SHADOWS FALL Interview

Who created the melodic Swedish death metal style? Was it At the Gates? In Flames? Dark Tranquility? According to Brian Fair, Shadow?s Fall?s front man, the true originators of Gothenburg metal were none other than?Boston?!? Anyway, he also mentioned that their new release, ?The Fragile Art of Existence,? isn?t just another pure Gothenburg-style album, but one documenting the maturing band?s progression and desire to create a well-rounded metal full-length.




Regarded by many to be one of the most important and vital bands in heavy music today, Shadow?s Fall have paid their dues by relentlessly touring with anyone and everyone willing to risk being blown off the stage by the New England-based quintet. And should they ever break into the mainstream, Brian assures us that it would be done on their own terms, as he says, although content to follow integrity?s path to wherever it may lead.




Gauntlet: You were recently a part of an impressive tour package ? the Hatebreed and Six Feet Under tour. How did everything turn out?




Brian: Incredible! It was just amazing! We?ve been friends with the Hatebreed guys and the Death Threat guys forever. We knew we were going to have a blast with them. And Six Feet Under turned out to be super cool. The shows were just totally chaos. I mean, when you mix hardcore kids with Ozzfest kids with death metal kids, it?s just chaos. It was definitely a rowdy, rowdy scene.




The Gauntlet: I imagine the shows were pretty pit-friendly with that kind of line-up.




Brian: It was pretty tough out there! It was pretty tough. Ha! Ha! It was fun. I mean, kids were watching out for each other, but it was definitely an intense evening.




The Gauntlet: How have the crowds been reacting to your new material?




Brian: Oh, amazingly so! We?ve been getting a great reaction even before the record came out, when kids didn?t know it that well. A few who actually knew some new songs, we knew they must have pirated a few, but that?s always good! Ha! Ha! But since the album has been out, the kids have been singing along to the new stuff and it seems like they?ve been picking up on it real quickly. We played the last show in Providence, which is more in our area here in the East Coast, so the kids were going totally crazy for the new songs and actually requesting new songs, which was really encouraging. So we?re stoked about that.




And we?re really looking forward to the next tour, where we can play even more new material. This last one, we were trying to mix it up half and half. But now that the record?s out, we can finally change up the set list. We?ve been playing a similar set list for, like, two years before this record came out. So it?s a refreshing change.




The Gauntlet: How did your up-coming tour with Mushroomhead come about? They?re quite different compared to bands that you?ve played with in the past.




Brian: Basically, we played one show with them and Meshuggah on an off date of the Ozzfest in Iowa and it just went off great. The band contacted our management about the tour, and we figured it?s a great way to play in front of a different audience and kids who may have never heard of us or even been exposed to this kind of music. And also, this entire bill is really mixed up. It?s a cool, diverse lineup. Avenge Sevenfold is kind of on this Iron Maiden meets AFI kind of hardcore thing; High on Fire is full on Sabbath-style stoner rock; and then you?ve got us playing thrash metal. So it?s a nice variety.




It?s going to leave some kids confused, but it?s going to be great. I love going to a show that really mixes it up, as opposed to having one style beaten down your throat for like five hours. So, now that I think about it, I think this way each band will have more of an impact and leave more of an impression.




The Gauntlet: It sounds like a great opportunity to introduce yourself to people who wouldn?t normally be exposed to your style of music.




Brian: Exactly. That?s the big reason why we tour with a variety of bands. We?ve gone out with people as diverse as King Diamond and Glassjaw. It?s just a cool way to see how different audiences react to a band. We?re basically a metal band. I mean, there?s some cross over into a few other scenes, but we?re basically a metal band. And to be able to play in front of a variety of audiences and challenge yourself to see if you can win over kids that are only into something completely different is always awesome to see. You never know how it?s going to go over, but it?s always worth a shot.




The Gauntlet: You can only preach to the converted so often.




Brian: Totally. And we know on a metal bill if we?re not doing well, we obviously suck that night. Ha! Ha! So it?s nice to see if we can go out and really turn some kids on to a new crowd. It worked so great on the Kittie tours when we went to Europe and did the States with them. To see these younger kids come up to you afterwards and be like, ?I?ve never heard anything like this,? and be so excited about it, it just reminds me of me of when I was a kid and I?d stumble across a random hardcore show and just be blown away.




The Gauntlet: It?s cool that you appeal to a broad cross-section of heavy music fans. Not many bands can play with acts as diverse as King Diamond, Hatebreed, Kittie and Krisiun. Although many heavy music fans are open-minded, there?s more than a handful that are not. I can?t help but assume that you?ve faced a heckler or two.




Brian: We?ve never really been treated that bad. We?ve actually won over most crowds we?ve played for. But you?re always going to get the random (heckler). Like, with the King Diamond tour, there were old school fans. And when we were tuning up, before we even made a sound, you?re already getting, ?Diamond! Diamond! Diamond!? We were thinking, ?oh, great!? You know? You?re like, ?another half hour, he?ll be up.? Ha! Ha! ?We?ll be out of your way soon enough.? But after the first tune, usually they?re just cheering for you instead.




But you?ve got to try. That?s the thing. You have to go out there and lay it down. You can?t really hold back and worry, because people will see if you?re not feeling it. It?s all about putting a hundred percent into your performance. I think I have my eyes closed for about eighty percent of the set, so if somebody?s giving me the middle finger, I?d probably miss it anyway. Ha! Ha!




The Gauntlet: I haven?t had the opportunity to see you yet, but it sounds like you?re the kind of artist who immerses himself in the performance and just goes off?




Brian: Well, it?s just that there?s so much hair in my way at this point, I can?t even see what?s happening even if I kept my eyes open. Ha! Ha! But yea, I kind of lose my self in it and just leave my eyes closed. Or I?ll concentrate on one point in the crowd, like the one kid who goes off, and I?ll just try to put everything I have into it. But I?m usually blinded by stage lights anyway, so it doesn?t matter. Ha! Ha!




The Gauntlet: The new album is just great. How did you go about writing for this record? Has much changed in the writing process since ?Of One Blood?? Has the band established a certain writing formula at this point?




Brian: Not really. We try not to stick to one formula. Actually, that was a big part of this record. We wanted to try to have a diverse collection of songs and really form an album, as opposed to just having nine tunes that all sound the same and follow a similar formula. We wanted to show all of our influences without stepping outside of the sound that we?ve always created. We kind of wanted to bring it back to that style of album like ?Master of Puppets,? where you can mix it up with a three minute thrash metal song, have a metal epic at the end, have a ballad somewhere in the middle, and really just cover a lot of ground. The writing itself just went incredibly smooth. I think a lot of that had to do with spending about two years on the road, really learning about each other as musicians, and really understanding our each individual role within the band. And this time we all sat down together. We were writing together all the time. All five of us were involved in making suggestions and really trying to get the most out of the songs as we could.




We also really cared about the song writing aspect, in that we didn?t want to just string together twenty five thousand riffs in some crazy mathematical formula that would take a slide rule to figure out. We wanted to actually have this technical side, but flow in a way that really gave an identity to each song. We wanted each song to stand out in your mind and have an individual flow, have its own individual character. That?s probably the hardest part at this point. We all know we can play, but now to write songs is a new challenge.




The Gauntlet: Are any of these new songs indicative of a possible change in Shadow Fall?s future direction and style?




Brian: Jay, I?d say the most drastic change would be probably the title track, which incorporates a lot of elements that we?ve always had, like the acoustic guitar parts with the vocal harmonies. It?s the first time we created a song around that with the verses, as opposed to just having an interlude. So I think some kids who have been into our older stuff will be like, ?whoa, this is completely different.? If you really break it down, it has elements of songs we?ve used in the past, but it?s the first time we?ve focused on it in a four-minute song, around that acoustic and more melodic vocal. It?s still an eighty percent heavy tune, but there?s that part that?s going to stand out in people?s minds that will probably be the most drastic.




Also, definitely the most noticeable difference is the Pink Floyd cover, and that?s just because it is a cover. That?s something we were totally stoked about. We wanted to completely rework that Pink Floyd song. We didn?t want to just make it heavier.




The Gauntlet: You wanted to put the ?ol Shadow?s Fall stamp on it.




Brian: Yea. We wanted to totally infuse our own style into the original. I mean, the original was an ambient song with no drums (or) guitar riffs. It was just synth guitar and vocals. We basically kept the vocals really close to the original, had that kind of ambient tone in the background, and wrote a metal song underneath it. It was a real fun challenge. It was definitely exciting to do something completely different from anything we?ve ever done. We wanted to really try to go out there and experiment a little bit.




The Gauntlet: It?s obvious, and has been discussed ad nauseam, that there is a strong Gothenburg death metal component embedded into your sound, but I have to ask you this: were you ever a fan of any of the purveyors of that other major Swedish sound? I?m talking about bands like Entombed, Dismember and Carnage.




Brian: Oh, totally! We actually did a tour with Dismember. It was amazing! And I used to be like the hugest Entombed fan. I was way into the old-school Dismember stuff, that really brutal Swedish style. Obviously we?ve been fans of In Flames and At the Gates. It?s one of those influences that I think is inherent in modern metal, as like the old school Iron Maiden and Metallica were to bands coming out of that generation. It?s just such a part of that sound now. I mean, there are hardcore bands who use those guitar harmonies now. So it?s definitely always an influence. But on this record, I think we went in more of a thrash metal route than that melodic death metal style, just because it?s becoming so over-saturated in the scene right now. Even bands like In Flames are trying to find new directions, because they see the limitations of that sound.




It?s something that I thought was definitely a breath of fresh air for the metal scene in the mid-nineties - to have that melody come back into the brutal music. You can only do that crunchy brutal death metal riff for so long before you just run out of options. So to hear that kind of Maidenish guitar harmony come back is just awesome.




And us, as a band, we?ve always been fans of the band Boston. They were the first Gothenburg band! They had all the guitar riffs, and if you listen back, there are riffs you can find on Colony by In Flames that were taken right from the Boston record.




The Gauntlet: I can?t believe what I?m hearing!




Brian: We?ve been hugely influenced by them. We talked about that with Jesper and Bjorn (of In Flames) when we were on tour with them. That was the on-going joke: how no one knows about how Boston invented Gothenburg metal in the seventies. Ha! Ha!




The Gauntlet: That?s wild! You?re too much, man.




Brian: I hate to spoil it for everyone, but it?s true. That?s our main message as a band. We want to tear down the walls and let the truth be heard: Boston created Gothenburg metal (Brian has a good sense of humor, or else he?s a few cards short of a deck ? JG). I?m telling you, man, go listen to those five-step guitar harmonies on ?Competition? and ?More than a Feeling.? There it is, man.




The Gauntlet: Alright then, Brian, I?ll spread the word. How do you feel about being tagged as a hardcore band? I don?t even remotely hear it. Well, maybe there?s the odd vocal pattern and break down part that sounds hardcore. But, while you don?t strictly play within the confines of any given style, it?s obvious that you are predominantly metal. Is it because of the numerous hardcore bands that you have played shows with? Maybe it?s because you were in Overcast.




Brian: Yea. It?s definitely always going to be a history thing. It has always just been the scene we?ve been involved with. Any band who has a DIY ethic and plays with a variety of bands is always going to be considered in the hardcore scene. But we?re a metal band, sonically. Sure, we have the occasional little break down riffs, like you said, but even that sounds metal to me. And the thing about Overcast was that we always considered ourselves a metal band trapped in a hardcore scene. And we didn?t mind that, but we were definitely way more metal than any of the bands we were playing with at the time. The lines are so blurred at this point. You have bands like Converge and Unearth who?it?s like, I don?t know if that?s metal or if it?s hardcore. It?s just good.




The Gauntlet: I know what you mean. I have some metal friends who tell me that bands like Converge, Burnt By the Sun, and older bands like Cro-Mags or Discharge are too hardcore for them to be into. I?m like, ?if it?s good, who cares what you call it??




Brian: Exactly! It?s so hard to categorize. You could give it a million prefixes and have so many hyphens in a description, but it?s just silly at this point. To me, there are just two types of music: good and bad. And I like the good stuff. There?s nothing wrong with the hardcore tag though. It doesn?t anger us. We?re always hit with it just because we have members who were in bands like Pushbutton Warfare, After Shock and Overcast. And those bands, even if they were metallic, they were definitely considered hardcore bands. And somehow we?ve been able to bridge a lot of scenes. We can play in front of hardcore kids and metal kids, and it doesn?t really seem to be much of a difference. So we feel very fortunate about that. I mean, we definitely look like a metal band, play like a metal band, have hair like a metal band, but to be able to play the Hatebreed tour and watch all the hardcore kids going crazy for us is awesome!




The Gauntlet: Having received accolades from the mainstream press, including Guitar World, LA Weekly, and MTV, it seems that you have the potential to break into the mainstream. I would love to hear you on radio! I rarely listen to modern rock radio, at this point, because I?d rather not listen to the nu-metal flavor of the week. Would this be an ambition of yours? How does Shadow?s Fall measure success?




Brian: We would love to be able to achieve some of that commercial success. And we just feel that it would be on our own terms, because we haven?t really compromised our sound in any way or really done anything drastic to try and encourage a mainstream audience. It just seems to be growing that way. We were getting a backlash on our message board when we had that MTV feature. It?s like, you complain about all the crap that?s on MTV at the time, but as soon as something good gets on there, you go back and complain about it.




The Gauntlet: It?s the whole more-underground-than-thou attitude.




Brian: Yea, man. They just want to keep bands for their own. They don?t want to share it. So that?s fine. I can understand that. But at the same time, we would love to achieve any amount of success that we can with this band. We?ve played music for our entire lives. It?s something we?ve committed ourselves to completely. We?ve all quit the decent jobs. We all work horrible part-time jobs when we?re home just to be able to tour. And we?re basically in financial disarray. We?re broke! We?re all poor kids because of this. But, to us, it?s worth it. We wouldn?t stop for anything. And if we did somehow achieve some sort of mainstream success, I would be totally stoked about it, because I?d feel like we deserved it. And I think now it is possible. Look at a band like Hatebreed. They basically clawed their way up from being a small Connecticut hardcore band to being a draw on the Ozzfest and selling over 150 000 records. It?s just amazing! And they did it all on there own terms. If we could achieve it that way, I would be totally proud of it.




It seems that a lot of doors have been kicked open by some of these so-called nu-metal bands, making heavy music a little bit more acceptable. All it does is make it easier for underground bands to be able to maybe live off this for a little while, be able to tour different countries, and be able to really get out there and play music, to do what they love. I?m definitely stoked about how things have been going. We?ve already exceeded any goal we?ve set for ourselves. We?ve traveled to Japan and Europe and played in front of thousands of people. We?ve been on MTV and on magazines. When John and Matt got into Guitar World, that?s a dream come true for any guitar player, to see yourself in there. So we?re all just stoked. At this point, we?re just going to ride it out (and) see what happens.




The Gauntlet: It blows my mind that the mainstream would be attracted to you in the first place. You?re a real metal band with integrity and your musicianship is stellar. This runs counter to the way things are going in the mainstream.




Brian: I think people have just been waiting to hear people really play again. I think the talent level is something that has got to come back. I mean, even with the glam metal era you at least had to have some ripping guitar player to be able to be even considered for pop stardom. And it seems that it degenerated for a while. There came the formula of tuning your guitars to Z and just bouncing around and playing a single note. It?s been run into the ground. People want to hear some talent. And I think metal never really disappeared, it just got suppressed for a while?and really confused. Ha! Ha! And now it seems the focus has come back to really accomplish something.




The bands we model ourselves after are bands like Iron Maiden, who never had that commercial hit, who never had the MTV heavy rotation. They just toured, put out quality records, and always satisfied their loyal fan base first, while picking up new ones along the way. And if we can achieve that and be able to have a decade in this band under our belt, we would be completely ecstatic. If it maintains this level, where we can survive off it and tour, we would just be so happy.




The Gauntlet: As far as lyrics go, what are you striving to accomplish?




Brian: I just try to make personal statements with each song. Whatever is on my mind, and whatever the actual music inspires me to think about, is what comes out. I cover a wide variety of subjects without really having one unifying message. If there is one, it would be that everyone has the power within themselves to create and accomplish anything they want to on their own terms. That?s an inherent message in a lot of the things I say, because it?s something I really believe in and something I try to convince people of all the time. I think human self-doubt is the biggest evil in this world right now. People always wait for things to happen for them, or just figure they couldn?t pull it off anyway and give up. I think that?s just a tragedy. And it may not be a specific point of each song, but that?s definitely an inherent theme that runs through them.




Also, I try to turn kids onto different philosophies and schools of thought that they may not have been turned on to, definitely through metal. I stay away from the evil satanic side of things. I?ve been influenced by Eastern philosophy, a lot of Buddhist and Hindu thought, and I try to infuse a lot of that into our work. I study meditation and yoga and try to talk about that. I also talk about personal things, like problems that I?ve had with friends drinking. I like to talk about personal relationships.




The Gauntlet: It sounds like you?re talking about the toils of everyday life.




Brian: Exactly. That?s what the title, ?The Art of Balance,? is about more than anything. It?s hard to try and find that balance point everyday, because it?s really easy to tip either one way into total lethargy, where you don?t want to do anything, or go to the other side, where you just completely drive yourself insane! So it?s really just trying to find that balance.




That?s something that I don?t think is touched upon enough these days. A lot of the mainstream music seems to be about self-pity or about nonsense. It?s either one or the other; you either have the ?Nookie? or the crying artist.




I just talk about what?s on my mind. I sit and talk with kids at shows all the time. They ask me about the lyrics, and I just love the fact that anyone reads them. I always do get into lyrics. Actually, some good music has been ruined for me by horrible lyrics. So when people show interest in it, it?s something I?m really stoked about.

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Tags:  Shadows Fall  , Brian Fair, interviews

J Gorania    November 30, -0001