In Conversation With Black Crown Initiate Guitarist/Vocalist Andy Thomas

Interview by Jason Williams

bci2

Reading, Pennsylvania progressive/technical extreme metal quintet Black Crown Initiate released their second full-length album ‘Selves We Cannot Forgive’ via EOne Music in July 2016, and to coincide with the release, embarked on a North American tour supporting Australian band Ne Obliviscaris, a four-week run of dates they concluded with a show at Chain Reaction in Anaheim, CA on August 13th. Black Crown Initiate have grown increasingly impressive as songwriters and performers in their genre, and gaining new fans every time they step on a stage, they are fast emerging as a band extreme metal fans should add to their knowledge base. At the Anaheim show, our writer Jason Williams caught up with guitarist/clean vocalist Andy Thomas for a chat about the tour, the new album and lots more. Enjoy the conversation below, along with a taste of the new music.

Last day of the tour here in Anaheim, at a venue that doesn’t serve alcohol. due to the all ages curfew and law, how are you and the band holding up?

It’s been a pretty “wet” tour, if you will. We’ve gone “swimming” quite a bit in the alcohol. Loss in the sauce, if you will. So, you know, not having it here’s okay. We don’t drink ’til after the set, anyway. But we’re going home tonight, so we will enjoy it all afterwards.

I’ve noticed that you’ve been asked in the past about what band would you like to tour with, and your answer on several occasions has been Ne Obliviscaris. And now you got the opportunity to finally tour with them. Was it more of the similarities in musicianship and extreme metal, or perhaps that you happen to know the band as friends?

Well, we’ve been friends for a while. Played together on their first US show, we opened for them in Philly, which was also a last-minute thing. And we really kind of got to know each other in person then. And I think the musicality is there with both bands, although they’re next level. It’s been talked about for a while, and I think it’s been a combination of the fact that we’re friends, and that we have like-minded fan bases too. And I think it just came altogether that way. This is honestly been the best tour we’ve ever done. It’s been really great. And they’re great guys, and a phenomenal band.

With that being said, due to the quality of musicianship and the fan fare slowing growing for Ne Obliviscaris for their second US stint, how has the crowd reaction been for Black Crown Initiate, and the overall essence of this tour?

Crowd reaction for both of the bands, I think, has been better than expected. For us, as I mentioned, it’s been the best tour we’ve done. We’re really starting to notice that we do have a fan base, helping us realize that maybe all of the touring has been paying off, you know? And NeO’s reception is just incredible, just really, they truly deserve it, every bit of it. It’s really great to see the fact that they’re coming across the world, and hundreds and hundreds of people are coming to see them.

bci1

Your band just released your sophomore album ‘Selves We Cannot Forgive’ a couple of weeks ago, an album that’s been talked about and highly anticipated for quite some time. When I first heard your first record ‘The Wreckage of Stars’, it felt like a technical death metal band playing progressive metal. This new album sounds like a progressive technical death metal band, with the dynamics, songwriting, more unique clean passages, and extra attention to detail. Can you discuss how both albums happen to be quite different one anoother and how this new sound developed?

Sure! Well, thank you, first of all. ‘Wreckage’, we’re very proud of, it was our first album. Well, we did the EP (‘Song of the Crippled Bull’) first, which we’re also very proud of. But ‘Wreckage’ was our first work that we did collaboratively. But we didn’t have a great deal of time to write it. Because we got signed, and we all were like, “Okay, now we have to make an album.” Since it’s the first order of the business when you get signed, you know? I’m really proud of that album, but there were certain things, arrangement wise, and maybe dynamics wise… and I’m sure it probably happens after every first album, that we wanted to either expand upon it or do the opposite. And on this album, we really kind of took notes of the things that we liked about it and the things that we weren’t so hot on. We had a lot more time. I think we spent about eight months writing this album. So we really paid attention, as you put it, to detail, the songwriting, dynamics, arrangements. As a band, we really didn’t want any “fat” on the songs, like, “Well that didn’t need to be there.” I’m pretty proud of what we’ve done.

I also happen to notice through the EP and the two full-length albums, your clean vocals. Many out there don’t notice how metal incorporates a various assortment of diverse singing and vocals, from NeO, your band, to many other bands. I’ve noticed with your own singing though, it has a more Borknagar-type slightly higher register, similar to their vocalists ICS Vortex and Vintersorg. Talk about your own interests, roots and influences with what you grew up with, since you’re the only one in the band who sings that way, which I personally believe really makes the band stand out.

Well thank you again, for that. I started singing for this band because we really couldn’t get anyone else to do it. So, when we did the EP in particular, I didn’t really know what I was doing at all, just kind of going for it and doing the best that I could. Over the course of time, I took some vocal lessons, which helped quite a great deal. As far as influences go, my first vocal influences were stuff like Crosby, Stills and Nash, Crosby, Stills, and Nash and Young. I really liked them when I was a kid, and I also really enjoyed Steve Winwood from Traffic. Just old classic rock singers. So I mean, it kind of started there, and then when I got into metal, you mentioned Vortex, I really love Vortex. The fact that people compare me to him is a trip, because he’s insane. I love Devin Townsend, again another guy who is on a whole different universe vocally. Maynard James Keenan, I really love too. I also really love San Beam from Iron and Wine and Casey Crescenzo from The Dear Hunter. Again, all next level dudes. But I’m kind of all over the map vocally. I’m really not, aesthetically, a huge fan of metal singing, I guess. With maybe the exception of Devin Townsend, or Vortex.

By metal singing, do you mean the style of vocals James does in Black Crown Initiate? Or other clean style vocals?

To be honest with you, I’m not much of a metalhead. I was as a youth, you know? I got into Metallica, Slayer, Sepultura, then eventually got into Meshuggah, Opeth, Strapping Young Lad, bands that I still love. Now, I mean, I’m very much more listening to other stuff.

That was actually my next question coming in, because people for example know with Opeth now, for the past several years, that the band has gone into a more progressive rock style, with metal dissipating in the rear view mirror, in terms of the newest material. Mikael Akerfeldt has said in numerous interviews that he shuts off metal these days and does his own thing, which I personally believe for all the years the achievements and quality albums he’s made, it’s totally deserved. With that being said, how do you balance out the progressive clean side of the band with the extreme metal also included? For not listening to metal much as you exclaimed, you still have booming, powerful passages. Is it a constant collaboration with the other band mates being “metalheads”?

Well, as I said, I believe the thing that ties that all together is because of the way that I grew up, particularly as a teenager. I love the aesthetics of really loud and crushing guitars and fast drums. I like the sonic aesthetics of heavy metal, but the visual, lyrical, things like that, I don’t really relate to it all. There’s really not much that I can identify with, particularly lyrically, I guess. I sing about stuff that I understand, which is very little, very mundane things I guess, but what ties and keeps us doing it is that I love the sonic aesthetic of heavy metal. I think I always will. We all will.

I noticed in the new album lyric booklet, all the song credits were contributed by everyone. Sometimes various bands will do that for copyright and royalty reasons, and other times it’s because it was a full fledged effort from the entire band. If the latter is the case with your band’s integrity and musicianship, how do arrangements work with the technical, brutal side and cleaner, progressive moments?

The majority of this record was written by the bassist Nick and I, musically. So, I come up with riffs and he does the same, and we get together and arrange them into songs. Jesse does the drum stuff, and that’s all him. That’s part of the writing process, right? You have a drummer that comes in, and takes what you have, and puts all the drum details that he puts in, which I believe are incredible, and that’s all him. So yeah, we all do write. And on ‘Wreckage’, Rik (former guitarist/harsh vocals) wrote as well, but he left for this album cycle. He wrote some of ‘Sorrowpsalm’, which he’s credited for, and the next album with Wes (new guitarist) in the band, we’ll have Wes write, and it’ll be all of us at that point.

And something else that I really admire about NeO, what they’ve been doing with their more recent crowdfunding, and how much money they had raised in such a short amount of time, and with the new Patron program, which I’m deeply humbled and honored to be a small contributor. It is very difficult for extreme music to get off that platform. And being friends with the band, and knowing some of those other things that many fans may not know about and with your band touring with them, what can you say are the real positive and negatives to really get off the ground?

That’s a really good question, and it’s something as a band we’ve really discussed a lot lately because we’re on tour with NeO, seeing them firsthand on their Patron crowdfunding. There’s a lot of hatred coming towards them for that, that we see everyday from other bands in particular, which is very weird to me, because once you get signed to a label, you have booking, you have management, these are both very necessary things. They all help you get out there and do what you have to do. But the music industry as a whole is dying. What I mean by that is, you can now make a record and sell 15,000 copies, and be on the Billboard Top 200. That’s great for bands that do it, we don’t sell that much. And I’m not talking shit at all, but like, that shouldn’t be! You should have to sell millions of records to get on the Billboard Charts. So the music industry as a whole, is dying… and there’s literally no money coming from album sales. And very little from touring, because of the expenses that go into touring, whether it be not working for months at a time, buying a van, buying gear, buying everything you need, traveling across the world in NeO’s case. So what they’ve done is look for a way to adapt to that dying music industry, and take certain monetary powers back into their own hands, which in my opinion is very admirable. Because if you want to be a working musician, then the sad fact of it, but the no less true fact of it is, you need money. They’re finding a way to navigate the mess that is the music industry. And the hatred that they’re getting from other bands is very strange to me, because I am immersed in that world as well. And you get to see where all of your money goes, and I can tell you with absolute certainty, it isn’t to you. That’s all I’ll really say there, but I admire what they’re doing. And my advice to other bands is to try to find ways to navigate through a dying industry. When you have this in your blood, you’re going to do it one way or another, but you’re going to have to get creative.

With that all being said, with this tour ending tonight, and most recently a few months ago you were touring with Dying Fetus, will there be any plans for another tour, or will this be the last tour for the rest of the year?

Not at all. We’re going to be home for three weeks, and then we’re going to Europe for a month with Volumes, Veil of Maya, and Born of Osiris. Then we’ll be home for about a month-and-a-half, and then we’re going to do a whole other full US/Canada tour, which isn’t announced yet, so I can’t really say. But we’ll be playing about a hundred more shows this year.

Will that be a headlining or support tour?

Support.

Is there anything that you’d like to say for the last day of this tour, a very unique, diverse, high level of musicianship and integrity, with NeO and your band Black Crown Initiate? What can you tell both fan bases about what can be looked forward to with the new record out?

Well, as cliché as it is, I’d say thank you. Because this tour has really opened up our eyes to the fact that people do give a shit, and that we need to continue on the path that we’re on. Because of this tour, and because of all the people coming out to this tour, we’ve experienced a certain reinvigoration with regards to what we’re doing. And that’s a really awesome thing. And I think NeO has gotten to see that they are a world class metal band, and a force that’s on the upswing, and something to be reckoned with. It’s just been a great thing, and I would just say thank you, and we’ll see everyone real soon.

Black Crown Initiate links: facebook | twitter | instagram

If you like what you’ve read, subscribe to our newsletter, and support Metal Assault and buy a shirt!

Comments

comments