The Black Dahlia Haunts Detroit
The Black Dahlia Murder is currently touring with the hardcore bands Unearth, Remembering Never, and Terror.
| Tonight they stopped off at a familiar haunting, St. Andrews Hall in Detroit. Talk about the perfect venue to interview this band. St. Andrews Hall located in The Black Dahlia Murder’s hometown, so there were plenty of diehard TBDM fans in attendance. Less than two years ago, the group opened for power metal giants, Blind Guardian. That show was a stepping stone for the success TBDM has achieved as of late. TBDM has experienced great success in the last couple of years. Getting signed to the ever classic metal label, Metal Blade, touring with some of the best death metal and hardcore bands in the world, and having their video shown on MTV2’s Headbanger’s Ball are some of the best things to have happened to this band. With the all the success, unfortunately, came some downs, though. Vocalist, Trevor Strnad, and bassist, John Lock left the band for a short time. Strnad mentioned negotiations with the Southern California band, As Hope Dies about forming a new band. |
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Metal Mayhem: Where did you guys get your start performing?
Trevor Strnad: A lot at Mr. Mugs in Ypsilanti, Michigan. We were almost like the house band there. We played there about twice a week.
MM: The last time I saw you guys play, you opened for Blind Guardian.
TS: That was a long time ago, before we got Metal Blade’s offer…
MM: How did that offer come about?
TS: About that time, exactly, we were sending out demo packages, which consisted of a three-song demo with our new guitar player, John—the lead guy—because he wasn’t on the CD that was out at the time. So we got this new guitarist, who’s great, and we wanted to show the labels that we had solos now and we were taking a more technical approach. The demo package had a biography I wrote. We put any kind of accomplishments. We put that we played with Blind Guardian; we played with a lot of touring bands. We played at Hell Fest in Syracuse at about that time. We were doing really well. We told them everything we were doing at that point. We got like twenty-nine rejection letters and two labels that wanted to work with us. One was Willow Tip, which is sort of mid-sized, death-grind label, which we all really like and respect. The guy who runs it is really cool, Jason. We had that offer and we were really excited. Right about that time, we were about to sign the contract and Metal Blade called us. At first we thought it was a joke because we had waited so long to hear from anybody. So they finally told us, “Hey, we want to work with you.” And we were like, “what!” It took us a while to figure out they were serious. And then after that it seemed like forever until the album actually came out. Once it did, we started building momentum and just kept going. We haven’t stopped yet.
MM: You guys have been working really hard lately! I see you’ve been doing quite a lot of tours. Can you talk about some of the tours you’ve done?
TS: We’ve done everything. We straddle the line. We can play on a totally death metal show and have success. Also, we can play on a bill like this where it’s hardcore, which we like. We walk the line and can succeed in both kinds of situations. It’s been about half and half. We’ve been with Vital Remains, Cattle Decapitation—a bunch of really brutal bands. Those tours have gone just as well. Also, we’ve been with Every Time I Die, Scarlet, and As I Lay Dying. It’s really cool because there are only a few bands that can do that kind of thing. We’re lucky that we’re embraced by both genres of bands.
MM: Have you guys done any overseas tours?
TS: We’ve been over there once for a festival, the Download Fest in England. We are booked to go over there in December with Napalm Death, Marduk, and Vader. That’s like the last tour of the album and I couldn’t be more excited for that! To get to see Vader every night, is gonna be fucking insane! Those guys are very awesome.
MM: Would you care to talk about the new material you’ve been working on?
TS: We just confirmed that we are recording in march. We’re recording with Andreas Magnusson. He’s not very well known, but he recorded the Scarlet EP and their full length. We ended up touring with them, so we built a relationship with him. He’s really cool. What he does is, he records the bands. Then they go to Tracks and Eric Rachels mixes. Tracks East is a great studio. Dillinger Escape Plan has been in there a bunch of times. God Forbid recorded their most recent one there. We figure that was the most natural choice to have that studio involved in the mix.
MM: Where is that studio located?
TS: That one’s in New Jersey. Virginia is where we’re going to retrack the instruments, near Richmond. We’ve got two weeks to record. Then we’ll have a little bit of time off. We’ll have a whole week or two to mix.
MM: Do you have all of the material written already?
TS: We’ve got four songs in. I need to polish up the lyrics a bit. We have a little time off after this tour to write. Then we go to Europe, for about three weeks. Then we’re done until we record.
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MM: Do you have any song titles yet? TS: That, I don’t know yet. We were going to play two tonight, but we only had time to play one. Either one of them aren’t name yet. That’s the hardest part for me to write. I was naming songs while we were in the studio last time. Really, that’s how that record went. We recorded and mixed in two weeks. We rushed it so fucking fast. The artwork was just rushed out. We’re really lucky that it came out nearly as good as it did…We’re really excited about the new album. We finally know where we’re recording it. We’re pretty sure we know who we want to do the art work. We’re going to approach it in the most professional manner we can. It will be the polar opposite of how we approached the first album. Our attitude then was like, “let’s get it out by summer. It doesn’t even matter what it sounds like.” We wanted to tour, right away, in the summer. This next one is slated, again, for the beginning of the summer; I’m going to guess around June. There are no guarantees right now. We’ll be on the road before that, in the Spring. Then we’ll be back to it. This is our tenth or eleventh tour for Unhallowed. We’re finally ready to close this chapter up. We’re really excited to get into the new album! |
MM: What I heard of the new material was really fast, blasting…
TS: There is a lot of new stuff going on, but when you hear it you’ll think, “this makes perfect sense. This is exactly where I thought they’d go.” We’re faster when we’re faster, heavier when we’re heavier, vocals are more interesting. We’ve been playing together so much. We’re more of a band now, than when we were writing Unhallowed. Everything is full speed ahead, right now.
MM: How has the band’s lineup changed?
TS: The only one different is the drummer. We got a new drummer, Zach, who just turned nineteen the other day. He’s from downriver, Trenton. He raised the bar for us. He’s an amazing drummer! We only had two weeks to practice with him before we left with Cannibal Corpse. We just scrunched down and did it. He’s really fast!
MM: So, you do all your lyrics yourself?
TS: Yes…
MM: From what sources have you drawn inspiration for the new songs?
TS: I’m in a bit of a pivotal stage now where there are some death metal songs, lyrically. It’s kind of like Unhallowed. There is also more of an introspective view, I guess. More about the evils of humanity and human selfishness, stuff like that.
MM: You’ve cut back on the zombie and gore themes?
TS: Yeah, a little less obvious gore and zombie stuff. That stuff’s still prevalent, still there, still about evil, but in a different way. Kind of like how a Death song would be lyrically, more about psychology.
MM: Any poetry from a more personal perspective?
TS: Not like “my girlfriend broke up with me, broken glass shards.” It will be more psychological, and not as much personal. I only have four songs, so I don’t know where exactly I’m gonna go with the rest of the album. We’ve been throwing out some album names. That’s a lot more than we could say going into Unhallowed. We have the amount of time that a band needs to make a record. It’s going to be a photograph of us when we’re at our best. We’re very displeased with our recording on Unhallowed. I guess being anal retentive is what keeps up going.
MM: What are some of the best places you’ve played on the tour?
TS: NYC is always amazing, San Francisco. The biggest surprise place recently was playing with Cannibal Corpse in Las Vegas. We’ve never been to Las Vegas. We had no idea of what to expect. Usually, walking into a new state you have to earn those people to have them come back, but people were chanting “Black Dahlia.” We played before Cannibal Corpse. It was mind blowing! It was insane! Now we’re going to Seattle on this tour. I’ve never been to Seattle, but if you check your sound scans and see how many CDs we’ve sold, we’re doing a lot in Seattle. We’ll see how that’s going to turn out…
MM: Do you feel that you’re getting a lot of support from the label?
TS: Definitely. I don’t think we would have been in the limelight at all if we had been on another label at that time. They were looking for new bands. They hadn’t had a new band that people were excited about in a long time. We were looking for a label that was going to focus on us, even though we play a style that is familiar. Say we were on Century Media where we would be with bands like The Haunted, with a hundred other bands actually from Sweden. We made the perfect connection. They needed somebody young that was going to mature in time, so they started getting us, As I Lay Dying, all these young bands.
MM: Which part of Michigan is the band from?
TS: We practice in Oak Park, so about ten minutes from here (St. Andrew’s Hall).
MM: How do you feel about the video success on Headbanger’s Ball?
TS: The exposure has been fucking awesome! A lot of my favorite bands, like Carcass for instance, I found out about them because of Head Banger’s Ball. I saw the “Heart work” video and I thought, “oh my god! This is amazing!” So as shitty as you think MTV is, in that respect, it’s no different than some kid hearing my band on MTV. I look at it that way. I like it a lot. The videos, themselves, are “c” grade at best, like Comcast made them. But, for looking as bad as they do, they’ve done the job more than I could ever imagine. We’ll have more of a budget for the next video with the new album coming out. We’re gonna go all the way, this time…
For more information about The Black Dahlia Murder check out their website at http://www.theblackdahliamurder.com or http://www.metalblade.com