Interview With Broken Hope Bassist Shaun Glass

By Andrew Bansal

Chicago death metal veterans Broken Hope reunited in 2012 following a decade in the wilderness, signed to Century Media Records and released their sixth studio album ‘Omen Of Disease’ in 2013, the first since the 1999 effort ‘Grotesque Blessings’. Headed by guitarist/principal songwriter Jeremy Wagner, the rejuvenated Broken Hope also comprises Damian Leski (Goregasm) on vocals, Chuck Wepfer on guitar, Shaun Glass on bass and Mike Miczek on drums. They just completed ‘The Best In Brutality’ North American co-headline tour with fellow Chicago extreme metal band Oceano, and during this tour they visited the Whisky-A-Go-Go in West Hollywood. A few hours before they took the stage and treated the audience with a solid dose of unadulterated death metal, I sat down with Shaun Glass for a candid conversation. Read it below.

Shaun, it’s good to talk to you, man. We’re here in West Hollywood at the Whisky. How are you doing today? You started yet another tour just a couple of days ago.

Everything’s good! I think we’re finally feeling like we’re back on tour in the States. It always takes us a few shows to get back into the groove of things. We were just in Europe for a month and then had a few weeks off before we got right back into this. It feels like the tornado keeps spinning, but it’s great now and today we had a really good soundcheck. We’re remembering the set list in our own brains. It’s nice here today, and I like California. Obviously we’re from Chicago so we’re stuck with the host horrific weather (laughs), so when we come out west we thoroughly enjoy it and take full advantage of it in our shorts and flip-flops. We live the dream and it’s great to be in beautiful California again, to play the Whisky just six months after we played here last time with Deicide. It’s pretty rad, so can’t complain!

You keep your shorts and flip-flops only for the California shows, right?

Yeah, and then we get back to Canada and it’s all jackets and pants (laughs). But we embrace your warm weather very much.

Last time you played here at the Whisky was with Deicide. That was an all-out extreme metal package and the one you’re touring with now is pretty much the same, isn’t it?

Yeah yeah, it’s cool. When this idea came together, we thought it was cool to come out with some young bands like Rivers Of Nihil and Fallujah, and then Oceano which is a Chicago extreme band but they’re from a whole different scene than us, obviously. But it’s cool for us to try something different, you know. Since the rebirth of Broken Hope, we’ve done the States with Obituary and Deicide and some other festival stuff, but we thought it would be good to do a package that was a little different, to take a chance and see what it’s like to play to some younger audiences. I think it’s good for the new generation to be informed and let their ears hear some death metal that they may not really pay attention to because they may have some stereotypes and think that we’re old men and look like Judas Priest (laughs). Some of the kids think like that, like “Oh that’s my dad’s band”. They look at Slayer like the Grateful Dead. It’s as sad as it’s true, but we feel that if it’s done right, death metal can be still extreme but be true to form, and I think that’s what Broken Hope is trying to do in this new era and new world of extreme music.

So, you’ve been involved in Broken Hope both in the early days and after the rebirth?

Yeah, I was in the band in the 90s. I joined after ‘The Bowels Of Repugnance’, the second full-length album that was on Metal Blade Records in ’93. Right after that album came out, I joined on bass because the bass player that was on the first two albums just was really not into it anymore, he didn’t really care and his life was changing. So I knew Jeremy and I met Joe a few times at shows, and they reached out. My band was kind of crumbling and I wanted to play extreme music, something heavy. I liked ‘The Bowels Of Repugnance’ a lot. It was really new, it was out for barely a month and I even went to the record release show at the Thirsty Whale in Chicago. We all hung out and all of a sudden, Jeremy started contacting me. So I joined, and we went on tour in ’93-94. We finished that touring cycle and wrote ‘Repulsive Conception’ and then, ‘Loathing’ and I was in the band through both of those. After the ‘Loathing’ album cycle, I left the band in ’97. There were just inner workings and business stuff I wasn’t really happy with, and at the time I was really, really burnt on death metal. I was seeing the rise of black metal bands that were getting paid gazillions of dollars and didn’t even have to any leg work. I was like, you know what man? Here I am busting my ass, living on a rider truck on tour, making $25 a day. I was just fed up and burnt. I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed to play other music, and I was listening to different music. I’ll be the first person to admit that I do not listen to just death metal. I love death metal but it’s only one type of music that I like on the plate. At that time I needed to venture out. They did one more album after ‘Loathing’ without me called ‘Grotesque Blessings’ and that was the last album that Joe Ptacek the original singer was on.

Coming back to the Whisky, what’s your experience been like playing here over the years?

Oh man, I have so many memories of playing here over the years, obviously Broken Hope played in the 90s, with Unleashed and Six Feet Under. We played here with Deicide in the 90s and six months ago as well. The Whisky is kind of cool. It’s intimate, it’s not the biggest room and it’s fun. You live here, but it’s so historic and such a cool venue. The Doors basically lived here when they were playing, so just to think that Jim Morrison was once flailing around on that stage is pretty cool (laughs).

They have a strict policy against stage diving here and instantly kick out anyone who does it. What’s your take on that? I guess as a band you want the crowd to be energetic.

Well, here’s my take on it and obviously a lot has changed since the untimely death of Dimebag Darrell. I think that it’s great for the audience to vent and let out aggression because metal is about that. People go to gigs to have that release and I think that’s very important because that’s part of what the music is about, to release your everyday bullshit we all deal with at home or work, your wife or girlfriend, your cat pissed on your toilet, or whatever (laughs). So I think it’s great for the crowd. They have to have that release. But there comes a time now, specially the world we’re living in where everyone’s guarded and paranoid, it’s hard to trust everyone that jumps on the stage to know that they get on and get off. You may have some lughead who doesn’t know what he’s doing and knock over an amplifier or smash into a guitar and break something that’s expensive. So I understand, and also from a legal standpoint I’m sure these venues don’t want people jumping on stage and breaking their necks and having major lawsuits. So I get it. As a musician, I like watching someone that has it down, jumps up, gets off and continues in the mosh pit. That’s totally cool. But then you have somebody that continuously gets on stage like we had in Poland. This guy jumped on stage four times in one song and finally the stage tech we had in Europe was like, “Screw this. I’m going to seriously kick this guy’s ass if he comes up anymore”. At the end of the day, I’m not saying I’m against it but it just comes with the territory. When I was growing up and going to gigs to see Possessed, Voivod and stuff, it was common. It was like taking a piss at a gig (laughs). But it’s a different world now, right?

Yeah. Have you ever had your gear damaged on stage?

No, I’ve never had something like that but Chuck had some guy stage-dive and literally bump into him really hard right when he was going into a solo. So he was kind of pissed off because he takes his leads seriously. I can honestly say I’ve never had somebody jump on stage and destroy equipment.

For a death metal band playing a live set, the music is its own style, but in your opinion how can it be made interesting, to have variety in it?

For me personally, like I was saying about fans, it’s about venting. It’s a release, just about forgetting everything in your fucking day and venting and letting the hatred out. When we’re playing, I’m pissed off but having a good time, and I’m completely like “I can seriously punch somebody out right now”. That’s what this music should do in some way, but when we’re playing it’s more about what song fits. We try to really set the tempo, like the first four songs decapitate you. We want to make sure there’s groove in our set because the crowd should be able to feel it and not just be 255 BPM every song. That’s cool and all for some bands but that’s not how we roll. It’s all about variety in the set and I don’t think we’ve ever found the perfect flow, but hopefully we’ll be on to something like that eventually with our set lists. We try to really balance it. Right now we’re trying to do a good chunk of the new album because we’re really proud of it and it’s new, but we also play a good balance of the old stuff for fans of the classics. Everything is kind of falling into place for this set, but I think it’s also important that you don’t put five completely fast non-stop blast songs in a row because then you kind of lose the audience. As much as I want to get my head ripped off when I see a band, I also want that groove. That’s why bands like Pantera were so successful because they did have the extreme but they also had the groove. Bands like Obituary, they nailed that. They’re not really fast per se, but they have the groove. I think that’s why sometimes you really do enjoy a band like that live, more so than a band that’s just non-stop blast beats. But that’s just my opinion.

When you were starting out, what got you into death metal?

Possessed! When I heard ‘Seven Churches’ it blew my mind, man. And then when I heard Celtic Frost, Destruction and stuff like that, it really influenced me because the thing that I really liked about some of the early traditional bands that first came out was, they didn’t all sound the same. As much as you liked Voivod, Possessed or Destruction, they didn’t sound the same but they were all in the hybrid, which I think was great. The scene is kind of missing that right now and I think there’s too many bands that sound may be too much alike. By no means am I saying that Broken Hope are fucking King Crimson or Led Zeppelin or something, but I think we do have enough of our old-school sound still from our original band and a new fresh paint on the house for the new album from the new lineup. That’s what’s separating us. It’s true real death metal but there’s a little bit of a new feel to it. The car’s got some new tyres on it. But as far as new bands go, I don’t know. There’s not a lot of stuff out there kicking my ass. Actually, Damian turned me onto a band that’s really extreme, called Defeated Sanity from Germany and that’s pretty rocking, and I like a new band called Alterbeast, a weird hybrid of The Black Dahlia Murder meets Suffocation or something. For death metal, that’s some of the stuff I’m really digging right now but I like my classics, not to sound like I sit in a wheelchair and listen to only Celtic Frost all day (laughs).

Related: Gig Review – Broken Hope Brings ‘The Best In Brutality’ Tour To The Whisky

Broken Hope links:
BrokenHope.com
facebook.com/BrokenHopeOfficial
twitter.com/BrokenHopeBand

Comments

comments