Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Diecast

Despite band members seemingly moving in and out through a revolving door, Boston’s Diecast has persevered, releasing four albums during the last eight years. Their most recent effort, last year’s Internal Revolution, their second with vocalist Paul Stoddard, is a stunning combination of brutal heaviness, unforgettable melodies and pure, honest emotion, signaling the band’s arrival as a major player in heavy music. After winning over many new fans this spring on a nationwide tour with Sevendust, Diecast hit the road with Drowning Pool. When that tour recently stopped at Jaxx in Springfield, Va., Greg Maki of Live-Metal.net sat down with Stoddard to discuss the new album, touring, the band’s many lineup changes and more.

Live-Metal.net: First of all, I just I want to say that I really love the new album, Internal Revolution. I think it’s really amazing.

Paul Stoddard: Thank you very much.

I think our biggest goal was not to have any, not to tell ourselves what we had to write, how it had to be. I guess you could count that as a goal. We wanted to make the best music we possibly could, which is what everybody wants to do. But we didn’t want any walls up as far “this part needs to be really heavy” or “this part really needs a singing part.” We just wanted to go in and kind of let it flow on its own, and I guess the biggest goal was not to really have any big rules other than making the songs good as songs.

One of the first things that really jumped out at me about the album was your performance. Did you do anything different to prepare this time?

Absolutely. Making my sure my voice was ready to go was a big thing, things I didn’t know I needed to do [on the] first album. Another one is the producer, Paul Trust, and I really were comfortable with each other with this record and we knew what to do to get what we wanted out of my voice. It made things a lot easier. As well as just the maturing experience of touring. The more you tour, the more you just kind of do what you do, it’s just like anything. The more you practice at it and get better at it, you start seeing things and thinking different things, kind of like Neo in The Matrix when he starts to see the code. Everything starts to make a little more sense over time once you get a little time with it.

Paul Trust has done the last three Diecast albums now. Obviously, you have a good working relationship with him. What does he bring to it?

He’s a stubborn, hard-working guy that doesn’t settle for less than what’s great. And that’s what we wanted. You don’t want a guy that’s “Yes, that’s fine. That’ll be alright. That’s good enough. That’s cool.” You want someone that’s gonna challenge you as much as you challenge yourself ‘cause I think that’s a big thing we are, we’re perfectionists and we don’t want to settle for anything. We don’t want any filler songs. We want every song to have its own identity, take on its own life and just come out. And he feels the same way and he helps us bring it out. It’s almost like sometimes we’re a little stuck on something, he’ll have the idea, he knows how to bring it out and I think that, too, also comes along with our years of working with each other and the maturity that’s come with that.

Yes. I write all the lyrics. Jon [Kita] brings in most of the guitar parts. But I’ll be 100-percent honest: It’s still a five-part writing process. We bring it in, it’s gotta be approved by the guys, everybody’s gotta like it. It’s not like, “This is it, this is the way it is.” A lot of times, things don’t always stay the way they are. They’re like, “I like this part, but I don’t like this part.” And you really need five open-minded people to be cool with letting their baby be cut up a little or doing what changes are needed to get the best song.

And it sounds like in the lyrics you went to some really personal, emotional places on this album.

Absolutely. 100 percent. I just got out of a four-and-a-half year relationship right before I started writing this record, and it was the kind of thing that brought up a lot of questions in my mind as far as what am I doing with music, should I be concentrating more on getting a family and getting a 9-to-5? And that was what the song “Internal Revolution” is about. It’s about seeing my brother’s life. My brother, he used to be my guitar player in my old band and he just followed through, got a biochemistry degree, he’s got a beautiful wife, kids, nice house and really has a great thing going on. Sometimes I’m jealous of that, but it’s funny to see the other side ‘cause at times he’s jealous of what I have. So it raised a lot of questions. Losing somebody who was my partner for four-and-a-half years raised a lot of questions in my life. That would definitely tie in to why it would be a lot more emotional, as well as I got the songs of what I was going through and coping with the loss of a relationship, a best friend in a sense.

DIECAST - INTERNAL REVOLUTION

One of the things that I think makes the songs good is that you guys really seem to vary the structure of the songs. It’s not all verse-chorus-verse-chorus.

The one that really jumps out at me is “Fractured.” I thought that was an interesting choice for an opening song [in concert].

We love it as an opener, actually. Actually, it’s our favorite opener. I think it’s gonna be a song that we’re gonna be using as an opener for a while. We might change something up, but it just feels so good. Right out of the gates, smack you in the face. And then it has the big-time chorus with the huge epic ending. To me, it feels like the big intro to that Broadway performance to kick off the whole show.

Exactly and that’s what I love about it. It’s driving and it’s got some great heavy parts. It’s got some almost death-metally screams, as well as standard hardcore screams, and then it’s got its really melodic chorus and in my opinion, one of my favorite choruses on the record.

[Thinking] Uh, geez. Which ones do I love the most? “Coldest Rain” is a big one for me. That’s my hit out to left field.

It was kinda funny. I just started toying around with piano. I decided I wanted to get into songwriting. I didn’t know what was gonna come of it, and it was at a time where I was very emotional and I wanted to just write to vent. So I started needling on a piano, not knowing really anything, like, literally, not much on piano at all. I just kind of started working with it, working with it, working with it. Then before I knew it, I had put a lot of time into it and I was starting to get to know the piano pretty well, and it just kind of came out on its own. Putting the singing part over it was the easy part ‘cause that’s, obviously, what I do. I wrote the singing part around what I had on piano and it came out great. I brought it into the guys and I didn’t know what to expect. I expected I’m gonna bring it and these guys are gonna be like, “Oh, that’s cool, man. So what are you gonna do with it, try to get rid of it or sell it or do your own thing?” And I started playing this song and I could just see the emotion in the guys’ faces. I was like, “Well, what do you guys think?” And they’re like, “This is a great song. It needs to be on the record. Who cares what anybody thinks.”

“Definition of a Hero” is about our soldiers. Was that your idea or did the band decide together that you wanted to do that?

It was definitely my idea, but the band was definitely down with it. It’s easy to get nervous about creating songs that have to do with the war. I know there were a little bit of nerves about that. But when it came around down to it, as soon as the guys knew exactly where I was coming from, which is supporting the troops, supporting our soldiers, that’s something nobody disagrees with and 100-percent follows, which is kind of funny because we played last night in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and one of the guys comes up to me ‘cause there’s a military base there. So I was like, “Yeah, we really wanted to do a good song for the soldiers.” He goes, “I’m not a soldier.” I’m like, “What do you mean you’re not a soldier?” “I’m a Marine.” Apparently, I did not know that there is a difference, but it’s a difference that they kind of take to heart. So for any Marines that read this, this is 100-percent respect and forgive my ignorance because I definitely was including everybody.

Drowning Pool has done a few of the USO tours. Is that something you guys would do if you have the chance?

We would love to do that, and I know we’re going through paperwork right now to get it done. But we would absolutely love to do something like that, so we’ll see what happens. If it’s a possibility, we’re 100-percent down to do it.

I saw one of the shows on the Sevendust tour. I thought that was a really great bill, with you, Invitro and Sevendust. How was that tour for you?

Amazing. Every night you’re playing in front of a couple thousand people at least, sometimes it’s 3,000 or 5,000. It was good for us because one the biggest phrases we got out of that tour was “I never heard of you guys before.” And that’s what we want. We want to win over a new fanbase. We want to just pound on it and pound on it and tour and tour, and the more people that are into our music, the better it is for us because that means we can do it a longer. We’re not all about just writing music for slamming and going crazy. We’ve got messages. We’ve got stories in a lot of our stuff and it’s impacted a lot of lives. I’ve definitely been talked to by different people that told me that this has helped them get out of drugs, this has helped direct where I need to be. It’s an amazing feeling and I hope I get to keep that feeling for the rest of my life.

Over the years, Diecast has had a bunch of lineup changes. What effect do you think that has had?

The sound. You listen to the first Diecast record and you listen to the new one and they’re nothing alike. I don’t think that’s 100-percent why because Jon’s been here since Day of Reckoning [2001], which was the big Diecast record, when it first started moving for them. He’s been a part of it. He’s just matured over time. And that’s what happens, I think. You gotta remember that people see three albums, but over three albums is seven years. And you think of how much you yourself have probably changed over the last seven years and the things that you’ve done. Seven years ago, I wasn’t even singing in a band. I was tooling around on drums until I finally got sick of dealing with my old lead singer and I thought, “I could probably do it.” A lot happens and people just change over time. It develops into something different, something new and I think that’s important. You’ve gotta stay true to yourself with that and let that come out ‘cause if you just try to recreate the same thing every time, not only is it going to get boring, I consider that selling out. I consider that doing what you think people want you to do and you’re not being true to yourself as an artist.

How long did it take for the current lineup to get tight and feel like a band?

Not long. Right now we feel more, I think, unified than we ever have. I take nothing away from the older guys that are finally gone—[bassist] Jeremy [Wooden] and [drummer] Jason [Costa]—but they had a mindset of what they wanted because they had been doing it for so long. And here we are all of a sudden, all these guys that weren’t there in the beginning—we love Diecast and we want to maintain what Diecast has, but we’re not afraid to go outside the box. And that’s one thing we really wanted to push on this record: Don’t care what the box is supposed to be. Let the album be what it’s gonna be and as long as you give your heart to it, it’s gonna be something great, and whether nobody else thinks it’s great, you’re gonna think it’s great. But fortunately, that hasn’t been an issue. It’s been going over amazingly well.

Did you know the guys in the band before you joined or did you just go to an audition?

I did not know any of them personally. I had met [guitarist] Kirk [Kolaitis] once, and this was before he was even in the band. But, yeah, it was basically a situation where my old band played with them, with Diecast, and it was a good opportunity for us. It was a ticket buy-on that the promoter did, we had to sell a bunch of tickets to get on the show. We finally got to the situation and played the show. They came up to me, it was kind of secretive at first because nobody was supposed to know. So I was asked to audition for Jon and Jason’s side project, to sing for their side project, at which point I was very flattered, but I wasn’t ready to give up my dream, which was my band, which was what I was pushing, for somebody’s side project always being on the wayside and waiting. I wanted to just try and do it. If it was full force, I would’ve been interested, but it wasn’t. So time went on and I think it was about two months later I heard they were actually looking for a singer and they couldn’t announce it at the time. They had auditioned, like, 30 different guys they had flown in from across the country, and they could either sing and they couldn’t scream or they could scream and they couldn’t sing. I figured I’ll just go down there and I figured worst-case scenario I’ll make a couple new friends, we’ll see what happens. And I went down there and after two rehearsals, I got offered the gig. And that was the scariest moment of my life because you’re just sitting there like, “My entire world’s gonna change now.” You’ve gotta give up all your security and everything you’re used to, to go and nickel-and-dime it on the road. I don’t regret it one bit.

Over the past decade or so, a lot of really good bands have come out of the Massachusetts area and it seems like a very close group of bands. Is it still like that now that bands are successful?

Well, I’m sure it’s a little tougher to be close-knit because everybody’s on tour. But everybody knows everybody. We all know each other. I wouldn’t say that I personally go over anyone’s houses except for Joel [Stroetzel] from Killswitch [Engage]. He’s the only one I really hang out with on any occasion. But we all know each other and we all run into each other, and they’ve all been a part of the scene and we’ve all been a part of the scene for a long time. There’s definitely a lot of friendships. I know that Jon and Adam D. [Dutkiewicz, Killswitch Engage] and Ken Susi [Unearth] were working on a project once. Yeah, so there’s long ties. It just happens. You get the people that have the heart to do it and really pursue and persevere and you kind of run into each other down the road.

The highlight of being in Diecast? Man, there’s so many things. Touring with Sevendust was huge. Lajon [Witherspoon] is my biggest influence as far as vocals. He’s an enormous, enormous influence, and even though that was rather recent, it was a huge opportunity and definitely a memorable tour. And to think that I know those guys now and I can call Lajon up right now and he’ll be like, “Hey, Paul, how are you?” is pretty cool, especially because I was front row, center when he came to the Worcester Palladium a couple times. I caught his water bottle and a drum stick, and you find yourself screaming like a little girl and stuff. We were all there and I look back on it now and that’s why I respect everybody that comes out to shows. Because I was them. I loved it. I loved coming to shows. I loved getting sweaty and gross and fighting my way to the front and admiring everything. You almost miss that in a sense. It’s like an ignorance of the situation. Now when I go to shows, I’m like, “OK, what kind of pedals are these guys using. Wow, great lights.” Ignorance is bliss because back then it was all the show and you’re looking at this one huge entity, and now it’s “I can tell his notes are a little off” or “Is this guy out of tune?” or “What is he doing here?” You end up dissecting it and almost professionally trying to incorporate in what you can to do to make yourself better by what they do. I kind of wish it was back to the old days.

It would’ve been Pantera, of course. I’m sure whoever you ask says that. Of course, Metallica would be amazing. Faith No More would be pretty unreal. Faith No More doesn’t really exist but could still happen. Metallica, Faith No More, Sevendust and us as the opener would be—I’d be exhausted every night just from watching. I wouldn’t have a voice. You know what? I probably wouldn’t even want to be on the tour because I would destroy my voice every night. I would just try to be a merch guy or something on that tour, just to see it every day. It would be amazing. You could even throw in maybe Megadeth on that. You’ve got me all dreaming now.

It could happen. Not!

We’re going back out with Sevendust. We’re doing another couple months with those guys. That should be a lot of fun, another opportunity that came up. We’re psyched, man. We’re psyched to do it. And then we’re gonna be looking for a tour after that. We just don’t know what it’s gonna be yet. We’re just kind of taking it one day at a time, finishing this tour. This tour’s been a pleasant surprise. The guys in Drowning Pool are great. The turnouts have been really good. It’s been a really good tour. Last night it was insane. It was near a military base and it was just slammed because, as you know, they’ve done the USO stuff. You couldn’t even walk in the place. There’s been a lot of nights like that on this tour and that’s great. That’s more than we were expecting. We went into it with no expectations ‘cause they hadn’t toured for a while, but their fanbase is still strong.

I just want to thank everybody again who has supported us and given us a chance, and as long as you guys keep supporting us, we’re gonna keep writing great music. I cannot wait to write the next record. I’m very excited about it, very excited. We’re dabbling now. We’ve got a couple songs in the works. I don’t know how soon we plan on recording. We want to get a full touring cycle on this to really get out there and party with everybody.

Thank you. It’s one of those things where we hope that we just keep chugging away and things will just keep moving up for us ‘cause we don’t want to stop doing this.