Interviews

Interview: Knights Of The Abyss

After drummer Andy Rysdam parted company with everyone’s favourite pick-’em-up then knock-’em-down act, Job For A Cowboy, he helped form a rival deathcore band, Knights Of The Abyss, right on their doorstep. This year, despite a terrible sequence of bad luck, the band have built upon the early promise they’ve showed by releasing a genre-crossing conceptual album. Sonic Dice caught up with the band’s guitarist, Cody, and lead singer, Mike, (prior to them taking the stage for the Norwich leg of their UK tour) to get the inside story.

Hi there. What have you been up to today?
Cody: Today? We’ve had to wait outside this venue for about two hours by ourselves before they’d open the doors.
Mike: Little boring.
Have you had a chance to walk around Norwich yet?
Cody: Yeah, we have actually. We walked down the street, tried to get some fish n’ chips, and it was closed. So, so far, Norwich hasn’t treated us very well! (Laughs).
What do you make of the Queen Charlotte venue?
Mike: It looks cool, different place. Nice to get a change of scenery.
Is it smaller or, perhaps, bigger than what you’re used to?
Cody: Right in the middle. We play all kinds of venue.

In general, are you enjoying touring around the UK?
Mike: Yeah, it’s been good so far.
Cody: We’re just stoked to be touring this country.
In what ways does it differ from the US tour?
Cody: Gosh, let’s see. Well I just enjoy having a driver. We get driven around, get a meal at every venue. Yeah, the musicians get treated a little better.
Mike: Yeah, definitely.
And the fans?
Mike: Well, this is our first full European tour, so we’re pretty new to the overseas market. In the US we’ve toured a bunch so the fans know the stuff more, the shows are a little bigger. The kids seem really enthusiastic here and the crowd participation is great. Even if they don’t know who you are, if it’s loud and it’s metal, they’ll really get into it.
So you’re getting some good pits here?
Mike: Yeah, totally. In the US they’ll just stand there. They won’t do anything.
Cody: You get some really tough crowds there.
Best UK venue so far?
Cody: Last night’s was really good.
Mike: Yeah, the venue was really sick.
Cody: We were playing Stoke-On-Trent last night. The place was really classy.

The new album, ‘Shades’ has many references to the netherworld and all the weird creatures down there. Any particular reason for that?
Cody: Yeah, we wanted to step it up with the songwriting. We wanted to give the new album a theme. It’s based on Dante’s ‘Inferno’ [the first cantica in his] ‘Divine Comedy’. We felt we could try and tell a story that went through the book, through the different levels, with each song representing a different level of the nine circles of Hell.
Mike: So, if you listen to the album, reading the lyrics, it all takes you sequentially down all the way to the end. We’re a metal band and there isn’t anything more metal than Hell! (Laughs). So it seemed like a good place to start as far as concepts go. I’m really happy with the way it came out. Musically, lyrically and conceptually it all came together pretty nicely for our first try.
So why ‘Shades’?
Mike: In ‘The Divine Comedy’, people down there are referred to as “shades of men”, like they’re in an in-between stage in Hell because they’re not human and they’re not souls.
[At this point, Swiss, their insane tour manager sidles up and drops his trousers for us to reveal some pretty grim-looking boxers. Following some banter the boys return to their theme, relatively unperturbed.]
Mike: So, yeah, I’m very satisfied with that whole aspect of the album. I think it’s pretty cool, a whole lot of bands will just try and do whatever’s coolest at the time. I’m happy with this.
Are your lyrics inspired by personal events aswell?
Mike: On this album, for sure, we took a lot of inspiration from the ‘Divine Comedy’ but we also try and make references to current events or things that are important to us. So on the surface it is definitely a literary concept album but if you get deep into it you can find things you can relate to. It’s dealing with the sins of mortals, a journey through the depths of Hell, but it’s also a critique of moral decency.
Cody: It’s, like, what we think is wrong with the world right now.
Mike: I’m sure, if you dug deep enough, you could take whatever you wanted to out of it.

Knights Of The Abyss - is the name actually taken from the Nietzsche quote you’ve put up on your MySpace, something that relates directly to your music, just a cool-ass band name, or all three?
Cody: As a band name, I don’t know if it’s actually that great.
Mike: Yeah, we all hate it! (Laughs all round).
Cody: I do like the Nietzsche quote. It does represent something that we want to take into account when we play music. Basically, it was Friedrich Nietzsche talking about the spirit of the German people and how it needs to wake up from the [listless] state that it was in. It was going to be like a knight in a slumbering abyss and it was going to wake up and make a big change.
Cody and Mike together: It’s about stirring shit up!

Your short history of recording vocals on your albums hasn’t gone quite to plan so far after you, Mike, destroyed your vocal chords. [Dustin Hadlock stepped in on the band’s debut, ’Juggernaut’, and Dustin Curtis filled the void on ‘Shades’.] Has it purely been a curse or have you taken some positives out of it?
Mike: Er, mostly it’s just been a curse.
Cody: There’s not a lot of positives you can take out of that.
Mike: It’s so hard to find people who are on the same page. When you’re writing on an album you need everyone working towards a common goal. So, when we were recording and I injured my vocal chords, we thought no problem, these things happen. Then Dustin [Hadlock] stepped in and he was great. Then, once it came time to record the new one I still wasn’t ready to record a full album, so… but I’ve been able to do all the tours we’ve done this summer which is great. So, luckily we’ve been able to get through all that. We know where we want to take the band and when we’re on the road and stuff it just seems to be a good fit. Which is the only reason I’m still here.
How was the recovery period? You must have really ripped them up!
Mike: Yeah, it was pretty bad. It was just a lot of rest, for a year. I mean, my doctor told me I shouldn’t really do this anymore, ever. But, I’ve been taking it easy, doing vocal warm-ups, drinking lots of tea. So far, so good. It’s what I like to do. I figure it’s my vitality, so I’ll do it as long as I can.
Fingers crossed. You also go through a bassist a year too! You’re not worried about losing Aaron, are you?
Cody: Stuff happens. We know what goes on. So far, everything’s been great.
Mike: He’s standing right over there.
Aaron: I ain’t going nowhere!
Mike: If he’s not planning on quitting then we’ll try and hold onto the line-up for awhile!
[Ironically] You don’t need two curses?
Mike: No. We don’t need that!

How has working with your new label, Ferret, been different from Siege Of Amida?
Mike: It’s been very different but very positive. They’ve been very supportive. We’re a part-time band so for a label like Ferret to sign us and get behind our record has been awesome. They’ve been really receptive and promoted us well. They come out to our shows personally so it’s like they actually care. They’re great people over there. They definitely know what they’re doing.
Cody: We noticed that they get nothing but positive feedback so that was part of our reason to go with them.
Mike: They don’t try to change your band. They just want to help you do what you’re meant to do. They try and build opportunities for the band’s idea of where they want to go. They’ll only sign music that they like and so it’s easy for them to get behind it. So, definitely a cool label with cool people.

You had a load of instruments and merch stolen recently whilst in your hometown [Glendale, AZ]. Has any of it been recovered?
Mike: Not a piece. Lost about $25,000.
Cody: Every piece of equipment we had built up went. We had everything right where we needed it and our entire trailer got stolen.
Mike: All gone.
Cody: We live so close to Mexico and so they probably just shot over the border and we’ll never see that again.
Did you have a load of old amps so you could never get the same sound?
Cody: It wasn’t so much a question of old amps as expensive amps which was hard to get our hands on again.
Mike: So we had to play a load of shows, build up some money, so we could replace it all; to get back to where we are now. It was a long process but we like to play so you got to do what you’ve got to do, I guess.

What is your viewpoint on the backlash that supposedly image-conscious deathcore acts have been getting lately?
Mike: I think it’s great to give any genre a kick in the pants. As a band, we think our new record, we tried to take somewhat of a risk with it instead of doing the average deathcore “paint by numbers” kind of thing. We added in some melody, made the songs have a lot more structure, step up our game in general. All the bands who just write the same record over and over, that’s just stupid. I think it’s good that the press have been getting bored with the generic trend. No-one wants to hear monotony in music.
Cody: ‘Shades’ was our attempt to get out of the deathcore subgenre that everyone was putting us in. We knew that that’s where they had us. We don’t know if that’s gonna happen yet.
Mike: ‘Shades’ is a lot more… metal. We sat down and said “let’s write a metal record that we all like”. There’s no point in doing it unless you want to progress. I would like to see every band not care and just write the music that they like. More heart, more passion, better music. That’s good all round. I think it’s good that people are stirring up the pot and giving certain genres a wake-up call. Good for progress, good for development. I want to hear some groundbreaking shit!

What bands are you currently into?
Cody: When we wrote ‘Shades’ we were taking influence from Euro-inspired death metal bands, like At The Gates right up to The Black Dahlia Murder.
Mike: Melodic death metal. Carcass, In Flames, all that stuff.
Cody: Right now I’m really into Gojira. I wanna slow our tempos down when we write.
Mike: Get some more atmosphere in. They create a mood when they play so that it’s got a vibe to it. We want to experiment with that. Up until now our songs are just, y’know, fast riffs… On the ride over here I listened to the new Nile album, Behemoth’s ‘Demi-God‘ - awesome album. I listened to an Alice In Chains mix I’ve got on my Ipod. They’re my favourite band - listen to them every day! (Laughs).
Cody: I think it’s really important to listen to a diverse range of music.
Mike: There’s no point in listening to death metal, or thrash metal, or metal in general. There’s so many other vibes and moods to be explored in other genres.
Apart from Meshuggah, when you only listen to yourselves.
Mike: If you’re Meshuggah you can pretty much do what the hell you want! (Laughs all round). That new record is just ridiculous! They’re so good.
Cody: A whole new wavelength!

Have you set any goals for yourselves?
Cody: I set goals all the time but they’re not necessarily everybody else’s goals! We rarely get time to set band goals. We can’t always tour as much as we’d like but we just try and put out albums as often as we can.
Mike: Yeah, we put out ‘Juggernaut’ and less than a year later put out ’Shades’. We have members who are in school and have stuff going on which is why we can’t tour all the time. We’ll just keep churning out the tunes. That’s the reason we’re in a band.
Do you write songs on the road or do you wait until you get back?
Mike: We write songs on the road. We’ll try to jam some stuff out but most of it is written at home. We came up with concept for the new album when we were on tour. I’m hoping we can start writing a new album when we get home from this one.
Cody: Writing is really exciting.
Mike: It’s the most fun you can have as a band.

Thanks, guys.
Mike: Thanks a lot.
Cody: We appreciate it.

Interviewers: John Skibeat and Rich E

Band Link = Knights Of The Abyss

Many thanks to Andy @ Ferret for helping set this interview up.

Bookmark to:

Previous & Next