Wovenwar,
a band who’s legend precedes their music.
Born
from the ashes of metalcore staples As I Lay Dying, the events that lead to
their break up made national news and was, for a short time, the most widely
reported news story on metal media outlets. Now, joined by Shane Blay of
Christian metal band O, Sleeper fame, the remnants of As I Lay Dying have
joined forces once again too form new band, Wovenwar.
For
those unfamiliar, back in early 2013, As I Lay Dying’s singer Tim Lambesis was
caught up in what would have been the metal story of the century if it wasn’t
for sicko Ian Watkins. He was caught trying to hire a hitman to assassinate his
estranged wife. The man he thought would carry out the ordeal was in fact the
man who would later incarcerate him, after an elaborate sting lead the singer
straight in the hands of an undercover FBI agent.
The
fallout of these events lead to the demise of As I Lay Dying and eventual
formation of Wovenwar. I caught up with Josh Gilbert (Bass/ Vox) and Shane Blay
(Guitar/ Vox) for an interview before their show at the Barfly Camden on the 21st
of August.
Read
on…
SL). The
Lyrical themes of As I lay dying were very defined through life experiences and
interpersonal relationship, subjects that fans could really connect with. What
are the subject matters of Wovenwar centred around?
S:
Ex-girlfriends… Nah just kidding! This entire record is mostly about
persevering through rougher times to get in a better place after and make your
failures make you a better person.
SL). So in Oh,
Sleeper did you have another lyrical direction that you deviated from in
Wonvenwar?
S: With Oh,
Sleeper I basically kept it as an argument between Christianity and not
Christianity. We would debate that a lot in our lyrics, and that hasn’t really
been an issue in Wovenwar, we got to go off and do whatever in other areas.
SL). And how
much of the material had been written before Shane came into the fold?
J: Well we
wrote about 5 different songs before Shane came into the fold. We were kind of
throwing around ideas of who could be singing for it and when Shane came in and
we sent him the songs we let him choose the ones that he wanted to work on, so
it would be more of a natural progression with whoever we chose. When he came
after we wrote ‘All Rise’, we had recorded it and he already had some lyrics
and melodies for it before he even got there so we recorded it again. It was
after that when we had recorded all the other songs and after hearing the final
product we got rid of all but maybe 1 or 2 of the songs that we had at that
point. So we decided to start writing new stuff that fit the mould of what the
first song was and in the new direction we wanted to go.
SL). How much
lyrical material did you have before you came in? Did you want to try something
with this band that you hadn’t tried before?
S: I just took
it in stride. As Josh said I had a few thing for All Rise and then the next
song we wrote was The Mason. It was a day-to-day thing, whatever song we wrote
just inspired lyrics.
SL). With your
attitude towards playing, what was it that drew you to Shane?
J: Well Nick
and Shane had played before years ago.
S: Yeh we grew
up together in Texas
J: which I was
a huge fan of when I was like 14
SL). Oh yeh?
Were you getting into the scene at the time?
J: Yeh because they had a 4 or 5 year age
difference, so when I was 14 they were 19 or so and I was like’ You guys are
insane!’
(Raucous
laughter)
S: But me and
Nick had been writing side projects for years for fun.
SL). Did any
of those songs turn into Wovenwar?
S: No, none of those songs did. Maybe
they will in the future but I doubt it.
SL). So back to
what we were talking about earlier. As I Lay Dying were labelled as a Christian
band, it had that association quite heavily upon it. Would you say that it also
applies to Wovenwar ?
J: We would
say, regardless what the individual members believe, that Wovenwar have no
spiritual…
S: Agenda.
J: Yeh. We’re
just into songs for the sake of songs. They’re separate as the songs are about
personal thoughts and relationships.
SL). Did you
ever feel constricted by the label that you had with As I Lay Dying?
J: I think we
all felt the media sort of over played it. At the beginning of As I Lay Dying
there were quite a few lyrical themes regarding spiritual things. I feel as the
band progressed it became more about personal struggles and things like that. I
think the way we always felt was that we were writing metal songs, not
Christian metal songs. We couldn’t write a Christian riff even if we tried!
SL). Yeh, what
is a Christian riff?
J: Exactly!
SL). Let’s
talk more about when Wovenwar got together. What was the time frame between
when As I Lay Dying stopped and getting in touch with Shane?
J: Well
everything that happened when the shit hit the fan around the second week of
May 2013, so it was around the August when we talked to Shane for the first
time. He was on Warped Tour and we had been writing for a month, maybe a month
and a half. Then Shane came round my place mid September and we started making
demos. There was never any try out or anything like the band getting together
and saying yay or nay, we just kept writing
SL). It was a
lot more organic.
S: Yeh
J: It was
weird because I don’t think any of us expected to record the record as early as
we did. But we really wanted to work with Bill on it so it really pushed us to
finish it, so we started recording on the last day of November 2013. So, we
started mid August and had the whole record done by mid November. We wrote the
entire 13 songs on the record in that time period. But it was never hard work,
the stuff just poured out.
SL). So your first tour together, tensions running
high yet?
S: Haha No!
J: No!
S: We frickin’
get along great! No drama.
J: I pretty
much lived with Shane for like 4 months while we wrote, recorded and practiced
the record. He stayed with me for most of the time so we were always in close
quarters. Now being on tour it’s pretty much the same thing.
S: Yeh it’s
really fun. We’re great friends, its good work.
SL). And what
do you implement into these shows that you have wanted to implement into shows
from previous bands?
J: I think
there’s more humour. We’re able to just joke around because of whatever reasons
or personalities were involved in my last band, it was definitely not the sort
of vibe that lent itself towards making jokes on stage. So it’s cool to just
100% let our personalities come out. We had these sort of menacing faces on
previously, which is cool for that but I think it’s not exactly who we are all
the time. It’s nice to be a bit more relaxed about it.
S I’m not the
kind of guy who wants to get all the American football kids beating the shit
out of each other. I like just to have a great time every night. A lot of
people come up to me and say it looks like I’m having such a great time on
stage, and its because I am! Just do my thing, smile all the time, and try to
step on Josh’s feet!
SL). Lots of
stage banter!
J: Yeh it’s
really good. We like to point people out who look like their having a good
time. And point people out who look like they aren’t having a good time haha.
SL). Do you
mind talking about the equipment you use?
S: I was using
an E835 but that didn’t work out so now we’re using 58’s. I use Ernie Ball
guitars and we’re all on Ax-Fx right now.
J: I have a
Fender Geddy Lee Jazz Bass through a Sansamp for part of the tone then I have
an MXR Bass DI Pluss. It’s really rad because it has a lot of distortion for a
bass pedal but it also has a built in noise gate.
SL). Does it
preserve the low end nicely?
J: I think
most of the low end comes from the Sansamp. I want that to be blended in
because if you have too much low end in the signal it will kind of spike. I
think the Sansamp is a well rounded one and the other is more mid range
focused. Lots of bite.
SL). Any
pedals?
S: None really
because of the Ax-Fx.
SL). How much
time was spent perfecting that tone before you hit the road?
S: we
practiced for a good 2 and a half week.
J: Those guys
have their Ax-Fx set up to the point where they change effects and tone too the
click track.
SL). Yeh I saw
Meshuggah do something similar with Cubase.
J: Yeh ours is
just on ProTools
SL). That
interesting. What guitars are you using tonight?
S: I have an
Ernie Ball BFR Koa.
SL). Pickups?
S: A Crunch
Lab and a Liquefier and then my new guitar is a new Ernie Ball Armada and I
don’t know what’s in that thing but it sounds good!
SL). And
Basses?
J: I have the
custom Geddy Lee Jazz Bass with stock pups then custom Ibanez basses that are
modeled after the Geddy Lee. Those have quarter pounder pickups too.
SL). Cool.
String gauges?
J: Well for
me, because of all the tunings everywhere from B standard to drop D sharp or E
flat, I use 1.20 1.00 .80 .60 gauge strings and .6mm picks.
S: I think
Nick uses lighter but me and Phil use .56 – .10 gauge strings. Josh and me have
customs picks too (they gave me two!). Yeh I never really use picks like this,
I usually use Jazz III’s.
J: Because we
have a lot of Meshuggah style fast triplets and if I use a thicker pick that
ain’t gonna happened!
SL). That’s
great, I think we got some good stuff covered there. I’m looking forward to
tonight guys thanks for seeing me, it was awesome. See you at the show!
Intro & Words by: Asher Alexander
