Metal Night - So you guys have an EP called Stolen Prophets. Independently released?
Duncan Lammas (guitar, keyboard,
vocals) - Yeah, just us. Completely DIY, all our own money (all
laugh)
Jeremy Hyde (Drums) - No really...all
of it
MN - Where was it recorded at?
 |
| Photo by Robert Shooks |
D - Mercury studios. With Ryan
Cunningham from The Waxines
MN- How long did it take you to record
the EP?
D - It was very stop and start. Ryan
logged all the hours and it took sixty hours from tracking to final
mastering.
MN - What about a full length album?
Zach Flora (bass, vocals) - This EP we
just put out, those are all older songs that we just wanted to get
good recordings with Jeremy
MN - Your previous release, was that an
album or demo?
Z - We call it an album so we can feel
cool
 |
| Photo by Robert Shooks |
J - It was called "before
prophets" meaning, tongue in cheek, like we haven’t made any
money or anything yet. So all this stuff happened, the album got
stolen by this company, Distrophonics, now they make all the money
off it, we don't see a dime from any sale. The old drummer walked off
with a large chunk of the band fund...well all of it
Z - Yeah, that put us back to zero
J - But we quickly made enough money to
fund the EP
MN - Who are the primary songwriters or
how does the songwriting process come about?
Z - Almost every way you can think of
how people write a song, we've probably done it. Sometimes Duncan
will write a whole song by himself and have lyrics for the whole
thing and bring it up like, "alright dude so this is what I
got", check it out" Y'know, and play it and I'll be like
"that is awesome, I need a scratch track or something"
D - Then he'll learn it then we'll
decide where should we have vocals and basically, Zach's the heavy
guy and I'm the light guy there is a little bit of mismatch but like,
he does that well, I do mine well and that's a better chemistry than
tryin' to hook ourselves into things we're not as good at.
MN - Ok, you guys have an interesting
thing going on vocally, amongst other things, but splitting the
vocals, where did you guys get that inspiration?
Z - Well, we basically just got sick of
dickin' around with people balin' all the time on vocals, and, well,
drums even at that point
D- yeah, we were auditioning
drummers...
Z - We were auditioning drummers and we
couldn't seem to find a vocalist that could sing and then get kind of
dirty with the vocals...
D- And carry equipment!
All - Big laugh
D - Sometimes you get two out of three
but you rarely get the whole package!
Z - So one day we were just like "screw
it"....
D -Like Mastadon's the workhorse
chronicles...those guys had to tour and they had a vocalist and
everything and basically he quit or had some sort of issue and they
manned up and just sort of did it. and that was...we were like, you
know, just...start making noise first. If you listen to the EP,
everything's on beat, very straightforward, little if any held notes
and if they are, it's always for like the whole measure (beats with
hand,) Y'know a four count. It's really simplistic vocally, because
we had just stared singing and playing at the same time so there's a
definite...I dont know who called us "progressive sludge"
J - Oh god
All - groaning and laughter
D - I think that's a fair statement for
that EP, because the new stuff is a lot more singy and proggy and
what I think people...that go to the live stuff. They're familiar
with that style of us, witch is not anything recorded...
MN - We hear you guys played together
in another band.
D -...it was In Phaedrus, witch was
a five piece...
MN - What's the name of that again?
D - In Phaedrus
MN- uhh, how do you spell that?
All - laughter
D- I N P H A E D R U S, nothing
changed, did y'see that? In Phaedrus, what? how do ya spell that?
Z- That was...everybody
MN - Is this band kind of a
continuation of that one?
D - Um, in spirit and attitude, I
think
MN - 'Cause it sounds kind of a little
like a death metal band name
D - Definitely heavier...half the stuff
was written in standard [tuning] because...I really just like when
people do that, i mean if you can play half a set in standard then
drop to drop D it's like, whoa, you’re versed in both, you’re not
just picking one and going with it. We did that for a while and then
I realized, that fuckin' sucks, man. You gotta do that every fuckin'
show! and he (pointing to Zach) had the advantage of having a five
string bass, witch he tuned like a bastard with a low E and a D, so
he never had to re-tune anything, so I'm like this, man (pantomimes
tuning frantically)
J - From what I heard of Inthaedrius
it was more like a...melodic death metal sort of thing.
D - Yeah, the one song that is recorded
is really cool
J - Yeah, I was gonna say, it reminds
me of a Gothenburg sort of thing...in a weird way, not that you guys
ever really listened to a lot of in flames and Dark Tranquility
US - What are your musical backgrounds,
in terms of schooling or experience?
Z - I'm self-taught, never had any
lessons or anything
J - I can read percussion notation like
a champ but it takes me a while to process it. Like somebody learning
how to read english in the first six months
Z - Tabs, tabs man
D - Yeah, I'm better with tabs but I'm
a music teacher, so I'm pretty proficient with notation
US - I'm really surprised to hear that
you guys aren't music school guys
D - It's weird, we're kind of the
anti-music school guys
 |
| photo by Robert Shooks |
J - I'm not anti, but...use what you
got. You grow up listening to something technical, well...
D - It depends on what you consider
technical, I mean Decline is a bad bassline
Z - Dude, yeah, eighteen minutes of
punk rock fury. There's alot of NOFX songs I still can’t play. Some
of that shit is just absurd, the speed of it. The Idiots are taking
over? Dude, that bassline is so insane
D- You gotta have gods, so you have
something to reach for
Good photos by: Robert Shooks
Crappy photos by us
Flood the Desert online: http://floodthedesert.bandcamp.com
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/stolen-...
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/floodthedesert
https://www.facebook.com/floodthedesert
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