By Andrew Bansal
Los Angeles’ very own thrash flag bearers Warbringer have been on a relentless, endless cycle of album releases and tours ever since they started out nine years ago. They put out their fourth studio album ‘IV: Empires Collapse’ via Century Media Records last month, a dynamic effort that sees them explore both the darker and lighter sides of thrash. Currently, they are on the massive Kreator-Overkill ‘Legends Of Thrash’ tour as the opening act, and this tour made a stop at the Grove of Anaheim on November 15th. Before the show, I spoke to vocalist John Kevill about all things Warbringer. Check out the conversation below.
John, it’s good to see you, as always. How has it been for you on this tour, playing with these two thrash giants Overkill and Kreator?
It’s been a good one, man! Lot of good shows, good times and not much to complain about. It’s a great tour to be on.
I know you’ve toured with Kreator before. Have you toured with Overkill?
Yes we have, twice!
Right, I forgot that you used to be on every tour.
We literally used to be on two to three tours at the same time. We had doppelgangers of ourselves going to play shows so that we could get some shows in.
I’m sure you did! So, this is an all-out thrash tour, which is what separates it from the other tours you’ve done in the past. You’ve done all sorts of package tours, but this is pretty much the ideal tour for you, isn’t it?
I think it’s pretty up there. It’s ideals for fans of these kinds of bands I think, because you’re going to get just intense high-speed riffage the whole night. We’ve been on very heavily thrashy packages before, but I don’t think we’ve ever done a tour where it was just like start to finish pure awesome thrash metal like this one is. It’s really good for the fans also because it’s a really high-quality package aside from being of the same style of music.
Before that, I think the last time you played a Southern California show was the ‘Battle Of San Bernardino’ with Iron Maiden. I ended up missing your set because they took forever to let us in, but what was that like for you playing that show, even though you didn’t share the exact same stage as Maiden?
Oh, that was cool, of course. We got to play early enough so we could get hammered after our set and watch Iron Maiden from the front row. I’ve seen Iron Maiden twice before but both times it was from way in the back, so it was nice to see them from the front this time. As for our actual set, the reason so many people had problems seeing us is because the entire area we were playing in was completely packed, filled up, and they couldn’t put any more people there. So that’s why they actually stopped the line for a while and all these people were pissed off, including some of our friends and family who couldn’t get in (laughs). But it’s literally because they ran out of space to put people in. As a band, that’s a good problem to have, right? (laughs)
Yeah, it was not the best organized show in terms of the second stage. It was set up in the plaza next to the men’s room!
Right, it was still a huge area but I figure they could have just put us and Overkill on the main stage and they wouldn’t have lost anything.
Exactly man. So, talking of your new album ‘IV: Empires Collapse’, it came out recently and I’ve been digging it a lot. It’s a very dynamic album, and probably your darkest one too. There’s a lot of black thrash going on. Would you agree with that?
Yeah, I think what we tried to do with this was, every band that’s playing an old-school style of music, like we’re playing thrash, the inevitable criticism you’re going to run into is, ‘Oh, you’re just doing something that’s already been done before.’ And we haven’t felt like that. May be for our first album you could say that. But our second and third album, you can’t really say that. I think there’s a unique style on those. For this new album we really wanted to bring all the unique aspects of our music that makes it a Warbringer album and not just any thrash metal record. We really wanted to bring that to the forefront, so we took all the different little sub-directions we’ve had. We’ve had some black thrash stuff before on the first record, but we upped the level of that a bit. The goal was to have that kind of progression but still maintain the intensity that the band is known for. That’s the whole point of being a band called Warbringer. It’s supposed to be intense. So we wanted to try and strike a balance between those two things, and I’m pretty happy with how it came out.
And aside from combining whatever you had done before, there’s also some new ground you’ve broken, with songs like ‘Iron City’ which is all about drinking beer. You never wrote songs like that before. You were all about serious, death-related subjects in the past. This was something new for you.
Yeah, there’s that (laughs). Instrumentally, that song is pretty old-school thrash actually. I always write lyrics to match the song, and most of our music is dark but that one I felt is tough-sounding, it’s energetic but it’s not evil. So I just wanted to have lyrics that matched it, and we didn’t call it ‘Beer Pizza Shark’ or anything. We tried to do it in the most rock n’ roll way possible, and it is pretty much about what we actually do. We show up, turn it loud, we drink really shitty beer most of the time, and we just are shitty dudes rolling around in a van. So that’s the most autobiographical song of what the band actually does!
I need to write out all the lyrics then! Most of it is decipherable anyway.
I try to make the lyrics in general pretty decipherable. Even as a screaming vocalist, I really put a lot of emphasis on enunciation. But yeah, ‘Iron City’ and ‘One Dimension’ are more like the fun songs on the record. They’re still both pretty heavy but they’re more fun and catchy, and then we have some really dark stuff on there like ‘Towers Of The Serpent” Hunter-Seeker’ and stuff like that. So it’s a balance and it’s nice to have that because you have a fun song and a couple of songs later it’s something really dark, and it won’t be par for the course. As a listener you’d be surprised and you’d feel like the album is doing something different. I like that.
The unique thing about this tour is the coming together of Teutonic and American thrash. I need to put you on the spot and ask you, which type of thrash has influenced you more?
Tough to say because people always make a dividing line between German and American thrash. By the way, Teutonic is a good word, like as in ‘Teutonic Nights’. Watch out for those frozen lakes in Russia. I don’t know if anyone gets that reference (laughs). But I’d say that US thrash is typically seen as more moshy and rhythmic stomping stuff whereas Teutonic thrash is more often seen as a barrage of speed-picking and non-stop snare action, just with hard downbeats. But that’s not entirely true because then there’s American thrash like Slayer, for example (laughs). Stylistically it sounds more in common with the German bands than a lot of American ones. So I wouldn’t really divide it that way but I would say there’s more of a rock n’ roll and old heavy metal based thrash and then there’s the thrash metal that points towards death metal. And of the two, I’m more into the extreme side of thrash and I think you can hear that in our music. About half of thrash metal has a melodic vocal. Like, Bobby Blitz is a rock singer as well as a thrash singer. I’d say our band is closer to the more extreme side, but I’m a fan of both groups and both styles of music.
You’re obviously part of a group of bands that are considered the younger thrash bands, the ‘revival’ bands or whatever. Do you see that as something positive which you can feed off of when you release new music and play shows, or is it a negative thing where you’re forced to compete against all those bands?
There are positive and negative aspects to it. The negative is, people don’t listen to the record just because we’re a so-called revival band, assuming that they’re not going to hear anything new. I’ve seen so many reviews that just go like, ‘Oh this, Testament, Exodus, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax!’ And all I’d say to such reviewers is, you know what, we weren’t thinking any of those things when we wrote the songs, you asshole. How the fuck do you know? It doesn’t sound like that. Get your comparisons right (laughs). So there’s a lot of that, but it’s also good to be compared to bands I actually enjoy. Classic thrash metal is a really good style of music and every band that I just rattled off in my stupid list, those are all good bands. Find me modern bands that make riffs that slam that hard. There aren’t many (laughs). Modern metal is not as sweet as 80s metal, that’s why I play something that sounds more like the 80s. That’s how I feel. So, there are positive and negative aspects but I think thrash metal is a style of music that’s really worth playing, so I’m happy to be seen as a thrash metal band. I don’t think we went into this with any idea of ‘bringing it back’ or anything like that. People always say, ‘y’all are bringing it back!’ We just try to write cool songs and play the music we like, that’s it.
Coming to your band, what’s going on with the lineup right now?
Our lineup for this tour is the same as Warbringer ‘IV: Empires Collapse’ lineup, except we have original guitar player Adam Carroll on guitar instead of Jeff Petts. So that’s the lineup right now and it’s a good one.
So, what’s next for your band after this tour?
We have another tour, of course. Are you really surprised to hear that? (laughs). We’re going to Europe with Iced Earth. That’s the next thing, but we still have a few shows left on this tour.
Related: Kreator/Overkill/Warbringer Anaheim gig review
Visit Warbringer on the web:
facebook.com/Warbringermusic
twitter.com/Warbringerband
youtube.com/WarbringerOfficial
Remaining tour dates:
11/22/13 Empire – W. Springfield, VA
11/23/13 Stage 48 – New York City, NY
11/24/13 Stage 48 – New York City, NY