Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: The Black Dahlia Murder

I knew little about The Black Dahlia Murder until 2007’s Noctural and 2009’s Deflorate, but after hearing those albums with their unpredictable nature and deadly combination of intricate playing and all-out evil, I started to get on board. I became a fan after seeing them on 2009’s Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festvial. It wasn’t long before that tour that guitarist Ryan Knight joined the band and seemed to have a huge impact on the writing and style, making the music more focused and cohesive without sacrificing extremity.

Judging from the upward trend, Ritual (June 21, 2011), their fifth album, could end up being the band’s best yet. With Knight and guitarist Brian Eschbach split writing the music 50-50, they’re coming off their most successful album and looking to further hone their sound into a new level of The Black Dahlia Murder. Did I mention they also are headlining the 2011 edition of Summer Slaughter?

This is a high-energy band on and off-stage, known for partying and dark humor. They were, to my knowledge, the first death metal band to shoot a video in a bowling alley (“Necropolis”), they own one of my favorite song/album titles of all-time, “What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse,” and Eschbach once told me in an interview that Behemoth’s Nergal was a “sweetheart.”

So what makes a bunch of fun-loving dudes want to create such supreme and deafening evil? Live-Metal.net’s Jeff Maki had a chat with guitarist Ryan Knight to find this out, get the details on Ritual and much more.

Live-Metal.net: OK, so Ritual is due out next week (June 21, 2011). Obviously, you guys have been down this road before having several albums out, but just what are the feelings and emotions going on in the band’s camp right now? Is it anticipation, anxiousness, excitement or a little bit of everything? What is the vibe with you guys?

Ryan Knight: I think it’s just high anticipation. We’re all pretty excited because the record has been done since February. So we’re just all ready to get it out.

I actually interviewed (guitarist) Brian (Eschbach) a couple of years ago on the Mayhem Fest—a very, very comedic and funny dude. And the band just seems like a fun bunch of party-type guys. So what leads you to create music that’s so extreme and violent?

At some point in our life, we were all into hardcore or punk rock, so I think all of us had fast and energetic music in all of our backgrounds. And it’s just what we like to do—high energy, because a lot of us are pretty high-energy guys [laughs]. It’s just what does it for us, like a drug or something for some people. It’s just what gets the adrenaline flowing.

With Ritual, is there a concept or running theme within the lyrics tying everything together, or was it just a cool-sounding title?

Yeah, it’s got a theme and it’s kind of a concept album, I guess. All the songs are about some sort of ritual. Whether you smoke weed, that’s kind of like a ritual. Or for instance, one of our songs is about a serial killer that killed young kids, and that was kind of like his ritual. And just things like that. And a lot of things that we do, like being in a band is like a ritual for us—we get up there onstage and our fans are all there with us and we all share this experience.

At this point, you guys aren’t going to go out and experiment a whole lot. You guys have found your niche and sound, but is there anything really off the wall or different that you tried with this album? Something that’s going to reach out to a different type of fan base, or does it run on that line of past releases?

I think we kept the sound pretty Black Dahlia. It’s definitely a sound that people know. We didn’t stray away from the band’s original sound. It was more of like trying to add new elements of song and maybe introducing melodies in a different way that we haven’t tried yet. And we even messed around with some different time signatures sometimes. But it was about just keeping the core sound and adding new elements in to make it interesting.

So you guys are pretty content with your fan base out there. You’re not trying with this album or in the future to branch off and gain that larger following? Are you pretty set and content in what everything is at this point in your career?

Well, we always want to get new fans, but we’re not going to change the sound. We’re not going to put out an album and have it be clean singing or something like that. [laughs] We’re not going to go and do anything extreme to try and get a mainstream fan base. I think we’ll just keep putting out records with the sound that we’re known for and try to keep expanding on that sound without alienating our fan base too bad.

You have the Summer Slaughter tour coming up later on this year. Comparing that to when you guys played on the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival, do you think this is going to be more of your kind of people? I know the tour hasn’t started yet, but could you compare the Slaughter and Rockstar, and what are your expectations for Summer Slaughter?

Yeah, I think with Summer Slaughter you get more of the extreme and death metal fans. With Mayhem, it’s a metal tour, but it’s not just extreme death metal. It’s a lot of different kinds of metal, so you get diverse people. Sometimes you get people that might not even listen to any death metal—people that are there for like Marilyn Manson or something [laughs]. I would definitely say that Summer Slaughter is more of our niche and more of our crowd. But I think both tours are cool for what they are audience-wise and for what they can both really do for your band.

We’re about to leave here in a few days to go to Europe to do the whole festival run over there. Then we come home and do Summer Slaughter and then some stuff we’re maybe going to do as headliners in October, but I can’t really say too much about that because it’s not all booked yet. Then we’re going to South America in December with Cannibal Corpse and Suicide Silence. And then there will be a ton of more stuff that’s just not all booked up yet.

Yeah, I’ve only been in the band for about two and a half years.

OK, so has the overall experience in the band been everything you thought it would be upon being recruited?

Yeah, it’s been that and more. Definitely, since being in this band it’s been one of the biggest learning and milestone experiences in my life. From the playing aspect and everything about it, and the things we do in the band—not just playing the shows, but all the travel and everything has just been sort of like another plateau of your life. It’s just like reaching the next level. It’s been so cool and I have no complaints.

When I talked to Brian on Mayhem, you had just joined the band not long ago, and I remember him saying how he thought that you had brought in a bunch of new elements in your playing in the band. Could you compare your two styles of playing? What do you think you brought in with your playing that was maybe missing before?

Well, for one, I kind of had to take over the leads. But I would say that’s a different aspect because Brian is a rhythm player in the band. But as far as with the songwriting and everything, like I was saying earlier, I tried to present different ways of presenting the melody in songs—like having a riff that’s a melody or having chords that are more like Iron Maiden-esque. Me and Brian have different ways of writing, but we write really well together. I don’t think that our writing is so different that is doesn’t sound right when put together. I think that I just approach things a little differently, and hopefully when we add it together with Brian’s sound, it gives it a fresher vibe.

Yeah, I noticed, whether it was a direct result of you joining the band or not, that the music did get a little more catchier, it did get more memorable and structured.

Yeah, in the end that’s basically what him and I are trying to do, just write really memorable songs that a death metal person would like—or that anyone would like for that matter. Because a lot of times with death metal it’s just so extreme and so brutal, and there’s not a lot of melody sometimes, and it just makes it hard for people to get into it.

So on Ritual, for all the diehards out there, what song, what part, what aspect of it in your opinion is just going to blow those fans away?

There’s some orchestration on the CD that I’m sure some people have heard now that the album has leaked, but special stuff like that, that’s entirely new to the band. I just think the songs this time around are really well written. I think Deflorate was a really good album, but this one just came together a whole lot more cohesive.

You mentioned that the album has leaked, but did you guys do anything special for the album to persuade people not to download it, like special editions or any bonus material to get the people to actually go buy the album?

Yeah, there were some pre-order packages you could get where you get the CD and shirt. Then there was one (special edition) where you got incense sticks and a ouija board and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, yeah, that sort of thing. Basically just trying to give people any incentive to buy the album, because people don’t really like to buy albums nowadays anymore.

With the album being leaked, has this happened to you guys previously and how do you think it will, or already has, affected album sales for this release?

Well, the last album leaked. I think pretty much nowadays it’s hard for an album not to leak. I think it’s almost nearly impossible for it not to leak in some way or another. But I think the people that are going to buy it are still going to buy it. The last album that we put out sold the most in the first week that the band’s ever done, and the album leaked there, too, so I think the people that always bought records are still going to buy records. Even some of those people that downloaded it are probably still going to buy it. I’m not too worried about it. But I will say that I think downloading has definitely crippled record sales, though.

Yeah, the label a couple of weeks or a month before the album comes out will give out promo copies out for people to review. And so after that happens it’s just going to leak—somebody is going to leak it. I guess we’ve been pretty fortunate on this album that it leaked so close to the release. It will be out in a few days, so it’s not that big of a deal. I think Metal Blade has been doing a good job from trying to keep it down off YouTube, Rapid Share and all of these sharing sites. There’s only so much you can do when thousands of people have it.

OK, Ryan, that’s what I got. I don’t think I missed anything important, did I? I really am a fan of the band. I look forward to hearing Ritual and getting out to see Summer Slaughter in Baltimore.

No, no, man, I think you pretty much covered everything. And yeah, yeah, we’ll be around (Sonar in Baltimore). Definitely. Thanks for the interview.