[Interview conducted August 2004]

Along with bringing the mosh pit to the masses, thrash metal really helped bridge the gap between the hardcore and the metal scenes in the 80s.  Though it was unceremoniously drowned in the rising sea of grunge (and death metal to a lesser extent), it survived and has once again exploded in a new surge of technical, genre-melding artists.  Shadows Fall are at the forefront of the American wave, incorporating death, thrash and hardcore (old and new alike) into a fresh sound that is as brutal as it is melodic.  With The War Within, the band has raised the bar for everyone, crafting ten truly world-class tunes without betraying their unique style one bit.  Vocalist Brian Fair called in from the road (where this band spends practically every moment outside of the studio) to chat about this momentous release.

The production on this album is excellent, very clean and each instrument really gets to shine.
Yeah, Zeuss' studio has stepped up as we have stepped up as a band.  He's got better equipment and a better ear and we rolled in there and really spent time on tones - days just on guitar tones and tried many different options.  It's kind of cool to actually have a budget and a little bit of time. (laughs)  All the other records were made fairly ghetto, so it was nice to be able to go there and try some new things out.

It also sounds like the song-writing was a little more fine-tuned this time, with some very well-structured arrangements.  Is that the case?
Kind of.  We focused more on that in general, even when we were in the practice space.  We know we can play, we've had songs with a million riffs here and there.  We wanted it to have a technical edge, but we wants some really solid songs.  We started getting into that more on the last record, The Art of Balance, and we just wanted to push that even further.  That's the thing, you can have a million riffs but it just doesn't flow well, it just doesn't feel like songs.  Zeuss was good in that way as far as, he didn't necessarily have to trim any fat, but there's no need to beat a riff into the ground either.  Sometimes you can get repetitive and we really tried to stay away from that - no extra riffs. (laughs)  Everything in its place.

I know you guys are into the whole Bay Area thrash scene - are you excited about all the reunion activity since the Thrash of the Titans show?
Totally.  We got to see Death Angel play Grasspop and they killed it.  Just to hang out with those guys and see them playing again is awesome.  A lot of those bands, at the time, might have gotten a little bit of exposure but then metal got pushed right under the carpet again.  A lot of those riffs have been stolen throughout time, so it is kind of nice that they are coming back to at least get their due.  Or at least kids listening to these new bands are realizing where their roots are and going backwards, which is a positive thing.

Getting back to the new album, you use a few different vocal styles.  How much time does it take to figure out how you are going to sing each part?
When you're listening back to the instrumental, some of the songs, especially on this one, sounded so good, I'm like, 'I don't even know what to add to this.'  (laughs)  One thing I do work on is we have a building up of tension, peaks where the heaviest parts come in, and I really focused on not overdoing the screaming vocals all the time and take away from the impact of that.  Sometimes when bands are full-on extreme all the time, those vocals become the norm and they lose that impact.  They don't become as brutal if they're always there.  So with this one, I liked to build it up to that point.  Obviously, when you hear the big rock chorus, I'm not going to try and do the cookie monster vocals over that.  (laughs)  When there's a big hanging open chord, it's just begging for some nice melodic hook.  But it is tough, especially the technical stuff when you're trying to figure out where to put [the vocals] without taking away from it.

I noticed a lot of pinched harmonics on this album.  Is that Jonathon?  Is he going through a phase or what?
(laughs)  Yeah, Jon is always trying to squeal like crazy.  I think him and Adam from Killswitch Engage are having a contest to see who can fit more squeals on a record.  We pretty much let Jon go nuts on this record and he played some amazing shit.  We tried to bring back the old-school thrash cymbal clutch, you know when you just catch it for those stops, trying to throw in as many of those as possible.

I saw that you guys surpassed the 100,000 sales mark with the last album - pretty impressive.  Do you feel any pressure from that or is it all just positive energy?
It's just stepping everything up; it's giving retailers faith in us that wasn't there [before].  It's just an amazing thing.  In a time where a smaller indie label, who doesn't have major distribution as a lot of the other indies do these days - Century Media is still pretty much working the same distro they've had - and at a time where record piracy and downloading is at an all-time high, it's just amazing to know that we're selling that many records SoundScan-wise.  It blows our minds and just goes to show that the metal scene is such a supportive scene.  They're going to go out and buy your record, they're going to come to the shows and buy merch, because they wanna help perpetuate it.  It feels like there is this whole sense where everybody is trying to push this thing to the next level to get rid of all the bullshit and get the real metal out there.  Also, I think the metal bands spend a lot more time on artwork and lyrics and really trying to put together a good package and kids want to have that in their hands.  We're just psyched because once that door opens up, you do get that opportunities that were closed off on strictly a business level.  You'll get some of the tours that you may not have been considered for before and things like that.  And for this new record, the setup is already huge.  They're already expecting to sell however many and for us, it almost felt like more of a relief because now you don't have to convince these stores of why they should carry the record.  Before, we were fighting, it was just always a fight and if the big chain ordered one it was like one. (laughs)  It's great because we're making the industry come to us, bands that have built it up from the grassroots just by having a good following, like us and Killswitch and Lamb of God and all these bands that are just doing great right now, it was all on our own terms.  Hatebreed was the one who showed you you could do it.  They just clawed their way to the top, got to a major, sold tons of records and made everyone recognize that this scene exists and you can't ignore it anymore.

It's interesting that you mention SoundScan because I think the typical metal fan doesn't buy through the big outlets that SoundScan represents, so for you to sell 100,000 SoundScan represents a lot more actual sales than the typical band that sells 100,000.
That's the whole thing that is amazing about it, those are mostly chain scans and things like that, and it is cool to see kids outside of the actual underground now are getting exposed to these bands and getting into it.  It's cool because it's not just the hip record store in the big city either.  We look at our scan breakdowns and it's kids from all across the country checking it out and that's awesome.  It's no longer just the cool kids' club, everyone's down.  (laughs)

How is the Strhess tour going so far?
It's been great.  We've got a great bill with us, As I Lay Dying who is another band who has been selling tons of records and doing great, Himsa who are probably one of my favorite of the newer metal bands coming out right now, and Remembering Never, who are a great hardcore band, so it's a cool kind of mix.  The shows have been great, a lot of them have been sold out, and we're playing a lot of cities that we've either never been to or haven't been to in a long time and a lot of cities that get overlooked on a lot of tours.

I saw you guys on the King Diamond tour way back when and was impressed by how tight you played.  Seems like you've been on tour almost constantly since then.  Is that something the whole band enjoys, touring?
Oh yeah.  If we had to spend all of our time in the studio, forget about it.  We love touring, we tour non-stop, and we love the show itself.  We take it pretty seriously and after months and months on the road, you start to play like a machine and it feels great, when you have total confidence in the other guys on stage.  We have a great time on the road, too, we try to make it as fun as we can.  It can get a little hectic, you're away from home for a long time, you're living out of each other's pockets, so we just let loose and have a little bit of fun.  We want the people at the show to have fun, too.  We're not going to be those depressed rockers up there complaining about everything.  You've had a bad enough week - let's have a couple beers and play some metal.  (laughs)

You guys were on the same Ozzfest as Voivod right?  Did you guys get to bond over both doing Pink Floyd covers?
We did get to hang out with those guys a decent amount and it was great.  As a huge, huge Voivod fan, it was awesome to get to watch them.  It was also cool because there's a lot of young kids at Ozzfest and it was like, bam!, deal with it - prog metal, here you go.  It was cool to get respect back from those guys, too, because they were a band that we are obviously huge fans of and they were an influence on us.  Me and Jason were probably the biggest Voivod fans in Shadows Fall and just to watch them and have them give us props back was cool as hell.

I understand you're a vegetarian.  As a fellow vegetarian, I know how hard it can be to find meatless food sometimes - is it difficult when you're on tour?
It's gotten better.  When I was really young and my old band Overcast was touring, we got paid like $15 a show, it was a lot more difficult, the options just weren't so widespread.  Now, we've got a tour bus and a fridge and you can stock up a little bit.  The merch guy on this tour is the most amazing cook so we went and got all this gear, an electric griddle, some burners and stuff.  But it is tough.  We've been on the road so much, we're getting better about staying in shape.  We'll exercise a little bit more and try to eat a little bit better, stay away from all the fast food and whatnot, because you realize it's not a vacation.  This is full-time, so you can't think, 'Oh, I'm off on the road, I can drink til 5 a.m. every night and it won't matter.'  If you start doing that every day, you're going to get old fast.

What's next for Shadows Fall?
We're going to be touring like crazy for the whole next year.  We just set something up for September.  We're going to do some record release shows in some of the bigger cities, because this summer was all about hitting the random markets and such.  Then we're going to take a short little break in October and hit something big time in November, we're not sure what.  But we're going to be touring, touring, and touring.  We knew as soon as we handed in the masters, it was over.  (laughs)  Pack up, it's time to leave.  We're really excited because the first press of the disc has a DVD feature which has a bunch of cool extras, like a couple guitar lessons, a drum lesson, some random footage, and we're also still working on our actual DVD, The Art of Touring.  We keep planning on finishing editing [it] and then getting so much more crazy footage, it's like, 'Oh, we have to add this!'  (laughs)  We got lucky because a lot of times it's bands looking like idiots, driving around the world, this one has most of our friends looking like idiots, so we get to make fun of a bunch of other bands through our DVD.  Good times…

[for the rest of this interview, check out issue #27 of Outburn Magazine]

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