Interview With Vocalist Nathan Ells Of The Human Abstract
Technical musicianship and intense creative drive is how you can sum up the Los Angeles based band THE HUMAN ABSTRACT. Their debut album NOCTURNE on Hopeless Records has a full force of Spastic Motions, relentless guitar riffs, fast paced playing with forceful nature and lyrical content that will make you learn and want to know more of the minds of this band.
Take Action Tour landed in Worcester, MA on March 21, 08 and I was able to pull aside Nathan the vocalist of THE HUMAN ABSTRACT for a little one on one about why A.J. left the band, the gaining of members and what the new record is going to consist of.
SO A.J. IS GONE AND YOU HAVE ANEW GUITAR PLAYER. WHAT HAS HE BROUGHT INTO THE BAND THAT A.J COULD NEVER DO?
That’s a excellent question! A.J. had only been playing guitar for about three years. I would say the differences between A.J. and Tapley would be years of experience because Tapley has been playing much longer. I think he has been playing for about twelve years. A.J. always struck me as more of a mechanical player and Tapley has a lot more feeling. It’s not like he is just playing each little note just at the right time. That is not what music is all about
HOW IS HE WORKING OUT WITH DEAN?
They pretty much meshed right away. Tapley was pretty much staying with Dean when he first moved to
SO HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN IN THE BAND?
Let’s see only about three months, long enough to help us write the album. It kind of reminds me when I joined the band because when I joined I had just enough time to write all the music with them and go on the road
WAS THERE A REASON A.J. LEFT?
One could only wonder why he left but the major reason he told us and its defiantly a real reason because he was always a Indie type rock guy. I’m really not sure why he was really ever playing metal in the first place. I remember when I joined the band I took a look into his record collection and knowing the type of dude A.J. was I didn’t really get it. When he came and told us he didn’t want to do metal anymore it really didn’t strike us as a surprise
ANOTHER NEW ADDITION IS YOUR KEYBOARD PLAYER SEAN. WAS THIS SOMETHING THE BAND HAD TALKED ABOUT BACK IN THE DAY?
Pretty much we were talking about it actually before A.J. left. But anyway Sean was our neighbor in Pasadena and basically we heard music and smelled weed and went next door to find out what it was all about it and turns out his dad played keyboards for Pink Floyd and Sean is his kid. So we started jamming and we got to be really good friends with him and it came to the time we wanted to bring a keyboard player in and here we are. It’s really awesome because he has added a lot to the writing on the new album.
SO YOU GUYS ON A WHOLE WRITE?
Now we do. When I first got into the band it was very dysfunctional. A.J. pretty much ran things with an iron fist.
DID HE START THE BAND?
The three original members were A.J., Dean and Brett. I don’t know what happen when they first came together because I wasn’t there but A.J. had this power over the band where everyone would just listen to whatever he would say. It wasn’t like A.J. was the lead guitar player; it was mainly because he wouldn’t allow it.
HE WAS THE PUPPET MASTER:
Yea…He was like I will play the leads and you will not. That is how it was
SO YOU HAVE ALREADY WORKED IN THE STUDIO IN JANUARY WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO DO WHEN YOU GO BACK IN APRIL?
I have to still do vocals for about five songs and we have to do all the leads and that is about it. Then there is mixing so we are going to try to get everything finished in two weeks and give them two weeks to mix and master.
WHEN DO YOU HOPE FOR THE RECORD TO COME OUT?
The record release is defiantly going to be in August
NOW IN THE RECORDING OF THE NEW ALBUM YOU WANTED TO CREATE A MORE LIVE SENSE TO THE RECORD. HOW DOES ONE MAKE THAT HAPPEN IN THE STUDIO?
Basically we are trying to take full takes of things. You know how many bands well really everybody does the whole punch and paste crap. I was kind of a child of the alternative movement, I’m really all about stuff that just vibes when you can just feel the groove, when a band just locks up and just grooving together, it’s a whole different thing. So I guess we are just going for that. It also has to do with the tone of the album, like Toby Wright makes it feel fuller and warmer and more like you’re at a show.
SO DO YOU THINK THAT IS WHAT TOBY BROUGHT TO YOU GUYS IN HELPING IN THE STUDIO OR DID HE DO ANYTHING MUSICALLY WITH YOU GUYS TO HELP YOU GET TO THIS LEVEL?
Musically not really. I know sometimes producers kind of add to the writing process. He made suggestions here and there but he didn’t like re write the songs for us. He just brings in that atmosphere. He had an idea on how he wanted to vibe of the album to be and I agree with him every step of the way. He and I never disagree we were like the only ones that didn’t disagree, it was pretty funny.
IS THERE A REASON WHY YOU PICKED HIM?
Well there are countless reasons. One Toby Wrights’ a bad ass he produced the first album that I ever owned which was Metallica’s And Justice For All. So yea I was sold on him! Plus he did all the Alive n Chains stuff and he was really good friends with Lane Stanley so we got to hear endless stories about that. He came to our show in
L.A. and he came backstage and we just starting cutting up like two kids or something. It was just awesome and he will probably always be my friend.
WE’RE YOU SHOCK HE HAD TIME AND GOT TO WORK WITH YOUR BAND?
Yea he is kind of a highly priced guy and a high profiled producer and there was a couple of factors that made it possible. One Red Bull Studios in Santa Monica sponsor bands and they picked us and believed in us so we got all our studio time for free and that let us take our meager spending budget and put it all towards the producer. He actually took a slightly smaller price to work with us. So we were really stoked about it
I ALSO READ ON YOUR MYSPACE BLOG THAT YOU GUYS DID FILMING FOR THE NEW RECORD. WHAT IS THAT ALL ABOUT?
It’s going to be like a long art film in which we are going to run like a video from that film so we are taking videos for each of the songs on the new record and when we play live we are going to have projection screens so you’re watching a video while we are playing.
YOU SHOULD JUST DO A DVD COMBO FOR THE NEXT RECORD!
Maybe not for this thing but we are actually working on a DVD so that will be coming out I don’t know maybe a year from now or less who knows.
OKIE THE CONCEPT OF THE ALBUM WAS THIS SOMETHING YOU GUYS WANTED TO DO?
That’s a very interesting question because everyone wanted to do a concept except for me. I don’t really like writing fictional stories and I don’t even like reading fiction. I always read non fiction or something that staggers the line of conspiracy theory and things like that. So I really hated the idea about telling a story onstage or getting up there every night and making part of my life singing songs that were fiction. So everyone was standing firm about it and Brett came up with this outline that had these events that are going to take place and I was like AWW I cant do this. So I took a look at the outline and I thought about it for a little bit and basically something lit a fire underneath me. So in the story all these different things are happening. So the story is going to begin with a apocalypse and ends with a apocalypse. So a double apocalypse and then all this stuff happens in between so basically a storm sweeps in and destroys civilization and then mancomes back and reestablishes technology, growth everything and it becomes a society again and then gets greedy and destroys himself again. So it’s basically like a age of man you see that throughout history, over and over again man does this. So in order to make it personal because most of the songs I write anyway is more like a analogy, it’s like a double level thing. It’s like the show the Simpsons like a child can watch it but then an adult can watch it cause of the undertones of the storyline. So when you hear a song I have written its going to say something on the surface but there is going to be all these codes and puzzles. So I took this and applied it to the deal. So let’s say we were going to take flight again as people. So if we re master flight, what does that mean? What would re mastering flight be and then I would look into my life and say when in my life would I be a master of flight. Or the time there is going to be a great drought and we have to make rain happen through some kind of technology. So what does making rain do? What is drought? Is it a spiritual drought or physical drought? So what does that mean to me, what would it mean to a individual. What would anyone think about when they hear spiritual drought?
SO IT’S LIKE A FICTIONAL STORY BUT WITH TRUE LIFE UNDERTONES IN IT?
I’m defiantly stressing things I can relate to that happen in my life and a certain type of language which also goes along with the storyline. It’s going to be the ultimate puzzle and it might be the biggest puzzle I ever made. Because there is four acts and so when I first brought this up Brett really didn’t like the idea but when I really explained it to him as in the four acts is like the four horsemen. The first act is the storm and social chaos and death, the second act is drought and coming back from nothing third one we establish population, industry and flight that are a conquest and the last one evolution and war. So the ultimate analogy puzzle
SO ONCE YOU WERE SOLD ON THE CONCEPT DID EVERYTHING COME OUT EASILY ON A LYRICAL FRONT?
No not at first but the more I’ve been working on it the more I have been getting more excited about it. I’ve gotten into to the groove of it. This band always stretches me and I go beyond my means and ends up being really great.
BY THE WAY YOU APPRACH YOUR WRITING IT SEEMS LIKE YOU BELIEVE MUSIC IS MORE THEN JUST LISTENING, YOU WANT THE KIDS TO TAKE MORE AWAY WITH THEM. WHAT DO YOU FEEL IS THE MOST MISCONCEIVED FACT ABOUT THE HARDCORE, METAL SCENE?
Oh Man!!!! Well, I’m going to answer in a couple of ways. You said you think I want kids to get something out of it. What my biggest pet peeves is the fact that some of these vocalist in bands don’t really realize the power they have that can affect everyone. Like they are on this pedestal and kids won’t listen to parents or teachers, churches or anyone and they turn to their rock vocalists. In the internet age, I’ll log onto the internet and I have kids asking me questions about there relationships or troubles at home or something like that and there like what can I do? I answer the questions I do my best. But what would I say is the biggest misconception of the metal scene; umm that’s a rough one. I would say the thing about metal I really kind of feel like there are these guys who are trying to be like these tough guys and what they really do is get offstage and play their x boxes or get lattes. So what I am trying to say is it seems like an act. There is some bands that I’ve come in contact with that they are the real deal. So I would say the misconception is these metal dudes are not that tough. I mean that sounds horrible but you asked the question so I had to answer. (Laughing)
DAMN STRAIGHT (LAUGHING) IF THE MUSIC YOU’VE MADE COULD CHANGE THE WORLD, HOW WOULD YOU WANT IT TO CHANGE?
I want to create awareness. I have this feeling that basically humanity is coming upon this new level of consciences and awareness and the internet has kind of helped this. We’ve reach the period of time where we can access any information we want; we just have to ask the question. I get this feeling we are going to make this big leap with human consciences and they have been talking about this for a long time and it’s really strange that it has really come about. I think its just overcoming fear, having people learn about the truth about things
WHICH YOU WILL NEVER SEE IN THE MEDIA!
Yea totally media is a tool for politics it’s all about keeping the little man down. But this is the information age so I just want to do my part in that. I want to be the horn blower for this time
IF YOU COULD TAKE ONE SONG FROM YOUR LAST ALBUM THAT YOU WOULD THINK WOULD BE THE LEADER OF CHANGING THE WORLD WHICH ONE WOULD IT BE?
Well like NOCTURNE deals with the concept of like the darkness
You have to carry once you become conscience of certain things because the truth hurts. I’m trying to think quickly about what each of the songs mean but maybe I’d pick the first track HARBINGER actually cause that is one of the songs that deal with world issues. It’s about being a religious and monetary power changes. The major power changes in the past twenty years. Like
COMING OUT OF CALI AND GIVING THE WORLD SOMETHING DIFFERENT MUSICALLY DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE SET BOUNDARIES FOR UP N COMING BANDS TO FOLLOW AND NOT BE AFRAID OF TRYING SOMETHING NEW?
I hope so. I wasn’t born in California. I was born in Nashville,
YOU COULD HAVE BEEN IN A COUNTRY BAND?
YEAAAA!!! Oh man that would have been a very good idea (laughing) But yea when I went out to California I lived in San Diego for a little bit and then I moved up to L.A. and I’ M so not the L.A. guy. I’ve always been about punk rock ethics and doing something on your own trying to be a figure head not doing what your suppose to be doing. So I don’t have any ties with Southern California other then the fact that I love it and would probably never move away. But as far as making an example Yea I hope so.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD INTERLUDE?
Something that pulls you away from what has been happening. Like if you have an interlude in an album, there has been a certain type of thing that has been going on for sometime, it’s almost like a bridge in a song; it has to sort of connect but also pull you away for a minute. Makes you think OH its break time, its intermission.
DO YOU DO ANY EXCERSIES TO LOOSEN UP FOR A PERFORMANCE?
I do a lot of stretching that’s for sure. People ask me what my vocal exercises are and I don’t really have a lot. Really all I care about is making sure my neck is stretched out and I’ll sing a little bit, give a little shout but mainly having my body and my neck stretched. Because that is really where you’re going to injure your voice in my opinion
DOES YOUR GUITAR PLAYERS HAVE A STRUCTURED EXCERSISE ROUTINE?
NATHAN:Oh they are in the constant state of warm up. If we don’t get to the club like at least three hours, where they can take the entire time to warm up they are upset.
WHAT HAS THE TAKE ACTION TOUR GIVEN TO YOU?
It’s a charity tour so we like that. Our label put it together. Our label is full of really awesome people that care about the world around them. They just are really legit. The Take Action Tour is really like the first major US tour we did since Warped Tour. We did a major Canadian tour and going out on this tour we really started to realize what kind of a following we built over the past years touring. So it’s pretty nice
IF YOU COULD PARTNER UP WITH ANY CHARITY WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
Well I’ve always been on the PETA team. I mean everyone says that or whatever but I think being a vegan is the path to evolution. It’s the best thing you would ever do, like socially and physically. I’m really all about any organization that is trying to bring knowledge and incite and information to the world.
ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT YOU GUYS?
Nothing I’m willing to tell you by my own will (Laughing) so, you will have to ask on your own (HA HA)
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