By Andrew Bansal
Based out of Detroit, Michigan, Battlecross is quintessential American heavy metal. They self-released their debut album ‘Push Pull Destroy’ in 2010, and after signing to Metal Blade Records, they put out two impressive albums ‘Pursuit Of Honor’ in 2011 and ‘War Of Will’ earlier this year. But more than anything, they’ve made a name for themselves as a killer live band and for that reason they continue to get on high-profile tours in North America and elsewhere. Following their Mayhem Fest run this summer, they just completed a tour with Death Angel, 3 Inches Of Blood, Revocation and Diamond Plate, and played the last show of the tour at the Constellation Room (inside the Observatory) in Santa Ana. Before the start of the show, I caught up with guitarist Hiran Deraniyagala to talk about all things Battlecross. Read the conversation below.
Hiran, how are you doing today and how has this tour gone for you guys?
Very good, man. Today is the last day so it’s bitter-sweet. Everyone’s kind of ready to go home, but everything has been so awesome on this tour and the shows have been great. We’ve been having a good time with Death Angel, Revocation, 3 Inches Of Blood and Diamond Plate. Everyone has been awesome, so it’s kind of been like a family bonding there. We’re going to miss everybody. But we’ve been having a blast and it’s cool to see the metal fans out in numbers.
Is it hard to motivate yourself for the last show of a tour? You’re obviously thinking about home. It’s like when you have finals in school and you’re left with the last test, right?
Yeah, exactly. You just want to get it over with. And of course, today happens to be the late show of the tour (laughs). For every show on this tour the doors have been opening at 6 or something like that are we’re going on by like 8:45. Tonight we’re going on at 10!
Really? I didn’t even know it was that late.
Yeah, doors open at 7:30 and everything has got pushed back to a late start. So everyone is like, ‘We just want to play and go home!’ (Laughs) But no, at the same time, I’m seeing a line now and I know there’s two shows going on, but is The Casualties going to beat out Death Angel? We’ll see. It should be cool.
Death Angel is one of my favorite bands, and I’ve grown to love them mainly for their live show. They’re such a killer live band, so seeing them on this tour so many times must be inspiring for you guys as well, to kind of try to incorporate that into your show.
Yeah absolutely, those guys are incredible. It’s cool to see a band like them that has been doing it for so long, to still be able to just kick ass. The live show is where it’s at, man. Everyone can do studio tricks to sound good on record, but if you don’t bring it live, I think you kind of lose that audience. You lose that fan base. So we really focus on putting on a good live show and really making sure that people walk away saying, ‘Oh man, that was a fucking awesome experience.’ All the bands on this tour I think have a very good live show and feel, so this is like the premier metal tour in my eyes. Every band is just whooping ass on stage and everyone walks away satisfied from beginning to end.
And I would say all five bands have really good new albums out, so that also helps. I appreciate when bands have good new music, rather than just the nostalgia thing.
Yeah for sure, it’s not like a band is just riding on some old record. Everyone has put out some solid material, specially Death Angel’s new record is just ripping, and it’s awesome, man. Everyone’s got something here to promote and push, and it’s cool to see people out here supporting it. A band like Death Angel who’s been doing this shit for years, to see people still out here and supporting them for this long is awesome, and it’s cool that their fans are giving us new metal bands a chance and embracing the newer stuff too, even though I think a lot of these bands bring in the old-school vibe in general. Each band has got their nostalgia vibe to them but it’s their own way of doing it. It’s awesome. Metal is alive and well!
Exactly man. So, before this I saw you guys on Mayhem Fest this year, at the first show in San Bernardino. I’ll be honest with you. I thought the show was a failure, except for four bands, and you were one of them. You put on a really good show. My opinion aside, it must have been great for you to be on that tour. It’s such great exposure.
Absolutely man. Mayhem Festival was huge for us. It opened the doors for us and just exposed us to a really large audience. As fans, people may not always like us doing those kinds of tours. But for bands, doing tours like that is really important because you never know when there’s that person in the audience that never would have listened to your band, never would have given you a chance but saw you and said, ‘That was fucking awesome.’ During Mayhem we had so many people coming up and saying that it was their first metal concert and our band was their first exposure to a metal show. That’s fucking huge, man, for us to be that kind of band where we can expose people to metal and open doors for them to check out other bands too. Sometimes bands can get hate for touring with certain bands, and you hear things like ‘That’s so not metal!’ But in the end it really helps everybody because yeah they may not fit with those other bands or the whole tour package may not fit together, but it’s a combination of all different forms of heavy music. You’re going to bring in an audience that may not see a thrash metal show, or thrash metal kids that may not go see these other bands, and they might like it. What’s wrong with that? If you’re liking music for music, then that’s fucking cool. People need to stop being so elitist about things and just realize that different bands are going to do their own thing. You either like something or you don’t. It’s just as simple as that.
Well said. This year you also did Metallica’s Orion Festival. What was that experience like?
Oh, it was incredible man. It’s fucking Metallica, one of our biggest influences. It was pretty much like being a little kid getting a chance to meet your idol. James Hetfield was super awesome. We got to meet him, he hung out and fucking talked with us. It was really cool and a really memorable moment because it was like, ‘I’m standing next to James Hetfield right now!’ It was just unreal. As a metal fan, it’s really huge and a big deal for us. Not only that, having it in our hometown in Detroit and having Hetfield introduce the band, it was just a big event. That whole weekend was just awesome. We got to be part of the press conferences that went on. Even if the band broke up today and was done, to say that we did that is just a career highlight to me. I can almost die happy knowing that we did that and it was something really big for us. But I’m not satisfied yet because we need to go overseas and play all over the world. Once I’ve done that, then I can die a happy man (laughs).
Very cool. Since we’re talking about Metallica, what’s your favorite album or song?
My favorite album is ‘… And Justice For All’. It’s tough between Justice and Master Of Puppets, but I’m going to say Justice because I just think that album, minus having no bass on it, has that really edgy, pissed-off aggressive vibe. To me, that album was ahead of its time when it came out. For 1988, it was just like, ‘What the fuck?!’ It was incredible. I love the way the album sounds. ‘Dyers Eve’ is probably one of my favorite songs. ‘Blackened’, just the way that fucking song kicks in, holy shit. You put in that record and you just want to circle hair-whip through the whole fucking thing. And ‘One’ was what really made me a Metallica fan. I had heard the later albums like Load and stuff like that as my first exposure to Metallica, and then I heard ‘One’ on the radio and went, holy shit. That’s fucking badass. That’s fucking Metallica right there, you know.
I have a similar story too. I heard ‘Nothing Else Matters’ as my first ever Metallica song because that was just like pop music at the time. And I was like, ‘Is this Metallica? This is not a heavy metal song!’ But then I went back into the older stuff and felt exactly the same as you.
Yeah, you sometimes get exposure to the newer stuff first. As a kid you’re just soaking in everything like a sponge. It’s all music and you find it cool, but then you hear this older song and you’re like, ‘Damn!’ So yeah, totally man, ‘… And Justice For All’ is my favorite Metallica album.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miZLob1Hi4I
Awesome, man. I’ve noticed in your past shows that on stage you guys indulge in a lot of head-banging and windmill kind of stuff. How do you deal with that? Is that something you’ve done from the start and did you feel in the beginning that it was affecting your guitar playing at all?
That is something which has always been a part of our live show because when you’re playing the kind of music we do, you really feel it. I’m a fan of bands that really put on a good live show. When I see a band just going nuts on stage, it makes the band so much better and more entertaining. So when we play live, we just totally get into it, and yeah sometimes it’s kind of harder to play tight but the more you practice you kind of get used to a way of doing things. May be I can’t do a certain thing as much because when I do that, I get really tired or dizzy (laughs), but I try to go as crazy as I can without fucking up. I like to have a good balance of playing really tight and putting on a good show. The last thing we ever want to be is a band that stands there, just plays their music and doesn’t move. It’s like, ‘Wow, I saw the band play their set really tight but it was the most boring fucking shit I’ve ever seen in my life!’ I don’t know, for me personally, I want to see a band get into it and fucking really feel what they’re doing. It’s important, so I think you’re always going to have that kind of vibe from a Battlecross show.
And finally, what’s your guitar rig at the moment?
Right now I’m playing ESP and I love them. I just got two Horizon models, so I’ve been playing those and they’re fucking awesome. I’m using a Peavey 6505 Plus. Right now we’re sharing cabs on this tour, but the Peavey is normally running through a Mesa cab. Nothing much for a pre-amp or anything. I just have a delay and EQ for my solo boost and that’s about it, man. Everything else is just straight straight-from-the-amp distortion. I like to keep some gain but not too much to where it muddies it up, just enough to keep it clear and tight. So that’s how I like to dial in the tone.
Related: Death Angel/Battlecross San Francisco gig review
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