Mutiny Within

WE HAVE CHRIS CLANCY THE VOCALIST OF MUTINY WITHIN ON THE PHONE.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: HEY CHRIS, THANKS FOR TALKING WITH ME TODAY

Chris: Hey, how are you doing?

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: I'M DOING REALLY GOOD. HOW ARE YOU?

I'm in Chicago at the moment at the House of Blues, we are going to be playing here so we are very excited about that.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: VERY COOL, I WANT TO TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE STUFF YOU HAVE GOING ON, BUT FIRST A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY. YOU AND DANIEL ARE ORIGINALLY FROM ENGLAND AND CAME HERE TO PURSUE YOUR DREAMS. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN HERE?

Chris:I've been here for going on three years now. Dan has been here for about ten months. Dan's a pretty new addition to the band. We managed to get this far, which is pretty amazing.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: DO YOU MISS LIVING IN ENGLAND?

Chris: As soon as we finish touring, I will try and get home for two or three weeks. It will get harder as the tour increases, but when I go home to England, I've been here so long that I miss things about America so its on middle ground really. I need an island in the middle of the sea.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: HOW DID THE BAND COME TOGETHER? YOU WERE IN ENGLAND AND THE BAND STARTED HERE IN NEW JERSEY.

Chris: The band was already going. They started off as a Children of Bodom cover band. They were very Finnish metal oriented, with shred guitar and not a lot in the way of vocals. They had a screaming singer, but things didn't work out with him. AJ the bassist started singing for a while and they decided they wanted a more serious singer. They looked around for quite a while apparently and one day AJ was looking on YouTube and typed in metal vocals recording. Up popped a video of me recording vocals for my band at the time that was based in Wales in the UK and he was really impressed by it. We started talking and my band had fallen apart so I was available. I was driving to work one day and I said 'You know what; I'm going to give everything up and just go for it and pursue my dreams.' I booked a flight, came over and three days later we played in front of Roadrunner Records, a few of the labels and managers. Everything went from there, we didn't get signed straight away, it was a year or so later, but that is where everything started off.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: YOU GUYS ARE PRETTY NEW TO ROADRUNNER. WHEN DID YOU SIGN WITH THEM?

Chris: I think in June of 2008, so it's been quite a while. We actually didn't do a lot with the label at the time we got signed. They told us to go write our album, work on our live show and work on getting everything tight. We were going to be competing on the level of bands like Killswitch Engage. We had to get from that New Jersey band to a more professional level. They gave us a lot of space and we had the time to write fifty songs for our new album. We cut it down to thirteen, which is the final number we recorded and eleven on the album.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: I READ THAT IT TOOK TWO YEARS TO COMPLETE.

Chris: Yeah, I would literally come over for two to three months at a time and we would work fourteen to fifteen hours a day. We did it religiously for two years. The actual recording process was started in December of 2008 and we didn't finish recording until April. The mixing process wasn't finished until September, so it was a very long process, but I think it needed to be that long to kind of crack our sound and figure out what band we were without taking influences from other bands.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: WASN'T IT HARD TO PICK THIRTEEN SONGS OUT OF FIFTY?

Chris: Yeah it was, but fortunately we had the ears of the label to help with that. Mike Gitter, our A&R guy at the time, helped out a lot with that. He picked the songs that made us sound more unique. They pushed us in our own direction and steered us away from following other bands. We went to the studio with Jason Suecoff and we started recording fifteen and lost two in the process.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: OH, YOU WORKED WITH JASON SUECOFF, HE'S AWESOME.
Yeah, he's a really cool guy. He's the funniest guy I've ever met. We started off with him and we were supposed to have our album done in seven weeks, but we spent about 2 1/2 months down there and we hadn't finished. He was great for the start of the process; he really helped as we started out. After a while we kind of didn't see eye to eye. We wanted to go in one direction and he wanted to push in another direction. We decided that it wasn't working out so we started working with Jason Bieler who is down in Florida.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: SINCE YOUR BAND STARTED OUT AS A CHILDREN OF BODOM COVER BAND, I WAS WONDERING IF THERE WAS ANY CHANCE THAT YOU MIGHT DO A CHILDREN OF BODOM COVER SONG ON AN ALBUM IN THE FUTURE?
I don't know actually, that isn't something that we've considered. I think you're the first person to bring that up. Maybe, who knows, it could happen. I wouldn't rule it out.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: THE ALBUM RELEASES ON FEBRUARY 23RD. HOW ARE YOU GUYS GOING TO CELEBRATE?

Chris: I don't know yet, we were going to be on tour when the original album date was out, but we actually get the day off. There will definitely be some alcohol involved in it.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU GUYS ACHIEVED WHAT YOU WANTED WITH THIS ALBUM AND THAT YOU'RE HAPPY WITH IT.

Chris: We are and that is why we spent so long on it. We did everything at our own pace, our own way and in our own time. We are happy with it and because of that we will stand behind it and be proud of it.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: WOULD YOU AGREE THAT "AWAKE" IS THE SONG THAT DEFINES YOUR SOUND?

Chris: I'd say yeah, we sat down for a while discussing the single. We had a few other options where we could have gone with maybe a more radio rock song. We decided we were going to go out with the overall sound so "Awake" covers almost everything that is on the album. We thought that it represented the band.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: THE MUSIC VIDEO FOR IT JUST RELEASED. WHAT HAS BEEN THE RESPONSE TO IT SO FAR?

Chris: It's been pretty good; it's not all over the place just yet. It's on Headbanger's Ball on Monday nights. Hopefully, we will get a bit more response after that. People really seem to like it and it was a really fun day doing it. It was pretty crazy being put in a room and having them say "Hey, you're on camera, GO!" It was really strange; we got up at 5:00 in the morning to get there on time. I can't wait to do another one, it was fantastic.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: WHERE WAS IT FILMED?

Chris: It was filmed in a factory in New Jersey. I would tell you where it was, but I really don't know because it was 5:00 in the morning. My memory wasn't great then. Some parts of the factory are still being used, so we used the disused area. It was all dusty, but the factory owner was great. He kept bringing us coffee.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: YOU GUYS ARE CURRENTLY ON THE ROAD WITH ARCH ENEMY. HOW IS THE TOUR GOING SO FAR?

Chris: It's going great; it's our first time in Canada. We toured with Soulfly in September, but that was our first major tour, so we are still learning the ropes. We are really starting to get into it, so I think the people who saw us with Soulfly will see a much more mature performance on this tour. It's been so much fun, we played Montreal in front of the craziest crowd we have ever had. There must have been a thousand people there with circle pits, crowd surfers and people singing along.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: ARE YOU GUYS TRAVELING IN A VAN?

Chris: Yeah, we got a Chevrolet van.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: ISN'T IT HARD CRAMMING SIX DUDES IN A VAN?

Chris: We took one of the seats out, so we have two sleeping areas on the seats. It works out, but it's far from cozy.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: WHAT DO YOU DO FOR ENTERTAINMENT ON THOSE LONG DRIVES, ESPECIALLY THROUGH CANADA?

Chris: I bought myself an Ipod Touch and I've got a few games on there. People got PSP's and Bill provides a lot of entertainment. When Bill gets tired, he just goes loopy, so he just sits there and spouts things out of his mouth. We just sit there and listen to his entertainment. In a few days we have a 1,400 mile drive to do. Canada is so cold, sometimes we can't look out the windows because they are all iced.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: YOU'RE USED TO THE COLD SEEING AS HOW YOU'RE FROM ENGLAND THOUGH.

Chris: Yeah, it's cold in England, but this is a whole new level. You open the van door, step down on the ground and your feet go numb. It just goes straight through the boots. When you get into the venue it's warm though.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: IT LOOKS LIKE YOURE TAKING THE MONTH OF MARCH OFF AND THEN GOING ON A NORTH AMERICAN TOUR WITH SONATA ARCTICA. ARE THERE ANY PLANS FOR A EUROPEAN TOUR?

Chris: We are hoping to do one, but were not sure when. We are trying to concentrate on North America first and build our fan base there before we take it abroad. We want to make sure we have something solid to build upon. We don't want to spread ourselves too thin in a way. We are looking forward to doing a world tour. There are a few things that might come in to play last minute in March. We might have another tour there, fingers crossed.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: NOT ONLY ARE YOU ALL EXTREMELY TALENTED MUSICIANS AND SONGWRITERS, ALL SIX OF YOU ARE REALLY GOOD LOOKING GUYS. THERE MUST BE A TON OF GIRLS AT YOUR SHOWS.

Chris: It depends, like Soulfly wasn't so bad, but Arch Enemy is a little slower I've got to say. You just don't know until you get on a tour. You can turn up to a venue and it's crazy or you can turn up and it's dead. Canada was good; there was some nice eye candy in Canada.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: DO YOU GUYS HANG OUT AT THE MERCH BOOTH AFTER THE SHOWS?

Chris: Yeah, we always try and do that. We throw everything into the trailer and then we go over to the merch stand. People can come up and we have free posters to sign and some stickers as well. We all hang out there and especially at the end of the show when everyone is leaving. We try and make ourselves available to the fans as much as possible.

SHAUNA O'DONNELL: THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE INTERVIEW CHRIS. GOOD LUCK OUT ON THE ROAD AND HOPEFULLY I WILL SEE YOU SOON. BEFORE I LET YOU GO IS THERE ANYTHING YOU'D LIKE TO ADD OR SAY?

Chris: I'd like to say thanks to all the people that come out to see us on the tour. We are actually shocked that people have come just to see us. That's really incredible in the early stages of the band to see people support us in that way. It's really great and thanks to our families for helping us because were a little broke at the moment and they are feeding us. We love doing what were doing so we will carry on doing it regardless of what happens.

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Tags:  Mutiny Within, Roadrunner Records , Chris Clancy, interviews

SHAUNA O'DONNELL    February 01, 2010