holdfasthope

On the new record, how would you describe the way you and Wade come up with your parts, compose your parts, record your parts? How is it that you two are able to work out different parts and voicings?

It's been really weird since the beginning. Wade will have a riff, let's say. I'll come to practice, he'll show me the riff, and I'll play something I've been working on. And for some reason, they usually just go together. I remember when that first happened to us when we first starting to jam. We were like, "That's weird." It just kind of works out all the time. It's been very easy for us to write together since the beginning. Even though at the beginning our songs weren't great, they were just whatever. I'm usually more melody-based, so I'm usually trying to add that extra note and play bigger chords. Wade usually takes over the single note type stuff, the sort of the stuff that accentuates what's going on, because I'm usually singing more. On the songs he sings, I kind of take over that role. So there's definitely not a lead guitar player. We're definitely both rhythm guitar players that are able to accentuate each other when we need to. It just works out really well.

I'm going to touch on some of the tracks on the new record and maybe you can tell me what's going on musically? The opening track, 'Accidents…'

Oh, you're talking about that record.

Is there another?

Oh yeah, because we just finished our new record. It's not out yet or anything. It's being mastered today.

That's okay. Obviously I can't speak knowledgeably about that, but we'll certainly talk about that. 'Accidents' - there's kind of that interesting lick on the verse. Is that Wade? Is that his thing?

That's actually me.

That was cool, kind of a driving, rhythmic kind of thing.

We wrote that song sort of with a crowd in mind. It just started coming together - driving, like you said - and we knew as soon as we wrote it that that was going to be the opening track on the record. It's totally like the perfect opening track. That riff that I do at the beginning, the sort of intro. I don't even know where it came from. At first, I thought I was like, "This may be a bit too metal-y." We were trying to get away from that because we definitely aren't good enough guitarists to play metal…In a way that I would like to. If I were in a metal band, I would love to play not just breakdowns like people do today. I listen to Dream Theater and Rhapsody and **** like that, so that's the kind of metal I like.

Actually, listening to your music, a lot of your stuff is really orchestrated in different movements, so to speak. Actually I could hear that - not that you sound like Dream Theater, obviously.

On our first record, we had a couple of metal-y type things. We were young and it was fun to try and do stuff like that, to play as fast as you could. Then we realized that's just not what we wanted to do. We wanted to write good, driving songs that were fun to play.

Tell me the guitars that you use on that track.

Mostly I have an E333. I have a 335, but they have a 333, too. It's sort of a matte finish. I use one of those most of the time.

Do you know what year that is?

It was like a 2000. It was a reissue. I use that and, at the time, I had a white 2001 Gibson Les Paul Studio. I used those two guitars on that record with a Marshall 30th Anniversary I had at the time. I think I just used the full Marshall cab that was at the studio at the time. At that time, I was playing the Marshall through a Mesa 4x12. In the studio, it just didn't work out the way I was hoping it to, so we switched back over to this old Marshall cab. I'm really excited about the new record because I was able to use my different guitars. I have a lot more guitars now, and sort of try out different tones. On that record, we basically found a guitar tone and I kind of went with it and did all my tracks.

So there's no Fender on there?

No, not for me. I don't think Wade used one either. I just went straight, frickin' Humbuckers blazing away on that one.

While we 're there, why don't you talk about some of these new guitars that we'll be hearing on the new record?

I have like a '52 reissue Telecaster with a little '59 pickup in the bridge. I was able to use that on a bunch of songs. I've always been less about gain and more about clarity, trying to find that. So I was able to more explore that because we had more time to record. So I used that a lot, where I used my Tele with an old 100-watt JMP through this custom-built cabinet called the Morris Cabinet. There's a guy out of Welland, Ontario, named Glen Morris, who makes amps and things like that. And I coupled it with my Vox AC30 running through my Orange 4x12. We miked both those and I drew from both of those. Because like I told you before about the chords and stuff, when I'm playing them with crazy distortion they don't really come out as well as I'd like them to. So I was able to get more clarity, which was rad.

I have a '91 Les Paul Custom that I used a lot on the record just because it was really beefy sounding to me. I stayed with that JMP 100-watt head a lot because it was modded. The guy who produced our record, he brought it to the studio and it was just ripping.

Who produced the record?

His name is Julius Butty. He did the last record that we did. He's a Canadian producer and he's just sort of getting off the ground.

What's the new album called?

It's going to be called Crisis.

When is that coming out?

I'm going to say late July, but that probably means early August. It always comes out a little later than I'd like it to.

In comparing it to Watch Out!, how could you generalize it?

It's different in a way. I mean that's just the way we are. We don't write the same songs. We just write songs that come to us. Like before we come up with an idea of a song we don't go, "Okay, we want to write a song like this." Like what I said about 'Accidents' being a crowd song, when we started writing it we were like, "This is going to be great." It wasn't like, "Let's write an anthem-atic song to start our record off."

We have a new drummer now. He's not on Watch Out. His name is Jordan Hastings and he rules.

Can you talk briefly about what happened?

I can and I can't, to tell you the truth. It was just a conflict of interests.

So he brings something new to the music?

He's a much more aggressive drummer. He's a harder hitter and he really helped, too, with the songs this time around. I've never air-drummed more to our own stuff than I have on this record, so I'm pretty excited about it. I'm pretty proud of the guitar playing, too. We tried to explore ourselves a little bit more. We didn't want to make it too crazy, where we try out all these crazy things. Because basically we're just a rock band. We wanted to try different stuff and try and make the moods of the songs with the guitar tones.

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