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| Stormland |
Canada, you know what you are right?
We all know that me, I love Canada, but that doesn't change what Canada is at its heart, America's do-gooding younger sibling. We get it. America gives the world Saved By The Bell and Canada counters with Degrassi Junior High.
We give you insurance and you come back with single payer insurance. Geez. Could you guys try any harder to make us look like a slacking elder brother who really doesn't know what we are doing in this life???!
Well, we were here first so we win...wait, what were we talking about. Oh yeah, Stormland has a new album and you should check out this Canadian death metal out on BANDCAMP.
In the meantime, we talked to Justin about all the good stuff...check it out below...
1. Is there an event you can point to you that made you say, wow, that's the instrument I want to play? Not like guitar or drums, but the reason why you play the model you do?
Hmmm... Well, I'll talk about the two guitars I used on this album. What made me want the Ibanez RG was so simple: I wanted a guitar with a dual locking tremolo system.
I wanted to dive bomb and do crazy squeals! With the Jackson Warrior... Well, I wanted a pointy guitar, and guys like Dave Davidson from Revocation play them, so what's not to love? Also, both were on sale, so... Yeah.
Half the RG was a birthday present from my wife too.
2. How do you write a song?
Oh, this is good! When I sit down to write a song, I fire up Cubase and start with either a riff idea or a beat idea. I'll either set a click track/metronome and keep toying with playing the riff faster or slower and then recording it, or I program the beat in and play with the tempo.
If I record guitar first, I program drums under the riff next. If it's drums, I figure out the riff. I build from there, adding sections and deciding what goes where. Once I have identifiable verses and choruses, I copy and paste those in where they fit, and write bridges and other sections to make everything flow together.
After that's all done, from intro to ending, I start to trim it down! I take as much out of the song as I can, shortening sections that I think run too long or removing parts that don't flow or feel unnecessary. Finally, I go back and re-record the guitars and bass. I try to get as much of the song done in a take as I can, and if I make a mistake. I start over a couple of bars before the mistake, punch in, and keep going.
Lyrics and vocals come last, because the hardest part is the lyrics.
3. How many concept records do you own? Could you ever write one?
As far as straight-up concept records go, I've got King Diamond's "The Puppet Master," and multiple Fear Factory albums. "Demanufacture," "Obsolete," and "Genexus". So we'll say "four."
4. Who's influence is most evident in your music? The least?
The most evident influences in my music are probably Kataklysm, Carcass, and Bolt Thrower. The Kataklysm should be obvious because I took the band name from one of their song titles!
The least obvious? Probably Black Dahlia Murder, Hate Eternal, Converge, and Burnt by the Sun.
5. Which one of your songs is the one your the most proud of?
This is tough. Every song has something I'm proud of, honestly. At the moment, I'm probably most proud of "Ideological Paralysis (MBF-02)."
It's the most technical song I've written, and probably the most sweepingly epic
6. Sum up your latest record for us.
6. Sum up your latest record for us.
"Songs of Future Wars" is similar to Revocation's "Chaos in Forms" or Dave Grohl's Probot album. It's structured like a mixtape, with every song presenting a different side of extreme metal. It starts off with a face-ripping grindcore song and ends with a song that, for want of not giving spoilers, I'll call my "Overlord."
In between, there's melodeath, caveman thrash, blatant Bolt Thrower worship, asphyxiating microgravitaional deathdoom….
All kinds of stuff! As I said, it's like a mixtape over 32 minutes. And it's all inspired by and about the pilots and mecha of the Mobile Suit Gundam metaseries!
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