NORMA JEAN

Inspired by ex-lovers and the Jesus, Christian metallers Norma Jean are about to lay the “Mother” of all on the hard rock world.

By Tim Grierson

Los Angeles’s Venice Beach is a favorite haunt for retirees, surfers and other laid-back types. It’s usually a calm, soothing place, with its views of the tranquil Pacific Ocean stretching off to the horizon. But all is not peaceful here tonight, as deafening heavy metal blares from one of the homes right on the beachfront. Their reveries interrupted, passing beachcombers glare at the clattering sounds, unaware that they’re hearing the raw tracks that will become The Anti Mother, the fourth album from Georgia Christian metal band Norma Jean.

On a tight deadline to complete the record, Norma Jean’s five members—singer Cory Brandan, guitarists Chris Day and Scottie Henry, bassist Jake Schultz, and new drummer Chris Raines (who recently replaced founding drummer Daniel Davison)—sit with producer Ross Robinson and engineer Ryan Boesch in Robinson’s home studio, sampling a few tracks for Revolver. The three previewed songs aren’t finished, but “Death of the Anti Mother,” “Self-Employed Chemist,” and “Vipers, Snakes and Actors” have a swinging, furious urgency, although Brandan cringes on a couch in the corner, not completely happy with his vocals.

Later, sitting in Robinson’s living room with Schultz, staring out the window at the gorgeous ocean view, Brandan struggles to get a handle on an album that’s still a mystery to him and his bandmates. “There were songs on this record that were influenced by a feeling that I had, rather than just grabbing a guitar and picking at it,” he says. “This record definitely goes in so many directions. But I don’t even know what it sounds like—I haven’t really heard it yet.” Norma Jean are at a critical juncture in the record’s progress, with many creative decisions still to be made. With that looming pressure on their shoulders, Brandan and Schultz took some time out to discuss their new album’s themes, the difficulties of writing personal songs, and why they don’t like most of their fellow Christians.

REVOLVER You’ve been here two months working on the album. Is it hard being so away from your families this long?
CORY BRANDAN It’s definitely stressful at times. But my family understands what I do. And my kids don’t know any different. Like, this is all I’ve ever done—Dad’s in a band. My kids are 13 and nine. That’s actually a thing I think a lot of people don’t know…
JAKE SCHULTZ That you’ve got kids?
BRANDAN Not only do I have kids, but I have a teenager! [Laughs] She’s 14 next month.

Before we sat down, you mentioned that you wanted this album to be less noisy. What did you mean?
BRANDAN This album is just us playing like we play. We have a tendency to go in the studio and go nuts on instruments—more nuts than we would live. Literally, on Redeemer, we were tackling each other while we were playing. And then that stuff made it on the record. [Laughs] On this record, we took it a little bit more seriously. We just wanted this record to be sonically more powerful than anything we’ve ever done.
SCHULTZ With every record that we’ve done, we take something from that record and try and build on top of it. The record before Redeemer [2005’s Oh God, the Aftermath] was really, really mechanical sounding. Everything was on point. It made us better musicians, but we didn’t want to do that same thing again. We wanted something that had a little more life in it. And so with Redeemer, we just went all-out—every single note and even every wrong note went on the record. So, having taken both of those approaches, we’re putting both of those records into action now.
BRANDAN We’re supposed to be done with this record already.
SCHULTZ It was supposed to be mixed and mastered and handed in to the label in two days.

What caused the delay?
BRANDAN I don’t know. [Laughs] I don’t know anymore. We just put a ton into it. When we got here, we did 16 days of preproduction with Ross—all five of us and him. And we worked on every part, even like every little drum part. So much has changed. We really put the record under a microscope.
SCHULTZ This record has been such a struggle to make. Let’s say you’re at the bottom of the ocean and you’re swimming, trying to get to the top. And then you finally get there, and it’s like air never felt so good your entire life. It’s been a different experience recording, but the end is gonna be amazing.

The band has had some personnel changes in the past, and recently, founding drummer Daniel Davison left. What happened?
BRANDAN It was definitely something that was just building up over time. That’s something he felt he had to do.
SCHULTZ He’s happier doing what he’s doing now.
BRANDAN That dude is one of our best friends in the world, and he’s a great drummer. But he had gotten married—I think that was a big part of it. He just wanted to be home.

That’s always a tough thing: balancing the demands of being in a band and dealing with adult responsibilities.
BRANDAN Yeah. That’s funny, ’cause I didn’t join this band until I was 27 or 26. [Laughs]
SCHULTZ You were just settling in to responsibility. And then we screwed it all up.
BRANDAN [Laughs] Yeah. I really had made a decision to stop pursuing music. The week that Daniel called me and asked me to come see the band, I was living in my mom’s basement. Had no car, single parent, two kids, walking to work every day and hating it. And then…I got to love it. I was walking one day and I was like, “You know what, God? I’ll just take care of my family and I’ll get married.” I was so excited! Then Daniel calls me up: “We need a singer in three weeks.”

Tell me about the Anti Mother: What does it represent?
BRANDAN It’s a character that’s a sub-personality that everybody has. It’s kind of developed into a lot of things, and the record is themed around it. It comes from personal issues, things I’ve been through. There was a time when I made a decision to make a change in my life. And when I did that, it kind of felt like a part of me died. There was this path that I was on, and when I broke off from that, I was just in shock. So that’s what the Anti Mother’s about—killing that sort of personality.

This period you’re talking about—was this when you converted to Christianity?
BRANDAN No, this was after that. I never feel like I have things figured out. And I never feel like I know what’s best for anybody else. Sometimes you mess up. I feel like it’s all a learning experience. I’ve broken my life into three stages. There’s a learning stage, and then there was definitely a stage—maybe when I was a teenager—when, like, you think you’ve got it figured out, you know what you’re gonna do. That’s about the time that I became a Christian. And then there’s a definite falling-down and realizing I never advanced past the first stage, which is the learning stage.

Sometimes for people who convert to Christianity, there’s a period where everything seems to be perfect and then they realize it’s—
BRANDAN Not all roses.

Exactly. How have you dealt with that?
BRANDAN Um, very, very badly at times. It’s not all roses, and the storms still come. You can’t make a change like that in your life and expect everything else to change with it. But for me, I just kind of go with it. You know, I live my life on a day-to-day basis. I raise my kids that way, too.

In terms of thematic elements for an album, does that come from you, Cory?
BRANDAN We all write lyrics together. We collaborate on everything. We’ll sit here with our laptops and talk about lyrics—it’s like putting a puzzle together. We just stare at the screens until someone yells, “Got it!” Songs are the same way, artwork’s the same way. Everything we do, it’s all a collaborative effort, the five of us. One thing we do before we track a song is we talk about what the song’s about. We just get a feeling for it. And I think it’s really awesome, because then everybody in the band knows what the song is about. And you play it differently if you do that. You play it like you mean it.

OK, so with “Self-Employed Chemist,” what is that song about?
BRANDAN Well, what do you think when you hear “Self-Employed Chemist”?

Drugs.
BRANDAN Yeah, that’s pretty much what it is. The song’s kind of…I don’t know how far I should go into what that song’s about. [Pauses] It just basically deals with a person that I was with for a long time…one of the mothers of my kids. She struggled with addiction for eight years. And I saw her go through that. I was very much in love with her, so it comes from that. She’s just recently gotten over it, and she’s doing really well. I’m super-proud of her, and she’s been doing so amazing. I can really see a change in her. One of the lines in the song is “We’re coming back to collect that killer.” And that’s inspired by a thing she said to me when she cleaned up.

This song comes from such a personal place. Did that contribute to making the album more of a struggle to complete than your previous albums?
BRANDAN That’s why we like coming here—Ross finds that button and pushes it. Before I sing, he comes in and we talk about what the song’s about. And we’ll sit there and talk for an hour until we get that feeling. But it definitely makes it stressful because you’re thinking about those things. But Ross will tell you, “You lived the song. If you don’t want to deal with what it’s about, then don’t record it.” But it’s also very cathartic as well.

OK, so what is “Vipers, Snakes and Actors” about?
BRANDAN It’s a very pissed-off song. We’re Christians, so we’re kind of tied to every Christian. And I don’t like most Christians. [Laughs] The lyrics are “Carry your flag/March into that fictional battle, or fictional cause/Show off your medals.” It’s kind of like saying, “Dude, if you’re gonna do all those things, if you’re gonna wave your flag around, you know what? Go ahead.” But then the next lyric is, “Just don’t reach for that gun.” Which is basically saying like, “Don’t point it at me.” Everybody’s going through something different—religion aside, as humans we should know that about each other. I believe in Jesus, and Jesus didn’t shun anybody. He went to bars and hung out with the most hated people. And people would ask him, “Why are you even hanging out with these people?” And he had one of the most awesome answers ever, which was “A healed person doesn’t need a doctor.” That’s so cool. Nobody’s healed, you know?