By Andrew Bansal
Lazer/Wulf, an experimental metal trio based out of Atlanta/Athens, Georgia, are currently out on a daring mission, touring with Orange Goblin and Holy Grail as an opening act on an extensive run of dates. But judging by their stellar performance at the Satellite in Los Angeles last Saturday October 5th and the kind of response they got from the crowd, they are handling the challenge extremely well and their music seems to translate across successfully to fans of Orange Goblin and Holy Grail. Highly impressed by their set, I contacted the band the day after the show and asked for an interview. On Monday October 7th, I got on the phone with guitarist Bryan Aiken and talked all things Lazer/Wulf. Check out our conversation below, along with a taste of the band’s music.
Bryan, it’s good to have you on Metal Assault. I saw you guys the other night at the Satellite with Orange Goblin and Holy Grail, and you’re on a full tour with those guys right now. How’s it been going for you?
It’s going great! This is our second national tour ever, so we’re still trying to plant some roots and make some friends. Thank you so much for coming out early, by the way.
I’m glad I did! You’re so different from the other two bands. In that sense, how is this tour working out for you? Are you getting appreciation from at least some of the people who’re coming out early?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I think people appreciate hearing different things on a touring lineup. If it all sounds the same I think they would get bored. A lot of the times people come up to the merch booth and tell us that they were surprised by the set, and they look really happy when they say that. So, I think it’s the right move for us. If we were on a tour with a bunch of prog bands or something, it would just be too many notes and we would kind of get washed away. Because all three bands on this tour are so different, each new sound feels more fresh to the audience, I think. So I it’s a good thing for us.
Your band’s name initally throws people off too. To be honest, it threw me off too and having never heard your music before, I was imagining it would be more of crossover thrash or something. I think at least some people have the same reaction when they read your name on the flyer and then actually see you.
Right! We wanted to pick a name that doesn’t necessarily make it obvious what kind of music we sound like, you know. But if we had something overly metal I think people might have written us off as being a certain thing, just by the name alone. So it makes sense to have an ambiguous name like Lazer/Wulf so that people will keep the intrigue up without thinking what we are before hearing us.
Exactly, man. What did you feel about the Satellite? Did you enjoy playing there?
Oh yeah. It was the best show of the tour so far. I can’t imagine any other date surpassing that (laughs), but I’m open to surprises.
You’ve been a band for around four years now and you’ve put out two EPs. Right now you’re working on a full length, right?
Yes, we just finished recording that and we’re still in the mixing and mastering process. We should be able to release it hopefully next Spring. The idea right now is to have music that we’re really proud of ready to go, so that we we can do some tours and build a fan base, and get people interested. Then we’ll know what the right time is to release it. Right now we’re just touring in support of the two EPs which we’re also really proud of, and we’re trying to build some awareness so that we can release our full-length.
Would you be open to more such tours with different-sounding bands?
Oh yeah, absolutely! That’s what it’s about. The audience is so open to surprises and are ready for new kind of music by the time the next band comes on. So yeah, I would like to try it all. We’re still a young band and we haven’t done many tours at this point. We haven’t tried touring with bands that sound more like us, but we’ll do that too at some point, I’m sure (laughs).
One interesting thing I noticed in your set was that the drumkit was right up to the edge of the stage, which I guess was partly because the headline band’s drumkit was already in place. But I think it worked out great. All three of you were in a single line and it kind of created a wall of sound in some ways.
Yeah, we always do that. Even if there is nothing else on the stage we always put the drums up front. We want everyone to have an equal say in the band as far as the performance. I don’t want anything to be covering the drums, or me staying in front of the drums and you not getting to pay attention to the drums. It’s only three of us, and I feel that we all need to have an equal presence. So when we’re writing the liner notes for our CD, it’s lead guitar, lead bass and lead drums. Everyone’s doing the leads, and that’s how we write our songs. We make sure everyone is doing something interesting at all times. So we always put the drumkit up front, even if we’re on a giant stage. All three of us are always really close together up front on the stage so that we can communicate with each other without looking at each other. Having the drums up front allows you to see what our drummer [Brad Rice] is doing!
While writing, is it a jam-oriented setting or do you put together each member’s individual parts?
Since it’s instrumental music, the way it usually works is I would write out a narrative that I want for a song and then I would basically write the score for it. I’ll have an idea visually of what I’d want the song to do, and then I’d write a soundtrack to that story. Then I bring it to the guys and we make it into something more coherent. But yeah, it all starts off with me writing a piece and the other two guys lending their contribution to it.
So, in the future would you be willing to put a backdrop projection screen in the live show to present that visual idea along with the music?
Oh yeah, that’s the plan. We are a new band so we don’t have a lot of money to throw around in our shows at this point, but that’s absolutely what we want to do.
I’m surprised that you guys are still unsigned. Are you looking for a label right now?
We’re definitely looking. As it stands right now, we don’t have a lot of material behind us so we’re still trying to make a case for ourselves. Instrumental music can be engaging even without a frontman per se. We can communicate with a crowd and build relationships, and say something even if we’re not talking. It’s a concept that we’re still trying to prove, but once we prove that and build an audience, the labels will be more interested. That’s the plan right now, to do it ourselves as much as we can, to prove the concept and then hopefully once people catch on or start to like it, fingers crossed, we can turn that into a more fruitful relationship with a label. That’s the goal.
You come from Athens/Atlanta, Georgia. According to my knowledge, and I might be wrong, that area is not really known for this kind of music. I’ve mostly seen stoner rock bands coming out of there. Is that also a reason why you were able to stand out in that scene?
Well, we live in Atlanta now and about an hour away is Athens. In that city there’s a lot more math rock, a lot of instrumental stuff, basically just a lot of weird bands. That’s where we started. The bassist and I started this band over there and we were becoming friends with many instrumental, post rock, math rock bands. We like metal a lot, but we were hanging out with the math rock guys, and so that’s how we kind of formed. It’s the Athens Georgia sound run through the Atlanta filter, which is all about big riffs and really heavy, down-tuned stuff. So basically we’re kind of a merger of the two sounds.
That actually brings me nicely to my next question. Fans of the old-school metal sound in general don’t like prog rock/metal. Why do you think that’s the case?
It’s hard for me to say because that hasn’t been our experience so far judging by the response on this tour. Orange Goblin is just about as old-school blues-based rock n’ roll as it gets. It’s very pure. So, people coming to their show I would think would be classified as purists. But everyone has been so great to us. The response has been huge, and like I said, people have been really surprised by how engaging they find the music to be, even though they might not usually like this sort of music. Being instrumental definitely helps. We don’t have the typical prog metal vocals. We’re able to mix alienating prog music with really accessible grooves in what I hope is an exciting live show that translates well. I hope that because we care so much and we love what we do so much that it will translate, no matter what audience we’re playing for.
You’re right, the instrumental aspect of your band is the big reason for your success on this tour.
Right, yeah! When we started out doing shows in Athens, Georgia, which is an indie-rock town, there’s not a lot of metal bands over there. So Lazer/Wulf started out playing with indie rock bands, with pop bands, with math rock bands that don’t necessarily sound like us. What we were finding was that by staying instrumental, being honest with our songwriting and really caring for what we’re doing, we could play in front of any audience and at least a fraction of people will get it, whether it be a pop concert or a death metal concert. I don’t think there has been an audience that has not gotten it. So being instrumental definitely helps with that.
Finally, what else do you have coming up after this tour?
We’ve got a couple of tours that we’re talking about but nothing is ready to be announced yet as we’re still in talks. But this tour will go into the middle of November. We have our full-length finished and ready to be released, we’re just looking for a label. We’re looking to get attention from journalists and labels after doing this tour, to be able to put our record out so people can hear it. Our main goal at this point is to have as many people hear our music as we possibly can, so that we can do this for a career.
Related – Gig Review: Orange Goblin, Holy Grail & Lazer/Wulf Perform At The Satellite
Visit Lazer/Wulf on the web at:
lazerwulf.com
facebook.com/lazerwulves
twitter.com/lazerwulves
instagram.com/lazerwulves
youtube.com/lazerwulfofficial
Remaining tour dates:
10/09/2013 Oakland Opera House – Oakland, CA
10/10/2013 Oak Street Speakeasy – Eugene, OR
10/11/2013 Fall Into Darkness Festival – Portland, OR
10/12/2013 The Highline – Seattle, WA
10/13/2013 Rickshaw Theater – Vancouver, BC
10/15/2013 The Palomino – Calgary, AB
10/17/2013 The Pawn Shop – Edmonton, AB
10/18/2013 Amigos – Saskatoon, SK
10/19/2013 Windsor Hotel – Winnipeg, MB
10/20/2013 The Aquarium – Fargo, ND
10/21/2013 Triple Rock – Minneapolis, MN
10/22/2013 Reggie’s – Chicago, IL
10/23/2013 Pyramid Scheme – Grand Rapids, MI
10/24/2013 Now That’s Class – Cleveland, OH
10/25/2013 Rockstar Arena – Dayton, OH
10/26/2013 Rex Theater – Pittsburgh, PA
10/27/2013 London Music Hall – London, ON
10/28/2013 The Opera House – Toronto, ON
10/29/2013 Mavericks – Ottawa, ON
10/30/2013 Foufounes Electriques – Montrea, QC
11/01/2013 Empire – Springfield, VA
11/02/2013 Saint Vitus – Brooklyn, NY
11/03/2013 The Note – West Chester, PA
11/05/2013 Strange Matter – Richmond, VA
11/06/2013 Tremont Music Hall – Charlotte, NC
11/07/2013 Broadway’s – Asheville, NC
11/08/2013 The Earl – Atlanta, GA
11/09/2013 Exit/In – Nashville, TN