{"id":4485,"date":"2014-09-25T02:02:55","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T09:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/Interviews\/?p=4485"},"modified":"2014-09-25T02:44:34","modified_gmt":"2014-09-25T09:44:34","slug":"skeletonwitch-vocalist-talks-touring-guilty-pleasures-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/Interviews\/2014\/09\/25\/skeletonwitch-vocalist-talks-touring-guilty-pleasures-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Skeletonwitch Vocalist Talks Touring, Guilty Pleasures & More"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Andrew Bansal<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Hailing from Athens, Ohio, blackened thrash metal quintet Skeletonwitch are on fire as a group at the moment, riding on the success of their 2013 Prosthetic Records release \u2018Serpents Unleashed\u2019. Having just ended a North American headline\u00a0run, they’ve joined forces with Swedish metal bands Amon Amarth and Sabaton for another tour which begins today September 25th in Riverside CA (buy tickets<\/a><\/strong>). Skeletonwitch headlined the Roxy in West Hollywood last Tuesday September 23rd<\/sup>, more than four years after they last played this venue, and a few hours before they scorched the stage, I sat down with vocalist Chance Garnette for a candid chat about touring, the Johan Hegg inspiration, headline shows, guilty pleasures and the possibility of recording covers. Enjoy the conversation below and catch Skeletonwitch on tour with Amon Amarth.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good to talk to you again, Chance. You guys have been on this headline tour as a lead up to the Amon Amarth run. How\u2019s everything been going?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everything\u2019s going really well. We have one more show on the headlining run which is tomorrow in San Francisco, and then the very next day starts the Amon Amarth run. We actually had this headlining run booked just by itself, and then when Amon Amarth got with us and asked us if we wanted to do support on their next run, it overlapped a little bit so we just took our headliner, kind of bumped it forward and it just turned into one giant run for ten-and-a-half weeks total (laughs).<\/p>\n

So you would have done this tour regardless, then.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, this was the plan for a long time. We were already set and ready to do a proper Skeletonwitch headliner.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a while. I think it\u2019s been two years since you did a full headliner, at least out here on the West Coast. You played the Whisky in 2012 on the last one.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right, we did 63 shows in 65 days on the \u2018Forever Abomination\u2019 cycle with Havok. They did all the shows with us and then we split the opener between Early Graves and Mutilation Rites. But yeah, it has been a while!<\/p>\n

You already did the first leg of Amon Amarth\u2019s North American tour earlier this year. Their singer has such a giant stage presence. Seeing that every night must be inspirational for you as a frontman.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Johan is very good at what he does. It\u2019s unquestionable, it\u2019s very fun, and you can tell that when he\u2019s having fun he has a huge smile on his face. They\u2019re really great guys to tour with, and yeah man, it\u2019s always good to be challenged. You always should want to do better than you\u2019ve done before, and to be with someone of that caliber definitely strikes a little fire in you and makes you want to do the best you can do, for sure.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So, did you feel that you bettered your own performances after seeing them during the first few shows of the tour?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I think just by doing this for any real amount of time, you pick up on things that make you go, \u2018Oh, that was awesome!\u2019 I mean, you don\u2019t want to rip anyone off and I don\u2019t rip him off by any means and we don\u2019t do the same things (laughs), but just like with anything, it\u2019s on-the-job training, so to speak. You go through it, you live through it, you learn from it, and you should improve and grow from it.<\/p>\n

Talking of this run, you\u2019re headlining the Roxy here tonight, which is obviously bigger than the Whisky, the Knitting Factory where I saw you five years ago, and this place called the Ruby Room in San Diego in 2011. Do you sometimes miss the smaller venues and have you gotten to that point of thinking yet?<\/strong><\/p>\n

You know, we\u2019re at a spot right now where it\u2019s not all of one or all of the other. Just on this tour the little spot we played in Buffalo held a 100 people, and tonight is 550. We get to start again with Amon Amarth in a couple of days, and that\u2019ll be in an even bigger room. We\u2019re covering all bases, so I never really get the opportunity to be home sick for the little rooms, because I definitely get to (laughs), and the same goes for theatres. So I\u2019m totally satisfied with the rooms we\u2019re playing in.<\/p>\n

It also depends on what part of the country it is, because obviously in some places you get to play the bigger venues, like in LA.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, for sure. Just take Little Rock, Arkansas for example. It\u2019s pretty much always dead. The reason why I pick Little Rock is because Nate and I grew up there. So when we got to come back and play the clubs in Little Rock and be like, \u2018We went to elementary school here. I wonder how it\u2019ll be!\u2019 It\u2019s just a tiny town that time forgot. You\u2019re either going to play one venue that\u2019s too big so it can accommodate every act, or you\u2019re going to play a little closet.<\/p>\n