It has been a few years between albums for technical death metal merchants Arsis, but 2013 proved to be well worth the wait for new tuneage. Unwelcome (Nuclear Blast) is one of the strongest, most unpretentious metal albums of the year so far. We chatted with front man/band mastermind/guitar virtuoso James Malone all about the record, the balancing growing up and the music business, plus making a killing on Craigslist buying underrated guitars and playing them on tour.
Jim! Thanks for chatting with Ghost Cult today. Please tell us about the making of Unwelcome.
It was after Suffer For The Devil, our touring cycle started off pretty normal. But them in January- February 2011, the tours just really started slowing down. I moved and took a job, and I that had benefits for the first time in years. And a tour came up for Firewind in late 2011, but I had to stick with my job, and keep those benefits since I had to get some shit taken care of, and I hadn’t playing that much guitar. So I took a break to handle personal shit. When I was really in a position to really focus on music again, I don’t know, I was really inspired. Noah (Martin) and I started writing and by mid-February, and by mid-March it was all done. I was writing it and I busted out most of the writing in a month or two. I was really inspired, with a really good vibe. We knocked it out really quick.
Do you think it’s harder to make choices like that, where you put your personal life ahead of the band?
Oh yeah! Well I’m definitely in a different position then when I made my first album as a full-time college student. I lived with my parents, and I had all the time in the world. I didn’t have to worry about anything. But then ten years goes by and you learn you have to be an adult about things. If you are smart you can find a way to do both. I wasn’t smart for a long time and I’m a little slow sometimes. (laughs) The choices you make when you get older in order to make all aspects of my life come together.
Does it change the creative process for you, writing a new album with new guys in the band?
Yes, a big difference being a huge stylistic shift between We Are The Nightmare and Suffer For The Devil. I mean Ryan Knight’s style is way different from Mike Van Dyne. Not that any one is worse or better than the other. But that is the stuff you have to keep in mind. Those are questions to ask ultimately. Because you want whatever you are recording to sound good live. You write to people’s strengths and weaknesses. Shawn (Priest), our new drummer, he can do anything you want him to do on drums. He can just go balls out all the time. Lots of different things opened us up to some different types of sounds. Like with this newest album, Sean, can pretty much do anything I can imagine. So that opened us up for some new sounds, since Sean is the most brutal drummer Arsis has ever had.
How much did the music you wrote change once Sean and Brandon Ellis factored in to the recording?
Brandon contributed quite a few leads on the record that definitely brought out an aspect to some songs that wasn’t there originally, since I wasn’t playing all of the solos. Sean had a lot of suggestions as far as different arrangements. He would always suggest something, and say ‘hey man, that part is really cool, but it would be even more brutal if we did this’ So he was very involved in that aspect. I would say that everybody had input inspirations for entire songs, Noah also has a lot of good ideas as far as arrangements go. This is also the first album where anyone beside me wrote lyrics. So Noah even contributed quite a bit of lyrics. So it was really a group effort. We all get along pretty well, and worked together to achieve a common goal.
You definitely stepped your game up lyrically on this album with a lot of personal themes. Was there anything going in your life that you can talk about when you were writing these lyrics?
Prior to writing the album, I went through a lot of personal changes myself, that definitely influenced the album. Certain behaviors I was engaging in… you know, self- realization, becoming more self-aware, that kind of junk. As long as the lesson is learned then, that is the main thing.
I have to ask you, what inspired you to record the ‘I Wear My The Sunglasses At Night’ cover by Corey Hart?
To be really honest with you, Noah really wanted to cover it forever. We never got around to it finishing it. We would always say ‘I think this would make a great death metal cover… yadda yadda yadda’. We were finishing the pre-pro for the album and Noah had actually done the intro and some of the verses, and he recorded the intro, put in the blast beats and it was awesome! And we figured ‘oh, I guess we are covering this song on the album.’ And we go into the record it and even our producer (Mark Lewis) was like ‘I don’t know about these lyrics dude. What are you trying to talk about here?’ so he didn’t even know it was a cover. And a lot of early reviews, people had no idea that it was a cover. I thought it was pretty hilarious myself. (laughs)
Have you added any new gear to your rig for the album and upcoming tour?
I’m a stripped down guitar player as far as gear goes, and never been into technology. The last couple tours I played an early 90s gen Marshall pre-amp/power amp. It’s definitely outdated technology, but sounds great. I recently bought a couple of guitars from early 90s! (laughs). The brand was GTX. They were basically a sub-brand of Kaman guitars. Kaman had GTX and Hammer, and Hammer took off and this line never did. Basically, it’s like a Jackson or BC Rich rip-off, like super (Fender) Strats. They sounded great, but had crappy pickups. I’ve had a couple finds on Craigslist.org and eBay. So I will get those guitars, put in new pickups, and I will try some of those on the tour, and see how it goes. I also got a Peavy Tracer. Back in the 80s, every Peavy guitar was made in the USA and Tracer was American made. American made guitars sound better than anything you might want in Guitar Center.
Keith (Keefy) Chachkes