Shadows Fall Interview
02.02.10
Live Interview with Brian from the band Shadows Fall conducted by Miranda Wilson (Aka Sidine). I would personally like to take this opportunity to thank Brian from Shadows Fall for sitting down with me and taking the time to answer a few questions, it was truly a pleasure to speak with him.
Miranda: I’m sitting in the back of Shadows Fall’s tour bus at Cannary Ballroom on a cold Tuesday February 2, 2010 the first interview of the year. I am sitting here with Brian Fair.
Brian: Hello Hello
Miranda: How did you guys meet?
Brian: Kind of just through our younger bands before we had all played in bands that had shared shows together. We were all no really to say the same area but close enough like different parts of Massachusetts, and Jason was from Albany. All of our bands had shared stages throughout the years and when all those bands kind of broke up Matt and John started Shadows Fall one by one we all kind of got sucked in. We’ve all probably known each other for about 10 years before we have been even playing together.
Miranda: Everyone got sucked in to the shadow.
Miranda: So how did they come up with the band name?
Brian: Matt came up with the name I think there was a short lived graphic novel comic book that was called Shadows Fall that was this weird dark comic book and I think he just stole it from there. I always just tell people its from the Dokken song “The Hunter” when he says “ and when the Shadows Fall”. But we didn’t actually steal it from Don Dokken we stole it from a comic book.
Miranda: How has the tour been treating you guys?
Brian: It’s been great most of the shows have been sold out or really close to it. We’ve actually been out with Five Finger Death Punch since September really we did a US run then a European/UK run with them and now we’re back again and actually we are going to be together this summer on Mayhem too. We have been doing a lot of shows together and it’s a great bill, these days it’s tough. The economy is so shot and kids are struggling to save money to go to shows that you gotta put together the best bill you can, and try and give them the most bang for their buck. So once we had a working formula we’re like “Why mess with it”, This is a great tour kids are really coming out and we’ve just kind of kept it going.
Miranda: So the guys from Five Finger been really nice to you?
Brian: Yeah they have been good to us, We’ve known some of them, I’ve known Ivan since his old band Motograter we played together on the 2003 Ozfest. So we’ve known each other since then, I would always run into them in L.A. and stuff like that. We’ve actually known Jason Hook for a little while because he played with Alice Cooper and some other bands back in the day. It’s a small music world everyone knows everybody.
Miranda: Kinda like one big family.
Brian: Big dysfunctional family (laughs)
Miranda: I was looking at the bands website and noticed that ya’ll keep in touch with your fans through MySpace, Twitter, Face Book, and YouTube. Has that helped you guys stay more connected with the fans?
Brian: Yeah yeah honestly, for me I was on it for like the last hour and a half was just messing around on Face Book just chatting, and IMing kids. Half the time they don’t believe it’s me, so I have to get my mom on there to confirm that it’s me, nah (laughs). But yeah I cause it’s just a way for me to kill time and talk to some kids and get feedback on the shows or just even meet kids to cities your going to can either tell you what good restaurant or good vegetarian (I’m a vegetarian) food places are. It’s just a cool way to connect without it just being randomly at the show for 2 seconds. It’s definitely a cool way to let them know what you’re up to, before you would have to wait til a magazine came out every other month to find out what bands were up to now you know in like 5 seconds.
Miranda: I noticed another thing with Guitar Hero 5 and Rock Band you guys have a song from your new album that you can download.
Brian: Yes, its part of the new metal pack, you can get our song “Still I Rise” and Guitar Hero for us has been a great thing. We were lucky enough to be on the second one on Guitar Hero 2 with the song “The Light That Blinds” that got us in front of tons of younger kids as well as people who are not necessary metal fans who just happen to get into Guitar Hero and then become metal fans because of it. It’s a new kind of cool outlet especially in days with records sales struggling so much because music is free now, (laughs) it can just be stolen so easily. It is a cool new way to connect with fans that may not have found out about you and we are not a band that gets like a ton of commercial radio play and things like that. Now that MTV doesn’t play music videos so it’s like a cool new way for kids to hear music.
Miranda: Head Bangers Ball isn’t around anymore
Brian: It’s on but you gotta be really lucky and catch it randomly, it’s not even scheduled regularly.
Miranda: it’s like one of those once in a blue moon shows. I remember getting up in the middle of the night and plugging headphones in the surround sound system in the living room so I could watch Head Bangers Ball.
Brian: I used to stay up, run the video tape, and usually fall asleep before it was even finished. So I could at least catch the rest of it the next day. Kids don’t even know what video tapes are anymore.
Miranda: Any gamers in the band?
Brian: I play a little bit, I probably play more than most the other guys, I got really into the Call of Duty series. I like the World War II ones better then the Modern Warfare, it’s probably better game play but I just like the idea of the old weapons and stuff. I also play a TON of Tiger Woods golf, I’m an avid golfer myself it keeps my skills up when I’m stuck in the snow.
Miranda: Maybe you can go golfing with Slipknot’s Chris Fehn sometime.
Brian: Yep there you go.
Miranda: My opinion while listening to the album “Retribution” it sounded like some of the songs had some old Megadeth influences in them. What is your musical influences?
Brian: Megadeth was definitely a big influence, especially the earlier albums like Peace Sells and Rust in Peace and that stuff was definitely a band that we looked up to back then. Just the barrier trash in general Testament was another HUGE HUGE influence on us. But like individually we’re all like full schizophrenic music fans. I listen to like just as much Reggae, Old Jazz, and even like the Grateful Dead stuff as I do metal and hardcore. Whereas like Matt our guitar player loves singer song writer stuff likes Bens fold and he’s a huge Tom Petty fan. But our common ground is I think old school trash you know Megadeth, Testament, early Metallica, and then like kind of classics like Judas Priest. But also that kinda of more melodic metal stuff At the Gates, In Flame things like that. That’s really were our common ground is what we try and do. But individually we’re all over the place, I don’t think any guitar based metal band that grew up in our era wasn’t influenced by like Megadeth style back then because they were definitely the most progressive trash bands that were well known.
Miranda: In the Bio section on your website, it mentioned that the band is retaking back control of everything as far as like your music. Is it helping the band learn more about the industry?
Brian: We were lucky enough to learn everything from the ground up and experience every level of it. When we first started if you didn’t book your own tour you didn’t play any shows. If you didn’t put out your own records, you didn’t have a record. So we learned how to do everything on our own really early on. Then we signed with Century Media, which was a great independent label, and we kinda learned how the indie world worked. We got a real booking agent and kind of learned how that all worked and but we always kind of stayed “hands on” and then when we made the move to Atlantic Records we kind of saw how the major label worked, what was good and what was bad about that. We took a lot of that knowledge and with deal it was only one record with an option. When that option came up we decided to renegotiate to where we would just sign a distribution deal with them, as opposed to a traditional record deal with them. Record labels right now are shrinking and they are losing money like crazy. Especially the big labels they are used to throwing a ton of money at something and it works. If they don’t have a ton of money then they don’t have many options. So we knew what they did well which is retail and manufacturing, they can get it made and in the stores better then we could on our own. They can kick down the doors of Best Buy, Target, and things like that. But they didn’t really know how to promote a band like us the way we wanted. We like to do things through the internet, and touring which is much more important to us then radio and video. So now we own the record, we distribute through a major label so we have them doing what they do well, we built a team of independent promotion companies around it , we’ve worked with Ferret Records and Adrenaline PR, and kind of built our own team. But at the end of the day the bottom line is the band, As opposed the traditional deals that front you a ton of money and it all has to be made back then they get 85%-90% of every record sale after that, and the band is left with what’s left. Which after the management takes 50% of that so you get 3 cents per album, Now it’s the opposite we get the 85% - 90%.
Miranda: So more money in your pockets
Brian: Yeah, even if you sell less records, because these days your selling less and less. Statistically it’s dropping every year, at least now you know your hard work is going into your pockets as opposed to some dude in a office you have never met who just bought a new Porsche.
Miranda: So now, you get to buy the Porsche.
Brian: I wish well (laughs). We have just been lucky enough to learn everything from an every hands on way and have been able to pick a lot of brains and been able to form the perfect record deal for ourselves.
Miranda: it nice to know that you are getting more of the funds from the sales,
Brian: I makes a huge difference it’s like we flipped the pyramid upside down. Because honestly for years that why your see these “Behind the Music” shows where bands that have sold millions of records and they are now broke they never actually made money they were just sustaining money and spending it be never where actually able to keep any in their own pockets.
Miranda: So when they stopped making music
Brian: Yeah as soon as you’re weren’t selling a million records and selling out arenas, you didn’t save anything, and now those record sales are gone to the record label anyway because you spent so much money to stay on tour and have a flaming dragon on stage and shit.
Miranda: (laugh) Flaming Dragons
Brian: You know all those cool things bands did in the 80’s looked awesome but now that took them about 10 years to recoup.
Miranda: Will we see a flaming dragon on stage tonight?
Brian: (laughs)
Miranda: In the spring and summer, starts the Mayhem festival, what are you guys doing to get ready for that adventure?
Brian: It’s gonna be a lot of 12oz curls, getting the liver ready for a summer of abuse. Honestly, summer festivals tours are the funniest thing there is. We have been lucky enough to do a few Ozfest and with Mayhem this year we have really good friends that are on the tour like Lamb of God, Chimera, Five Finger Death Punch, and Hatebreed. Bands we have toured with a million times or grew up with and been friends with since high school. It’s almost like a reunion that turns into a big rolling party, what’s great too is the festivals is that everyone plays so much shorter sets and your done a lot earlier than normal and there is a lot of free time to get into trouble.
Miranda: and you get to see all the shows
Brian: yeah it’s great it’s a day dedicated to music and you know that a lot of people took the day off work and probably the next day to, too recover. It’s like an event and you wanna make it as special as you can, we’ve gonna be doing a bunch of signings, hanging out at the Monster energy drink tent, and the Jagermeister tent, doing so signings and just meeting people. Hanging out all day and that’s what people are amazed to see so many bands are just hanging out watching the other bands. What else would we do? Sit in a bus all day watching TV (laughs).
Miranda: You guys are fans of music too.
Brian: That’s what i’m saying why would we not be out there hanging out. Plus when you hang out by the concession stands you can usually score free beers off the fans too.
Miranda: Who are you looking forward to meeting that you don’t know on the Mayhem tour?
Brian: you know we’ve played with Rob Zombie a few times but I’ve never really had a chance to meet him on kind of like a one on one thing so that would be kinda of cool. More to talk about movies than anything else so that would be pretty cool. Most of the other bands on the bill we’ve met and all partied together, we’ve just did a bunch of dates with Korn recently. We did Australia with Lamb of God, geez we’ve been living with Five Finger Death Punch for like almost a year, and all the second stage bands we’ve known for a long time.
Miranda: It’s pretty much seeing your friends again
Brian: Yeah it’s like a high school reunion for a bunch of long haired drunk guys.
Miranda: Last question and it is just for you. How do you maintain your hair?
Brian: Its easy I don’t do anything, I stopped brushing and cutting it in probably 1993, pretty much threw on a wool hat, was a dirty hippie for a while and this is what happen. I literally didn’t do anything I occasionally would take a piece of loose hair and twist it a little bit and it would become a new dread. Oh and my new secret my dry shampoo. It’s dry shampoo it’s amazing and it doesn’t smell either.
Miranda: Keeps it clean, (laughs) because some people don’t clean them
Brian: Yeah that’s the thing people think that you’re not suppose to wash dreads because it will actually slow them from growing longer, because the more you break up the stuff that is on the scalp and keep the healthier you keep it the longer it will grow. I’m at the point where people in salons are like “you don’t have split ends” because I have kept it from not abusing it. But after I wash it, like really wash it, it takes forever to dry. That’s the only pain in the ass.
Miranda: yeah because it’s probably thick.
Brian: yeah it’s like a giant sponge.
Miranda: I had read somewhere that when you graduated high school you had quit cutting it.
Brian: yeah in 1993, even before then I had gotten my senior picture taken for my mom, and I had short hair through most of that time, and then that was just it. It’s not like It was long and I just let it dread, I started from short hair.
Miranda: One last professional picture for mom
Brian: yup that was it, she loves it though, but it was funny someone recently put up a bunch of old photos, actually Mike D for Killswitch Engaged put up a bunch of old photos, we were in a band in high school and I had super short hair and a baseball hat on. Also a bunch of photos of us skating and doing this handrail with super shot hair it was funny.
Miranda: There coming here I think in March
Brian: Nice that is like our brother band, I was in a band with Mike. Matt and John were in a number of bands with Adam and Joel. We’ve all known each other since were for 13 or 14 years old.
Miranda: How long are your dreads?
Brian: they are getting close to 5 feet now. It’s been 16 to 17 years now since the last hair cut.