Live-Metal.Net - New Noise: The System After

The System After is a metal quintet based out of Peoria, IL. Each member's styles and influences create a melting pot of heavy, melodic vocals, chunking riffs, melodic choruses and profound grooves. The guitars are a blend of modern metal and hard rock, with dark, moody basslines on top of in-your-face drum beats. The melody and screams of vocalist Dustin Stoecker are the icing on the cake.

After coming into contact with guitarist Dave Zumbek via the Internet, Live-Metal.net's Jeff Maki was impressed by material from The System After's new release, Thrill or Be Killed, so much so that The System After is now the latest 'new noise' band on Live-Metal.net. Like other bands previously featured, including The Destro and Echoes of Eternity (now both signed to record deals), The System After has a unique sound and originality that is becoming less common in today's day and age. Live-Metal.net recently chatted with Zumbek, finding out some history of the band, info on Thrill or Be Killed and, most importantly, where you can buy this phenomenal release.

Tell us a little background of The System After:

Dave Zumbek: The System After was formed in January of 2006. Our singer, Dustin Stoecker, and our drummer, Brad Heid, got together to start a project after both of their previous bands (Sylym/NoFall and Nonamus) broke up. Dustin posted an ad for a guitar player on the Illinois Musician's Website. I responded to that ad, talked with Dustin a bit and was asked to come try out. A week or two after I tried out, I was asked to be in the band.

We began writing songs and found a bass player, John Metroff, who was a co-worker of Brad. In March of 2006, we parted ways with John, and Brad's cousin, Dave Rybolt (Nonamus), came in to play bass with us. In April 2006, we were looking for an additional guitar player and brought in Jarret Witmer, who was the drummer from the area band Chaindrive. The five-piece that would be known as The System After was then formed. The band continued to write songs and began local shows in June of 2006.

After playing a few shows in our area, we landed a sweet gig playing on the second stage at an Anthrax show at The Rave in Milwaukee, WI. Shortly thereafter, we got the opportunity to be interviewed by one of our local rock radio stations about the Anthrax show. The interview was during the five o'clock drive home on a workday and it really helped us get our name out there. Not too long after this we went into the studio and cut our CD, which was our self titled five-track demo. We released this CD in August of 2006, and we really started to pick up the pace with shows. We played almost everything we could, trying to get our music and name out to as many people as possible.

We were slowly making a name for ourselves and over the next year we had the opportunity to open for many national acts. We had another opportunity to play on a side stage at The Rave in Milwaukee, this time it was for a Deftones show. We also got to open for some really great bands like FLAW, Silent Civilian, Allele and Year of Desolation. We had some great momentum going for us, but then we hit a stopping point when the band parted ways with Dave Rybolt in August 2007. We were about to record the follow up to our 2006 release, but we were left without a bass player.

The band began recording anyway, but kept shows to a minimum for the time being. One night we were playing a local show as a four-piece, and the place was pretty packed. We put on one hell of a show that night, and after our set Charlie Sissom came up us and asked if he could try out for the band. We brought him in to try out, and it was a done deal. At this point, we had most of the music recorded in the studio, we just needed bass tracks before the vocals could be laid down. We got Charlie up to speed, and he came in and recorded all of his bass lines within a short period of time from joining the band. We started playing shows with Charlie, and he really began to fit into things. Our momentum began to pick up once more.

We continued to finish the CD, really taking our time this go around. At the same time, we were playing as much as we could. We finally finished recording and we had an album we were really proud of. We put together a big CD release show on November 17, 2007, and unleashed our first full length album, Thrill or Be Killed.

Where/how can someone get their hands on your new release, Thrill or be Killed?

The easiest way to get a copy of the CD would be the Internet. We sell it right on our MySpace site, accepting Paypal and credit card. You can also pick up a copy of our CD from CDBaby.com. The iPod crowd can now download our album off of iTunes as well. We have more Internet outlets in the works and will be updating our MySpace site accordingly.

Of course, we sell our CDs the traditional way: at shows. We also sell copies at all of our local CO-OP Record stores. We are always on the look out for more stores to sell our music as well, so more is sure to come in the future.

www.myspace.com/thesystemafter
http://cdbaby.com/cd/systemafter
iTunes

Tell us some details of the new album:

The new album is 14 tracks, with the first nine songs recorded specifically for this album. We put a lot of work and effort into these songs trying to improve and jump to the next level from where our first CD was. We actually recorded our first CD all in one 12-hour sitting, so with this release we really wanted to take our time with the recording process. This gave us time to listen to the progress we made in the studio so we can come up with ideas for improvements. We think it really paid off and the final result shows it. Dustin re-recorded some vocals he was not happy with from our first CD. His voice is better than it ever has been, so he wanted to reflect that. We included those original five songs not only as a bonus to fans, but also to sort of show how far we have come musically as a band.

Many people ask us why the album was called Thrill or Be Killed. To us, it's sort of a motto. The way we see it, we have two options with this band. We can either go out there, succeed and win fans over, or we can fail and be destroyed like many of the members' previous projects. We consider this album and this time in our band's career a do-or-die situation. Now is the time to push to that next level, and if we can't do that, this band won't maintain the momentum it has.

I do all of the artwork for the band, and at first I had an extremely difficult time trying to come up with album art. Jarret then had the idea of calling the album Thrill or Be Killed. It started leading us to think of a photo shoot for the artwork, and Jarret threw out the idea of being tied up. That got my wheels spinning, and I started coming up with ideas of how to illustrate the concept of the album. We decided to get a little crazy on this one and have someone tie us up to chairs, put duct tape on our mouths and hold a gun to our head. We all got in my garage to do the shoot, and my neighbors probably thought we were all nuts. I think it worked out great though, and really adds visual illustration to the concept. In my mind the pictures have us sitting in limbo. We are tied up with a gun to our head and we can either "thrill" or "be killed."

Your sound is definitely modern, but with a much heavier edge than radio-rock type bands. What are some key influences of the band?

We all have such a wide array of influences that it really is hard to narrow it down. Whenever I stop and think about our sound, some of the bands that always come to mind are Killswitch Engage, the Deftones and Incubus. I can see elements of each one of those bands in our music. Every member has their own style and their own influences that really come together and form this band. We all share common influences, but I don't think we all are really into the same exact style, which can have very positive effects on our song writing.

Dustin really liked bands like Disturbed, Every Time I Die, etc. He is a singer/screamer and he really gets into the bands that have that sound and do it well. Brad is a huge Deftones fan and you can see some of that in his drumming. Charlie likes a good range of metal and rock bands from As I Lay Dying to Taproot, as well as many others. I see a Taproot/Mudvayne style with a more modern twist in his bass playing. Jarret really gets into the heavier stuff and we share many of the same influences, which helps us coordinate guitar riffs. He loves the band Mastodon which gets him thinking outside the box more, but he also really idolizes guitarists such as Slash and Zakk Wylde. You can see those influences blend into his playing style. They could tell you what they like better than I could, but that is what I see in them.

Personally, I like everything from rock to death metal. I learned to play guitar while idolizing bands like Korn, Pantera and Metallica. I am really more into newer metal/metalcore/hardcore these days, though. I tend to draw a lot of influences from modern bands like Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, August Burns Red, Atreyu, All that Remains, Bullet for My Valentine, God Forbid, Diecast, Lamb of God and Norma Jean. I listen to more music along those lines at this time, but I also can't ignore my style from my early years or some of my other favorite bands like Deftones, Taproot and Chevelle. If you take those bands and melt them all down together into one, the style that would result is how I approach songwriting. I think some of the songs I wrote for this album and riffs I came up with were evident of that.

As far as live shows/touring, where or when can we see The System After?

We are trying to expand our reach all the time. In the immediate future, we have some shows in Chicago and St. Louis lined up. We are working on returning to many of the places we have been in Iowa and Wisconsin as well. In the near future, we are looking to make our debut to Indiana, Ohio, Texas and California. It's hard for us to just go out there and tour because we all have jobs that we are dependent on here. We all have bills to pay and we can't just drop everything and go on tour for a couple of months right now. We are always trying to play at new places in new areas to reach out further than we have before. We hope to do more of that in 2008.

I surely think you guys have the right sound to land a record deal, but have you had any legit offers yet? Anything cooking right now?

Not yet. The end of the year was hectic with our CD release and the holidays, so we hope to start getting press kits out to record companies in the first half of 2008.

What was the last album you bought?

I often get albums in pairs, so I can't name just one specifically. Technically, the last two albums I bought were: August Burns Red Thrill Seeker and Avenged Sevenfold Waking the Fallen. I purchased those albums in November. I got a couple of CDs for Christmas, though; those were: Dream Theater Train of Thought and Soilwork Sworn to the Great Divide. They are all great albums.

What's the first thing the band would do if/when you get signed to a record deal?

That is a tough question actually. I guess it depends on the contract type/record label who signed us. Realistically, newly signed bands don't make much money these days, so it would really have to depend on what is offered in the deal. I know ideally some of us would love to upgrade our equipment. I am pretty happy with my rig but wouldn't mind some nice road cases for my stuff. New guitars are always nice, too. I am sure some of the other guys in the band would like to update their equipment as well. We don't have a tour vehicle right now, buses are expensive, and I have heard living out of a van isn't the best experience, so something like that might be worth a look. Perhaps looking for an RV or something to take on the road would be good.