ome may experience The Chariot and just walk away with a blown mind at their chaotic on stage antics which have, in the past, included fire breathing, hanging from rafters, stacking amps on rock boxes in front of the crowd and just generally trashing the stage and equipment. What many may not know is that vocalist Josh Scogin and company don’t merely perform these acts to get a reaction out of the crowd or to garner a reputation as one of the craziest acts out there. They do this because they truly feel it. They truly feel moved by the spirit while displaying their unique brand of…whatever you want to call it. These guys aren’t confined to one genre or style, they simply do what they feel is important to them, on and off the stage. Sometimes life gives you things to scream about or break things over and we are eternally grateful to The Chariot for reminding us that’s okay.
What is it that compelled you to leave Norma Jean and start The Chariot?
Josh Scogin: When I left Norma Jean it was cool, I just told them I didn’t feel like I was supposed to be there anymore. I started doing some solo stuff then started The Chariot about a year later so it wasn’t a solid transfer from Norma Jean to The Chariot. I was just led back into heavy music about a year and a half later. I just felt like the Lord was leading me to other things so I just started doing something else. We’re all still good friends so that’s cool.
What are some of the influences behind your chaotic brand of metal?
JS: Brand of metal…there’s lot of influences but mainly its musicians who are passionate about what they do. One artist that really influences me is Jerry Lee Lewis just because of his passion for his music and the way he performed his music. We don’t really consider ourselves a metal band, we just do what we like, we start writing a song and it becomes what it is and it just happens to be heavy. Basically, just a lot of Johnny Cash, The Beatles, just the way they write and their passion for the music.
Can you talk to us a bit about where you were spiritually and mentally while creating this last record?
JS: There were a lot of different levels. For me personally, lyrically speaking, it was a pretty crazy season in my life. My father just passed away so a lot of the Wars and Rumors of Wars analogy of that has a lot to do with the wars going on inside so that was where a lot of the lyrics come from. Obviously, we’re continually striving to be loving servants and what not so that influences what we do a lot.
How can you afford to trash the stage every night?
JS: (Laughs) We learn to fix our stuff a lot. Guitars need to be re-glued and re-set up a lot of times. There’s definitely been nights where we break a guitar and fix it the next day and play it the next day. We don’t have any crazy endorsements or anything so we learn to fix our stuff. We just play each show like it’s the last time we get to play so that usually means a trashed stage so we kind of deal with it as it goes.
How are you received by venue owners and fans that have never seen your live performance before?
JS: Venue owners are actually pretty interesting. Sound guys are usually the ones we rub the wrong way. Despite the ways we present ourselves which may look careless but we’ve done this a lot. When David pushes his drums over usually the mics have already been taken off. We’re not trying to break anybody’s stuff or screw anybody over. A lot of the venue owners who get it are excited to see us play but others are saying “don’t touch that, don’t climb on that”. Kids that come out who have never seen us before are pretty interesting to see watch us for the first time, they look pretty confused or surprised depending on who they are which I’m a big fan of both of those things, showing people new things. I think that’s what kind of sucks about the music industry lately is that there’s so many carbon copies of bands that kids already expect what they’re going to see. They say “Oh this band looks like this so they’re going to sound like that”. We really feel like one of our purposes is to be true to what we know and what we want to do in our art whether people seem to get it or not and the people who do get it really enjoy it.
Do you feel like your performance just comes naturally? You said that you don’t want to show kids the same thing night after night so that does that play into your mind when you go on stage?
JS: Do we go crazy to go crazy? Do we break things to break things? We definitely don’t. Every show for us is truly different. We’ve played together long enough to where even the free jam things throughout the set are all different so that makes it fun for us. From a spiritual perspective it’s a type of worshipful experience for us so that it doesn’t become monotonous or a ritualistic thing we do every night. Just trashing something to break it is pretty pointless in my opinion. The overflow of passion to throw something on the ground and to lift your hands in the air and jump in the crowd that’s worth doing because there’s purpose behind it. Just breaking something to be cool is no different than writing a breakdown for kids to dance to. We’re not trying to please anybody we just want to worship in the purest form. I think heavy music has a big opportunity to do that because it is simplistic but there are a lot of variables that go into it. It’s a basic form of communication like a child screaming out or swinging its arms, there’s so much passion that can be packed into that action that a lot of heavy bands miss out on by faking it.
Yeah I remember talking to your bassist Jonathan about this and he said that if he didn’t feel the spirit each night, he would stand still.
JS: I think that’s just as moving. I think the kids that get it aren’t there just to see some dudes flail about. There’s definitely something else going on that doesn’t have to do with us. That’s what’s beautiful about it in my opinion, its not about us getting up there to look cool, that’s just a waste of time. There’s plenty of other bands that can do that.
And I think kids can tell the difference.
JS: That’s what we hope. We don’t care how big the show is. It’s more than that to us.
Your sound has evolved since Everything is Alive to something slightly more melodic, do you think that you have arrived at your sound or do you feel like it will be constantly changing?
JS: I think it will be constantly changing. We definitely have a Chariot sound but obviously they’ve evolved and will keep evolving because we keep evolving as people. When we put together a song we don’t have a formula it’s more of us coming together and watching something be born and grow into something. As most artists would say about a painting or anything, if you step back and look at your art from that perspective its really cool to see what it becomes other than saying “Okay, this time we want to write a heavier record or a punk rock record”. You can tell those records are very forced and not from a special place. I think it will keep changing, we’ve been writing and we have some cool stuff. It’s cool to see how we can make things that people expect us to sound like and while moving in different directions.
What is on the horizon for The Chariot?
JS: We’re planning on writing and recording a record when we have some time off of tours.
Anything you can tell us on some new material?
JS: We haven’t really gotten together and really hammered out a whole song together as a whole band but we have some that individuals have written. I’m really excited about what’s to come for this next record.
