Artist Interview | Page 4 | Revolver

Artist Interview

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Thanks to our partners at Musicians Institute, Revolver sat down with Whitechapel's Phil Bozeman and Alex Wade at Ozzfest meets Knotfest to talk about the first time they heard Slipknot, clowns, upcoming plans, and more!
 
For more on Whitechapel, follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
 
 
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Thanks to our partners at Musicians Institute, Revolver sat down with Westfield Massacre's Tommy Vext and Stephen Brewer at Ozzfest meets Knotfest to talk going to Musicians Institute, first time they heard Slipknot, how Corey Taylor gave them a start, recording a new record, and more!
 
For more on Westfield Massacre, follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
 
 
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Thanks to our partners at Musicians Institute, Revolver sat down with Motionless in White's Chris Motionless at Ozzfest meets Knotfest to talk about the first time he heard Black Sabbath, upcoming plans, and much more!
 
For more on Motionless in White, follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
 
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Thanks to our partners at Musicians Institute, Revolver sat down with DevilDriver's Dez Fafara at Ozzfest meets Knotfest to talk about the first time he heard and hung out with Black Sabbath, upcoming plans, and more!
 
For more on DevilDriver, follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
 
 
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Thanks to our partners at Musicians Institute, Revolver sat down with Butcher Babies' Heidi Shepherd and Carla Harvey at Ozzfest meets Knotfest to talk about the first time they heard Slipknot and Black Sabbath, upcoming plans, and more!
 
For more on Butcher Babies, follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
 
 
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Thanks to our partners at Musicians Institute, Revolver sat down with Disturbed's David Draiman at Ozzfest meets Knotfest to talk about the first time he heard Black Sabbath, upcoming tour plans, and more!
 
For more on Disturbed, follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
 
 
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The following is an excerpt from The Dillinger Escape Plan feature in the December issue of Revolver. Here, frontman Greg Puciato talks about the decision to end the band, Dissociation's foundation, how vulnerability is no longer a weakness, and more.

To read the rest, pick up the new issue on newsstands December 13 or get your copy here. Story by Jon Wiederhorn.

REVOLVER With 'Dissociation,' the band is definitely going out on top.
GREG PUCIATO Intent is what makes output valuable, not just blind creation. Once we decided that this would be the last record, it suddenly gave us a deeper purpose. We're already basically perfectionistic, but something happens in your brain when you know there's a clock ticking.

When did you decide this would be band's last album?
I had the album title chosen since mid-2013. Then, three quarters of the way through making the album, we had the conversation about ending the band, and it created a really cool thematic tie-in. I was already addressing a lot of personal loss and separation and the death of the band fit into that concept.

Did something happen to trigger the decision to end Dillinger?
No, to be honest we could much more easily have said, "fuck you" to one another and walked away around the recording of [2013's] 'One of Us Is the Killer.' But the fact that we worked through our bullshit as individuals on that album made us go, "OK, we're in a better place than we've been in a while. We're at the top of our game musically. We're getting along great. I think now might be the best time to pour everything into the final act." There's not one percent of me that believes we would have come out with a record as good as this if we had not have said that because it would have just been another record, another season of a TV show that doesn't know when it's gonna end and runs far past its expiration date. Giving this a definite ending empowered us.

You've always expressed rage and desperation. On this album it seems like you're emphasizing vulnerability as much as anger.
The older I get, the more I see Billie Holiday as being heavier than Meshuggah. So I approached a lot of the songs on the Dillinger record from a position of vulnerability, which, when I was younger I would have perceived as weakness. Taking that approach was a huge artistic triumph because now I feel like I've got a lot more range to go into emotionally than I wouldn't have had when I was 23 or 24. And I can apply that to whatever I do in the future.

For the rest of the story, pick up the December issue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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photograph by Jimmy Hubbard

REVOLVER How does it feel to have 'Hardwired… to Self-Destruct' named Revolver's Album of the Year?
LARS ULRICH
Seriously? Whoa! Awesome! I just got goosebumps—I'm not kidding! [Laughs] Well, fucking way cool; thank you, what an honor! I don't even know where this record fits in yet with everything we've done, but now I'm going to go back and listen to it with a smile on my face!
JAMES HETFIELD:Wow— well, thanks; it's nice to hear that. It's been eight years [since Death Magnetic], and we've been working on it for two years—not in a row, but on and off for a while. You do your best, and then you're like, "Well, here it is!" I'm so happy that the album is finally out, and that people can listen to it.  

REVOLVER When you guys were first starting out, could you have even imagined that, 35 years later, you'd be hailed for making the Album of the Year?
HETFIELD
It's weird to think that something that we love doing is loved by other people so much. Because honestly, we're writing these songs for ourselves, and the  fact that other people like them still blows me away. And after 35 years, having an impact on people like that… I really appreciate the fact that it's accepted by so many people, especially you guys.  ULRICH Listen, 35 years ago when we started out, we didn't know that there would be another 34 years in front of us. I mean, back in the '80s, with Reagan and Brezhnev and the talk of nuclear war, who the fuck knew that the Earth would still be even fucking bouncing around in the universe 35 years later? So the fact that we're still here, and you guys are awesome enough to not only run a magazine, but to say that our record deserves all these accolades, I don't even know where to begin with any of that stuff. So maybe I'd better just leave it there! [Laughs] Thanks for always supporting us, and for supporting everything in metal and hard rock.

AS TOLD TO DAN EPSTEIN

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photograph by Kevin Estrada

The following is an excerpt from the Attila feature in the December issue of Revolver. Here, frontman Chris Fronzak talks about how "people just get bothered way too easily," being a self-styled entrepreneur, and a polarizing figure.

To read the rest, pick up the new issue on newsstands December 13 or get your copy here. Story by J. Bennett.

Chris Fronzak has a term he likes to use. "I call it 'pussification,'" the Attila frontman tells Revolver over the phone as he stands in line at the DMV near his home in Orlando, Florida. "I think the world is undergoing a huge pussification process right now, where everyone's just becoming really soft. People just get bothered way too easily. Before the Internet existed, I feel like people could handle things better."

Fronzak isn't just blurting this out in a crowded government building unprompted. We're asking him about "Public Apology," the third track on Attila's latest album, 'Chaos.' "'Public Apology' is saying 'Stop being a bitch about everything,' but it's also kind of a personal story because a lot of people judge me personally and think that they know everything about me and my life and they think that I've had everything handed to me," he says. "People think I'm this trust fund kid or something but they don't realize that we've struggled really hard to get where we're at."

In many ways, these comments get to the heart of the public discussion about Attila—and Fronzak in particular. Since 2007, the highly successful and insanely prolific Georgia-based metalcore outfit has put out seven albums and courted controversy almost every step of the way. From Fronzak's frequent self-promotion to public beefs to a fight with a fan in Perth, Australia, and accusations of inciting a riot during Attila's set on the Denver stop of last year's Warped Tour, it seems Fronzak has made as many enemies as he has fans.

As Attila's frontman and a self-styled entrepreneur who owns a clothing line (Stay Sick), a record label (Stay Sick Recordings) and even hawks his own brand of cologne (Rage), Fronzak revels in online exposure. On his personal YouTube channel, he regularly uploads video clips of himself talking about things like, "Finding Your Path in Life," "How to Get a Ferrari," "I Crashed My BMW i8," and "I HAVE SOME EXCITING NEWS!!!!"

For many, Fronzak—or "Fronz" (or Fronzilla) as he's known to his legion of fans—has become someone to look up to: A successful artist and businessman who has carved his own path through an unforgiving industry. But not everyone wants to hear Fronzak's life advice, or how he crashed his expensive ride or what his exciting news might be. Just take a look at Internet comments—"turd" and "douche" would be considered some of the lighter words for what people have to say of his lyrics. But the assessment of Fronzak and Attila? His (or their) supporters: over 357,000 Instagram followers (Attila's 183K), 192K Twitter followers (Attila's 180K) nearly 69,000 subscribes to his aforementioned YouTube channel.

And yet Fronzak fully acknowledges that he's a polarizing figure. "The bottom line is that I'm outspoken," he concedes. "I say shit without a filter. Sometimes it comes back and bites me in the ass, but I say what I feel at the time. I feel like people love me for that because maybe they relate to me. But then you have people that go, 'Oh, that offends me.' It really is one way or the other. There's not a whole lot of people who are in the middle about me. You either love me or you hate me, and I think that's fine."

For the rest of the story, pick up the December issue.

 

 

 

 

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Thanks to our partners at Musicians Institute, Revolver sat down with Hatebreed's Jamey Jasta at Ozzfest meets Knotfest to talk about how to survive a festival, selling toilet paper at old Ozzfests, not losing street cred, upcoming plans, and so much more!

For more on Hatebreed, follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

 

 

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