Brian Fair: It was the perfect alignment of the planets. I knew we were going there, and it was 25 minutes out of Richmond. I gave him a call a few days before, and he was in Jakarta. But luckily he flew home on a Tuesday, slept all day Wednesday and came out to the studio on Thursday. Originally he just planned on cooking us dinner and hanging out. We had the mics set up and were working on “King Of Nothing” that day. And the line “quit your f*^%ing crying” is perfect for Randy Blythe. I said there’s no way you’re getting out of here without getting on this record.
We never had a guest spot before. Randy is as close to family as this band can have, so it made perfect sense. If we were going to have a guest, it was going to be someone that we knew well and had been there since the beginning. It was so awesome to hear his voice over that riff. Then we blended it with Matt (Bachand, guitarist) and myself at the end for this ridiculous three part harmony from hell. His brutal scream, Matt’s low death metal vocal and I’m tucked right in there. It’s just awesome.
What inspired the CD title Retribution?
It was a word that Matt was throwing around. We’ve never had a one word title album, and we wanted to find something that was succinct, to the point, and expressed the overall vibe of the album. We almost felt like this was a little bit of a coming back party after not having a record for a few years, and we haven’t toured for a while. We felt like we had to make some noise and scare some people again. So we felt that was a great way to say we’re coming back.
How was the video shoot for “Still I Rise?”
We were talking about a way to tie in some things, and Paul (Romanko, bassist) had mentioned he pictured the song as a wrestler’s intro anthem. It has that inspiring lyric and great beat. That led to us talking to the guys at Affliction while we were working on a tee shirt. They said they had a cage right there and could lend us some fighters. It was the perfect storm for all those things coming together. I think it shows the symmetry between the violence and intensity of a cage fight with the violence and intensity of a circle pit at a metal show. We just showed those two things together. Plus you have to throw in some sexy ring girls so it’s not 100 percent dudeification. It can’t just be a training video.
It was a fun shoot. We opened the doors to a bunch of fans from Southern California to come down and rock out. They were hanging on the cage, circle pitting inside the ring. I think that added to the performance of the video because we’ve never had an audience. It’s always been us pantomiming for cameras. We’re not really actors in any shape, way or form, so it was great to have an audience in our face and being able to crank the tunes and really go for it.
What are your upcoming tour plans?
It’s going to be a busy fall and winter. We’ve been lucky to be home for a while. I’ve enjoyed my time on the couch, but it’s over. The record drops on September 15th and we’ll be on tour a few days after that with Five Finger Death Punch, Otep and Two Cents doing a full U.S. run. Then Five Finger Death Punch and us are going to Europe for a tour, which we are tying in with an Australian tour with Lamb Of God and DevilDriver, with a possible Japanese or Russian show thrown in along the way. Then we get home in mid to late December. It’s going to be awesome.
What’s the setlist going to be like?
We are going to focus heavily on the new stuff, which is something we haven’t done as much in the past. We usually do a cross section set. We will be playing old songs, but also play at least three or four new songs. I feel like Retribution is a record that really lends itself to the live situation.
When you’re rehearsing for a tour, do you prepare extra songs to work in at different shows?
Totally. We have a white board with the setlist, then all the alternate songs we learned when we either want to freshen things up for ourselves, or if something would fit better. We also have three different tunings, which can be a pain in the ass. Sometimes that plays into it where we don’t want to have a guitar change every single song and lose the momentum of going back to back. And sometimes we like to sneak in cool little interludes and even a cover song here and there.
You played Bonnaroo this summer. How was that?
It was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had in this band. As most people know, I’m a dirty hippie. But Bonnaroo is much more than just a hippie festival. They cover so many styles of music. That day in the metal tent we had High On Fire, Dillinger Escape Plan, Coheed & Cambria, Cage The Elephant. It was really cool to have the brutal stuff in the corner. There were metal kids who came to support it, but we also opened up a lot of minds to a lot of people who were hearing us for the first time. I also got to watch a little Snoop Dogg with a live band. For me it was the perfect day.
Does it have more of a European festival vibe with all the different genres as opposed to an Ozzfest or Mayhem Festival?
Definitely. It has that vibe. Each tent has a different thing going on at all times. We were playing at the same time as Merle Haggard. What’s weird is that at these genre festivals you can get away with some of the eclectic types of bands, where if you tried to have a jam band on a metal festival I don’t think it would go over as well. It was cool for us to play to a different audience. There were a lot of metalheads there, but the hippies were also there in the pit. It was crazy to see a tie-dye circle pit.
