Chad Bowar: Talk about the personnel changes since your last album and how you found the new guys.
Jesse Haff: On Dismantling Devotion we have two new members, Nathan Ellis on vocals and Charley Shackelford on guitars. Our previous vocalist, Guthrie Iddings, left for school in California after touring for No Reply. Thankfully we had known Nathan for several years and knew if he agreed to take the position he would more than fulfill the job. I think his job on the album proves that. Charley was our live session guitarist for over a year. He had been doing a fantastic job, so we brought him into the band.
How has the band progressed musically on Dismantling Devotion?
The songwriting is more mature than our previous songs. The material is more diverse song by song, yet all is held together by a common emotional, lyrical and melodic theme throughout. In general we’ve just been able to refine and progress with what we’ve been doing previously, as well as bring in a lot of new elements. We feel like this has resulted in the most emotionally potent and fresh songs we’ve written yet.
What does the title signify, and how did you come up with it?
The title signifies the theme which all the song lyrics are also based on: the disintegration of relationships, both intimate and non-intimate. The slow painful process we all go through we experience a close bond being broken – through the ending of love, death or any other circumstances. It’s something intensely personal yet uniquely universal.
What are your expectations for the album?
Honestly, I try and avoid having any expectations. I try and not think about it. This album is something we’ve worked extremely hard on for a long time, so obviously we want it to do well. We want people who have never heard of us to finally hear our music for the first time. So far all the reviews show it is very well received, but I’m not convinced that has a correlation with bringing the band more success.
How does your band's songwriting process work?
Barre or I send out demos of ideas we’ve been working on through email to everyone else in the band. Ideas that “pass the test” are then brought to rehearsal to see what a full band can bring to it. If it seems like something worthwhile, we continually go back to it and add on to it piece by piece – and also take away from it piece by piece. We throw out a tremendous amount of material.
Talk about the recording/mixing of the album.
We decided to use Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios in Sweden because he created some incredible sounding albums. Not only that, but they were unique to each band. It’s unusual that a producer/mixer can not only bring a massive and modern sound to a band, but do so in a way uniquely fits that band perfectly. We’re very satisfied with his job on Dismantling Devotion. Our bassist (Egan O’Rourke) engineered the album. The drums and acoustic guitars were recorded in a proper studio, but all the guitars, bass, upright bass, vocals, etc, were recorded in various places – bedrooms, bathrooms, rehearsal rooms and so forth.
The songs changed dramatically from inception to completion. We don’t write quickly. It takes a long time for all of us to become satisfied.
How did you get selected to open for Emperor in July?
We’re on the same label as Emperor and we had a new release coming out. I think Candlelight felt while we were obviously very different musically from Emperor, we would also fit in well. We’re looking forward to it and are honored to be part of it.
What are your other tour plans?
I wish we had some we could reveal. We are all anxious to get out on the road and share all of our new songs with everyone. Unfortunately while there has been talk of various tours here and there, nothing has been confirmed. We’re just waiting for that to happen.
