As I Lay Dying *Interview with Josh*
As I Lay Dying
Tim Lambesis
Jordan Mancino
Phil Sgrosso
Nick Hipa
Josh Gilbert
As I Lay Dying
There are plenty of metal bands out there today, but there aren’t many that are more popular than As I Lay Dying, who have stormed through the scene especially heavily in the last few years. Â While they formed in 2000, they debuted their first album just one, short year later. Â Now five albums deep, As I Lay Dying has toured the world, including playing Ozzfest, Warped Tour, Soundwave and the Dubai Desert Rock Festival.
They’re currently headlining the Cool Tour with Underoath, Between the Buried and Me, The Acacia Strain, Cancer Bats, Architects and War of Ages, and I have to admit, this is quite a strong lineup in itself, so it must be a hell of an honor to headline this one! But these boys are no strangers to being a headliner, and I don’t see that trend slowing down anytime soon!
I recently spoke with Josh Gilbert (bass and clean vocals) about the tour and what’s to come in the future. Â Check it out!
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You all have now been a band for ten years. Did you do anything special this year for a 10-year anniversary?
Well it’s not actually quite ten years, probably the beginning of next year, February. Nothing is planned yet, but now that you mention it we should do something cool.
You all are Grammy nominated; did you EVER think you’d reach this level of success?
Ya know, I don’t think anyone ever thought that we would or had that as a goal. You know what I mean? Everyone does music because they enjoy playing and we just want to write music we like that our fans will enjoy. The fact we were nominated is awesome, but it wasn’t something that we set out to do or anything.
You all are from San Diego; are any of you into surfing?
I was actually raised in Birmingham, Alabama. A couple of the guys do some surfing. Most of us have some other musical endeavors, other projects and writing music other than this band. It’s the main hobby everyone has. We love to eat awesome food and drink awesome beers, too!
Fav beer?
I really like Franziskaner’s (Francis Conner). It’s a Belgium beer, it rules.
The Cool Tour has a pretty heavy lineup so it must feel pretty good to be the headliner! What other bands on the bill are you especially excited to play with?
Honestly, almost every band that we haven’t played with previously, we weren’t familiar with, like the Cancer Bats for example. But now that I’ve met them, I’m stoked! Between the Buried and Me has been a favorite metal band since 2002, I’ve always tried to get together with them. Same with Underoath. I’ve been a fan since 2000 when I was first getting into music and metal. It’s full circle that we’ve all got to do a tour with them. Its kinda weird because with BTBAM, we’re like “These guys are so much better than us at playing their instruments!†So we’re stoked on how its turned out so far.
Do you consider yourself more metal or hardcore, or a pleasant mix of both?
I would say just metal. Straight metal. I mean, there’s definitely some hardcore influence, but I wouldn’t say its more hardcore, it’s metal with elements you’d find on a hardcore record. We have plenty of songs I’d consider only a metal, but I’m sure other people would say they hear hardcore influences.
Who has been doing your album artwork?
A guy named Jake Bannon, vocalist for Converge. He’s been doing it since the beginning, all four albums on Metal Blade. Well, five really if you count the early years. He’s always done cool interesting original artwork so we’ve had him do all the albums to keep kind of a consistent theme going.
How do you feel about Nickelback using one of Dimebag Darrel’s unreleased solos in their song, Side of a Bullet?
Here’s the thing… I’m obviously a huge fan of Pantera. Been super into them even before he died. And I mean, let’s be honest, I’m not a fan of Nickelback. But you have to respect those dudes, they’re just guys out there, playing music, writing songs and selling records. If they’re stoked on Dimebag Darrel, more power to them. It would’ve been nice to have seen someone sweeter like Black Label Society doing a tribute, someone that the guys from Pantera know.
How does playing in San Diego differ from playing other cities? Do you feel that hometown vibe?
Yeah when we play there we have an average of about 75 people on our guest list. We always make sure to have a lot of extra food, drinks and beer to just hang out all day. They come close to selling out or sell out every time, which is awesome. We play there about once every 2 years.
Do you consider yourself a Christian metal band?
I mean, yeah, we get this question a lot and we just say that everyone in the band is Christian and the lyrics are written from a Christian point of view. We aren’t trying to write a Christian riff or anything, we just try to write cool metal riffs for everyone. I don’t think it would be wrong or right to classify us either way. It’s almost like a different genre with different lyrical content. We try to write awesome music and that’s all we want to do.
How did you all come up with the concept for the Parallels music video?
Basically we went to the producer, Dave Brodskey and told him what song we were doing a video for, gave him the lyrics, and started working on the concept. He had a guy that did computer graphics that already had this animated thing kinda sitting around, so we just tweaked it a little. We immediately liked it, it fit in really well with the lyrics and that’s basically how it came about! We had directors send us ideas and that was the one we chose!
You all released a new album in May; do you plan to start writing for a new record after the Cool Tour is done, or are you going to continue touring?
We’ll definitely be on tour for another year and a half before more writing starts. There might be some writing riffs here if something inspires us, and there’s but no sit down official writing for another year and a half. But I do just wanna say a big thank you to everyone listening to our band, an be sure to come see one of our shows!
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Be sure to catch them on the COOL TOUR 2010 coming to a town near you!! Here are the remaining dates:
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Also, check out the official music video for Parallels! hollaaaaaaa
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To learn more about As I Lay Dying, check out:
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About the Author
Denise Borders 39, Los Angeles. Denise founded PWV in 2008 and remains the primary manager and photographer/videographer. She is not secretly obsessed with Joey Cape.
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