Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Bloodsimple

Every once in a while, an album takes a listener by complete surprise. In 2005, A Cruel World introduced Bloodsimple, a new band featuring Vision of Disorder frontman Tim Williams and guitarist Mike Kennedy, and signed to Bullygoat Records, the label started by Mudvayne vocalist Chad Gray. It was a solid effort that showed the hardcore veterans transitioning into the metal world. But in no way did it prepare anyone for Red Harvest, the band’s 2007 sophomore effort that drew its name and part of its inspiration from a novel by famed hardboiled detective writer Dashiell Hammett (author of classics such as The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man). In that novel, Hammett coined the term “blood-simple.” As the violence escalates out of control and the bodies pile up around him, the unnamed narrator acknowledges his fragile state of mind: “This damned burg’s getting me. If I don’t get away soon I'll be going blood-simple like the natives.”

Incorporating spoken word elements, grooves that would make Pantera jealous and a host of catchy hooks, Red Harvest is one of the year’s best metal albums. A recent tour supporting HellYeah brought Bloodsimple to Rams Head Live in Baltimore, Md., where Live-Metal.net’s Greg Maki sat down with Williams to discuss the new album and more.

Live-Metal.net: We all know the name of the band comes from the Coen brothers movie.

Tim Williams: Yeah. Well, it comes from a Coen brothers movie. We didn’t name it after the movie or anything like that.

We discovered—Mike was the first to discover it, the guitar player. At some point going into the record Red Harvest, he was just futzing around on the computer one day, I guess Googled “blood simple” and this whole new definition came up that was within the book. So we both read the book. It’s definitely a pretty good book. I wouldn’t say we based the record on it at all, but it really helped tie together the whole record and kind of gave the record almost like a direction, which was cool. My favorite thing about it was it came out of nowhere and it clicked, like everything, boom boom boom boom. And that’s a good sign.

I was wondering how much it had to do with it. I read the book and I didn’t see anything real direct.

Well, it helped us name the record and it helped with the chorus of “Red Harvest” in general, and just finding that definition of blood-simple within was perfect, just for the band and the theme of the record and stuff like that. So that’s where it served the purpose.

For the past month or so I haven’t been able to get that CD out of my CD player.

Oh, right on, man. Thank you.

To make a really good, heavy record that’s a little bit different from the pack. That was my thing. Not to reinvent heavy ‘cause you can’t fuckin’ do that or whatever—we can’t. Just fuckin’ do a different type of heavy that’s gonna be Bloodsimple’s stamp. The first record kind of introduced Bloodsimple. I’m not saying that record was bad. It was amazing, but I’d say it kind of stayed within the confines of metal or hardcore or whatever the fuck you want to say. Red Harvest definitely branches out. I think it allows Bloodsimple to stand on its own as a band. Whether or not it’s gonna be huge or not remains to be seen. But just the fact that I can lay down at night and know I did a really good, cool, heavy record that’s outside the box, that’s what I like to do with my music.

A couple of the songs have some spoken word stuff in them. Especially since you guys have covered “Five to One” before, was Jim Morrison an inspiration on those parts?

Morrison’s always been an inspiration to me ever since I was getting into bands. He was like my first, “Oh, I want to be a singer now.” Loved his work, I like his poetry, I like his vocal style. So he’s a huge influence on me. The spoken word stuff kind of came out of me and Machine, who produced the record, sitting down one day in the studio. We had the song “Ride with Me” that wasn’t even called “Ride with Me” then. It was just a completely different thing. But I knew going into it I wanted to do some spoken word stuff on this record ‘cause it’s different, not many people have done it and I have always wanted to do it, just never was the right time. And we were sitting in the studio and he knows me pretty well. He’s like, “You know you’re into Morrison. This totally adds this Morrison-like vibe to me, I think, this song. And I think it’s important that you guys open up, do something different with this record”—this is his advice to me—“vocally, lyrically and musically. Do something different with this record. Who knows what’s gonna happen tomorrow or on your next record, with the band, whatever. I want you to do something different.”

And that’s where this whole thing came in. We invented this character, kind of this slurring, road-weary fuckin’ character that we see in “Ride with Me” and “Whiskey Bent and Hellbound.” It’s totally new and different for me, and once we tracked it all down, the whole ode to The Doors and stuff was there and that fit in perfectly, and we’re like, “Fuck it, let’s open the record with this,” ‘cause it kind of really reaches out and I think people are like—they talk about it. In a lot of interviews, it’s like, “Dude, what’s up with that track ‘Ride with Me’?” That’s pretty much what we wanted to do, open up our record completely out of the box and different so people will be like, “Whoa, what are these guys doing?” and then they want to listen more. That’s pretty much what’s been happening. That song’s getting a lot of good reactions and I’m happy ‘cause it’s not a heavy metal song at all, but it fits within our confines and our fans like it. ‘Cause the reviews and shit, people seem to like it, so that’s cool.

It really grabs your attention right away and let’s you know it’s gonna be something a little different from what everyone else is doing.

Yeah, that’s what we wanted it to do. Bloodsimple, at least to me as a singer, I always want to do different stuff. But you gotta kind of stay within, like I said, a certain confine or you’re fuckin’ done. You can’t just bounce around. It doesn’t work that way. “Ride with Me” really lent almost like a bridge for us as a band that could open up the rest of the record for us. I think it’s gonna set a foundation for us in the future, too. We’re kind of getting away with it, people seem to really fuckin’ like it and it’s still heavy. It’s good to grow from record to record and I really think certain songs on this record are really going to help us break to where we want to go on the next record if we do.

Oh yeah, you’ll see it tonight. It’s on the record, man. You know, always there’s some tracks that you might not play live, but I always wanted to play that live and you’ll see it tonight.

Yeah, yeah. You’ll see it. The way we do it is really cool and it’s good. People seem to dig it. It’s my favorite part of the fuckin’ set, personally.

I saw Dan Donegan from Disturbed is listed as the executive producer. What exactly was his role?

Dan helped us. His role was strange. Dan is still a good friend of ours. We did the whole Jägermeister Disturbed tour. We spent like eight weeks with those guys out on the road, bro’d down with them hard. It was just us two bands. Somewhere during that tour Dan offered to get involved with us. He wanted to not start a label or anything, but he wanted to oversee or just get involved with us. So we all flew out to Disturbed’s studio in Chicago. I guess we did a two-week writing session out there and we worked it out there, and he was at the studio kind of giving us pointers and stuff like that. Then we kind of packed it in from there, did some more sessions in Atlanta. Throughout the record, we kind of sent Dan—he was basically like a silent advisor, if you would. He’s also a great friend and if someone who is at his status offers their help, and plus we liked him on top of it and he’s a great songwriter—fuck it, you know, we took him up on it. It was a good deal and he helped us with certain songs, but he wasn’t too intrusive. He kind of just stood on the sidelines like, “Yeah, this is good” or “I like this one,” you know, stuff like that. That was pretty much his part.

You mentioned Machine already. I guess you have a pretty good relationship with him.

Machine’s a very good of friend of mine. I’ve worked with him I guess since ’99 on various projects, V.O.D., or at least five different recording projects I’ve done with him. As a producer to singer, on just that level alone, he knows my voice almost as well as I do. He knows how to get certain performances out of me. And lyrically and vocally, you just can’t step to that guy ‘cause he knows—like I said in another interview, for a vocalist and a singer, the studio can be such a sterile, boring-ass environment. Guitar player, you plug in, you can do it, do it, do it, do it. Singers have gotta be fuckin’ coerced into it, especially if the music’s heavy or trying to evoke some sort of emotion. Machine is very good at not making the studio boring and making you want to do it and have fun with it. Lyrically, he really helped me ‘cause this is my sixth record now, again within the heavy metal/hardcore realm, there’s only so many fuckin’ things you can write about. I wouldn’t say I was struggling, but I was definitely really hungry to do something else and that’s how, with his help, the “Ride with Me’s” came to life, the “Whiskey Bents” came to life. A lot of these songs took on a whole new persona that I think is important and even in, like, “Dead Man Walking,” he’s just very, very good at not over-singing a part or if it’s out of key, “Who cares, that shit’s got an attitude, fuckin’ leave it.” And to me, that’s what I want to hear. ‘Cause I’m a singer—I play a little guitar, but I wouldn’t call myself a musician—and I sing from the gut and that’s how I do it, and what feels to me, that’s how I’ve always done it. Machine’s really good at that. He’s not like this sterile, studio guy that makes you do it again, again, again, again. So Machine’s the man.

Yeah. We already shot one, but honestly we weren’t happy with the way it came out at all. Kind of got thrown together really quickly and we had some bullshit go down during the video—nothing bad, but it just didn’t come out the way we wanted it to. So we shot some live footage in Dallas at one of the shows. We already started kind of doing our own video that we were just gonna use for MySpace before the record was even done. So we’re gonna use both of these and slice them together, and I think it’s gonna be really cool. It’s gonna be two versions, too, ‘cause one version will not be allowed to be played on TV. So that’s awesome. I’m excited for that. That’s in the works right now. So we’ll see what comes out of that.

No, “Out to Get You” is on the radio, so we’re leaving that. This is gonna be “Dark Helmet” or “Red Harvest.” “Dark Helmet’s” the one the band’s doing. We tried to do this for a year. Things get in the way, people get busy. But now, we’ve got the footage, we’ve got the Internet footage that we want. There’s an editor in-house in our management that might take a stab at “Red Harvest.”

“Dark Helmet,” to me, is an interesting song on the record and it’s got a message, which is important, and you can really do a lot with a video and the words in that song. That’s another song we’ve been playing live. About six or seven months ago, we played here, with HellYeah, and I think we did “Dark Helmet” and it was getting mixed reactions. I don’t know if it was because the record wasn’t out yet or whatever. Then we did it a couple times in Europe and it went over pretty well. Then we did it a couple times in the beginning of this tour and we felt like it wasn’t going good, so we stopped playing it. Then we were like, “Fuck it, let’s play it. I’m bored of playing the same shit,” and all of a sudden, I don’t know what happened, but people are really starting to trip on it. So that’s good. It think it’s an excellent video for Headbangers Ball, which is obviously where we’re gonna bring it, and there’s this whole other Internet side to it that’s so fuckin’ violent it just won’t be played on TV, which is cool. So hopefully it’ll all come together. It has to be done quick, so hopefully by some point in January it’ll be done.

Oh, right on. Very interesting song, very punk-slash-metal song, which I’m particularly proud of, and some really interesting lyrics. It’s a war cry, like a war anthem, kind of anti-government-type shit, which I’m always into, and playing it live and seeing the kids go nuts is the test. We’ll be playing that tonight, as well.

I went to one of the shows on the Family Values Tour and I think it was before there had been an official announcement. So a guy comes out on stage and says, “Bloodsimple is up next.” I was like, “Whoa!”

Yeah, that was probably early on. We came on like two weeks late, I think.

That was a good tour, man. It wasn’t supposed to come about. We were supposed to be home for the whole fuckin’ summer is what was supposed to happen. I’ll never forget this day ‘cause I was in a lot of trouble with the lady friend. I guess it was Thursday night, her birthday of course. I get this call—“You gotta be in St. Louis tomorrow to do the Family Values Tour.” “Are you fuckin’ smoking crack? I’m not going anywhere.” A big fuckin’ fight ensued. Of course, I wanted to do it, but there’s no notice. Everybody in the band was like, “Are you crazy? You gotta give us some fuckin’ notice for this shit.” But of course, we cut a deal with Family Values, they let us have a week and then I think we started in Boston and finished almost the whole tour.

That was a great tour, man. It would’ve been better. The record was supposed to be released. The reason why we did that tour was the record was supposed to come out during that tour. But something got pushed back, so that kind of sucked. But nothing for nothing, show to show, Bloodsimple fuckin’ destroyed that tour. We had a lot of props from a lot of the big bands. Korn was watching us a couple days. We did that entire tour in the middle of summer, 104 degrees some days, you never saw one Korn member ever on the side stage. Whatever it was, I don’t give a shit, no disrespect, I didn’t care. They live their own lives. Mysteriously, one by one they started appearing on the side of our stage. That was pretty overwhelming. Munky started and we were like, “Oh, that’s weird.” Next day, Fieldy came over, that was weird. I’m like, “Dude, if Jonathan Davis comes over today, something’s—I don’t know, maybe they’re gonna ask us to go on tour,” which would be great. Next thing you know, Jonathan Davis was on the side of the stage watching the whole set. So that was pretty awesome, dude. But we’ve got a couple feelers out there. Maybe something will happen in the future. That’s what we’ve heard, that that’s what they do, if they’re looking at taking out a band, they start watching them live and shit like that. There’s no reason for those guys to be over there that day, 104 degrees. The stage wasn’t even close to theirs. And that was one of my better feelings on that tour. That was cool. That was also my last Family Values show ‘cause the next day my fuckin’ tooth like exploded.

Yeah, I got an abscess under an old root canal. It was hurting that day. Long story short, I went to a doctor in Phoenix . I had four days off and he’s like, “There’s nothing we can do for you here unless you stay here for three weeks.” “Are you kidding me?” So we were gonna go to Lake Tahoe and shit even though my fuckin’ tooth was killing me, and the trailer snapped. I think it might’ve been a sign, dude, ‘cause when I finally got to a doctor, it took three days ‘cause every doctor was like, “This is too far. We can’t do anything for you. You gotta go to a specialist.” Finally got to a specialist, he’s like, “One more day”—he pointed across the street and there was a hospital—“you would’ve been in there, done.” But thank god, he took it out immediately and he’s like, “That’s it, your tour’s over. Go home.” It was only three days left, but nonetheless it would’ve been good. But that’s what happens when things get out of hand.

HellYeah was on that tour and you played some shows earlier in the year with them. And I guess you go way back with the Mudvayne guys.

Chad, yeah, the Mudvayne guys. And I know Tommy Maxwell from the V.O.D. days. Nothingface, V.O.D. went out. So it’s cool, man. We’re brothers now. We’ve been on the road with them—on and off, if you added up all the fuckin’ tours, we’ve probably been on the road with Chad and those guys for like a year. Great guys, great band. Good party band. We have a lot of fuckin’ fun with them. No rock star attitudes whatsoever. We go in their dressing room, it’s totally cool. Vinnie is real cool. Their crew helps us out all the time. Their crew is basically working for us ‘cause we’re friends with all them, they can’t deny us. They just hook us up, man. It’s great experience to see Mudvayne do as well as they did and then see HellYeah continue to do really well. I think they surprised a lot of people. It’s just a great tour. I would definitely do it again. If we were asked to do another run with them, we’d do it ‘cause the crowd really seems to like us and the amount of fun we have, it just feels like a normal day. It feels like a normal work day. Everything feels good and right. People are super cool. It’s a good vibe. I’ve been on tours that haven’t been like that and that’s not the case on this one, so it’s cool.

Well, for Bloodsimple, it’s Jim Beam. And fuckin’ Coors Light, which if I drink one more I’m gonna fuckin’ throw up. But you gotta do what you gotta do, right? Jäger’s always around, but the Beam has become the drink for Bloodsimple, a couple shots before we get on, many shots afterwards. Jäger tends to really put me in blackout phase, so I tend to try and stay away from it. I love it, but it just gets me way too fucked up. So Jim Beam and beer, that’s it.

Yeah, I don’t give a shit. I always go out and hang out, depending on how I feel. You know, this is six weeks in now, so we’re all pretty fuckin’ shot. And we’re back in our RV that we own, so we’re not doing it in a bus, believe it or not. It takes a fuckin’ toll on you. After the shows, we just mellow out a little bit backstage, but I get bored a lot, so I always go out into the crowd and hang out. Whether or not I run into anybody to talk to is a different story. I always go watch HellYeah from front of house, I’ll check out Otep here and there just because I’m bored. That’s basically it. We sometimes go out and sign shit if we feel we’re up for it and stuff like that, but we haven’t done it in a couple weeks. I think we’re just getting lazy. But we’re all about the fans and if it wasn’t for them, you know, the cliché, there wouldn’t be anything. We’re happy that they’ve been coming down in droves for us. We go on pretty early and the place is always packed. And they like the new shit, so what more can you ask for?

Oh yeah. All holidays off. No band communication whatsoever till at least January 1. Of course, we’ll talk and shit like that, but I’m not doing anything. I heard there’s U.K. chat going on. We might go over there in January for like two weeks, which is just about what I can handle right now. That’s fine. Unless something big comes up, you know, touring is different these days, man. Not to get too deep into ‘cause I don’t want to flub the whole interview, but everybody knows the record labels aren’t letting go as much money as they used to, period. So you’ve really gotta be smart about what tours you take. The money’s just not there anymore and you need that money to go out. So if the U.K. run comes up, sure. It’s a big tour. That’s only two weeks, so that’s dope. I don’t know. If something big comes up in the winter, fine. If not, maybe we’ll hold it off till March and do a spring run and take it from there.

Waiting on Warner Bros., a couple things going on, on their side of the camp. They want to just release web episodes for now, which is fine, whatever. But they paid us. We edited it ourselves. We got all this footage, we did all this fuckin’ work, got the cover done—we just handed them a fuckin’ package. It was supposed to be released with the record. They were like, “We don’t know if we want to do this at this point in time.” They paid us, so we got the money. Whenever they want to release it, I guess they can.

Yeah, I think we just closed the deal, finally, for the DVD /live CD. That’s exciting ‘cause I love my boys in V.O.D. It’s at a point where it’s just basically fun now. There ain’t no business involved in it. Sure, money exchanges hands, which it should be, and we get paid to do what we do. We have a great time playing the shows, but there ain’t gonna be no tours or anything like that. We might do Japan, like two shows over there. We might do a couple shows in New York CitY, maybe a little weekend Northeast tour. I know there’s a certain amount of demand for us in California. That’ll probably be it, just do some fly dates, don’t beat it to death, have a good time. I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t do another V.O.D. record, but I don’t know if it would ever happen. I would do it just to do it ‘cause I know it would be good. But V.O.D. was a great band and I’d kind of like to leave to leave it the way it was. I don’t want to become a comeback band. Yeah, we’ll do the live DVD shit for fun and I think there’s a demand for it, so we’ll do it. But I don’t know. We’ll see. Still very close with all those guys, talk to them all the time, so we’ll see what happens with that.

Fans, beware. Get ready for Red Harvest. We’re having a good time out there. Thank you so much for everybody coming down early, as I said, and the reaction to the new shit has been outstanding. We appreciate it. Thank you very much.