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Sean Michael Coale: So
how's Mr. Backstabber doing these days?
Trevor Phipps: "Mr. RedChord, in our
cellphones we refer to him as Mike RedChord. He's ridiculous,
like when we first asked him to join the band. We didn't want
to, we saw him at Hellfest and we were inbetween drummers.
With Tim Lysik this awesome guy does drums for Sworn Enemy
and Core for Life. Awesome drummer, but we conflicted with
our personalities. Good friend of ours though. We saw him
play and we're friends with the Red Chord. So we didn't want
to ask the Red Chord, we didn't want him to quit the Red
Chord cause we love them. And we just throw it out there for
him to fill in for us for a lil' while and he was totally
into it. Then it went from filling in, to him wanting to join
the band."
SMC: Ya, I actually found that out at
New Jersey Metalfest. I talked to Guy about doing an
interview with Backstabber's INC. and he sent me over to
Mike. He told me about how just finished a tour with the Red
Chord, just finished the record with BSI and now I'm joining
Unearth. And that was probably the best set I've seen you do
yet.
TP: "What at NJ, oh man we played like
shit."
SMC: You should have seen the aerobics
going on.
TP: "Oh you mean the crowd, ya we kept
the energy up. But we had Ken on guitar, who broke a..........
Hey we're talking about New Jersey Metalfest.
Ken Susi: "It fuckin' sucked".
TP: "On the first note he broke like
three strings."
KS: "And then I grabbed another
guitar and broke another string."
SMC: Ya, but as soon as you guys hit
that breakdown part in "Endless" the crowd just opened up.
TP: "Ya, the crowd was fucking killer."
KS: "It's like my Mom always told me....
"Metal riffs are pretty cool, but if you write breakdowns
they'll pay the mortgage."
TP: "All we are is evolved apes we
still love the breakdowns and tribal beats."
SMC: So how it working with Adam D. in
the studio?
TP: "It was the hardest experience for
us ever. A lot of up's and down's. We were in there for
about a good month, and when it was time to do vocals I got
sick. Really sick, I got a viral throat infection, worst of
my life. My throat was filled with what I like to call puss
packs, thick white huge things in my throat. I don't know
how it happened. It cleared up after about a week, had a
whole week of some down time. Went and got some medicine and
then I did like about 8 hour days in a row and finished the
record. Then flew to Texas to film the Headbanger's Ball
thing. And we I got back that night I got sick again, so
when we left for the tour on Wednesday I had to get some
more to get it cleared up again."
SMC: So you guys ready for Ozzfest, you
excited?
TP: "Yes and I'll tell you why, all the
bands are awesome."
SMC: Ya, really since like the first
one back in like 96.
TP: "Ya, I went to that I was like 17,
it had V.O.D, Downset, and Neurosis. Ya, and Pantera. This
year's got Slayer and Judas Priest on the main stage along
with Ozzy and SuperJoint. But the second stage is like
Hellfest. Bleeding Through, Everytime I Die, Atreyu, God
Forbid, and you got Slipknot, who are the heaviest in the
genre."
SMC: How do you guys feel about the
term Metalcore?
TP: "It's probably the best term, that
exists for what this music is. Some people refer to Poison
as Heavy Metal and you can't refer to anyone in our genre
as Heavy Metal. I try not to say it, Metalcore is such a
ridiculous sounding term but I really can't think of a
better term. What it is, is. It is metal with hardcore
overtones and hardcore ethics to it. And that's exactly
what it is, back in like the early 90's like '93 - '94 when
metal started to die down, the reason it did die down was
it got really cheesey. I was listening to Metal Mike from
Providence, he said "Man, metal needs to go Underground."
And it did, and it underground it got hardcore like 3 years
later Earth Crisis was huge. Overcast was probably the
first metal/hardcore band but they didnt get big, but Earth
Crisis the first big metalcore band. But they were
hardXcore. Besides most of the kids like At the Gates, In
Flames and Hatebreed, that's where Metalcore comes from."
SMC: Every band that seems to be making
it in Metalcore or just hardcore in general seems to be
coming out of Massachusetts or New England in general, any
ideas why?
TP: "I have a reason for that, I
think? It's a big population, first off Massachusetts alone.
It took us, we started in back of Aug. '98. We did show
after show after show and no one cared. We did VFW halls,
livingrooms, basements, no one cared. But a small amount of
kids did actually cared, that's why we continued doing it
'cause we had fun. But it wasn't 'till like the summer of
2001 when we got signed to Eulogy. And that's when people
actually started talking notice, and the reason why that
is, is there's a high competition to get noticed. That
bands instead of disappearing they practice, practice,
practice. And they get better, better, and better. A band
in a state with no big scene or no real area, they're
probably the best band."
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