Chad Bowar: How’s your tour with Dragonforce and Cynic going so far?
Eyal Levi: Great. It’s really cool for us. These crowds are really into musicianship, and it’s our first time playing in front of a crowd like this. It’s not your typical metal crowd. You get a lot of people that have never been to a show in their lives before, lots of families. For us it’s a lot of fun because we get to be the heaviest band of the night.
A lot of Dragonforce fans discovered them via Guitar Hero.
Yeah, we noticed. It’s not like any tour we’ve ever done before. But we’re going over really well, so no complaints here.
How is the new lineup gelling on stage?
I wish it was like this on the last record cycle. I think the band would have gone over much better if this lineup had been touring. This lineup feels great to me. It’s amazing to have a competent, amazing frontman leading the charge. I wasn’t stoked on our performance last time around, so this time things are going exactly the way I want them to, and I couldn’t be happier.
What are you doing with keyboards live now that Mike has left the band?
Mike barely ever toured with us anyways. He only did one tour. We put the keyboards on a sampler and they would be triggered along with the click track. We’ve thought about getting another member, but it would have to be a serious badass for us to consider it.
For the last album there were a lot of stories about how the writing was based on certain things and that Daath would record 13 albums of 13 songs. I take it that’s not the case anymore since the new album has 11 songs. Did that go by the wayside when Mike left?
Pretty much. It’s really important for me that the band and the art we make is true to who we are. With Mike gone, it doesn’t really represent who we are anymore. That strict adherence, almost religious-like adherence, is gone with him.
How was the writing and recording process different for The Concealers than for The Hinderers?
On The Hinderers I would write a majority of things or write with Mike, but it would always end up coming back to my studio and I would work my ass off and present it to everybody. This time around we decided to take a group approach and we really focused on everybody’s strengths. So if I came up with a riff, Emil (guitarist Werstler) would “Emil” the riff up. Everybody was encouraged and invited to come to the table with the best stuff they had to offer.
It was like a mad science experiment because we had two writing rigs going in two different rooms, and it would be going 24/7 with different dudes in different rooms writing parts. It was pretty brutal because we wrote the entire record in about three months, which is not enough time, but we decided we would make it be enough time. The only way to conquer that was to work our asses off. It was like songwriting boot camp.
You worked with James Murphy (Death, Testament) on your last CD, and this time Jason Suecof produced. How did you choose him?
We didn’t want to work someone who didn’t want to work with us. We wanted to work with a production team or producer who was really into the project and into achieving what we wanted to achieve together. Suecof and Mark Lewis were the dudes who were on the same page as us from the get-go. It also helps that we are really good friends and they live nearby. Everything worked out.
Was the vibe in the studio different for this record because of producing styles?
You can’t really compare the two. To be honest, Murphy didn’t do that much on The Hinderers. It was pretty much done when Murphy stepped in, and a lot of the stuff wasn’t recorded with him there. With Suecof, it was start to finish with him. Not to discredit Murphy or anything, it’s just a completely different experience.
The vibe in the studio was awesome, very laid back. You don’t feel like you’re getting worked on, but you are. Hanging out with some of my best friends for two months, you can’t go wrong with that.
How has the response to The Concealers been so far?
I think 9 out of 10 people agree that it’s a major step up, and people are taking to it very well.
