Interviews

Interview: The Red Chord

The Red Chord have been hitting the road pretty damned heavy in recent times. Name any festival and the chance is that somewhere on the bill will be The Red Chord, frontman Guy Kozowyk, or perhaps just one of his “Black Market Activities”. The grindcore/death metal thrashers, whose name is intended to bring to mind a slit throat, have been indirectly responsible for more bloody gigs in the last year than most. So it was inevitable that when we caught up with a tour-weary (and extremely muscle-bound) Guy he was sitting on board a tour coach preparing to go on stage for the London leg of the Hell On Earth tour.

How’s the tour going?
It’s medium good to extra medium good.

And the size of the venues?
Most venues have been bigger than this. We thought this was going to be at the Carling Academy [in Islington] but it got switched [to the smaller Underworld in Camden].

Still a good venue, though?
Yeah. We’ve played here a few times. I’m excited to be back. I like this venue a lot.

Your favourite venue so far on the tour?
It’s all kind of a blur.

You’re on an awesome line-up on this tour. To the fan there’s no downside but to you are things different?
Once in a while you gotta do interviews which kinda sucks. Sometimes you gotta wake up early, sometimes you gotta load stuff up.

Do you find things rushed when there’s so many bands on the bill?
No. We don’t ever tour on a bus, so there’s actually a lot of downtime. Sometimes there’s just shitty vegan food that doesn’t provide the nourishment that our American muscles need. So that’s probably the only downside to the whole thing.

Is it cool having these great tours wanting to add you to their bill?
Yeah. It’s pretty awesome. We’re getting to a point in our lives where we don’t really give a shit about playing to a lot of people. We just want to be on tours with bands and people that we like. This tour is really impressive cos’ we got a lot of bands and a lot of great people. This is our third tour with Walls Of Jericho and we haven’t got sick of them yet! With them they’re like our little brother band at the moment and we just really like hanging out with them.

You’re not completely sick of touring then cos’ you‘ve been touring non-stop?
I was completely sick of touring the day we started! It is what it is. It’s better than doing a whole lot of other stuff. There’s lots of worse things I can think of. I could be selling shoes… One of my earlier jobs was working in a footwear department of this retail outlet and I had an allergy to the carpet. I’d get going then my eyes would get red, and I’d look like I was stoned, and they’d itch and itch.

I’ve found that when you do a job you eventually become allergic to it. I worked in a petrol station and became allergic to petrol and then book-dust when I worked in a library.
Yeah, I’m allergic to everyone in my band and, erm… sometimes other bands! (Laughs).

Since ‘Pray For Eyes’ landed have you done any more songwriting?
Yeah, just before this trip we had a month off before the Mayhem Festival tour and this one and we started getting into the writing process. It’s been slow so far but we’re getting into that mindset. No song titles, no album titles, no producer ideas. It’s at the end of the album cycle as it could possibly get, I guess.

The band members have quite a few side-projects going on. Do you find hard to schedule time around them?
I guess the good thing about side-projects is they’re exactly that. They’re projects that people do on the side when there is absolutely nothing else, like, going on with Red Chord. Anybody who’s in the band has to understand that this is the main project or else it’s not gonna work. I think that everyone has that mutual respect to honour each other’s time. I, personally, want everyone to have whatever creative outlet they need but I don’t wanna blow opportunities for the band as a whole. Thus far, I think we’re all on the same page.

Do you actively seek to do guest vocals for other bands or is it a case of those bands finding you?
Usually, it’s bands who ask me in passing.

And do you feel completely comfortable doing that?
The only time it sucks is when you haven’t toured or rehearsed in a while. That’s how it was for the Whitechapel record and you could potentially blow your voice out in the course of a few lines if you’re not careful. I may have done more stuff on that but screwed myself up in the tiny guest appearance I did.

Tell us about the record label you own - [Black Market Activities]. Is it a struggle to keep it going financially?
Financially, no. It’s pretty self-sustaining up to this point. I’m fortunate enough to work with bands that are doing really well and are working real hard. Animosity being one of them who have come over here with Converge, and are now over here on this tour. In the US there’s probably more opportunities for my bands. Tony Danza [Tapdance Extravaganza]’s doing really well. Behold The Arctopus are doing really well and actually should be over here with Genghis Tron in another couple of weeks. They’re really exceptional. Even the stuff that doesn’t sell as well are so awesome bands to work with. It’s a very fulfilling thing.

Do you do all genres of music or bands that you, personally, are interested in?
I haven’t really strayed to far from the heavy music side of things. The most different stuff that I’ve done is our license to Cancer Bats in the US or Lords which are a thrashy-type of punk rock band, or maybe Sweet Cobra which are a stoner kinda band. The rest of it isn’t too far away from the death metal or hardcore stuff which are bands that I’m better suited to work with. I won’t rule anything out but I don’t see myself moving too far from that. I guess at the end of the day, though, I’m my own boss.

What is the one thing you would change about the music industry?
It’s a sad state of affairs right now. I miss the days of the fans collecting albums rather than collecting songs. The internet’s been a really great tool for bands to grow and thrive but it’s also been kinda sad that people don’t view an album the way that they used to. It used to be a sense of self-discovery through albums, listening to the tracks in the order that the artist intended or seeing which bands they thanked at the end and checking them out. Everything now is just a click on a website. There’s probably people now who don’t know what the album cover looked like. That’s kind of a lost art now. I don’t think it’s gonna get any better either. People are starting to understand that if they don’t wanna support music they don’t necessarily have to. There are ways to get around it; ways to steal it. Artists are now a dime-a-dozen and there’s not necessarily that sense of attachment to one band any more. It’s an interesting time in the history of music.

When you finally get to kickback and listen to music do you listen to many different genres or just one?
Definitely many different types. A lot out of nostalgia. I mean, I hate it when I go to see a gig and I’m in a car with somebody who’s driving who just wants to crank out the bands that we’ve just seen. “You know, we’re out of the show, let’s just take it down a couple of notches!”

Your current favourite musician or band?
I never get sick of Quicksand, Muse or Suffocation. I always try to listen to something new or different too. I just heard Ray [LaMontagne] and he’s actually really good.

Finally, do you watch the other supporting bands when you’re on tour?
I won’t watch the bands every night on a tour like this but I’ll try and show my face and show my support. I think everyone appreciates that. I definitely want to see new bands and that but I’m not as proactive like I used to be cos’ on tour you get pretty burned out.

Band Link:
The Red Chord

Cheers to Andy@Metal Blade for helping set this interview up.

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