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Phone interview with Shaun Glass of Dirge Within

March 9th 2010, Los Angeles CA

Andrew: Can you tell me a little bit about how things have been going with your newest member James Pezanoski?
Shaun: Getting James in the band has been great. I think, aside from him being a killer bass player he is really a team player. He does a lot of stuff. Its really nice to have someone in the band that can help deal with some daily chores, like going to the post office or picking something up or to the airport. You can only do so much if you're one person. We're five guys in the band, but some people already have day jobs. So when we're off tour, it's really when we have somebody who can help out. He is 22 years old, so he is internet savvy. He loves to go on the website, myspace and facebook, get involved and talk to fans. It's really cool man. He's definitely more of the metal-style bassist this band required from day one. He is like a young Cliff Burton! (laughs)

Andrew: To a person who visits your Myspace page for the first time and sees the genre as 'rock/metal/thrash', how would you elaborate?
Shaun: I think the reason we put that description is to kind of have different people check our band out instead of us just saying 'we're death metal' or 'that kind of metal'. I think that anyone who listens to some rock stuff, even like Disturbed-type bands can get into us and even the Slipknot fans. Thrash people like us too. We definitely are more in the vain of the Testament and Lamb Of God kind of music. We're a metal band, so I think to have those three genres mentioned into one summary, its fine. I don't want to limit this band. Its heavy as it can be but we also have melody and hooks, which is something that we're proud of. There are a lot of bands out there that don't even have any chorus to the songs. That's not what I'm all about.

Andrew: You played in bands like Soil and Broken Hope, which were musically very different. What did it take for you to leave all that behind and make this brand of music?
Shaun: It's been a natural progression. I felt in the last year that I was in Soil, that I was losing steam in writing that straight-up heavy rock. I started Dirge Within as a side project at first and it was just myself with the singer and the drummer who formed it. We did a three-song demo. The first time I started writing for this band, it was so natural for me to go heavier than what it was in Soil. When I quit Soil, I really wanted to start over. When I joined Broken Hope it was their band. Jeremy Wagner, who was one of the founding members of that band, is still a very good friend. When I joined that band, I was a bass player and that was in 1994. When the band put out two albums on Metal Blade, I enjoyed that. But with the writing within that band, I really couldn't change their sound a 100%, because it wouldn't have been smart for me to all of a sudden write a melodic thrash metal song when the band was definitely more extreme brutal death metal. When I started Dirge Within, I knew a 100% that this is going to be what I really belong in, in every aspect. The album [Force Fed Lies] is really key to what Shaun Glass can do.

Andrew: Talk a little bit about how you rate the response to your debut album 'Force Fed Lies'.
Shaun: It's been great! Not to pat ourselves on the back, and not to be that pompous guy, but I really haven't read a bad review on iTunes, Rocksound and Revolver. All have given the album strong reviews. It's great for a new band. The best thing about the album is, it is really heavy and it's very catchy. The more you listen to it, the more it sticks in your head. There's something in every song. That's what my mission was, when I started this band. I want to be brutal and heavy, but I also want new songs. So I want it to appeal to a wide audience as much as it is metal. That's the main thing when I left Soil. I wanted to make that album that's current and modern in metal but still, with heavy writing. We've already been on the road almost six months behind this album. We're getting ready to go back out again. It's really cool man. I'm blessed that so many new people get into the band on the road and perhaps become new fans.

Andrew: In a recent review of the album, Jeremy's vocals have been compared to that of Dez Fafara from DevilDriver. What do you have to say to that?
Shaun: That's funny because Dez is a really good friend of mine. Jeremy gets compared to Dez, to Corey Taylor [Slipknot] and Tim from As I Lay Dying. I think on the next album, hopefully we'll all start saying, 'Hey he sounds like Jeremy'. I think its cool and us being a new band, the reviewers are looking for some kind of description, so they have to make some kind of reference. So yeah we love reference and being compared to Dez is a great thing. He is a fucking great singer. He is powerful and heavy.

Andrew: Where does this upcoming tour with Fear Factory stand for you guys in terms of its importance?
Shaun: Its awesome because one I'm a huge fan of Fear Factory and two, I really think it's a great tour to be on because our sound goes well with Fear Factory. It's very aggressive, precise and machine-heavy metal. We have that in our sound. We do have a couple more solos than them, even though on their new album Dino has done leads. We've got a little more shredding than Fear Factory but this tour is very important for us to grab new fans. The other thing is, we did 65 shows in North America with Trivium, and those shows were amazing. It helped the band tremendously but I think the difference from that tour to this one, is that Trivium's crowd were young and Fear Factory's fans would be a little older. The band has been around for 20 years. It'll be good for us to play for those fans. They should be having some Pantera and Machine Head fans too, bands that have been in the metal scene for a few years.

Andrew: Being a relatively new band, does it help that all your members have been part of bands before rather than musicians starting out?
Shaun: I think it helps you mentally, to understand and know how or what to do and what not to do. You've got to really love what you are doing with your music and art. That comes with having some past, having a little more credit in the industry. For me I had good times and learned a lot a lot with the band Broken Hope then formed a name for myself with Soil. That was ten years of my life. That's like a marriage! I finally got divorced but in Soil I learnt a lot of dos and don'ts. When I formed Dirge Within, there were certain things that I definitely knew I would never ever do, learning from the past. That comes to things like spending money or what tours to do, etc. It really helped Dirge Within to get a lift and have a little bit more of a plateau coming out with the first album. We still have a lot of ground to cover though. We want to go to Europe. We haven't even been overseas. So that's the main thing next year or even this year. Once we get into Europe the band can start to evolve and get bigger.

Andrew: Other than this tour, what else has Dirge Within planned this year?
Shaun: There are some talks about more tours. There are a few ideas for new songs. We'll be touring the second leg with Fear Factory, which will cover most of May and June, through the mid-west and east coast. First leg is primarily west coast. After we're done with those if we get tour offers we'll stay on tour. If there's nothing that we think is really amazing, we'll just focus on writing a new album. We're a new band and its smart to put out an album sooner than later. The world is moving at such a fast speed that everything is old after six months. In old days, an album could last a year and a half. Now there's so much music coming out that people forget your album after six months. I think it'll be even smarter to put out one new song every three months on the internet, like offering a new Dirge Within track that you can buy on iTunes every 3 months. But we'll see where music goes. Its constantly evolving and changing and right now, we're all witnessing a huge change in this industry. So lets see where the tornado lands! (laughs)