JOB FOR A COWBOY

With Genesis, their blistering—and record-setting—new release, they're taking the Grand Canyon State to new heights. Now if only they could stop peeing themselves.

By Dan Epstein

“I love it here,” exults Job for a Cowboy guitarist Ravi Bhadriraju, gazing out the window of his band’s van at a seemingly endless stretch of Glendale, Arizona, malls. “This is my home, and this is what I love. I’m down with doing nothing.”

That’s pretty much all there is to do in Glendale, and in neighboring cities like Phoenix and Scottsdale, at least if—as in the case of Bhadriraju and his bandmates Jonny Davy (vocals), Bobby Stevens (guitar), Brent Riggs (bass), and Jon “The Charn” Rice (drums)—you’re still a few years shy of the legal drinking age. Usually, when Revolver pays a visit to a band on its home turf, we wind up at the local watering hole or strip club; but today with Job for a Cowboy, the time leading up to the evening’s desert photo shoot will be spent going out for pizza and ice cream, and playing Nintendo Wii in Riggs’ parents’ rec room. At one point during our afternoon gaming session, a friend of Riggs’ mom passes through. “Good luck with your tour and with MTV,” she chirps, in a chipper tone that makes it clear she has no real concept of what she’s talking about. The guys just laugh, nod, and wave politely.

But don’t get the wrong idea: The five members of JFAC may be young, well-mannered, and respectful of their elders, but they’re also capable of grinding out some of the most unbelievably badass death metal you’ve ever heard. Which is one of the reasons that Genesis (Metal Blade), the band’s first full-length CD, recently landed at No. 54 on the Billboard album chart in its first week of release—a higher entry than any metal debut has made since Slipknot’s self-titled first record was released in 1999. Produced by Cory Spotts (who’s also twiddled the knobs for such hard-n’-heavy Arizona acts as the Necronauts and Knights of the Abyss), Genesis contains 10 delightfully evil-sounding tracks, many of which—like “Embedded,” “Reduced to Mere Filth,” and “Martyrdom Unsealed”—can make you feel like the gates of Hell itself are opening in your frontal lobe.

The band’s confidence is evident not only in the album’s music but also in its lyrical ambition: Genesis is a concept album, a pretty ballsy move for a debut record. “Genesis is about the VariChip, which is a microchip the size of a grain of rice that’s being implanted in people for identification purposes, ” explains Davy, whose soft-spoken disposition makes a striking contrast to the demonic roar he essays onstage and in the studio. “On the one side of it, people are against it because of privacy issues, and the idea that the government will get rid of paper money, because all our bank information will be implanted in us. But there’s also the religious concern—that it’s the mark of the beast. Religious leaders feel it’s a fulfillment of the prophecy in Revelations; they feel that the Anti-Christ wants to use this chip as a tool to control every man and woman in America, and later the whole world.

“The first song, ‘Bearing the Serpent’s Lamb,’ is about the birth of the Anti-Christ,” Davy continues. “From there, it leads to him becoming a big political leader, and to the VariChip and the burning of paper money. And then the last two songs—“The Divine Falsehood” and “Coalescing Prophecy”—are pretty much about the end of the world.” Though he comes from a Catholic background, Davy describes himself as “a militant atheist,” and he takes pains to clarify that he doesn’t actually believe that the VariChip is the mark of the beast. “It’s an invasion of privacy, but that’s about it,” he says with a shrug.

Growing up as a latchkey kid in a single-parent Glendale household, Davy spent much of his formative years surfing the Internet, absorbing as much as he could about organized religion and various conspiracy theories. “From the age of 10, the Internet was my babysitter,” he laughs. “My mom would go off to work, and I would go online. I probably read way more than I should have!” Thanks to his mother, Davy also started getting into metal at a young age. “She was always into heavier music, and she always dated guys who were into stuff like Pantera. One of her boyfriends had been in a band with [future Metallica bassist] Jason Newsted, Flotsam and Jetsam, and he introduced me to a lot of metal stuff. I just knew from early on that I wanted to be in a metal band.”

In another Glendale neighborhood, 14-year-old Ravi Bhadriraju was experiencing a similar epiphany. “Metallica made me want to play guitar—Ride the Lightning, …And Justice for All—all the classics,” he says. “I kept hearing about different bands and harder styles, and finally I found out about death metal. I just started playing death-metal songs of bands I liked, like Decapitated.”

Though they went to different high schools, once Bhadriraju and Davy crossed paths, they immediately recognized each other as kindred spirits. “I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who knew Jonny,” Bhadriraju explains. “We were into the same music, and it just made sense for us to put a band together.” The singer was 16 at the time, the guitarist 15, and their youthful irreverence was apparent in their choice of one of the goofiest band names ever. “We wanted to play death metal, but we didn’t want a really death-y name,” laughs Bhadriraju, as he tells the story for the umpteenth time. “Originally, it was This Is a Job for a Cowboy, but then we realized it wouldn’t fit on a T-shirt.”

A recent profile in one of Revolver’s sister publications characterized Bhadriraju as a “social outcast” during his high school years, a description that thoroughly annoyed the jovial guitarist. “I was a nerdy kid, and I wasn’t that sociable, but I didn’t have time to be sociable,” he clarifies. “I had my girlfriend, I had school, and I had the band. I wanted to be a doctor at the time—and I still plan on becoming a doctor once all this is over—but it got to the point where I was just thinking about the band 24-7.”

Too young to play in local bars, the band’s early lineups performed at various art galleries and DIY clubs around Phoenix, Glendale, and Tempe. “We were playing mostly with hardcore bands,” Bhadriraju remembers. “There’s a big deathcore scene here now, but it’s only really grown in the last few years.” In 2004, Job for a Cowboy set up a MySpace page, posted a few demos on it—and suddenly began to connect with a horde of death-metal fans from all over the world. Traffic to the JFAC page increased exponentially in late 2005, when the band released its first EP, a seven-track collection called Doom.

“We would not be here right now if it wasn’t for MySpace,” Bhadriraju admits today. “Three years ago, we could not tour, because we were all still in high school. This was the only way for us to promote ourselves, and luckily it just worked out. It was all a right-place-right-time thing.”

Riding high on the buzz from the Doom EP, JFAC—now with Glendale pals Riggs and Stevens in the lineup—hit the road in the summer of 2006, including three attention-grabbing West Coast performances on the Sounds of the Underground tour. By the end of 2006, with JFAC now a hip name to drop in metal circles, the band obtained professional management and inked a deal with Metal Blade, the legendary indie imprint where Slayer got their start. But though their dreams were starting to come true, the pressure of living up to increased expectations seemed almost too much to bear—and, just to make matters worse, drummer Elliott Sellers announced that he would be leaving the band to go back to school immediately after recording the album.

“That was probably the most stressful time in my entire life,” says Davy. “We were freaking out. We spent a lot of time just being depressed and drinkin’ beer in Bobby’s driveway. We don’t have a drummer, the album’s not done—and the day after the studio, we have to go on a big U.S. tour.”

“A lot of stuff was happening really fast,” adds Stevens. “We were just like, ‘What the hell are we gonna do?’ It was a weird time.”

Once again, the Internet came to the rescue. Rice was drumming in Pittsburgh—“playing in melodic thrash bands and going nowhere fast,” he says—when he saw a bulletin on Blabbermouth.com about JFAC’s vacant drum slot. He made a video of himself, posted it on YouTube, and sent the link to the band; within weeks, Rice was in Arizona, watching the band as it finished tracking Genesis.

“I was hanging out for, like, a week, and I didn’t get to practice or anything, because they were recording and the drum kit was in the studio,” laughs Rice. “It was rough. I was kind of stressing.”

“He had to learn a song a day, pretty much,” recalls Bhadriraju. “Then we had two practices and left for tour.”

Despite (or perhaps because of) the accumulated tension from their manic schedule, the band energetically celebrated the completion of Genesis during what was, by all accounts, a booze- and urine-soaked spring tour of Europe with Unearth, Despised Icon, and Daath. “On that tour, everyone but Ravi peed in their pants at least once,” Riggs reveals. “Jonny even peed all over our tour manager’s bunk.”

“We were in a club in Glasgow,” Rice recalls. “Me and Brent keep buying each other these Strongbow Cider pints, which taste like apple juice. I had like seven or eight in about an hour and a half. I blacked out, and I’ve never blacked out before. I wake up in mid-blackout, and I’m still at the club, making out with this really hot blonde girl. And then I go back out of it. When I wake up again, this dude just comes over and shoves me. I’m, like, really confused, but it turns out that the girl had a boyfriend who was there in the club, and that’s who shoved me. And later, I peed in my pants.”

“He ran into a car, too!” adds Bhadriraju.

“I don’t remember that part,” Rice shrugs. “It was out of my control, at that point. But I was so excited the next day, when they told me what I did!”

Bhadriraju didn’t emerge unscathed, however. Before a gig in Munich, the guitarist made two separate trips to the city’s famous Hofbrau Haus bar, where he somehow managed to drink five liters of beer (about 10 pints) in a little over three hours. Though he begs Revolver not to print the story—“I don’t want my parents to think that I’m just a freakin’ social outcast loser with a drinking problem,” he laughs—his soused “performance” has already passed into Internet legend.

“I really wish someone had stopped me before I got onstage and told me, ‘You’re gonna be an ass,’” he reflects. “It was just a big mess. I was soloing over everything, and I kept telling Brent to bring his bass lower…”

“We were getting ready to go onstage, and Ravi starts going, ‘Bring your bass lower!’” Riggs confirms. “I’m like, ‘This is as low as it goes.’ And he’s, like, slurring his words. ‘Bring it lower! I know you can bring it lower. Just put your bass down lower…’”

“I remember looking down from my riser,” adds Rice, “thinking, This is not gonna be cool…”

“It was, like, the worst show ever,” says Bhadriraju, shaking his head sadly. “Bobby had to come and turn off my amp. I felt like I’d let everybody down. I was so bummed out. I just went into my bunk that night and puked all over myself.”

“Everyone was extremely pissed that night,” says Riggs. “But by the next day, everyone was laughing about it.”

“It was funny, but it’s not something I’d ever do again,” says Bhadriraju.

“You probably should do it again,” says Riggs. “We need some more good stories!”

With a packed tour schedule that continues through the rest of 2007, including all of the dates on this year’s Sounds of the Underground, Job for a Cowboy will doubtless have many more good stories. Whenever Bhadriraju finally finds some free time, the guitarist (who was raised in the Hindu faith) says he plans on getting a tattoo of Hindu divinity Ganesha, the elephant-headed lord—and remover—of obstacles. Considering just how many obstacles JFAC have managed to hurdle or avoid altogether during their rapid ascent, the tattoo seems like a most appropriate tribute.

“When I was in high school, people knew that I played in a band and that it was a pretty decent local band,” Bhadriraju reflects. “But nobody knew what it would come to. I mean, I graduated a year ago, and it’s so mind-blowing what has happened since then.”