To Speak Of Wolves | Howling With Metalcore Goodness
hillip Chamberlain has been around the block – musically speaking. Starting out in North Carolina’s scene with his brother Spencer Chamberlain (Underoath) with a few projects, they both moved down to Florida and began This Runs Through, which was released through Indianola Records back in 2002. They signed with Facedown, but broke up before anything new was released through the label. From there, he went on to Sullivan through Tooth & Nail, and is now calling Solid State home for his latest endeavor, To Speak of Wolves – and child, those wolves are howling with solid, metalcore goodness.
So you obviously have experience working with labels. Let’s see… This Runs Through with Facedown (oh, the glory days). Sullivan with Tooth & Nail. To Speak Of Wolves’ EP with Tragic Hero and now your full length with Solid State. After being somewhat of a veteran in the “field”, can you tell me about some upsides and downsides to the industry. How conducive have each of the labels been towards your creative genius and the development of your art, and why did you opt back into the T&N/Solid State roster after Sullivan ended?
Philip Chamberlain: (Laughs) Yeah man, it really doesn’t feel like its been that long that I’ve been fortunate enough to release records through various labels but this is my 3rd full length and 2nd EP if you combine all the bands I’ve been in over the last couple years. As I think there is with any field you choose to spend time in/make a career out of, there are many upsides and downsides. I like to focus on the positive as much as possible, its an indescribable feeling to play a show and have even one person know the words to our songs or take the time to hang out and get to know us. That being said, if you’re not prepared to lose a lot of money, spend countless months a year on the road and miss out on things “back home” with your buddies, you probably wouldn’t enjoy doing this. The same thing goes with labels, there are many upsides and downsides to labels, just like with any company, some do certain things better than others and vice versa. There’s been a lot of bands pursuing musical careers without the aid of record labels lately and that works for some. For myself I’ve always appreciated what a label can do for my band.
There is so much to this industry that I have no clue about and I learn something new, or try to, almost everyday it seems. After Sullivan ended our short run on T&N, I started TSOW. We met my now good friend Tommy Lacombe who runs Tragic Hero Records at a Sent by Ravens show near my hometown. He heard our demos and offered to release our EP last year. It was an awesome time and he still helps us out a ton, when it came time to do our full length TH was supposed to release it as well, but as a band we felt like we would fit best on Solid State’s roster. I played some of the songs for some A&R guys there and they ended up working out a deal to purchase TSOWs masters from TH and we entered into a new deal with them. Everyone was mutually stoked from all parties and I was really happy to be back at T&N/Solid State. I feel like I kind of know what to expect there and who does what at the label, it was awesome not going in blindly to a new label and having to learn the ins and outs of everyone involved all over again.
I’ve been in North Carolina (home state, correct?) with a band for the last two weeks, sitting in on their studio time, and man… the studio is something I think I had all wrong. Maybe this sounds ridiculous to a dude that’s been recording for as long as you have, but I guess I just never even thought about how vital each and every little string pinch and bend and pedal nob and mix and all of the words that I don’t know that are important are. I’m learning words like “quantizing” and things that blow my mind. Even the producer, you know? I used to just think that any dude could make a recording sound the way just any other dude could make a recording sound. I’ve got this whole new respect for the process.
All of that being said, what did you think the first time you actually got hooked up with a legit place to bring your recordings to life? And, bringing it back to the present, what did you guys go into the studio looking for with this latest release? Who and why did you choose the folk you did, and did they do the album the justice you wanted?
PC: Yeah we all live in central North Carolina, mainly in Greensboro, NC. Yeah dude, the first time we recorded at a really legit place with a producer was in Atlanta, GA. Matt Goldman produced the first Sullivan record and all the things involved kind of blew my mind as well (laughs). Picking the right producer is huge for any band, if you pick the right person they can really bring your songs to light more than just hitting record. We went with Brooks Paschal and Tyson Shipman, actually the singer and guitarist from Sullivan, to record and produce our record. They have an amazing facility in Winter Springs, FL called The Fort and it was so awesome to be able to work with my good friends on this album. We’ve all been friends for so long that it made the experience really laid back and enjoyable. They really helped us see our songs from a different perspective and we came up with some awesome parts that I don’t think we would have in another setting.
I already know your members are from all over the place… how about ya’lls musical taste? What does writing a cohesive record look like with colliding influences and ideas, especially when you go into limited studio time without songs written for the sake of experiment?
PC: Actually we all live in central NC now, the original members were from all over the place but after the EP and a few tours, they slowly were replaced one by one to the lineup we have now. This group of five guys work awesomely together and I’ve never felt stronger about a band and its members in my life. We went into the studio with as many ideas as possible but without anything “set in stone” we wanted to have an open mind when recording and putting the songs together. Sometimes its tough to hear a producer’s opinion on something that you wrote, especially if you have been playing it a certain way for months. We decided to write a ton of guitar riffs and drum ideas and bring them down to Florida, take each part and build them around each other. It was a pretty experimental process but I think it helps the album flow a lot as a whole. We did have three songs mostly written before we got there, but the other seven were all ideas, riffs, drum ideas and parts we wanted to work with that we organized together for the first few days. When we got a song’s skeleton together we tracked scratch tracks to make sure it worked, then started laying down the drums for real and building the songs up from there.
Please forgive me if this is a question about a review that you’d rather not have highlighted, but I’m interested in your perspective. It was said that the only thing negative about your album is that, although it fits the metalcore genre perfectly, it doesn’t branch out of it. My question is: did you ever want to branch out of it in the first place? I’ve talked to a few bands recently that have had negative reviews written about them in light of their “lack of creativity” – but it was never their goal to change the face of music in the first place. Who said you had to transcend your genre, and what is your response to the word “unoriginal”?
PC: I think thats almost impossible to avoid, I’ve read reviews and been in bands where we did change it up a lot on our debut record and people said we “jumped around too much” and “couldn’t settle on a particular sound”, so I think its something where you almost have to have something bad to say about any debut record in one way or another. I don’t let reviews get to me, or I try not to (laughs), we wrote this record because we love playing music like this, we love the songs and we hope that people enjoy them as well. I personally think that there are a few songs on the record sounding completely different than the rest, but thats something that is up to each listener.
So… speaking of recording studios… I’m sitting in Jamie King’s studio right now. First of all, he says “What’s up” and second of all… what’s up with 9 Down? Seriously, let’s hear some Phil C. history…
PC: Man, Jamie King rules! He’s seriously an awesome producer and has done some incredible things for NC’s music scene and recording in general. My band in high school used to play shows with his band, we were trying to be the Deftones. Some history though, wow, I guess the first thing that comes to mind would be when myself, my brother and Tyson (from trt/Sullivan) moved down to Tampa, FL and started touring in a band called This Runs Through.
We put out an EP on Indianola Records and then moved up to Facedown. After a few tours but before our first full length we all decided we wanted a few things different in our lives. Eventually Spee joined Underoath and I was offered and took the position to play in Sullivan. Tyson came to the band once we signed with T&N and we had a great time touring and put a few records out. Thats the extremely condensed version anyways (laughs).
What’s up with the album name? Tell me about it. Myself < Letting Go. I swear I kept on thinking “why the crap does everyone suck at spelling so much? There are typos of math symbols all over the place…” (Laughs) What meaning does the title carry, and what is the album about? Who writes the lyrics? Please talk to me about a few specific lyrical ideas and/or concepts… Are you “a band with a message” or “a band that might maybe have a message somewhere if you want to find it” – if you know what I mean…?
PC: The album name I guess would literally be translated “Myself is less than (<) Letting Go”. Its meaning is realizing that you need to put the things you want to do behind you if it prevents you from doing what’s right. Like letting go of your vices or bad habits if you know they’re wrong/affecting someone else in a negative way. The album is for the most part about that, our lyrics are influenced by our faith, but just like a lot of Christian bands nowadays, we don’t feel the need to force our beliefs on anyone, we’d like for anyone to be able to take a positive message from our album no matter who you are or what you believe. One particular lyric that comes to mind is in “here I go again my resistance wears thin I can taste it”, that line is about knowing that you are sliding backwards into something you shouldn’t be doing and trying to justify doing it, the record is about letting go of that and being what you are meant to be as a person.
A dude named Herbert Bayard Swope once said, “I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.” Your thoughts? What does this look like for you musically and personally?
PC: I don’t think you could possibly say that any better. For me that means do this because you love it and you enjoy it. I’ve said many times the day that this isn’t fun for me anymore is the day that I will stop doing it.
What is the most exciting thing about making music to you – and specifically about your chosen outlet?
PC: Man, its so hard to pick one thing, I love playing live, thats probably my favorite aspect of being in a band. Seeing people at the shows and enjoying this along with us seriously rules!
A person’s background shapes personalities and ideas and visions for the present and the future, and a group of persons in a band shape the same for that band. What do your backgrounds look like? Who do the folk that get into conversations with ya’ll after the show meet, off of the stage and face to face?
PC: We’re all Christians in the band, we all grew up in North Carolina and we’re all fun dudes. I think after the show if you were to come up and talk to us you’d meet some guys that are just so excited and happy to be doing this. We’ll probably talk to you about UNC basketball (laughs), or Chick Fil A being awesome.
Is there anything else that you’d like to add? Anyway us listening folk can help you guys out?
PC: Man, thank you so much for doing this interview! Its stuff like this that helps bands like us survive. If anyone wants to take a second to check out our songs on myspace.com/tospeakofwolves or add/follow us on the various sites that would mean the world to us! Come hang out at a show with us say hi and tell us about yourself!
