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November 20th 2009, Los Angeles CA
Andrew: First of all let me say it was a great show in Hollywood a couple of nights back!
Jeff: For sure man. It was a good time!
Andrew: You were supposed to play at the Chain Reaction in Anaheim in July but it got cancelled. So you must have been happy to play in LA again?
Jeff: Yeah for sure. It was just for second time here in LA and the second time was killer too just like the first time. It kinda sucked that we couldn't do the Anaheim show, but we've actually got a couple more shows next weekend itself, one in Anaheim and one in LA again. So we are really happy to hit this area a bunch of times, as much as possible before the year's out.
Andrew: You guys were taken on this tour with Ensiferum as a last minute replacement. So what was your reaction when you found out just a couple of weeks back that you'll be doing this?
Jeff: We were actually all hanging out at a Halloween party, the whole band dressed in costumes. And then we got to hear that this band (Ex Deo) dropped off the tour. We were already drunk at the time and we were well into the night, a Friday night I think it was. So were were like 'Oh we'll talk to you tomorrow' (laughs). So we figured everything out the next day sober and pretty much just put everything aside. I had a vacation planned so I had to put that aside as well which kinda sucked but you know what, this is more important and the shows have been pretty good specially the last two shows. The one in San Francisco was great. It has been actually worth going out. The bands are awesome, except that Hypocrisy couldn't make it but Blackguard are really cool and Ensiferum are great guys.
Andrew: That's an amazing story. How was your tour with Testament earlier this year?
Jeff: The last shows that we played with them in LA and San Francisco were like the highlight of the tour and it was just so utterly amazing. Those guys were so nice. Anything we wanted, anything we needed, they were there to help us. You don't really run into that too often where a headliner bends over backwards for the support band. These guys really went the extra mile. I mean, when they had extra food from their early lunch catering they would just toss it to us and Chuck Billy's wife was taking care of us like our mom. She even wanted to clean the bus at times. It was really awesome. They bought us a beer every once in a while and it was just so great. They were the nicest guys in the world. It was amazing to tour with such veterans and for them to be so awesome as well.
Andrew: You happy with how the debut album 'Onslaught' is going for you guys?
Jeff: Yeah its getting really good reviews and I am not hearing anything bad about it, which is great. Its actually really old to us because it was recorded in 07 but came out in 09 for the rest of the world. So the material is old to us and we are anxious to get back in the studio. We're happy that we released it and we're happy we've been touring out the way we've been and can't wait to get back in the studio.
Andrew: Your album was recorded in 2007 but it came out this year. Was it frustrating to wait for two years to get it released?
Jeff: Absolutely. It was a long process after we pressed the copy ourselves and to get it signed and into the stores. During the first six months after we released the album there was literally nothing, there was no interest and it was like it didn't exist. That really sucked for us. Finally something started to happen and labels started taking interest, they wanted to re-mix it and process it themselves. That took a while. So it was a lot of waiting, a lot of frustration but we're really happy how everything turned out.
Andrew: You said you want to go back to the studio soon. So when exactly will you be writing new material?
Jeff: We've already been writing new material. We have some three or four songs ready to go and three or four other songs just with ideas being set on the table right now. It all depends on the touring cycle that we get for this album. If we can keep banging out tours like this, get at least a couple hundred people each night, make enough money and keep getting by we're going to tour as much as we can. I would definitely say that the most we'll tour on it will be through next summer. I know for a fact that if we do get some big summer festivals in Europe we'll go to the studio after summer. But if we don't get that thing we'll probably take the summer off, write and then go back to the studio. It will be sometime next year for sure.
Andrew: What are your thoughts on doing a small headlining tour?
Jeff: No, not for headlining. I mean, we are definitely not popular enough to be headlining. I mean we could headline bars around the country but its not really what we want to do, you know. We don't really prefer to headline anyway. We let the bigger bands bring the kids to the doors and let them do our work. We're a great opening band and are just going to keep working at it to eventually be a headliner. But you know, it takes time and we don't want to do it until the time is right and when everything is right for us to put on a show as headliner.
Andrew: You toured with Testament first and now Ensiferum. Would you agree that it's a good thing for bands like yours to expose yourself to different sets of fans?
Jeff: Its been a little rough on this tour, specially since we got on it last minute so a lot of people don't even know that we are on the tour which is kinda hurting us but its also giving us a challenge. A lot of people who are coming to this tour are not really huge fans of what we are doing to begin with. So to win them over every night is really tough. You feel a sense of accomplishment when you can do that and completely knock the crowd on its ass when they had no idea what's coming.
Andrew: Lazarus are regarded by many as one of the best young thrash bands. Is it huge pressure for you guys to keep that up?
Jeff: Absolutely not. We are not big on labelling bands like thrash, groove or black. We're not big on genreing it. Its all metal, any band can tour with any given band in metal. So I think that's the way it should stay as far as us being the leaders of the thrash revolution or whatever. That's cool if you want to label us that, but we want to be leaders of the metal revolution. We just want to be the biggest metal band in the world, not have to worry about labels and we're going to do everything it takes to get to that point, and I think it doesn't intimidate us at all because this is the challenge that we all undertook when we started. We had the same goal in mind of going straight to the top no matter what it takes. That's exactly what we're going to do and really excited about what the future holds for us.
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