Here’s part three of A Life Once Lost’s new tour diary, courtesy of guitarist Doug Sabolick:

Ahh, back in the USA.

After the shuttle from Mexico drops us off at our vehicle we hightail to to McAllen, Texas, for another gig before SXSW. Feels good to play on our own gear! After a fun show, we stay with our friends who did the show and hung out with the giant pig in their back yard. We wake up super early and hightail it north to Austin.

We have a day off and are just looking to see a few bands and chill. We check out Residuels at the Sailor Jerry party and head back to the truck, only to find out someone cut the lock on our trailer and stole my guitar, Chris’ bass and Bob’s bag and passport. We are pissed but also relieved they didn’t have time to take other stuff. Stealing from touring bands is pretty low. Not sure how some people can live with themselves.

We get a hotel and I sleep lightly while hitting up Framus, my guitar company, and a friend from Philly who was flying to Austin that day. I got my roommate to drive my Les Paul to the airport on his motorcycle and drop It with the dude flying down. Same-day delivery halfway across the country. Sweet! Framus hits me back and is sending me a replacement and the Texas Metal Collective provided me with a loner guitar as well. It is really great having friends that care about you!

Enough sap. We head to Guitar Center and Chris buys a bass and gets it set up. We are now ready to play our two shows this evening.

The first show is on the roof of the Six Lounge. We load our gear to the roof and enjoy the view and the chill vibe. We absolutely destroyed this show. Meadows scaled the awning and sung from one of the highest spots in Austin. We meet a ton of cool people and hang out for a bit. Onward to the next show.

We are headlining the Metal and Lace lounge tonight. We deliver another blistering set and proceed to party until our friend John gets out of work at his bar. It’s now 4 a.m., and we are headed back to his house to rest up for a bunch more shows this week at SXSW.

Here’s part two of A Life Once Lost’s new tour diary, courtesy of guitarist Doug Sabolick:

So after our last entry, we were en route to Monterrey, Mexico, from Philly. I pulled a driving-career best 14 hours straight at the wheel. Needless to say, we were pretty haggard by the time we hit Laredo. We had a couple hours to kill before our shuttle arrived, so we did some shopping for just the essentials. Sombrero purchased.

Our shuttle arrived and we packed our guitars and pedals in the back and met our new traveling compadres, Solar Year and The Holydrug Couple, all the way from Chile.

Crossing the border was fine, but immediately we had a dose of reality: pickup trucks with federales riding in the backs with giant Gattling guns attached to the pickup beds. Rock ‘n’ roll. There were also amputees hanging out on the dotted lines of a highway panhandling. Pretty ballsy, gotta respect the effort. After a couple-hour ride, we end up at our hotel in downtown Monterrey. We meet our dude, Miguel, who hooks it up and chaperones us.

Festival Nrmal (the fest we are playing) seems like a pretty big deal here and people of many different styles are in the hotel hanging out together. We end up taking a shuttle out to the hills and hanging with all the bands at a mansion on the top of a mountain. It’s like the hollywood hills south of the border. We hang hard all night then get a ride home with a friend we made. People here drive really fast, like really fast. We get back to the hotel in no time and crash out.

Three days in, and we finally play our first show of the tour. We play just as the sun sets behind the mountain and have a great set. A lot of friends we made the previous night were present, and one dude in particular got his acid freak on early this day to Ecstatic Trance. Rock on, amigo! The show was killer, and I must say Festival Nrmal was possibly coolest vibe of a show we have ever played. Thanks to Angel for hooking it up!

We had one more day to kill in Mexico so we hit a ton of taco stands, trucks, tables and any other objects you can make tacos on. We hit another party in the hills. Meet some new friends and proceed to get chill. Onward to one more party. The car overheats on the way up the hill so we abandon our plans and coast back down to the mountain to the hotel.

We hit the road the next morning, destination USA. We get some much-needed sleep on the ride, and after getting our bags searched and getting our van X-rayed, we are allowed back in to the country. We hightail it to McAllen, Texas, and deliver a decent set. Onward to Austin for SXSW!

Until next time.

Doug

A Life Once Lost on Tour

March 18 @ Fubar – St Louis, MO
March 19 @ Jenny Wiley Convention Center – Prestonburg, KY
March 20 @ Ultra Lounge – Chicago, IL
March 21 @ Mickey Finn’s Pub -Toledo, OH
March 22 @ Broadway Joes – Buffalo, NY
March 23 @ Kung Fu Necktie – Philadelphia, PA
March 24 @ The Acheron – Brooklyn, NY

Here’s part one of A Life Once Lost’s new tour diary, courtesy of guitarist Doug Sabolick:

Our day started with an epic van rental fail. After hours of red tape, it doesn’t end up happening. Onward to U-Haul, our old friend.

We are now hitching a trailer to a Jeep. After the first two trailers’ lights don’t work, the third is a charm. Kinda. The break lights work, but no running lights. Onward to Walmart!

We Gorilla Glue two push-button lights covered in red electrical tape to the back of the trailer. Problem solved. We are now embarking on a relaxing 30-hour drive to the Mexican border. Its rock and roll, brah.

Passing Chattanooga as I type this, and we are about halfway to the border. Can’t wait to fill my pockets with pesos and slam Tecates into oblivion.

On a lighter note, we just found out we are now skipping the route in Mexico where last year they found 49 headless corpses stacked on the side of the road. This saddens me, but it’s probably for the best.

Until next time.

Doug

A Life Once Lost on Tour

March 09 @ Festival Nrmal -Monterrey, Mexico
March 11 @ Aria -McAllen, TX
March 12 @ SXSW -Austin, TX
March 13 @ Spider House Ballroom Austin TX – THE TEXAS ROCK N ROLL MASSACRE Daytime
March 13 @ Hangar Lounge (4th & Colorado) – Metal Wreckage showcase ~ALOL plays at 8:30 pm
March 13 @ Metal & Lace / Headhunters – OFFICIAL SXSW SHOWCASE ~ALOL plays at 1 am
March 15 @ Melotov @ 1808 E. 12th ~ALOL plays at tba, doors @ 4 pm
March 15 @ The Annex at 1808 – Austin, TX
March 16/17 @ The Music Ranch – ALOL plays at 3 AM
March 17 @ The Chameleon Room – Oklahoma City, OK
March 18 @ Fubar – St Louis, MO
March 19 @ Jenny Wiley Convention Center – Prestonburg, KY
March 20 @ Ultra Lounge – Chicago, IL
March 21 @ Mickey Finn’s Pub -Toledo, OH
March 22 @ Broadway Joes – Buffalo, NY
March 23 @ Kung Fu Necktie – Philadelphia, PA
March 24 @ The Acheron – Brooklyn, NY

By Andrew Bansal

Philadelphia-based modern heavy metal band A Life Once Lost released their fourth full-length studio album, Ecstatic Trance, on Season Of Mist records late last year. To support the release, they did a North American touring run with Revocation.

Now they’re gearing up for a short US headline run — dubbed The Man Machine tour — with support from Author & Punisher and Encrust.

I recently caught up with guitarist Doug Sabolick to talk about all things pertaining to him and the band. Read the conversation below, and visit the band online on their official facebook page.

REVOLVER: Let’s talk about your latest album, Ecstatic Trance. The title is pretty interesting. Does it aptly describe the music on the album?

I think it opens some doors for people who see that and expect a certain style of music, specially with the cover art and everything. But I think it’s almost a concept album in that regard, and it’s all based on just one thought.

Would you say it’s more melodic and steps outside of what you’ve done so far with the band?

Oh yes, it’s much more melodic, but not in a “singy” way. The guitar lines are more melodic and the songs are melodic, but they still retain their heaviness and their rhythmic attack.

For this album, you’ve used Andreas Magnusson, who has produced albums for Black Dahlia Murder and Impending Doom, who are more death metal-type bands. What was his approach when he was working with you?

He didn’t actually produce the album. He just mixed and engineered the album, and I produced it myself. I just felt that he captured a really modern version of what we were trying to do, and I think he is very good. He does a great job with the records he puts out. Lots of work he’s put out has been really heavy, and although I can’t really connect with the music of the bands he has worked with, when it comes to their mixes and production, I like his work. It was a really good fit for us.

Is there anything different in your gear setup this time because of the change in musical style?

I went to a 7-string, I lowered the tuning of the riffing down to D, and I kept my higher register strings tuned to standard. So I really had a wide range of notes I could hit that really wouldn’t drown each other out. You could have the leads going over the riffs. And then all the leads I played out of a little amplifier that my brother took out of a Hammond organ. It was like a reverb amplifier, little 18-watt amplifier out what might have been a P12Q speaker.

We’ve always used modern guitar amplification on our past albums, so this time I tried to set up something that would sound really vintage, cranked up and with a wah pedal. So that’s what I was using for this album. The gear’s a lot different for this album, at least for me. We’ve also included a lot of organ on the album. There’s organ on every song. It’s more for support, which I feel what organ should be for except in certain cases. When I played it, it was definitely for support because I’m not a real organ player. I just use it to craft songs. So the inclusion of organ on the album is a big difference.

In order to get all these instruments to work together, I had to write songs in a different way. Our songs have always been atonal, a pissed-off barrage. I didn’t want to be held to that anymore. I saw a bigger picture of what the band could be. I’ve listened to bands like Kraftwerk and said to myself, “Man, if there was a heavy metal version of Kraftwerk, that will be fucking awesome, with some psychedelically inspired leads over the top.”

It was the kind of thing I had in my head for a while and I was like, that’s what I really want to do. I want to be happy and proud of myself. At the end of the day, even if we ended up broke, at least I’d know that I followed what I really wanted to do. It’s scary to change it up so much. We had a solid fan base through what we were doing, but to me, I play music for myself, and the same goes for Bob [futureusgalleryMeadows, vocals].

We didn’t want to be pigeonholed playing to a certain audience. When you look at the artwork, do you really see metal bands with artwork like that? Do you see metal bands with album titles like that? It doesn’t happen because all metal bands are too afraid to step outside the box. We’re open to a lot of different kinds of music, so we wanted to incorporate all the things that we like about music, in our band and in our sound. And we’ve created something unique, and that above all is the No. 1 thing. You can create a great album but if you’re not the first one to do it, you’re just fighting for scraps from everyone else. But on this album, we’ve definitely created a niché for ourselves.

So you’re on Season Of Mist for this album, and they have such a different kind of roster. They have Saint Vitus and black metal bands. Does it feel weird at all for you to be on such a list where you stand out?

I think it’s cool, and I think it shows that the music we’re making is credible because a lot of the bands on their label are credible. They have a wide variety of bands I respect in all different genres. I’m more proud to be on there than I was to be on Ferret at the end. No disrespect to them. But with Season Of Mist, they are music lovers and they sign bands that they like, and they seek them out. So they like our music and I’m happy to be with them. I think it worked out.

Because of the heavy instrumentation on the album, how do you approach playing such material on stage?

We’ve been playing shows where we’ve pretty much played the whole album! There are no problems. I just have to use technology and do some things a little differently when it comes to running the organ tracks when we play. So in a way it makes the band sound huge but you also have to really be on top of it. If you mess up, it’s a problem and you can’t just cover it up.

You took almost five years for this album. Was it mainly because you were kind of redefining your sound, or were there other reasons for the gap?

There are a lot of different reasons, but the original reason was that we had toured hard for years. After a while, it starts getting old when people aren’t supporting you, like your label or things like that. When you’re on a tour bus there’s really not much money to be made, which is fine, but if you do it for five years straight, at some point you’re just like, “You know what? I can make the amount of money I do on tour in one night of working a regular job. So let’s just relax and have a personal life for a little while.”

So we did that, and then we thought of getting together to start working on a new album and it just seemed like certain members of the band were dragging us down and slowing the process. So we had to kind of take care of all these different things and member changes. It took me a while to be confident to do things for the new album. I was scared when we did that, because I wasn’t sure and there was no guarantee that this album was going to turn out good. I had to overcome every weakness I had. I had to just get through it all and I’m really happy we got this album out because it could have been way different, you know. And also it’s not like we took five years and then put out the same album. We took five years and put out an album that blows the other albums away, so that makes me happy.

Did starting out and learning your trade in Philadelphia have any kind of impact and did you absorb anything musically from the local scene?

We started this band when we were teenagers, and back then it was a crazy scene with all these people that would just come out of the woodwork for a metal show because it was just so underground at that time. There was no “mall metal.” There was none of this, really. I mean, it was there but were all going to hardcore shows. And it’s funny that 15 years later the people that pop up are in bands that aren’t metal bands, but I know them from that scene from a long time ago. In Philly, there’s music every night everywhere.

That definitely influenced me for this album. I wouldn’t say it did as much in the past and we weren’t really influenced by local bands in the past, but I work at a bar that has music every night, and I saw a lot of different things. If you see so much, you’re bound to develop a liking or a dislike for a few things you hadn’t heard before. I kind of just took the things that I liked, and it inspired me to do something more and not just pigeonhole my band as just another metal band, really.

Andrew Bansal is a writer who has been running his own website, Metal Assault, since early 2010, and has been prolific in covering the hard rock and heavy metal scene by posting interviews, news, reviews and pictures on his website — with the help of a small group of people. Up till February 2012 he was based in Los Angeles. After that, he had to move to India, but is still carrying on his heavy metal endeavors with the same intensity.

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• …And You Will Know Us By The The Trail Of Dead – Lost Songs
• A Life Once Lost – Ecstatic Trance
• Abiotic – Symbiosis
• AntropomorphiA – Evangelivm Nekromantia
• Behold The Arctopus – Horrorscension
• Bison b.c. – Lovelessness
• Dark Tranquillity – Zero Distance
• Evocation – Illusions Of Grandeur
• God Seed – I Begin
• Ill Niño – Epidemia
• Killbot – Sound Surgery
• Motörhead – The Wörld Is Ours Vol. 2: Anyplace Crazy As Anywhere Else
• Pig Destroyer – Book Burner
• Sister Sin – Now And Forever
• Stone Sour – House Of Gold And Bones: Part 1
• The Sword – Apocryphon
• The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza – Danza IIII: The Alpha – The Omega
• tweaker – call the time eternity
• Upon This Dawning – To Keep Us Safe
• Zodiac – A Bit Of Devil

A Life Once Lost will release their new album, Ecstatic Trance, on October 22. In anticipation, the band is premiering the record’s lead-off track, “Something Awful,” right here right now. Check it out below, as well as the previously released lyric video for the track “Madness is God,” and let us know what you think in the comments.

For the latest news on the band, check out: Facebook.com/ALOLOfficial, twitter.com/ALOLOfficial, and EcstaticTrance.net.

Check out “I Gave Up” from Intensus below: