Ideals fall, but All That Remains rises
February 25, 2007
A dynamic new album (The Fall of Ideals, on Prosthetic Records - READ REVIEW) and a spot on Ozzfest 2006 elevated Massachusetts’ All That Remains to headliner status in early 2007, when they played a string of sold-out shows across the United States. Prior to playing to a packed house at Jaxx in Springfield, Va., frontman Phil Labonte sat down with Greg Maki and Jeff Maki of Live-Metal.net to discuss the band’s success, the new release, his past with Shadows Fall and more.
Live-Metal: This is your first headlining tour.
Phil Labonte: Yes.
How’s it going?
It’s been amazing. Irving Plaza was sold out. Tonight was sold out before we even got here. All the California shows were sold out. Houston, Chicago, Toronto, Denver—pretty much any major city that we played pretty much sold out. Almost half the tour has been sold out, so it’s been amazing. For a first headliner, it’s astounding.
Are you surprised by that?
Yeah. Very. Very surprised, definitely.
How did you hook up with Cellador, Human Abstract and Misery Signals?
Our agent. It was our booking agent. Basically, they had sent us a list of bands that submitted. We’d take a listen to ’em and be like, “Yeah, we’re going to do this band, this band and this band, and this band we don’t like” and whatever. So we went ahead and worked it out that way.
Aside from playing last and playing longer, what are the big differences between headlining and being a supporting band?
Well, it’s your show. We make the rules. We decide how long the other bands play for. It’s fairly standard. Most tours do about the same thing, but it’s like if we need to take longer for soundcheck, we take longer, and no one really can say anything. Like, the other night they parked in front of Irving Plaza. It’s New York City. We’ve got a bus. There’s only one place we can park. So when we pulled up, we were like, “Hey. Move your vans. We’ve gotta park there.” It’s that kind of stuff. It makes it nice. It makes it way easier than doing a supporting band tour, I’ll tell you that much.
Does all of that come through in your performance, that kind of comfort?
I think so. I mean, maybe. I’d like to think that considering the fact that we don’t have to do the driving that we’re better. You know? I’d like to think that we play better. But who knows? Maybe we don’t.
At Sunday’s show in Philly, you’re filming for a DVD. Who came up with the idea to get the fans involved in the shooting?
I think it was actually somebody at our label who brought up the idea. We’re like, “Yeah, cool. Let’s go for it. Awesome.”
Anything special planned for that show from you guys?
Um, maybe, maybe not. We’ll see. We’ll see how it goes.
The latest album has been out for a little while now. Now that you’ve been playing the songs live for a while and been able to kind of live with it, how do you feel about it?
I love it. I’m extremely happy with everything about it. I’m extremely happy. Everyone in the band was pumped when they heard the record and I think everyone in the band is still pretty much really amped about the record overall.
What inspired the change to go with more melody and actual singing?
Well, there was singing on This Darkened Heart.
Yeah, but not as much as on this one.
Yeah, I know, but there was also more death metal, more of the brutal Cookie Monster kind of thing on this one. It was more variety is what we went for. There’s a lot of stuff that I can do. There’s a lot more of the kind of black metal highs and stuff on this record. That’s all over the song “Six.” So it was conscious effort to go ahead and instead of doing a standard, kind of mid-range kind of shout to really kind of just mix it up and let the vocals be an instrument as well as guitar and bass and stuff like that.
I made the comment on the way here, on one song, Morbid Angel is what came to my mind.
“The Weak Willed.” The really heavy one?
Yeah.
It’s track number six and the song is called “The Weak Willed.” That was the first thing that [guitarist] Oli [Herbert] said when he played it. He was like, “This is kind of a Morbid Angel kind of thing.” We’ve got a lot of different influences and we listen to a lot of different kinds of metal. We try and take all of our influences and let it work in songs and still be coherent as songs or what you would think of as a song, kind of standard song structure, whatever you want to call it.
Adam D. from Killswitch [Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz] produced it. On stage, that guy seems completely nuts. What’s he like in the studio?
He’s a normal dude. He’s weird, yes, but he’s not that weird. Have you heard what his new thing is? He’s laid up in bed because of his back injury, and I just read on Blabbermouth that he wants people to send him beef jerky. So he’s just telling people, “Send me all of your beef jerky. I need beef jerky to heal.” And they have an address. Mike Gitter at Roadrunner Records is the guy you go ahead and send it to. And, yeah, he wants your beef jerky, so give Adam your beef jerky, I guess. [Click here for more information on “The Adam D. Jerky Across the World Campaign.”]
You toured with Killswitch last year. What’s it like being out with guys you’ve known for so long?
It’s cool. It’s awesome. It’s going out on tour and hanging out with your friends, really. That’s basically what it boils down to, and you can’t really ask for anything better than working with your boys and then having the kickass job that we do with your boys. So we’re lucky dudes.
How did Ozzfest go for you last year?
Awesome. Amazing. I mean, apparently. I was talking to the promoter today and it’s sold out tonight. It was sold out before we even got here, and that’s one of only 12 times in the venue’s history that it sold out before the band actually got there to play. That’s a big deal. That’s pretty impressive, so Ozzfest was great for us. Everything that we’ve done in this past year has been amazing, so it’s good stuff.
Do you consider Ozzfest your biggest break so far as a band?
Yeah. As a band, it was probably our biggest break.
What do you think about the free Ozzfest this year?
I don’t. Whatever they want to do. I don’t care. We’re not on it, and I’m not going because I’m probably gonna be on tour. And if I’m not, then I’ll go check it out, have a good time, whatever. But it’s not for me to say what they should do. I don’t care what they do. Go ahead and do whatever you want to do. I’m not running the show.
Was Ozzfest where you met DragonForce?
Yeah, that was the first time we met them.
I guess you got along with them pretty well. You did a lot of touring with them.
Yeah, they were awesome. Great dudes. Love those guys.
They’re not a band that you would immediately think of when—
No, but we as a band aren’t looking to play with bands that are like us because, I mean, really, what’s the point? You want to have a diverse package. I wouldn’t want to go see a band that was just like the band that played before that was just like the band that played before. So when we’re thinking about going on tour with bands or whatever, I don’t sit there or we don’t think, “OK, we’ve gotta make sure that these guys are our style” or whatever.
Does going out with guys like them—and I’m sure lots of other bands, too—who are very talented players, does that kind of push you guys to play better?
Maybe.
You probably do that to yourselves anyway.
Yeah, maybe it pushes the guys a little bit. I don’t think too much on it, really. I don’t worry about a lot of things ’cause 90 percent of the things that people spend all their time worrying about they can’t do a goddamn thing about to change anyway. So why bother?
How long do you plan on touring in support of this album?
Definitely the rest of the year.
When do you think you’ll get to recording again?
We’ll probably go in January, February next year. Something like that, depending on Adam’s schedule. We’ve already talked to him, and we want him to produce our next one, and we’ll make adjustments in our schedule to make sure that we can work together. But depending on his schedule, really, it’s probably gonna be January, maybe February. Something like that. We’ll see.
Do you guys write stuff on the road or will you take time later to do that?
I haven’t written anything on the road. Oli’s got some stuff, and I know [drummer] Jason [Costa]’s got some ideas that they were talking about and stuff, but I know nothing’s been put together. We’ll see what happens.
You were the original singer of Shadows Fall. I never really heard the story. Was it just time to make a change?
What happened was Brian [Fair], who is their current singer, the band that he was in broke up. When I tried out, they were like, “Oh, can you do stuff like Brian from Overcast?” And I was like, “OK, I’ll try.” I kind of had my own sound. I didn’t sound like Brian, and when he became available, they were like, “Look, we want to get another singer. We want to get Brian.” I was like, “OK, cool.” There’s no hard feelings or anything like that ’cause I knew it was the dude they had in mind in the first place and also I had already started writing stuff for All That Remains. We had probably three songs put together, so I was just like, “Alright, whatever.” Shadows Fall wasn’t—I mean, obviously Shadows Fall wasn’t nearly as far along as they are now. They didn’t even have a record deal at the time. So it’s not like it was like, “Oh god, what could have been,” you know? It was like, “Whatever.” And last time we played here with Shadows Fall, it wasn’t sold out. And they were headlining. We’re headlining tonight and it’s sold out, so I’m not sweating. I’m not sweating. I don’t worry about what Shadows Fall does anymore, not even a little bit. I was never the dude that was like, “Oh my god.” It never bothered me. We were always friends and stuff like that, but now, whatever. I don’t care.
So there’s no animosity or anything, but then again you guys really don’t talk or anything, either?
No, if I know the guys are going—like, there’s this place in Amherst , Mass. called the Hangar and they have great chicken wings. Our old bass player, Dan Egan, is still, like best, best friends with [Shadows Fall guitarist] Matt [Bachand], so I’ll call those guys up and be like, “Yo, you guys going out tonight, what’s going on, you guys going to the Hangar?” A lot of times, if we’re at home, it’s like it’ll be [Shadows Fall guitarist] Jon Donais, me, Mike Martin, our guitar player, sometimes Oli’ll go, Dan Egan, our old bass player, sometimes some of the guys in Killswitch come out, and we’ll all just fuckin’ head up there and eat chicken until we’re disgustingly fat. It’s just dudes hanging out. People think it’s like, “Oh my god. It must be so crazy and cool.” And from our perspective, it’s really just like, “Oh cool, we’re going to go hang out with our friends.” When I was 17 hanging out with these same dudes, it wasn’t a big deal, so why’s it gonna be a big deal now? You know what I mean? To me, it’s like whatever, you know?
www.allthatremainsonline.com
myspace.com/allthatremains
www.prostheticrecords.com
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