5 racked-on toms, (8, 10, 12, 16, 18 ), two 22 kick drums, DW edge 14 snare, lots of Zildjian cymbals, and a large drum riser (laughs). DG: I m sure by now you ve heard about Randy Blythe and his whole fiasco in Prague. What do you make of that whole situation? JM: I don t know a lot about what s going on, but it s his business. I feel like he s got enough issues as it is. I m not gonna give my opinion because I don t feel like it would be necessary or benefical to anyone. DG: Alright, that s respectable. So does As I Lay Dying have any other plans for this year after Mayhem is over? JM: Yeah, we have a co-headliner in Europe with Trivium. Caliban s also going to be on it. That starts in mid-october, then we have a US club tour coming up. It s a pretty awesome package that hasn t been announced yet, but we ll be announcing it shortly. That s going to be happening mid-november through December, and then we re going to be waiting for Awakened to come out September 25, so we re getting psyched for that and just prepping for the record. DG: Cool. I just have one more question: If As I Lay Dying performed in masks like Slipknot, what kind of mask would you wear? JM: (laughs) Honestly, I probably would just wear pantyhose on my head like a burglar so I could breathe. (laughs) I don t know if I could take a rubber mask, that s just brutal. 7