Shadows Fall: Reclaiming the Throne

(by Scott Alisoglu)

If there was any doubt as to the continued relevance of Shadows Fall as a juggernaut of American metal, then feast your ears on Retribution. Those doubts will be beaten and left for dead, as the new album is a superb combination of the band’s patented thrash aggression and memorable melodies. The disc is filled with fist-pumping anthems powered by the beefy riffs of Matt Bachand and Jon Donais (the latter laying down some scorching solos), the freight train rhythms of drummer Jason Bittner and bassist Paul Romanko, and the increasingly versatile vocals of Brian Fair that move from brutal roars to soaring cleans. Armed with a new business model to deliver the album to the masses and a renewed determination to reclaim the throne of American metal, Shadows Fall have gone all out in creating the ultimate metal experience for fans. The always talkative, good natured Brian Fair breaks it down for us.

With the new album even though you never went away you still see folks saying things like “Shadows Fall is back.” That may have more to do with the excellence of the new album than anything else. Have you gotten that vibe?

Yeah, from other people. We never feel like we ever went away [laughs]. I mean the last record [Threads of Life] sold like 120,000 copies, which for a metal band is pretty awesome. We went on tour for like a year and a half. We do feel like this record was a come-out-swinging record sonically. The first tune we wrote was I think “Public Execution” and it kind of set the tone of the whole record of just being a little bit more up-tempo than the last one, a little bit more thrash metal. We also felt like we pushed the melodic envelope pretty far with the last record, so we were trying to do something a little different.

That urgency and aggressiveness that you hear with the new album is what I think people are referring to.

Yeah, exactly.

Do you think some folks felt you went too far in the melodic direction with the last album?

It’s possible because they may have only heard a couple of the video tunes. Like “Redemption” has a very melodic chorus even though it has a technical little breakdown. And “Another Hero Lost” is a straight up power ballad, so if those are the two songs that people have heard then maybe, but with songs like “Failure of the Devout” and “Dread Uprising” they were as fast and heavy as anything we’ve ever done. So there may have been a perception based on a few of the singles or whatever. If you can call them singles [laughs].

Some of the perception too, ridiculously so, is fueled by your signing to Atlantic.

Exactly! That’s always going to happen as well. Any time a band makes a change like that the expectations are going to be “oh, they’re being forced by the label to do this and that.” But with Threads of Life people at the label didn’t hear it until it was mastered, so their input was completely nonexistent [laughs].

Let’s go back to the Atlantic singing then and get up to date. You mentioned that Threads of Life sold 120,000 copies, but I think The War Within sold like 250,000 copies on Century Media.

Yeah, The War Within I think was around 300,000, which was great, but it was also a time when people bought records. The industry in general has had such a huge percentage cut just across the board. You see like the number one album in the country now will be like 60 or 70,000, whereas back then it was 100 or 200,000. It’s just a different time. Honestly, for a metal band record sales are at a secondary kind of stage where things are at now. It’s really about who is coming to see us play live. But with Atlantic we had a great experience, but a lot of the people who we signed with were gone. Our A&R guy was no longer there, the president of the label was no longer there, so we kind of felt a little lost there because the people that were there that we felt confident with to put our name down on the contract were no longer there. So a way to change things up was instead of taking the option, we renegotiated for a buyout where we got a chunk of money up front and then we worked a distro deal with their parent company, which is Warner Bros, through their Independent Label Group. And that’s honestly the way a lot of bands are trying to head anyway because you get control of the record now. You can figure out how to spend every dime, the royalty rate is in favor of the band; as opposed to the 10 or 12 percent you used to get, it’s now like 75 to 80 percent. It’s just a huge difference business model-wise. You flip the pyramid basically. With a traditional record deal the band gets paid last; it’s a trickle-down effect and everyone takes their cut along the way. And trying to recoup is difficult because they’ll spend money on things that you feel are unnecessary. So now that we’re able to make those decisions and after 10 years of the band understanding what we need that works and what we don’t need that’s a waste we’re able to keep a very tight grip on that. That’s a great feeling. There are no excuses anymore like “oh, the label should have done this or done that.” Well, now it’s our fault. The responsibility is bigger too, a little but more daily work, but totally worth it.

To clarify, explain a bit more how all the pieces fit together, like the Independent Label Group, Everblack Industries, and Ferret.

Basically, the Independent Label Group is the retail force for us. They’re the ones that are putting the records physically in the stores and doing all that, which is something we love having, the leverage of a major label doing that. We wouldn’t be able to call up Best Buy and get ourselves in there and all that; that’s what they do very well. But as far as the promotion of the band we just feel like the way a major label would do things were really unnecessary for a band like us. And also just waiting three weeks to get an answer sometimes because it had to get across six people down the line… We’re used to a little bit more immediacy to get things done. So that’s really where it changed. But they still have that leverage to get us in the stores the way we need. Then out of their percentage they hired Ferret Records to do the everyday kind of press and things like that. So we’ve got a forward thinking DIY kind of label doing all the everyday stuff, but a major label kicking down doors to get the album in the stores. So it’s really a perfect situation.

And then Everblack…

That’s like our imprint through them. Hopefully, in the future we do want to expand it beyond just the Shadows Fall realm. We would love to find other bands and try to work things out, but for right now it’s just about getting our record out. In the future we’ll see what happens.

You mentioned the Billboard chart too and Retribution landed at like number 35. Is that the highest chart position you’ve gotten?

The War Within might have been a little bit higher, but not by much. That’s scary because it’s a lot higher than the last one, even though the numbers of actual sales are relatively similar, even a little less. That again just shows you how much the industry has changed from year to year. You can chart higher by selling less [laughs].

We’ve seen a lot of that lately, whether it’s The Black Dahlia Murder or Cannibal Corpse or whomever. More metal bands are charting and, granted, it’s because it doesn’t take as many records to chart, but you wonder if it’s also because metal fans still like to buy the CD.

Exactly. Pop fans don’t need the cover art or the liner notes because there is not much to it. It is usually a picture of the person on the front and sometimes the lyrics aren’t even in there. For a metal band you take the artwork a lot more seriously, you want fans to read the lyrics… Especially for me, you’d want to run out and read all this stuff and get the cool artwork and keep the CD. I think metal fans are still doing that more than other genres. Our release was such a huge week for metal bands. You had Megadeth, ourselves, Every Time I Die, The Black Dahlia Murder, and all of that on the same day. It was great to see everyone taking over the charts kind of. I think that’s a sign that metal fans are one of the last bastions of actual record sales.

How do you feel overall that Retribution stacks up against your other releases?

Honestly, I know every band says they love their new record the most, but for us that’s really how it should work. I feel like this is the best we’ve played in the studio, the best we’ve sounded in the studio, and the songwriting is a perfect balance of all our influences. At 10 years as a band you start to read each other’s minds, everyone understands their role, and what they do well and what they bring to the table. And also how not to step on each other’s toes; when to let certain things to take the forefront. You also get a confidence where you’re not worried about letting all the influences out. You’re going to have all the melodic death metal and thrash metal influences, but we’re not afraid to show the rock and roll side, we’re not afraid to bring in those arena rock melodies and stuff like that too. I think as soon as you have that confidence you stop second guessing yourself and you really let the inspiration come out much more the natural way. So to me this is my favorite record that we’ve done and hopefully the next one will destroy it [laughs].

You’ve definitely found the sweet spot between the melody and the aggressiveness. This is as aggressive as the early material, but the way you write the melodies make it so neither detracts from the other.

Yeah, we needed to do that. With previous records we’ve kind of had to push things each way before we could kind of get back to the middle again. And also it’s where we were at the time. Like on Threads of Life we were listening to a lot of Alice in Chains and 70s Aerosmith and stuff like that. But for this one I was listening to a lot of old school hardcore, like Bad Brains and Cro-Mags and wanted to bring some of that raw vibe back. And Matt was dusting off all his old death metal cassettes [laughs]. It was definitely where our heads were at. We also wrote live as a band more than normal. A lot of times you exchange CDs or ideas through e-mail back and forth. This time we’d just bring a few riffs to the practice space and just crank it up and play it live as we wrote. So I think that might have led to a slightly more aggressive approach because you’re cranking it out and the energy was just inherent in the room.

As a complete album it works better than anything else you’ve done. Some of that is just because of the blend, but even the aggressive stuff is still catchy. Even “War,” which is balls out, is memorable.

Yeah, that’s the thing. That’s what I remember about Testament, what I always loved is their most fast and aggressive stuff you could still him along to it. It wasn’t just extreme for the sake of it. That’s something we’ve always tried to achieve and it’s difficult. It’s a tough balance so when you stumble across it it’s a great feeling.

It seems that your vocals are even more versatile this time around too. There are different inflections and tones going on as well.

Like I said, I was listening to a lot of old school hardcore and what reminded me is that sometimes that little bit of rawness and edge to it when things aren’t totally perfect there is a little extra energy to it. With Pro-Tools and all that the human element has been completely removed sometimes [laughs]. That was something I wanted to avoid and that led to trying new things. I’m really just letting it flow out in a natural way. Also working with Elvis Baskette on the vocals he really pushed me to maximize mine. That’s what a great producer should do, finding what you do well and just maximizing it and finding things that you might not even know you had inside you. Also just having the versatility of having Matt who is a great vocalist for harmonies, as well as other melodies. And we even had Jon sings some of the really high Sebastian Bach harmonies that are tucked in there. If you’ve ever drank with Jon in a karaoke bar and seen him up there [laughs]… I think having those options pushed it sonically to a different level.

Speaking of production, the album has a very high guitar crunch factor.

Yeah, Zeuss is just a master of guitar tones, man. The guy is just unbelievable, so it was great to go back with him. He mixed the last record, but he didn’t produce the music. So he cranked it up and got some sick tones.

Was he the choice of producer from the beginning?

Yeah and the only reason we didn’t do vocals with him is because of timing stuff. We had scheduled our studio time so last minute he already had to go on and do the Municipal Waste record before we were done. Luckily, we talked to Elvis and he was available to do vocals and he headed down to Virginia and it worked out perfect. Zeuss has been with us since the demo days and to bringing in Elvis, which was the first time working with him; we had the best of both worlds. Someone who totally knew the bedrock of your sound and helped establish it and someone who was coming in without any preconceptions of what to do with us. It was cool to have that other set of ears and a different kind of influence.

Because you were recording in Virginia is that how Randall Blythe [Lamb of God] came into the picture to do guest vocals on “King of Nothing?”

Totally. We were down there and I thought, shit, we’re 20 minutes outside of Richmond, so we should give Randy a call to see if he’s home. He was actually in Jakarta at the time, which couldn’t have been further away [laughs]. I called and he was in an open market there and it literally sounded like he was on the set of Romancing the Stone or something like that. So he says “I fly home Tuesday, I’m sleeping Wednesday, and I’m cooking you guys dinner Thursday.” So he came down just to cook dinner and hang out. The mic was set up and we were working on “King of Nothing” and what better line for Randy Blythe than “Quit your fuckin’ crying?” [laughs]. It was our first guest appearance and Randy has been a friend of this band since the early, early days. So it felt great to have someone contribute to our record that was close to family as you can get.

The first guest appearance; wow, I didn’t realize that.

Yeah, and our first curse and we knocked ‘em out in the same song [laughs].

It definitely helps that you’ve not had the lineup changes that so many heavy bands have had.

Yeah, that’s what I was saying about being together for 10 years, you really start to get telepathic. Jay [Bittner] is still the new guy and he’s been with us for eight years [laughs]. I think that really can lead to a consistency and just a comfort level of being able to push yourself and experiment.

If they haven’t already figured it out, I hope that folks are recognizing what a great lead guitarist Jonathan is. His solos are fantastic; real heartfelt, but also ripping.

He really writes his solos; it’s not just a bunch of shred. He wants it to be a little song within the song. I think he has always been amazing, maybe underappreciated a little bit. He does know when to pull back too. It’s not like we’re just going to have a 10-minute shred fest. But when it’s time to rip we just wind him up and let him go. He really has taken it to another level on this record. Without a doubt these are the best leads he’s laid down. Also, sonically, he got some sounds that I’ve just never heard before. So it’s cool to see just how far he can take it.

The song “War” I didn’t realize that the lyrics are from Halie Selassie as sung by Bob Marley or something to that effect.

Yeah, that’s from a speech Selassie made in the 60s at the U.N. in regard to racial equality and Bob, as well as a bunch of other reggae artists, used it through the years in different dub songs. For Bob I think it was on the Rastaman Vibration record. I’ve always been a huge, not only a Marley fan, but a reggae fan and was always intrigued by Rasta philosophy. The statement is one about brotherhood and equality, but also a warning that if things don’t change we’ll change ‘em. For me it’s also a way to make a tribute to one of my favorite artists of all time.

What about the artwork? The badge is kind of cool.

We just wanted one striking, kind of iconic image. It seems like metal artwork has gone in two different directions; the retro cartoon thrash thing and the cyber, mega Photoshop thing [laughs]. What I really like are the details within the badge; there is so much going on in the background. From a real far distance it almost looks like the Dragnet movie poster. But once you get in there and realize the details you see that it’s a pretty evil badge [laughs].

Why Retribution?

We wanted a one-word title, which is something we’ve never had. And once we started going through the ideas we realize that there are a lot of one-word titles [laughs]. We wanted something to represent the aggressiveness of the record and also just the fact that it was coming out full-on swinging. And with the state of the world being such a mess right now we wanted to convey the message that things have got to change or else it’s going to get worse, and we’re not willing to sit still and let it happen. It’s time to make a change.

In the way of wrap-up then I just saw today that you’ve got a special thing going on with the fans through Twitter, etc.

I was kind of late to the party with Twitter and Facebook, but I do it myself. I end up talking to kids everyday on instant messenger on Facebook and just do the Twitter thing about sports and other random shit. So I started thinking about how I can use this to help us have a direct line to the fans. So I’m going to use it each day and give people a little codeword and have people come up to merch table and have like three little giveaway things each day, depending on how much stuff we have. And it’ll be a different kind of codeword. And Matt is doing the merch table anyway and me and him are actually the ones selling our tee-shirts, so what a way to just meet people one on one and hopefully it’ll get people there a little early to see the opening bands as well, as well as hanging out by the table and hopefully buy Matt a beer because he’s trapped there for about five hours a night [laughs].

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