By Andrew Bansal
San Diego-based Carnifex have been spreading their brand of extreme metal since 2005, and after a brief hiatus, they’re ready to release their fifth studio album ‘Die Without Hope’ on March 3rd in North America and March 7th in Europe, their debut on Nuclear Blast Records. The album presents a new creative incarnation of the band and sees them take a more exploratory direction. A couple of weeks ago, vocalist Scott Lewis spoke to Metal Assault about the new album, touring, the ‘deathcore’ label, and other things. Read the conversation below, check out a new track and catch them on their ongoing US headline tour.
Scott, it’s good to have you on Metal Assault. It’s been a while since we’ve talked. First of all, the reason why this interview was rescheduled from last week was because your new album leaked and you had to go into a big meeting with your management for that. How do you feel about the fact that the album has already leaked, a month before release?
Yeah, it kind of sucks to be honest, specially the way it happened with it being through Spotify and everything. We took a lot of precautions to try to protect it, and eventually I think everyone acknowledged that if it leaked close to the release date it’s not a big issue and it would be under extenuating circumstances. So it was a little unfortunate that it happened so far in advance of the release because we want to hold it back till closer to the date. But the feedback is positive, so hopefully when the album does come out people will acknowledge that it’s a good record and worth the 10 bucks.
It’s your fifth studio album, and it’s been a long time since you put out the last one. What has the band gone through in these last two or three years?
Well, since 2011 we only did a small amount of touring and then we took a hiatus in the summer of 2012. We made a decision to take a break, so pretty much everyone just kind of went their own separate ways for a while, but thankfully, Shawn was still writing music the whole time and generating material. But as far as what we were going to do, it was still pretty uncertain whether we were actually going to record an album, play shows or do anything. Then the time came to look for some other labels and we realized that we had the opportunity to sign with another label. We were getting a lot of interest and the fans were really supportive, so we made a decision to put out another album.
Right, that’s awesome. I was going to ask you about the Nuclear Blast signing. I’m stoked for you guys that you signed with them because they’re truly a promotion machine and I’m sure you’re going to benefit from that. But how did that happen?
When we started looking for labels, our management obviously deal with all the labels so they pretty much just reached out to all their contact and let everyone know that we were available and that if they were interested in us they should let us know. We had about six different labels interested and we took meetings with a lot of them. At the end of the day, Nuclear Blast really had what we wanted. We’re a band that plays all over the world and we needed a label that can meet that demand and put an album and some promotion to the places that we play outside of the United States and Canada. A lot of US-based labels, for whatever reason, they don’t really have any emphasis on being international, which I guess can work for a label but if you’re a band and you’re not international, you’re really missing out on quite a bit. So we needed to make sure we had a label that really has a global reach. Nuclear Blast has that head and shoulders beyond pretty much any other label. Besides that, they offered us a really, really great deal. So when you put all those things together, it was an easy choice.
So, in terms of the music on this album itself, I was listening to it and I feel that you’ve explored more of a darker, more symphonic sound. Do you think that’s the main difference between this and the previous albums?
Yeah, that’s certainly something that’s on this album that wasn’t as prominent with the previous records. I don’t think it was necessarily the goal to just do more of this, but more of a by-product of us having more time to write. When you’re writing a song, you write all the basic guitars, drums and bass first and then you go in and add these layers of atmosphere. With the previous albums we were always pressured into a schedule that didn’t really allow us much breathing room to write. We were splitting time between touring and writing, and for a band like us who tours in a van, do all of our own driving, load our own gear and don’t have any crew, when you hold those responsibilities on the road and somehow you’re supposed to find time to be creative and write songs, it can make things really difficult. So for this album, first of all we weren’t pressured into a schedule, and combine that with the fact that we didn’t have to split our attention with the responsibilities of touring, I think all the things you see like the better arrangement, the stronger structuring and those extra layers, those are all the by-products of just having more time to work on the songs.
That’s interesting, man. Besides the music I’m really digging the cover artwork as well. Who did that and what was the band’s input in it?
The cover artwork was done by an artist named Godmachine out of the UK. He’s done a number of different shirts and sweatshirts for us over the years and fans have always really liked his artwork. The stuff he did for us always sold well. So we wanted to put his artwork on the cover to kind of keep that continuity of what fans like seeing on Carnifex stuff. So we reached out to him to have him do the cover and he was really excited about it. We talked about concepts and I gave him the title of the album, and he came back with a really exciting cover of it. It captures the tone of the album but it’s also eye-catching at the same time. So, hopefully it gets people’s attention.
So, the album is coming out in early March and you do have some touring coming up to coincide with the release, starting with the States?
Yeah, we’re doing a full five-week headlining tour starting February 21st that runs till March 29th, and then we’re doing the New England Metal & Hardcore Fest on April 18th. We have a few dates surrounding that gig, and then we have another full US and Canadian tour following that in May-June, after which we’ll be going over and playing With Full Force festival in Germany and Sonisphere in the UK in July. So that’s where we’re at right now, we’re booked up to July and we’re going to be pretty busy for the remainder of the year.
That’s great to hear. In past interviews, you’ve always been asked about your thoughts on the ‘deathcore’ label. You’ve kind of embraced it and never tried to shy away from it. As a genre, where do you think it’s going? Do you think it’s eventually just going to morph into other things and other musical elements will creep into it?
Yeah, we’re just indifferent to the whole deathcore tag. It’s never something we think about while writing a song. We don’t write a riff and go, “Is this a deathcore riff? We better keep it!” And the opposite stands true as well. If it isn’t a deathcore riff we don’t throw it out. We just write things that we enjoy hearing, things that we think sound good to us. And then if someone deems it worth their time to categorize it into a sub-genre, that’s fine. I don’t have a problem with that. It’s just not something we concern ourselves with. I’m just indifferent to it. Some people want to say that we’re deathcore while some fans seriously defend that we’re not deathcore. I think if you look at the genre and bands that are kind of surrounded by that banner, there’s hardly anybody left. There’s Whitechapel, there’s us and Suicide Silence is coming back. That’s it! Just three. If you look at metalcore, it was extremely popular in 2003-04, and if you look at bands that are still doing metalcore now, it’s just a really small amount. Killswitch Engage and Trivium, and Lamb Of God to some degree but they’ve kind of moved past it. I think the same is true with bands that were in the deathcore wave in 2005-06. If you look at the genre now, it’s really just three bands. So I think you’re right in that the genre has definitely become something else. I wouldn’t say us, Whitechapel or Suicide Silence are strictly inside that genre anymore. All bands have gone their own unique ways that definitely reaches beyond what the genre started at.
Yeah exactly, that’s what I meant and I’m glad you agree. The other thing I wanted to ask you about is, I’ve seen a lot of good bands coming out of San Diego. Have you kept track of the local scene down there at all?
You know, I have to honest, I have not really been in touch with the San Diego scene. When you tour all the time and you play other cities more than you play your own city, you’re not home to go to local shows, really. To me, in a kind of unfortunate way, for our band San Diego is just a city. It’s just like anywhere else. We play shows on the other side of the world that are equally good or better than the ones here. So it’s kind of hard to say exactly what the scene is. I know we have a lot of fans here and they’ve always been supportive for us, but beyond that I don’t really have much experience of it these days.
That’s understandable. I have just one question for you. I’ve seen that you’ve been quite active on Twitter. It’s something that has come in recently as an aspect of being in a band. It brings everybody to the same level through the interaction between fans and the band, which was not as easy before. Do you enjoy that?
Yeah, for sure. And that’s the thing, specially at a time like right now when the record is about to come out and we’re trying to make sure that as many people are aware of it as possible. I think there’s a difference between an ad and interacting with your fanbase. An ad is something you ignore or forget about after you see it, whereas if you interact with fans you have a better chance of building a connection and more of an interest in the band. So that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re just trying to let the fans know that we are listening to them and we are available to talk to them, just to make sure everybody knows about the album.
Visit Carnifex on the web:
facebook.com/CarnifexMetal
twitter.com/Carnifex
youtube.com/OfficialCarnifex
instagram.com/Carnifex
Remaining US tour dates:
02/26/14 Czar Bar – Kansas City, MO
02/27/14 Outland Ballroom – Springfield, MO
02/28/14 Chameleon Room – Oklahoma City, OK
03/01/14 Tomcats West – Fort Worth, TX
03/02/14 Vino’s – Little Rock, AR
03/05/14 Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
03/07/14 Empire – Springfield, VA
03/09/14 Revolution – Amityville, NY
03/11/14 The Waiting Room – Buffalo, NY
03/12/14 Agora Theatre – Cleveland, OH
03/13/14 Altar Bar – Pittsburgh, PA
03/15/14 Fubar – St. Louis, MO
03/16/14 Skyway Theatre, Studio B – Minneapolis, MN
03/19/14 Mesa Theatre – Grand Junction, CO
03/21/14 Jub Jubs Showroom – Reno, NV
03/22/14 Hawthorne Theatre – Portland, OR
03/23/14 Studio Seven – Seattle, WA
03/24/14 The Hop – Spokane, WA
03/26/14 Assembly – Sacramento, CA
03/27/14 The Whisky – West Hollywood, CA
03/28/14 Industry Theatre – Lancaster, CA
03/29/14 Chain Reaction – Anaheim, CA