Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Whitechapel

Brutality, murderous lyrics, thrashing death metal—what else would you expect from a band named after London's location of the Jack the Ripper's murders? Whitchapel's sophomore album, This Is Exile is as violent as it is intense, featuring a triple-guitar attack and insane extreme metal vocals. For This Is Exile— their Metal Blade debut—Whitechapel entered the studio with only one goal: to record the fastest, most brutal, evil album they possibly could. It's safe to say they surpassed that goal by far.

The summer of 2009 was perhaps the biggest break for the band, playing the Hot Topic Extreme Metal Stage during the second annual Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival. And with their extreme style they gained a whole new following thanks to this tour—take it from me, the Whitechapel merch was among the most popular of the tour.

The Live-Metal.net crew caught up with guitarist Alex Wade during the tour's stop at the Nissan Pavilion in Bristow, VA. Wade talks about Whitechapel's sound, the origins of the band and the Mayhem Festival.

Jeff Maki: I asked the same question to Cannibal Corpse. You guys are part of a handful of Metal Blade bands on this tour. Did they kind of come as a package? Did they approach you individually about getting on the Rockstar tour? Do you have any idea?

Alex Wade: Well, at first we were approached individually and I didn’t know it was gonna be like a Metal Blade-type thing on the Hot Topic Stage. Then we saw the lineup and I was like, well, that’s all Metal Blade bands, but yet there’s nothing about Metal Blade on the promotions or anything like that. So that kind of boggled my mind a little bit. Yeah, I didn’t really know it was gonna be like a whole Metal Blade thing. It’s really cool, though. It’s kind of cool getting to meet the other Metal Blade bands, especially Behemoth and Cannibal Corpse, who are our influences and stuff like that.

Greg Maki: What has it been like meeting those guys and touring with those guys?

It’s awesome. No matter what kind of persona they put on stage, they’re all the nicest guys in the world. You can go up to them at any point and talk to them about anything. I think that’s what’s really cool. Even Killswitch, they’re on main stage and we’ve been hanging out with them and stuff like that. They’re all the nicest dudes ever. They’re all super funny. So it’s just been a blast.

Jeff: You guys are supporting This Is Exile, the newest album. Comparing that with the previous album, I think this is definitely a step up, I would say. It’s got more—I don’t know if you would call it a maturation or anything like that. But how would you compare the two albums? What’s different?

Well, like you said, that was our goal, honestly, was to just make a more matured version of our sound. We definitely didn’t want to stray away from the heaviness or the brutalness of our sound because that’s who we are and that’s what our fans like, and I think that’s how bands make longevity for themselves, is that they create a sound and they stick to it, they don’t try to stray away from it. We wanted to create that same brutal sound but in a newer, more modern way. So that definitely was our goal on This Is Exile.

Jeff: You guys combine a lot of forms of extreme metal or even a little bit of hardcore.

Jeff: You mentioned Behemoth and Cannibal. Who are some of your other main influences from any type of music?

All kinds of influences, man. Even like more, I guess, music that you wouldn’t even consider related with us, like Deftones and stuff like that to Slipknot, Mesuggah, Bloodbath, Dying Fetus, Suffocation. Anything that’s just really heavy, dark and ambient. Yeah, dude, Bloodbath’s like the heaviest band in the world. They’re so heavy.

Jeff: Well, maybe Behemoth after I saw them today, but Bloodbath is right up there. Lyrically, what are some of the—I can’t really understand anything your vocalist is screaming, growling about on the album. I’ve only heard the promotional copy, so I haven’t had a chance to look at the lyrics. What are some lyrical topics and subjects? What do you guys deal with?

On the old CD, The Somatic Defilement, we kind of played off our name and he did kind of like a Jack the Ripper theme and all the songs kind of deal with him raping and slashing and hacking girls and stuff like that. When we matured the sound of the band, we also wanted to mature it lyrically ‘cause we wanted to appeal to a wider audience. That’s the only way you’re gonna mature as a band, is if you gain more fans and stuff like that. On the new CD, he took kind of like a different approach and just kind of made a concept for the album of this dark being who comes to the world and kind of destroys it and enslaves the human race and stuff like that. It’s definitely still dark and evil, but it’s kind of straying away from the more touchy subjects and stuff like that.

Jeff: How big of a break is this Rockstar Energy Mayhem tour for Whitechapel? Honestly, before (The Somatic Defilement), I hadn’t really even heard of you guys whatsoever. So I’m just thinking about all these people coming out to these shows each day—a lot of them, honestly, probably haven’t heard of you guys. How important do you think it is?

I think it’s extremely important, especially seeing as how we’re going to put out a new CD in 2010. It’s definitely the best way to gain a large amount of fans in a short amount of time. That definitely was our goal. Right after this tour, we have three weeks off, then we go into a fall tour with Trivium and Darkest Hour. We’ll be direct supporting Trivium. So then again, we’re still playing on that same vein. Trivium fans are definitely the people that are coming out here to Mayhem, they’re buying CDs, they’re loving the music, they’re diehard metal fans. So we really wanted to go out with Trivium, not to mention they’re just really nice guys and the music’s awesome. But we still wanted to play off their fan base and gain a bunch of new fans before we release that new CD in 2010.

Yeah, yeah. We’ve probably got about three or four rough ideas for songs and we’ve got tons of different ideas for stuff that just haven’t been molded into songs yet. No album title or anything like that yet—it’s still in the works. We’re gonna be recording in January and it should see a spring or early summer 2010 release.

Jeff: Are you going to continue with the maturation of the band on the next album or pretty much stick on this same line?

Definitely. Yeah, definitely. We’re gonna try to mature the sound as much as possible without trying to stray from that Whitechapel sound ‘cause like I said, our fans are diehard fans. They fell in love with Whitechapel, The Somatic Defilement and our heaviness, our brutalness, and we’re definitely not gonna sell out or stray away from it by any means. We’re just gonna keep it as heavy as possible, and if you like This Is Exile, you’re definitely gonna like the new material.

Jeff: One more: The band name, Whitechapel. It doesn’t sound familiar to me. Where does it come from?

Like I said, how the first album plays off Jack the Ripper, Whitechapel’s actually the district in London , England , where Jack the Ripper slaughtered those prostitutes or whatever and was claimed the first serial killer ever or whatever. We wanted something that was short and to the point but still had like a dark meaning behind it. A couple of the guys were watching that movie From Hell. This was a long time ago back when we were just writing and getting ideas and stuff for the band and stuff like that. Somebody was like, “How about Whitechapel?” I was like, “That’s awesome. Let’s go with that.” And it stuck and people really like it.

Oh, a lot of people definitely mistake us a Christian band.

Jeff: Religious tone to it, yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to tell the fans?

Just try to come out to one of the shows on the Trivium tour. It’s gonna be a blast. And keep an eye out for that new album in 2010.