Since the year 2000, As I Lay Dying have released six studio albums, embarked on countless world tours, and influenced modern day metalcore bands who are making it big in their own right.
Now, the five-piece have released their latest record, 2012’s Awakened – a perfectly balanced album of brutal riffs with the requisite clean singing and gang vocals that define the genre, ensuring the album debuted at #11 on the Billboard top 200 album charts.
When Tone Deaf speaks to bassist/vocalist Josh Gilbert, he is completing errands on the last day before As I Lay Dying embark on a European tour.
Gilbert proclaims satisfaction with the new album. “We feel so great about it. The last proper studio album we put out [2010’s The Powerless Rise] I think may have been disappointing to some of our older fans as it wasn’t as melodic.”
Several months before Awakened was released, the quintet released a lyric video for ‘Cauterize’, which appears to be the new plan of action on social media for bands releasing new albums.
“We actually weren’t even finished recording the entire record when we had that song mixed,” explains Gilbert. “We wanted to have a song from our last tour to talk about and promote the record with.” The Californian band chose a track with a good balance to grab the older fans and remind them that band is still alive and well.
“The more the audiences can help us out, the better it is for us. It really comes down to the audiences and fans hitting up their promoters and making our presence known.”“We’re still writing heavy music. I think a few people were scared when they heard (compilation album) Decas because there were quite a few remixes and covers but for some reason, as clear as we made it, there was still like some confusion as to whether or not those were our songs.”
That latest LP saw their own music remixed as well some B-sides and covers. “We definitely wanted to find a song to squash the confusion,” says the bassist of their new single ‘Cauterize’. “It comes out heavy and pretty balls out from the beginning.”
The deluxe version of Awakened contains an extended demo version of ‘A Greater Foundation’ and bonus track ‘Unwound’ as well, with Gilber reasoning, “we have seen bands do it and we thought it was kind of cool to show fans those demos.”
This way the fans are able to perceive the unmixed original of the track and compare it to how it eventually turned out, “after the mixers puts their stack of production on it.” Gilbert reckons the bonus track ‘Unwound’ didn’t really fit in with the rest of the tracks on the record so they put it on the deluxe version instead.
Obviously the band are proud of the entire album, but there’s always a few sneaky personal favourites. “I really like ‘A Greater Foundation’ – it’s a good mix of the old and the new for us.”
Gilbert values the tiers of structure in tracks like this. “It has two parts that you can kind of consider a chorus with a chant here, as well as gang vocals there, with a ‘hardcore’ feel but then there’s also the main chorus too.”
The band has worked with that kind of structure before, but as the bassist puts it, “this is the first time it has actually worked pretty well”. Gilbert really likes ‘Wasted Words’ a lot as well, “because it’s definitely a really dark song and still has a catchy melody with it. It’s a perfect example of the record because we were trying to go for writing songs that were still brutal but retained its melody.” “We definitely wanted to find a song to squash the confusion, ‘Cauterize’ comes out heavy and pretty balls out from the beginning.”
Gilbert divulges another favourite tune, the explosive ‘My Only Home’, “I would say it would be in my top 3 as well. For some reason it has a place on the record that becomes really strong with the instrumental strikes that come in – really heavy.”
It’s another track that really captures As I Lay Dying’s music maturation without giving up their roots. “The chord progression reminds me something that a band like Muse would do,” though obviously without the metalcore aspect, “we were really excited about how that song turned out musically and we will most likely play it live.”
The band will be playing live in Europe across venues co-headlining with good friends Trivium. “I would say the venues range from 1,500-2,500 capacity and we will have support from Upon A Burning Body as well.” As I Lay Dying have toured with Trivium extensively in the past including when both bands supported Disturbed on the Australian leg of their tour in April of 2011.
“It’s kind of a good spectrum for that tour; everything goes well when the genres of the bands on tour match together pretty closely. It’s not a huge division between the fans but I think the bands are a little different,” says Gilbert.
It seems like they will be touring buddies with their fellow metal contemporaries in the future, as both As I Lay Dying and Trivium now share the same management, simplifying some of the logistics for touring.
When pressed on the idea of whether his band would get on board for an Australian tour co-headlining with Trivium, Gilbert replies, “Oh that sounds amazing, but it really comes down to the audiences and fans hitting up their promoters and making our presence known.”
“The more the audiences can help us out, the better it is for us. We’re just happy to be able to play overseas in a place like Australia to awesome fans and any time we can get over there we’d love to.”
Awakened is out now through Metal Blade records.
