Interview With Animals As Leaders Guitarist Javier Reyes

By Andrew Bansal

Instrumental progressive metal band Animals As Leaders just concluded a North American headline tour to coincide with the release of their third full-length studio album ‘The Joy Of Motion’, which came out on March 24th via Sumerian Records, an album that musically moves the band forward from the previous release ‘Weightless’ but at the same time revisits themes and vibes that fans of the debut album might enjoy. Animals As Leaders played the last show of their month-long headline tour at the Roxy in West Hollywood on Sunday March 30th, and a few hours before they took the stage to deliver a typically excellent performance, I sat down with guitarist Javier Reyes for a chat. Enjoy the conversation below.

Javier, last time I talked to you, you were on the Summer Slaughter tour and now you’re about to bring an end to your own headline tour with a show at the Roxy tonight. How’s everything gone for you guys on this one?

It’s been good, man! It’s gone surprisingly well. We didn’t really know because it’s been three years since we’ve done any headlining shows, so it’s been hard to figure out from every support tour we did as to how many of the people that came to those shows were our fans. But the attendance on this one has been great. We’re stoked! We’re ready to go and do another one as well.

You’re playing at the Roxy tonight. What’s your experience been at this venue and what do you think of it in terms of its layout and sound?

It sounds great. The layout of the stage is a little funny. It’s kind of a corner stage. Luckily, we manage to make it work. As long as it sounds good, I think we’ll make do with what we have.

But do you encounter bad-sounding venues on tour, sometimes?

Absolutely. We come across venues with poorly kept PA system or a room that’s just really echo-y and not designed for a concert venue. So yeah, all the time, actually.

On this tour, aside from playing your songs what are you doing in terms of the stage production?

Yeah, absolutely. We’ve always had some type of visuals that go along with the songs. This time around we’ve gone from having actual projection screens to LED curtains. So it’s essentially the same visuals that we’ve done and some additional material considering that we have new music, but the LED curtains are pretty much the biggest difference, used with whatever else the venue has as well.

Talking of your new album which just came out to coincide with this headline tour, upon listening to it I feel that in a way it’s a step forward from ‘Weightless’ but it also has some elements of the first album. Do you agree with that and do you think it captures what the band has musically stood for so far?

Yeah, in some sense we went backwards and worked with Misha of Periphery for the third album but we also worked with Diego of Volumes, with Nolly from Periphery and we worked with Navene again. And we did some stuff on our own. So, we’ve had the addition of everybody that’s ever been involved in Animals As Leaders altogether. The music stems from the members of the band, but working with these other individuals definitely added to the Animals As Leaders sound. The first album was just Misha and Tosin, the second one was Navene, myself and Tosin, and for the third one we have Matt Garstka on drums, Nolly on production, Diego as well. So it’s like a whole new experience but at the same time just kind of captivating what we’ve always wanted to do. And we’ve all gotten better at what we do. It’s been five years already since the release of the first Animals As Leaders album, and I’m sure Misha’s mind then was not where it is now. So everybody has grown into where we’re at now.

That’s what I was about to say. I’m sure you’ve naturally progressed to a point where you’re just better than what you were in terms of songwriting.

Yeah, and obviously our success has definitely gone a little further than what we were expecting. We didn’t know what to expect when we first started, so at this point it’s like there’s more drive, there’s more inspiration and the creativity just keeps flowing.

You said this is your first North American headline tour in almost three years. So you’ve kind of kept control of your touring in that sense. You don’t go as crazy as a lot of the other metal bands.

We haven’t headlined not because we didn’t want to, but we’ve just been getting really good support tour offers. Some of them are in the metal scene and some are outside of it, but when we see those opportunities we view them as a good opportunity that a lot of metal bands don’t get, so we have to take those. It’s been happening over some time and we just haven’t been able to headline. So that’s why it was a little tricky figuring out what rooms to play in and what cities to go to on this tour, because we didn’t really know.

Touring itself must also inspire you to write new music, just for yourself more than anything else. You need new songs to play, otherwise you’ll be bored playing the same songs.

Yeah, absolutely. And then there’s a level of going out and playing in front of people, seeing hundreds and thousands of people actually responding to what you write. There’s a level of self-reward, and you gain confidence when people do like what you write and you thought should be good music. So that’s a driving force. Ultimately, writing new music is always going to be a thing and I’d probably do that even if I wasn’t in a band. It’s just something that has to be done, but to be rewarded and to be able to travel and do it for a living, that’s pretty inspiring.

This tour package is very diverse, with After The Burial, Navene K doing this own thing, plus CHON. Do you see Animals As Leaders going even more diverse in the future with your own headline tours as well as the bands you open for?

As far as the bands we’d open for, it’s hard to say and there’s tons of bands we’d love to pay for and there’s many with whom I don’t think we’d necessarily fit. As far as our own headliners, I think there’s definitely going to be tours that’d be awesome for fans, and then there’s also the idea of us trying to create our own sort of mini-scene, if you will, in the instrumental side. There are artists that we want to take out, may be going out with somebody like Venetian Snares, or something completely off the wall. It would obviously be really cool but I don’t know how it would work.

I think the kind of fans that you get your music and the music similar to yours, they might appreciate those bands. These people are more open-minded and forward-thinking.

Yeah, I think so. We’ve definitely done a good job of reaching out to fans that have an eclectic taste in music. So you’ll have people that will get the parallels of why we brought something so different, but there’s always going to be the guys who’d go, “Fuck that!” But may be their kids will grow up to be like us (laughs).

So finally, what lies ahead for the band after this tour?

We’re working on a secondary headliner, relatively soon, probably mid-May to late June. We’ll try to announce something in the next couple of weeks. We’re playing Bonnaroo on the Friday. We’re also doing the Skate And Surf festival in New Jersey, and just that as of now. Hopefully we’ll do some stuff over the summer, may be go out to Europe and overseas as well.

Related: Gig Review – Animals As Leaders Headline The Roxy

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