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Shadows Fall’s Paul Romanko: Still without a side project of his own.
So two of the three current Shadows Fall-related side projects both released new music yesterday, and despite the fact that it is not particularly fair to either band, I am lumping these two projects into one post for the sake of my own comfort and convenience. My apologies to all parties involved.
And so…
“Somebody get me a goddman second band!!!”
Paul Romanko is now the only member of Shadows Fall who doesn’t have a side project — or, if he does, he hasn’t gone public with it yet. What’s that about? I’m sure he has no recollection of this whatsoever, but back in my lowly fanboy days, before I was a super-cool blahger d00d, I had beers with Romanko, and he was a totally cool guy! And he had no B.O. problems that I noticed. So how come no one wants to play with him? Let him in the sandbox, damn it!
While you ponder that completely meaningless question (I mean for all I know the dude is just enjoying his time off and has no desire to be in a second band), feel free to head over to Noisecreep and check out the song “Shades of Grey,” the new song from Dead of Night — a.k.a. the side project of Shads’ guitarists Matt Bachand and Jon Donais (ex-Unearth skinsman Derek Kerswill plays drums, making this somewhat of a NWOAHM supergroup).
Back in 2008, legendary metalcore pioneers Overcast — who went on to be in a couple ofsmaller bands you may have heard of, like Shadows Fall and Killswitch Engage — got back together to re-record some old tunes for a collection called Reborn to Kill Again. When that album was released, I interviewed vocalist Brian Fair (also of the aforementioned Shadows Fall), and I asked him if Overcast might ever write some new music together. His answer?
“We’ve actually talked about it because Pete [Cortese, guitarist] and Mike [D'Antonio, bassist] definitely have ideas for songs. We just have to make sure that they’re Overcast songs, you know? And not just a Pete song. Like I said, it has to be tuned to E and there has to be a mosh part that goes nowhere and there has to be random time changes for no reason. All those things have to be there in order to make it an Overcast song. We’re definitely not opposed to [writing and recording new material]. It may or may not happen, it depends on if the songs are quality.”
Well, I guess somewhere along the way these dudes either decided that these songs are not “Overcast songs,” or otherwise decided that it just wasn’t Overcast without guitarist Scott McCooe and drummer Jay Fitzgerald, or, uh, something else — because the band’s three most famous alumni (In case you’re dumb: D’Antonio went on to join KsE, Cortese went on to join Seemless) are now reuniting to form a new band called Death Ray Vision.
We’ve all been there. Tensions are high in some packed, sweaty venue, sparked by feverish excitement and the potential for violence. These people paid good money to enjoy some type of cathartic release. The frontman for whatever hard-nu-death-crab-metal-core outfit is brazen and demanding. Can you believe this shit? You PAID to be entertained, and this guy is telling YOU what to do! The speech goes something like this: “I want everybody in this room moving! Front to back, side to side, NO ONE STANDS STILL! When this part kicks in, I want total [Insert destructive word here like "chaos," "mayhem," or "bedlam" if you're witty]. If the person next to you isn’t moving, MAKE THEM MOVE!” Than, if the action is not adequate, this screamer/pep rally organizer calls YOU some variation of “pussy” or “faggot” or really anything to make you feel like a soft, womanly bitch of a man in order to get in that pit and kick another grown man in the face, all in the spirit of making this band look like they are awesome. But then something happens, as if the air is sucked out of the room at the moment of impact – when those glorious staccato chugs kick in, the crowd is almost always powerless to its charms regardless of the obvious lack of substance. Like junk food and reality TV, we have a love affair with breakdowns.
When Axl posted our Blood Has Been Shed exclusive news bit yesterday, he hinted at a full interview with Killswitch Engage’s Howard Jones and Mike D’Antonio; and here she is. Chatting with Howard and Mike was more like shooting the shit with some old friends than it was a formal interview, even though we’d never met the dudes before. Howard and Mike told as all about the new album, working with producer Brendan O’Brien, the decision to self-title the new record, their work in Blood Has Been Shed and Overcast respectively, the band’s writing process, what it’s like to play arenas, and more.
Howard was sporting a sick beard so naturally we had to comment on it, and that’s where things started:
Click to read more…
Congrats to the winners of last week’s Funny Photo Caption contest, our most popular one ever, and with good reason: these two lucky cats each get vinyl copies of Protest the Hero’s Fortress and Kezia:
Alex: “Over A Billion Faces Melted.”
TedTedPoleyPoley: “A typical band rehearsal day… as seen from the eyes of Vinnie Paul.”
This week we’re giving away a four-pack of Metal Blade CDs; Overcast’s Reborn to Kill Again, Falconer’s Among Beggars and Thieves, One Way Mirror’s self-titled debut and Austrian Death Machine’s Total Brutal. Just come up with a funny caption to the below photo and they’re all yours. [Thanks to Sammy for the pic.]
The economy’s in the shitter and the sun is setting earlier and earlier every day. Still, there was reason to rejoice this week in the world of metal:
Sayonara suckers. See you next week.
-VN
To many fans around the world, Brian Fair is known as the charismatic front man for Shadows Fall, one of the most successful metal bands of their generation. What younger fans might not realize is that Fair actually got his start as the singer of Massachusetts metalcore pioneers Overcast. Every subgenre of metal has an Overcast – a band that splits up before they really hit it big, and whose members go on to form other, better-known acts. (In Overcast’s case, besides Fair’s joining of the Shads, guitarist Pete Cortese went on to form Seemless, while bassist Mike D’Antonio currently plays with some band called Killswitch Engage.)
Of course, the newfound celebrity of Overcast’s members didn’t dampen old fans’ desire to hear their music – or new fans’ curiosity about how some of their favorite musicians got their start. But before disbanding in 1998, Overcast had only released a small handful of recordings on tiny independent labels, making anything other than low-quality bootlegs incredibly difficult to track down.
With that in mind, the band recently released the appropriately titled Reborn to Kill Again (Metal Blade), an Adam D. produced collection of re-recorded classic and several new songs. I recently had the opportunity to chat with Fair about getting Overcast back together again, re-thinking the band’s old material after all these years, and the possible future of the band. And, oh yeah, he was even cool enough to give me a quick update on the status of the new Shadows Fall album. Check out the full transcript after the jump.
Metal Blade has signed infamous Massholes, Overcast. Overcast are of some interest because their singer, Brian Fair, went on to front a little band you may have heard of called Shadows Fall, while their bassist, Mike D’Antonio, eventually joined some group called Killswitch Engage (the band’s other members, presumably, went on to get day jobs). That makes Overcast one of those bands that is kind of a retroactive supergroup, like the line-up of Megadeth that had Kerry King for all of ten seconds, or one of those glam bands like London or Hollywood Rose, whose various members went on to form Motley Crue, GN’R, and L.A. Guns.
