t is no wonder to me that As I lay Dying continues to sell out larger and larger venues every year, becoming one of the biggest bands in this scene. As I spoke with front man Tim Lambesis, one word kept coming to mind:  dedication. I heard his dedication to creating a better world screaming in the background while his adopted son from Ethiopia played at their California home, and as Tim explained the new album title The Powerless Rise which seems to parallel the ideals of those such as Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. Tim’s dedication to quality and purpose comes across in these new tracks as he built a new studio in his house to focus solely on vocals so as to best get across the message within this new album. This theme of dedication continues, and as you read I think you will begin to pick up on it as well. Five albums deep and As I Lay Dying is not sitting back and taking anything for granted, rather they are striving to make themselves a better band and with their increasing popularity and platform they are sure that this album will carry a stronger message than ever.

I take a lot from the title, The Powerless Rise. Talk to us a bit about what The Powerless Rise means and what specifically you had in mind when you wrote the lyrics from which the title is taken…

Tim Lambesis: It was taken from a song “Upside Down Kingdom” and a lot of the songs have backwards themes throughout the album. Simplicity is sometimes powerful or more worth putting our time into than the typically strong themes like material gain or success. It’s to really break life down and focus on the simpler things in life.

Is there any sort of theme that runs throughout the album?

TL: That theme of flipping things upside down runs throughout the album. The opening track is from a song called “Beyond Our Suffering” and its about how a lot of times we’re taught to solve our own problems and the more we focus on looking within ourselves, the happier we’ll be. That song puts the idea out that by looking beyond ourselves to people suffering more than us and focusing on helping them, that our own problems will seem to solve themselves so there’s a backwards theme there. There’s another one called “Without Conclusion” about how we shouldn’t be chasing after this ultimate goal of life like retirement or making a lot of money, a lot of people are just kind of holding out for that big payoff later in life so “Without Conclusion” is about how that stuff will ultimately never make us happy and the entire journey of life itself should be fulfilling and if we’re not happy in life now then things need to change.

As far as influences go, who have you pulled from in the past and present when writing for As I Lay Dying?

TL: Musically we tend to be very different. Typically we pull from my own life experiences first naturally which is closest to my heart and tend to be passionate about but beyond that, things that I’m reading. I tend to write as poetically as possible but there are definitely some philosophical influences. Musically speaking, I’m a metal head for sure so obviously our music is pretty intense so we kind of try to counteract that with the melodic. Not a lot of metal bands are that melodic. Our guitar player listens to a lot more melodic stuff than I do. He’s a big fan of Muse and some more classic rock, not that we sound like those bands but we try to incorporate those elements.

I heard you say that you spent more time and focus on the vocals for this new album, and from the couple tracks I have heard it seems to make an evident difference, what prompted that decision and how have you treated vocals on previous albums?

TL: I’ve always been so interested in studio stuff so I tend to get really involved in the music and the vocals get put off until the end because so much of my focus is involved in production but this time around I feel like we had enough time in the studio that I wanted to make sure that everything got an equal amount of attention. The guitar players were recording guitars in one studio at the same time as I was recording vocals in another. This time around, we actually had more time than I needed. There were certain days where I would come in and listen to previous songs I had already done just to see if there was anything I wanted to change. In the past if the deadline was Friday, I’d be doing vocals at midnight on Thursday.

You built a new vocal studio at your house specifically for this record right?

TL: Yes, originally I had one when we recorded An Ocean Between Us then I built another one for recording The Powerless Rise.

In comparison to previous albums, what is the biggest difference on this record that As I Lay Dying fans can expect?

TL: Its pretty vocal driven because of the extra time I had for vocals. Instrumentally, I think it’s a little more layered than we’ve had in the past. All the extra time I had I used to look at the guitar parts which turned into four or five different layers going on at the same time.

You worked again with Adam D (Killswitch Engage) for this new record, what do you like most about working with Adam?

TL: I think we know him enough to respect his opinion but he’s not so familiar that he’s just like another guy in the band. When there’s a tiebreaker happening, Adam will kind of come in and break up the monotony of things and give us a little more direction.

Having recorded and produced work on your own, why not just do it yourself? What are the advantages and disadvantages of bringing someone in to record and produce?

TL: I think that when we have done our own production we naturally have to stay so much more involved and focused in the process. That’s why I run into the problem of being rushed vocally because you’re focusing on your own production rather than focusing on being a vocalist in the band. Typically if I’m working with another band, they get the opportunity of me hearing the songs from a fresh perspective and I think that’s really important. When you’re in a band and writing the whole time you don’t get that gut reaction because you’re so close to the writing process.

You went with the same designer for your new album art as you have with the rest of you art. You have always gone with a variation of a skull, what is the meaning behind the skull, or is it just the look that you are going for? Also talk to us about the meaning of the figure with the Headdress?

TL: The skull naturally makes sense with our name. There’s always been this kind of feeling that we’re all dying in some way. From our perspective we’re able to put our own twist on how to solve that problem of course. It’s something we’ve enjoyed keeping going. A lot of our favorite bands growing up kind of had that similar theme and when they tried to try and change their theme; their music also got less interesting (laughs). The headdress is a focus on bringing power to things that normally society wouldn’t deem as powerful. So you normally picture putting a crown on royalty or something beautiful, putting the crown on the skull kind of makes the whole image flipped upside down and backwards.

There are a few tour dates posted up right now on your site, what is the plan after the release on the 11th?

TL: We’re just going to keep touring. The album comes out in the middle of the tour we’ll be on. After that we’ll head to Europe and touring probably won’t end until the end of the year. We tend to stay pretty busy when an album comes out.