Wrench In The Works | Take A Deep Breath
istening to Wrench In The Works is like throwing metal chairs at plaster walls at a hardcore show in a basement where there’s a circle pit going and a kid gets hit in the eye with one of the legs and keeps running with a chair sticking out of his face because there’s just too much adrenaline to lay down or go blind or pass out or die. And this band will not die. Through broken vans and member changes and a drummer who was told he might be going blind, it’s been a rocky road – a Godzilla-is-destroying-people-in-the-middle-of-the-highway-kind-of-road – but Wrench-In-The-Freakin’-Works has endured. They’ve patiently outlasted their desert season, they’re still running, and they’re still fighting the good fight to win it. The ferocious energy that they’ve packed into their sophomore release is just ridiculous. I can’t wait for you to hear it.
You guys have been laying kind of low for a while now, writing and recording this new album… what’s been going on with Wrench In The Works? You also have some member “Changes In The Works”… how has that transition been, and how is it writing and meshing and molding with new members? What have you been stoked on that the new dudes have been able to bring to the table?
Andy Nelson: Yeah we have been laying low for a few months now spending our time in the lab working on this new Wrench jam. Unfortunately, after our last tour we came to a mutual agreement with our original guitar player, Mehl, that it would be best to part ways. He had a lot going on in his personal life that he had to attend to and musically we were not on the same page. But things are still cool with him and the band and in no way did we leave on bad terms, things just needed to change. Around the same time we were having problems with Mehl, Jason from Facedown showed interest in releasing our next record and we contacted our friend Greg Thomas (The Risk Taken, Shai Hulud, With Honor, Silver Bullet Studios) to record the new CD. He recorded “Lost Art of Heaping Coal” and we loved what he did with that record so naturally we wanted to record the next CD with him. Well when he found out what was going on with the band he offered to come join the band and write a new record with us. The record is called Decrease/Increase and will be released through Facedown on March 16th! The transition has been very smooth, although I must admit we have had our fair share of trials but that is to be expected. Obviously it is hard to loose an original member of the band especially when we build our own expectations of how we want things to go but what we want might not always be what the Lord’s will is with our band. Greg, being an outsider to the band, was able to hone in on the strengths and weed out a lot of the weaker aspects of the band. Plus putting his own emotion into the band helped him push our technical and musical abilities to another level because of the expectations he had set for himself. This record is the most aggressive, heavy, fast and furious record the Wrench has ever done and it will make you reevaluate any pre-conceived notion you have of the band.
What is the main focus around Decrease/ Increase? Is there a specific theme or concept that you guys were going for, lyrically? How about musically? Is contempo-noise still the appropriate description for your genre? Word on the tweets is that this is gonna be the heaviest record ever.
AN: The title Decrease/Increase is a concept we got from when John the Baptist said his ministry must decrease so Christ could increase. Anyone following Jesus knows in their heart that they need more of Christ in their life and only Jesus can fill the void they feel. No quick fix of anything can quench the thirst your soul longs for like Jesus can. Being born into this world flawed and sinful, we as a band know that we screw up a lot and that God’s plan is best for us. I personally have continually chosen my own way not seeking God’s will and after tons of mistakes I know I need Christ to increase in my life because I just can’t do it with out Him… So lyrically we touch upon a lot of that basic concept. We have a song about John the Baptist, a song about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and how even Jesus himself had to follow and trust in God’s will – even to the point of death. (A song called “Deathslayer” which is about Jesus defeating death and sin.) So there is a general concept and flow of the record, lyrically. I’d say musically we still have elements of the contempo-noise genre but the record has a lot more to offer than that. We experimented a lot more with beat cuts and poly rhythmic ideas. We used fast beats or the infamous “D beat” which is found more with crust-punk bands, so the record is a lot faster, more metal and hardcore – but with the same craziness of the sound Wrench had on the last record. We definitely outdid ourselves technically and musically and we tuned down a lot lower from “Lost Art….”. I will say it again: it’s going to be one of the heaviest, most aggressive records of 2010.
I’ve heard a lot about a ministry called Project AK-47 from you guys. Can you tell us a little bit about it, and why it’s so important to ya’ll?
AN: This past Cornerstone we learned about the ministry Project AK-47 and what they are all about. It really just hit close to home for us as a band and we felt a Godly calling to support them and bring awareness to people. Even to the point of us writing a song called “Project AK-47” on our new record which is inspired about the ministry. Basically, the calling they have is to save child soldiers in southeast Asia (over 300,000 kids) who have been kidnapped, orphaned or deceitfully recruited to serve as soldiers in government armies or drug cartels, and for $7 you can save a child through them. I mean just think about what you were doing at age 7 or your little brother or sister or nephew or niece and then think about yourself or them training with a machine gun. It makes my stomach turn to think about what these kids go through in the fear they must face everyday.
I respect Jason Dunn above and beyond many a person in the music industry because of what I see as his focus on passionate, Christ-like, love-driven individuals that make up a band, rather than marketable money-making bands that make up a label. Now, please do not take that to mean that I think you’re un-marketable. You already know that if I had my way, everyone in the world would listen to your music. But I feel like your band still focuses it’s identity on Christ, and Darrell seems to back that notion, both lyrically, and every time I see you play live. As you progress, and as ideas and inspirations and all the things that inevitably change in this life, change, where do you see your band’s motives headed, directionally – and, specifically, spiritually?
AN: The more we live out our faith in our every day lives the more it effects the band. So as we grow in our spirituality the band grows as well. We love to play and write music but at the end of the day, the blessing to do that is a gift from God and we wanna honor that blessing and dedicate our work and passion to his glory. So YES our motives are spiritual and this band is a ministry. If kids don’t get our music then, well, they don’t get it. I am not doing a band to be cool or look cool, that’s fleeting and an illusion. I just wanna be known as a band that played what they wanted to and screamed about what they wanted to scream about and that happens to be Jesus. We love meeting kids and encouraging them in their faith or just everyday lives. When I was 16, I know how much it meant to talk to someone from a band and have them give me the time of day to sit down with me and ask about myself. It made my month when I felt like I had nothing. So we wanna do that for kids now, it’s way more rewarding than having the sickest pit or having our “numbers” look good on paper.
I hear that your vocalist is a black man. Is this true? (Laughs.) If you could rate the killing-power of one of Darrel’s dreads on a scale from one to ten, one being: “Darrel’s Dreads Couldn’t Hurt A Fly” and ten being: “Darrel’s Dreads Cut Dinosaurs In Half Before He Even Moves His Head” – what number would you give them, and what would that number be defined as?
AN: Darrell is half black for the record – (laughs!) And lets face it he might look scary when he screams but that dude is just a big teddy bear, don’t believe the hype – he is not scary. So I am gonna say about a 4: “worse case scenario he hits you with them and they tickle your face.”
Jamie King seems to be a favorite of multiple Facedown bands. Did you go through him for this record, as well? If so, why? If not, who did you go through, and what did/do you look for in a producer?
AN: To be honest, I am not a huge fan of Jaime King, I think the Between the Buried and Me records sound cool but nothing else has really caught my ear. We went through Greg Thomas of Silver Bullet Studios (Shai Hulud, Ambitions) he recorded “Lost Art…” and did an amazing job plus he joined the band so it was just natural to record with him. His work ethic and ear for heavy music is outstanding and I couldn’t be happier with the work he does. Facedown bands should start going to him more often.
What do you want people to know about WITW – whether in reference to this record, to you as a band, to life in general. If your musical career were to end tomorrow, what would you guys move on to, and would you be happy with where you left off? What do you want the WITW legacy to be when you’re old and gray and sitting in a rocking chair and able to rest a Miller High Life on your beer belly while you guard the porch with a sawed off shotgun?
AN: I really just want people to know that we love Jesus and we do what we dig, we’re on our own vibe, get into it or not that’s up to you but were doing our thing regardless. I want to be known as a band who had integrity and passion for what they did, there are enough bands out there playing the game, trying to fit some mold and being mediocre and we like to throw a wrench in the works into the hardcore scene and give some new flavor. We’re kind of like the Moxie of Christian hardcore bands – you either hate it or love it and at first, you’re definitely apprehensive to try it out.
Tell me anything else you’d like to tell me about.
AN: Please go check out our new record Decrease/Increase through facedown records out March 16th. Check out the myspace for new mp3s www.myspace.com/wrenchintheworks
