You also stuck a camera in the recording studio this time around; any particular reason? I might think of it as being invasive.
Yeah, we just had to watch how much we picked our nose. But it was weird, it was the label’s idea just to let people see what you’re doing in there, there is no audio so it’s boring as shit. I would look at the computer and see what people were seeing and be like, ‘How could anybody watch this?’ but at the same time it was kind of cool because we were in the room, and Adam was at the control desk and some kids would ask questions here or there, and we would answer them, so for Adam, who is in Killswitch Engage, to answer some of these kid’s questions online, I think they think it’s a big deal just because it’s Adam, you know?
So it was kind of cool in a sense, kind of like an instant message thing where you could kind of put in your two cents, and if we had the time to give some answers we would give them, but other than that, as for watching with no sound, there were some diehards on there every day that we got to know just from over the years but I don’t think there were a ton of people online watching that whole time, it wasn’t very exciting.
I guess it’s like the vibe of looking at a security camera.
Yeah basically, that was about it, it was just so you could see us sitting on the couch for eight to ten hours a day. There is no way I could ever watch that for more than a minute and a half.
I was looking at an interview that Phil did with us back in 2006, I believe right around the first year you had done Ozzfest, and at the time the band still hadn’t done a headlining tour. Does that era of the band seem like a long way away for you?
It’s weird; at the same time that it seems like it was 150 years ago. It also doesn’t make any sense but it also feels like it was 10 minutes ago too. It’s just really weird. I can’t even explain how quickly it feels certain things go by and sometimes how slow it seems like things are going by. You’ll be in Europe for four weeks and Europe goes by really slow so it feels like you’re just there for a lifetime but then you go do a tour, like we did last summer, we did Mayhem and it’s like five weeks long and we had so much fun that the tour is over before you even blink. It’s weird how certain little sections will go by so slow and then other ones will fly so fast, in a sense, it definitely does feel like it was a long time ago.
And that’s a good thing, not working while you come off tour…
Not paying $75,000 to get onto a festival tour.
Is that how much Ozzfest cost then?
Yeah, back then, if you were one of those second stage pay-to-play bands you had to pay $75,000 to get on it.
I thought it was only $10,000, but maybe I’m thinking of a few years earlier than that, I don’t know, I know that got really, really absurd.
Yeah, it was ridiculous, for us, it was worth every second of it. I know a lot of bands that came off that that just got absolutely nothing out of it and I feel bad, because they are probably still recouping that to their record label, but I know as far as we were concerned, we really benefited from that a lot. It was a good investment.
That’s like putting down a mortgage on a mansion.
High risk.
Has that success allowed you to put like fun stuff on your tour rider? How much of your tour rider actually get filled?
Yeah, you pull up to some shows and they’re just like ‘Dude, fuck you.’ We don’t have anything ridiculous, we get a lot of food and water, beer and whiskey, just really basic. The only out of the ordinary thing we had in there for a while—and people think it was just a rock star thing—is we had condoms on there for a while but it wasn’t because we were getting laid. It was because [of] our wireless packs. You sweat so much on stage that the sweat would get into your electronic pack on your guitar strap and it would mess up your entire wireless signal, so we would put condoms around our wireless packs to protect it. So people would be like ‘Oh, you guys have condoms on your rider, whoa, you’re like New Kids On The Block’ but it wasn’t for girls, trust me, there are no girls at metal shows, ever.
Did you have to explain that on the rider, or did you just put ‘condoms’?
Nah, we just put them on there, and we never really got them either, it was one of those things where I think the promoters were like ‘Yeah right, dude, you ain’t getting that.’ We get cereal and deli meat and all that stuff though.
Alright, you’re on the road for like a week, and then you’re back in the studio to finish up that one song, and then, what’s on deck after that?
There is going to be a couple months of down time that we just haven’t had during the summer in like eight years. So that’s cool. Once September rolls around, that’s when the heavy, heavy touring is going to start again so it’s just a matter of what were gonna do; we don’t know if we’re gonna go out there and support somebody or just start off headlining or blah blah blah. It’s kind of up in the air. There will be Europe, there will Japan and Australia and all that stuff.
So you’ve actually decided to take this summer off?
Yeah, we’ve done every summer festival tour already so we don’t want to beat it to the ground too much, and without an album out right now, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. We probably should have went over to Europe and done some of the European summer festivals but they only pay you so much money—if you don’t play enough shows it doesn’t make it worth going over there, so it’s hard to figure out all the logistics.
All That Remains performs at Starland Ballroom on June 10 with Fear Factory, Silent Civilian and Thy Will Be Done.
