Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Born From Pain

The Sound of Survival: An interview with Karl Fieldhouse, guitarist of Born From Pain

The world today is ruled by greedy governments that worship the almighty dollar. Wars rage on in the Middle East. People live in fear of terror. The economy is collapsing. All this while world leaders make their homes in mansions, castles and large estates, plotting their next move to make billions. Meanwhile, large, rich corporations are bailed out by the government, while their executives coast through the skies in private jets. Times are hard alright. But for the average, hard-working people of this world, times are hard and it's not getting better. The world as we know it is truly in a state of disarray.

Dutch hardcore band Born From Pain is not going to change the world. But with their new album, Survival (review), the band hopes to spread awareness of many of these world issues while playing a few hardcore metal shows along the way. Ultimately, Born From Pain's goal is to raise the voice of many against the powers that be. The band has been going strong now for more than a decade and Survival is as much of a call for revolution as it is a testament to the band's career. Not long after the release of the album, Live-Metal.net's Jeff Maki chatted with guitarist Karl Fieldhouse about all things Born From Pain. From the social awareness of their lyrics to the recording of Survival, all bases are covered.

Live-Metal.Net: What's up Karl? First off, I don't know if you remember, but I did an interview with you around the time War was released in 2006. The band has had quite a mixup since then. Can you tell us what happened with former vocalist Ché Snelting and your drummer, Roel, leading up to the current lineup now?

Karl Fieldhouse: Hey Jeff, good to hear from you again. Well, with Che, its quite simple; he didn’t want to do the band anymore and wanted to concentrate on other areas of his life, which is fine by us. And actually, I think it turned out better than when he was in the band. Roel on the other hand was forced to stop playing due to an injury he had with his arms. He started suffering from some nerve damage and so initially he was just taking time off from the band hoping that everything would heal. But after around eight months, his doctor said that things weren’t going so well and that it would be likely that he’d need surgery. So it got to a point where we all made the decision that he would have to be replaced because it would probably be another three years before he might be able to play. Luckily, the person who was standing in, Roy, really wanted to fill that gap, so it wasn’t so much of a problem like it could have been. Right now the line up is Rob [Franssen] on vocals, Dom [Dominik Stammen] on guitar, Roy [Moonen] on drums, Andries [Beckers] on bass and myself, also on guitar. We’re really psyched, because we feel this is the strongest lineup yet and we’re all into killing it every night.

Tell us about the recording of Survival. How were things different with the new lineup?

In all honesty, nothing was really that different about the recording of Survival and the whole process. It was the usual songwriting process where Dom and I would bring in some riffs and we’d work on them until we’d exhausted all ideas, either by making songs or throwing shit away. Then we’d start jamming on ideas in the practice room all together, coming up with riffs on the spot and working on ideas and bouncing ideas off each other, which for some reason, always turns out to be our most effective way of working. The actual recording of the album was pretty much the same as always, too. The only difference to the previous albums is that Dom played all guitars and all bass lines, which is mainly due to that he did all the pre-production stuff and so we felt it would be that much tighter if one person did everything and I think it is.

Musically, what was the band's mindset going into recording Survival? Were you looking to do something along the lines of War? Upon first listening, I immediately notice more guitar melody than on previous albums.

Well, we had a definite idea of what we wanted to do with Survival, that’s for sure, although getting there was harder for some songs than others, but we made it. I don’t really think we wanted to do something along the same lines as War, not that we don’t love that album, because I still think that is a really strong album, but when I listen back to it, I hear a lot of amazing songs that have a lot of unnecessary padding. That’s something we didn’t want to have on Survival. We wanted it to be stripped down and to just smash you in the face. It had to be filled with all the usual ingredients of what makes a Born From Pain album--like the groove, the fast parts, the heavy breakdowns and the small bits of melody here and there, but we also really wanted to focus on writing songs and songs that were easy to grasp instantly. I’m not really sure if there is more melody on this album than say War, because War, in my opinion has a lot, especially compared to previous albums. I think it might be more noticeable on Survival because the songs are a little more stripped down and in your face.

Lyrically, you guys seem to have strong beliefs and stances on current events and the state of the world. I know it's hard to narrow down, but what do you think is the biggest problem going on in the world today?

The biggest problem in the world is that there is a cold-hearted, ruthless global elite of super wealthy, super powerful people, that is hellbent on gaining control over each and every resource and human on the planet. They force governments to fall, significant events that lead to wars, and big crisis. And they will not stop until they have their New World Order established. Their clamp down on our very freedom is a very crucial statement to what they fear most; us, the people, the masses. If we can get rid of the Wall Street mafia, we get rid of a lot of trouble. Wars, hunger, disease … there are solutions for all these things, easily. No one I know wants them. Why are they still there? COs. These people make money with them and use them to control people. It’s sick, but true…

How do you think translating these issues into lyrics and onto a record help solve anything, or does it?

We hope it will create awareness among people. We hope we can help to plant a seed in people’s minds because of which they will go and inform themselves on the ways the world really works. If we can create a sense of strength in people that will make them stand up and wanna fight for their freedom, then we have reached our goal.

Speaking of issues, Born From Pain's new online community, “Suicide Nation” is now up and running. Can you tell us all about that?

We came up with that to have a community where people that are like-minded about the band and the issues we talk about, can get actively involved and talk and exchange ideas. We would like to offer people with an opinion a place to go and channel their frustration and willingness to get active, especially when they feel they wanna join up with Born From Pain doing it.

Born From Pain is set to go out on the “Persistence” tour alongside Sick Of It All, Terror and others. How much are you looking forward to that and what can fans expect?

We are all totally psyched, ‘cuz we’ve done that tour a couple of times now and it’s always awesome and a lot of fun. So we’re all pumped to get on the road and crush everyone with the new songs and the old favorites. It’s gonna be great to tour with our friends in Terror, Heaven Shall Burn and Discipline. And it will be good to see the guys in Sick Of It All again, who we only ever seem to bump into at festivals. So it'll be good to get to know them a little better and obviously all the other bands are surely going to become fast friends, too. The fans can expect the usual Born From Pain live show, which will be passionate and energetic. We’ll be speaking our minds too, but we’ll also have some added extras to the stage show, which is gonna be a surprise. Needless to say, we’re all psyched and excited to be hitting the road again soon.

I don't remember Born From Pain touring in the U.S. as of yet, but does the band usually tour with similar hardcore/metal artists?

We have only made it over to the States once previously, which was in 2003 or 2004, I think. That was a handful of dates with Internal Affairs and then nine days with Terror, The Promise and Shattered Realm, and that was great for us. We’re hopefully gonna be making it back over at the end of February 2009, but nothing is 100 percent confirmed about that, but as soon as it is, I’m sure everyone will know about it. We’re happy to tour with everyone and anyone, whether they’re hardcore or metal. I mean, in Europe, we’ve toured with the likes of Hatebreed, Madball, AF; we brought First Blood over to support us and we’ve also toured with the likes of Napalm Death, Six Feet Under and so on. So we’re open to play to any crowd and that’s often the best way to do it. Why limit yourself to one genre or one scene? That doesn’t make sense to us.

What non-hardcore or non-metal act would you jump at the chance to tour with if given the shot?

Rob’s gonna kill me for this, but me personally, if it had to be a band or act that had nothing to do with metal/hardcore or hard music in general, then I’d have to say The Kaiser Chiefs, or maybe someone like Kate Nash. It would also be cool to do something with Jedi Mind Tricks, Public Enemy or Immortal Technique, as they really have something to say lyrically and obviously make killer music too.

With all of the metal and hardcore bands and choices out today, what could you say to someone to get them to check out Born From Pain?

Well, obviously every band out there will say they write great music and that it's hard, crushing, aggressive or any other similar adjective to describe what they do. But I think something that sets us apart from other bands, other than writing great music, is that we actually have something to say and have an opinion of what's going on in the world. We’re very vocal about that and proactive about trying to reach people, about trying to make people aware of what’s happening. We’re active in trying to affect people’s lives in a positive way. Too much music these days is style over substance and I think we really try and push the substance part, after all, that’s something that really got me interested in hardcore in the past.

The band has been together for 10 years now, but do you think Survival is the pinnacle and/or most important release from Born From Pain at this point in your career?

Ten-years-plus is a long time, and right now Survival is the most important point of our career. Being in a band, you can always point to certain moments that take you further. And I think in five years time we’ll definitely look back on Survival as being one of those moments that took us further. As for it being a pinnacle, well it is, to a certain degree, but with each pinnacle reached, there seems to be another one around the corner and so the bar is always raised. I think we've had a lot of high points in our career to date and I think there will be a lot more to come.