Shadows Fall Interview
May 16th, 2007 by Stephanie Stevens
SHADOWS FALL formed two hours from where I grew up. Springfield, Ma. was the birthplace where five guys joined forces to bring to the table a mixture of their influences which included 80’s metal, 70’s rock, old-school punk to the hard-core sounds. Friends from the start, the band came up from the underground like most bands and with not a lot of help, but with a good work ethic they have now toured the world, released critically acclaimed albums like 2002 THE ART OF BALANCE and 2004 follow up THE WAR WITHIN. But if words like respect, honesty and pride should be used for any disc, then it’s for the 2007 release of THREADS OF LIFE (Atlantic Records). The? SHADOWS FALL sensibilities are located everywhere on the disc with mixture of dynamics, more melody and great new ideas to bring out guitar structures, vocal harmonies and lyrical growth.
On the last day of their headlining tour, they hit Rhode Island where I got to chat with bassist Paul Romanko about the new producing aspect, the new label and his thoughts on Roger Clemens!!
ARE YOU HAPPY TO BE PLAYING A HOMETOWN SHOW?
Always, when we were first starting off, we used to play here all the time, seemed like we were here every other month but it’s been two years since we played Providence. I want to say, like 2002 or 2003. It’s been awhile.
OH, WERE YOU NERVOUS THEN?
Horrified!
DO YOU THINK PEOPLE ARE GOING TO SHOW UP? (laughing)
I don’t know why they do when they do so (laughing)
OH, STOP (laughing). OK, LET’S TALK ABOUT THE RECORD. HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN OUT NOW?
It’s been out now, let’s see, February, March, so it’s been out, still pretty new.
SO, DO YOU GUYS BASE YOURSELVES AS A METAL BAND?
Yes, I guess, a metal band that likes rock n roll that has a foot in the punk rock and hard-core scene, it’s like a conglomerate of people from a lot of different backgrounds.
IT DOESN’T REALLY BOTHER YOU THAT YOUR LABELED A METAL BAND THOUGH?
People need to label things, so ya know. At least they don’t call us a bad band, so that’s a good thing.
THAT’S TRUE AND YOU GOT NOMINATED FOR A GRAMMY, DIDN’T YOU?
We were nominated, yeah. I still don’t know how that happened.
THAT’S A GOOD THING THEN!
True
DID YOU GET TO GO TO THE GRAMMY’S?
Yeah, we did.
IN A TUX?
No, I wore jeans and freaking, I had a sports jacket on
OK. THE NEW RECORD DO YOU FEEL YOU DABBLED IN A DIFFERENT APPROACH MUSICIALLY, DID SOME OF YOUR INFLUENCES COME OUT THAT NEVER DID BEFORE?
There has been traces of that since day one
YOU DON’T THINK IT’S MORE PROMINENT THIS TIME?
Well, I think we have just gotten better at focusing on some of those things. I think working with Nick Raskulinecz was a big help because he really pushed us in directions that we thought we weren’t capable of going and brought a different perspective to the table and just a lot more time, that was the biggest thing too, we’ve got a lot of songs that we just trashed where normally we would be writing the last song while we were in the studio trying to finish the album.
SO YOU BROUGHT ALL THE SONGS TO THE STUDIO?
Everything was done, we did two preproduction sessions with Nick out here before we flew to LA to record and pretty much going in everything was, obviously not done creating but for the most part everything was pretty much there.
LIKE STRUCTURES?
All the structures were there, all the arrangements were there, a couple of ones that changed a bit maybe like a verse was cut in half, that we felt a verse was too long, once we heard the final version but for the most part ninety per cent of the songs were done.
WELL, I HAVE TO SAY, I HAVEN’T BEEN THE BIGGEST FAN OF YOURS, BUT THIS ALBUM IS TURNING ME AROUND!
Wow, well, that’s cool. I appreciate your honesty, that’s awesome.
I FEEL BAD BECAUSE LIKE I’M FROM MASS AND YOU GUYS ARE LIKE A LOCAL BAND TO ME
No, you don’t have to like everything, you are being honest.
YEAH, SO THIS REALLY TURNED ME AROUND!
Wow! Thank You.
WORKING WITH NICK, IS THIS A NEW THING BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T WORKED WITH HIM BEFORE OR HAVE YOU?
Oh, no, we did all our other albums with Zeus back up our way, he’s been like a sixth member. Nick had been talking to us before about wanting to work with us even before we were with Atlantic and all that bullshit. He called us out of the blue, he heard from a mutual friend of ours that we were looking to possibly do something with somebody different and he started calling me about two years before we actually worked with him. That was kind of nice to have somebody like that who really wanted to do it, see he’s a metal guy but he’s worked with a lot of rock bands, at the root of it is, his favorite bands are Slayer and Ratt, so he’s a very metal guy.
HE WORKED WITH THE FOO FIGHTERS, RIGHT?
Yes. So, when Zeus and I talked and we just kind of came to the conclusion that it was time to pull someone else in. We kind of felt like the idea’s pool had kind of dried up a little bit, we were finishing each other’s sentences, so what we did was brought Nick in and we hit it off really really well him right off the bat and once we got the tracks down we said let’s have Zeus mix the album, so we had to have this new approach coming in but we said this guy really knows us on the other end,? maybe keep some familiarity to it and I really think the combination worked out great and they worked really well as a team, so that’s that.
YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN IN THE STUDIO A LOT, SO DO YOU KIND OF KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON?
Yeah, we all pretty much have an idea of what’s happening.
ANYTHING INTRIGUE YOU TO DO IT YOURSELF ONE DAY LIKE PRODUCING YOUR OWN ALBUMS?
In a lot of senses, ya know, we have kind of done that with a lot of the older albums, yeah Zeus did that with us but the last album he did with us was pretty much, there was a lot of things that we pretty much brought to the table as far as producing this, I mean, that’s something I can think of down the road, who knows.
DID NICK HELPED YOU GUYS WITH A LOT OF VOCAL HARMONIES TOO?
Yes and no, we really offered a lot of ideas around, everybody’s ideas, some of them were trash, some of them stuck, it really didn’t matter who came up with the ideas, it came down to what was the best. Nick would have some ideas and we’d just go no way, that’s not us, that’s not going to happen and then there were other times we were like OK. Matt and Brian came up with a lot of the harmonies, everyone kind of pitched in.
WELL, I WAS TRYING TO THINK WHAT MADE THIS RECORD FOR ME TO LIKE IT SO DIFFERENT FROM YOUR OTHER STUFF. IT ISN’T TOO FAR FETCHED FROM YOUR OTHER STUFF SO I’M THINKING MAYBE IT WAS MELODY
Well, that was something we went into with an approach of, because there are a lot of bands nowadays are just starting to get over the fact, let’s scream over the verse and let’s make a pretty chorus, go back and scream again with the verse, why can’t the verse have it too ya know. So, that was our biggest intention, it wasn’t to always be melodic or super harmonized or anything but we wanted all the vocal parts to have some kind of a hook to it and not be repetitious as far as the record so you could tell OK, here comes screaming guy, here comes singing guy. There are a lot of bands out there who unfortunately fall into that pattern right now.
BEING NOTED AS A HIGHLY RESPECTED METAL BAND (laughing)
(Eyes rolled) Yeah, OK
HEY, IT WAS IN YOUR BIO, I HAVE TO ASK
Yeah, well, somebody is supposed to lie that’s why they write that stuff, ya know.I don’t know….whatever…….I don’t pay attention.
BUT, SAY PEOPLE ARE SAYING THIS
OK, say perhaps they are.
IS THERE PRESSURE
No
YOU DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT?
Selfish Bastards! (laughing) Everything we write for ourselves first and foremost. That is the shit way to say it but seriously, you’ve got to be honest to yourselves as a band.
AND YOU GUYS HAVE TO PLAY THESE SONGS EVERY NIGHT!
Right and also you can tell when something is contrived when you got the Backstreet Boys of metal put together to write a one song wonder and then, ya know, dudes don’t care about the song. Plus we’ve been doing this too long and it’s not about that, it’s about being creative together, it’s about doing something that we like, that’s the bottom line. Other people like it, it’s amazing, there’s nothing wrong with that, we’re not trying to knock that people like it but our first and foremost goal is to make the five of us say yeah, that’s what we needed to do here.
YA KNOW, IT’S SO WEIRD BECAUSE I REMEMBER YOU GUYS AS A LOCAL BAND, I THINK I EVEN GOT A DEMO TO REVIEW ONCE AND IT’S SO
And you trashed it because you didn’t like us, that’s fine
NO, I THINK I GAVE IT TO SOMEBODY ELSE (laughing) TO REVIEW (laughing)
(laughing) Anyway
BUT NO, IT’S SO GREAT TO SEE YOU GUYS BEING SUCCESSFUL FINALLY FROM THIS AREA
Yeah
JUST LIKE KILLSWITCH, JUST LIKE ALL THAT REMAINS. I JUST SAW ALL THAT REMAINS AT THE PALLADIUM, THEY SOLD THE PLACE, IT WAS AMAZING. SO, I GIVE YOU GUYS A LOT OF CREDIT BECAUSE YOU DID A LOT OF HARD WORK TO GET WHERE YOU ARE!
Yeah, for Matt, John and I, we’ve been doing this for ten years
OH, IT’S TIME TO RETIRE (laughing)
(laughing) Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Tell my mortgage that! (laughing)
(laughing) ALL RIGHT, I KNOW LYRICALLY BRIAN WRITES MOST OF THE WORDS
Brian writes all of the lyrics, that’s one of the things we like….I always feel that a singer should write his own lyrics because that’s the only way that your going to get truly emotional about the presentation of it, ya know what I mean. If your singing someone else’s words it’s not the same to me.
RIGHT. DOES HE COME IN WITH IDEAS FOR YOU GUYS?
Usually, we’ll write the music first, John and Matt majority wise, some times myself contribute parts and then we’ll come with a rough arrangement and then we give that to Jay and the four of us will put a basic song together, throwing out arrangement ideas and then usually give it off to Brian and he’ll take the vibe of the song and try to write to go lyrically with it, the feel of the music is where he will go with the lyrics.So, if it’s more of a melodic song, the issues may be different, a little more aggressive song, he might use a little more anger based issue or whatever, confrontation type issues, but usually he gets his vibe from the music of the song.
OK. I KNOW ON THE SONG “ANOTHER HERO LOST” I KNOW THAT IS VERY PERSONAL FOR HIM, DID HE COME TO YOU GUYS WITH THAT?
Jon had that music pretty much taken care of completely. That was a song that we decided if it didn’t have, cause if it wasn’t perfect in every sense that…..well how we envisioned, we wanted it to have some kind of meaning and something dynamic like that. If it didn’t come out with such a strong, ya know, emotional dynamic we weren’t even going to put it on the album, we would have put it away until the day came that we had it, but lyrically that really helped take us to another level and for Brian it is a really personal issue but what’s great about it is that it’s an issue that a lot of people deal with? right now, a lot of people can directly relate to that.
RIGHT, RIGHT!? ARE YOU STILL WRITING FOR GUITAR WORLD?
Oh, bass guitar? No, I was only supposed to do that for six months and I ended up doing it for a year and a half, so
OH REALLY? WAS IT DOING THIS FOR LIKE A GUEST APPEARANCE THING?
No, they wanted me to give instruction column? for the metal thing for six months
CAUSE YOUR THE METAL GUY!!!!!!!
Ohhhh ….Whatever! (laughing) I just take like….sometimes I’d take stuff from our songs and explain what we are doing. How it interacts for the drums and guitars. Sometimes I would just talk about other things, sometimes there were exercises, the last couple of times, I was taking things cause when I’m home I like to play a lot of jazz stuff just for my fingers. I was taking some of the things I was learning from the jazz but instead of keeping it in jazz form, I would put it in a more rock metal kind of riff and apply the same theory teaching kids how to use those kinds of things. I try to keep things simple enough so people understand it but also challenging enough where your learning something.
IF YOUR FANS COME TO YOU TO ASK REALLY TECHNICAL QUESTIONS
Well, we’re only so technical as far as that goes I’m not a Berkley grad but I know what I’m doing theory wise not fluently but If I sit down for a minute, I can figure it out.
YOU DIDN’T GO TO SCHOOL?
For music? No I went to school but not for music.
SO YOU JUST PICKED UP THE BASS ONCE DAY AND
Yeah
DO YOU PLAY GUITAR TOO?
Yeah, I taught myself guitar after….I started playing bass first though
WHAT IS EASIER?
They’re just different
REALLY? I CAN’T PLAY GUITAR!? I CAN’T PLAY DRUMS EITHER!
I’m not a very good drummer.
BUT I’M A DAMN GOOD TRIANGLE PLAYER!
There ya go
SO IF YOU GUYS EVER NEED A QUEST APPEARANCE TRIANGLE
All right (laughing) Your the girl!
WHAT DO YOU THINK IS YOUR BIGGEST ACCOMPLISHMENT PLAYING BASS? WHAT HAVE YOU TAKEN FROM THE START OF YOUR CAREER, DO YOU THINK YOU’VE GROWN IN ONE LEVEL?
I think just learning how to interact with the other instruments is the biggest way you can grow as a bass player. I think initially a lot of kids try to show off, do more than they have to and kind of don’t pay attention to some of the real simplistic things. There not looking at the song but they are looking at trying to not be overshadowed by the drums or guitars. Where I don’t give a fuck, I just play what fits the song.
ARE YOU GUYS DOING SOUNDS OF THE UNDERGROUND?
Yes
DID YOU JUST GET ADDED TO THIS?
We just haven’t told people for a long time.
OH, SO YOU’VE KNOWN FOR AWHILE?
Yeah, we were out with Stone Sour on the Jager Tour, so we didn’t want to fuck up one tour by announcing another tour. The promoters just appreciate that. Especially some of the markets are crossing over again. But yea we locked that in a while back.
ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT THIS OR IS THIS KIND OF LIKE AN OZZFEST TO YOU?
It is, it’s going to be cool. This year there are going to be a lot more indoor venues than outdoor venues, so that will be kind of cool. We start in Dallas, I think, in July
SO, YOU HAVE SOME TIME OFF?
A little bit, we’re going to Europe for a little bit next.
NO REST FOR THE WICKED!! HAVE YOU GUYS STARTED WRITING FOR A NEW ALBUM?
(laughing)? I was just saying, we don’t write on the road, we accomplish nothing
THE RECORD LABEL CHANGING WAS THIS SOMETHING YOU GUYS HAD SET A GOAL FOR TO GET ON A MAJOR ?
Not really, no. The thing with us is we did something that a lot of bands don’t do anymore, we finished our contract. It’s kind of an unheard thing these days. I was talking to some of my friends in bands and they’re like your probably the only band that finished their contract. So, we weren’t tied into anyone, so it wasn’t like a major came in and bought us out, we just kind of fielded offers from everybody. Eight or nine labels were after us. So We were like ya know what, this is probably the last record deal we’re going to sign, we’re not the youngest kids in the world anymore, we asked for everything we wanted, it was a very artist demanded contract and little by little labels backed off, a couple of them stuck around and we wanted to go with a label that was going to be able to provide for us and wanted us for what we do, not for what they thought they’d make us. That’s where Atlantic was great, the only thing we really was strong about is we didn’t want to sign a worldwide deal, strictly a US deal with a major because we wanted to license all our record though Roadrunner for the rest of the world. Which we did, UK, Japan, Australia, that’s what Roadrunner does for us. But we felt going to a major over there? would have been too big of a step over there, we would have been lost in the shuffle again.
SO IF ATLANTIC HADN’T COME TO YOU AND ACCEPTED EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO DO, YOU WOULD HAVE STAYED WITH CENTURY?
Possibly. They were in the mix
THEY SEEMED TO BE VERY GOOD TO YOU.
Yeah, they were, they made a very good offer, some of it was just even, not that Atlantic was better or worse but it was just a matter of change, you need to do that sometimes just to shake things up just like going with Nick to produce the record. There is no disrespect on either side of them but sometimes
YOU NEED A NEW PERSPECTIVE!
Yeah, Just to change it around, ya know. I don’t know, just to have the balls to go for something new instead of saying what if we had gone there in five years wondering, now at least if we crash and burn, we know we tried.
YOU GUYS ARE RELEASING ANOTHER SINGLE CAUSE I KNOW THAT “REDEMPTION” WENT KIND OF WELL, THE VIDEO IS PLAYING EVERYWHERE?
Yeah, it’s doing OK. I guess that’s in the works, for us hearing the words “second single” is already coming out, WHAT! (laughing) We’re not Gwen Stafani or something, so. I don’t know, we’ll see what happens, I think they are probably going to go to better radio with another song. I know a couple of them have for some of those specialty shows, commercial specialties for college radio. There are probably three or four songs they are charting in like the hundreds, so we’ll see what happens.
ONE OF MY LAST QUESTIONS, SINCE YOU HAVE A BOSTON HAT ON, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF CLEMENS COMING TO MY YANKEES! I LOVE THE YANKEES! (laughing)
Well, first of all, if I had known that, you wouldn’t have even got this interview (laughing)
(laughing) OHHHHHH
You defiantly would have been interviewing our drummer, he’s the Yankee guy.Yeah, but ya know what, here’s the thing. Clemens started so late in the year, you still have no bullpen, he’s got to go seven or eight innings, he’s not going to be able to do that, so ya know what, when we’re about twelve games up at the All Star break, even with your twenty-eight million dollar man, then we’ll have to talk about this again.
THIS IS MY PROPOSITION ON THE RED SOX AND YOU (LAUGHING), YOU GUYS COULD HAVE HAD CLEMENS IF WE GOT BECKETT.
I’d take Beckett over the old man right now.
NO, I LIKE BECKETT!
That’s too bad (laughing)
(laughing) BECKETT’S THE ONLY GUY ON THE SOX THAT I ADORE! (laughing)
Well, that’s good to know we got him. (laughing)
(laughing) ALL RIGHT, DO YOU HAVE ANY LAST COMMENTS? FAMOUS LAST WORDS?
Buy more of our records
DO YOU HAVE ADVICE FOR STARTING OUT MUSICIANS?
Go back to school (laughing) don’t do this (laughing)No, I’m kidding, just get involved with some people that are really excited and play everywhere as much as possible, hard work and luck is what makes it happen so you got to work hard or you won’t get the luck either.
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Great interview! I love Shadows Fall!!!
Favorite line: “Tell my mortgage that!!!” haha.
Fucking great.
So Glad you dug it..they are great guys
Good interview. He seems like a cool dude.
Had a sense of humour too, which was cool. I haven’t read a SF interview yet with an irritating band member; they all seem pretty down to earth.