A) Half of the band is living in Milwaukee WI, and theother half is living in Dayton OH (where I’m originally from). We’re preparingto record some new songs this week, and getting ready for a 3 week tour arounda few fests in October, and then hopefully hitting Europe in December.
TheSouthern Lord tour this past summer went really well. We were out with somereally great bands Black Breath, Martyrdod, and Burning Love in addition tostints with The Secret, Dead in the Dirt, Pelican, Noothgrush, and Poison Idea.Every band was awesome all around, great people and great musicians, and allhad something unique to bring to the table, in addition to the shows beingsuccessful with turnouts and good promoters. A) The band started up in December 2009 from a solo projectI had been working on for a few years. I had been demoing out songs on my ownfor a while with a drum machine, and it really seemed like the right time tobring everything to life.
We’ve had a lot of members in and out of the band,and I think that’s mainly due to the band having one main songwriter wherepeople can kind of choose when they want to leave knowing that it won’t reallyaffect the band. I’m originally from the Dayton Ohio area, but relocated toMilwaukee in 2007, and that’s where the band started. I’ve personally played inmore bands than I can count on my fingers and toes (Today is the Day, Trap Themto name a few), but my main band for years was Harlots. Dave Mann (Mouth of theArchitect, ex Rune) and Eric Dunn (By Way of Sunstorm, ex Harlots) have justrecently joined the band on drums and guitar, and Amanda Daniels has beenslaying away at the bass for about a year now. A) During the demise of Harlots, I played drums for a fewbands where I was a “hired gun”, and yes this got extremely frustrating alwaysbeing told what to do and never being listened to or respected as a musician ora writer.
I feel like Enabler has been kind of a “fuck you” in some ways topeople who never took me seriously, including the people who laughed at me whenI said I was going to move from drums to playing guitar and singing. Being themain guy in the band definitely has its pressures. In addition to all thewriting, I do most of the leg work, and if something goes wrong everyone alwayswants to blame me. I’m just happy that I have people in the band now thatrespect and understand how much work and time I put into this band.
A) Of course. Right this second I’m listening to Faith NoMore’s “The Real Thing”, when I started this interview I was listening to LedZeppelin’s “Physical Graffiti”. I’ve been listening to the Dead Kennedys andAC/DC quite a bit recently as well and older Def Leppard is always in mylistening agenda. As far as more current releases go, I absolutely love the newPropagandhi record “Failed States”, Burning Love “Rotten Thing to Say”,Converge / Napalm Death split, Tragedy “Darker Days Ahead”, etc. This year hasbeen so stacked with amazing new releases. A) Blogs are awesome because it’s free for the most part,and it’s just a more open form of media, where the writers are just talkingabout bands they like, opposed to magazines reviewing things because theiradvertisers tell them they have to. The plus side to print magazines is thatit’s the same idea as owning a record; it’s something you get to hold in yourhand and appreciate.
The internet is a big place and things can get lost veryeasily. All in all, I’m flattered when someone wants to write about the music Imake! A) I feel that our first LP is “Eden Sank to Grief” andthat AHTV is the follow up to that. I realize that ESTG is 20 minutes long, butit feels like a complete sentence to me.
I actually don’t feel that AHTV is ourbest work to date, I feel like it complements ESTG in a really cool way. ESTGis a record that was recorded in 16 hours, it was the first 8 songs the bandhad tight together, and we were all just in go mode, where AHTV was recorded in18 days with 3 months of mixing and editing and is a natural progression insongwriting. AHTV is the more mature record, but there is always something tosay about the fire in a band’s first output.
It’s like comparing Kill Em All toRide the Lightning for me, they both totally kick ass in their own way. A) I wrote and demoed the entire record on my own and welearned it as a whole.
Greg Thomas joined the band as a 2 ndguitarist in addition to producing the record. He had a lot of points of how toreorganize the track listing for the record in addition to adding layers, andeven re-recording “No Deliverance” and “Fuck Today” and dropping a track. FATHwas always on board to be the opener for sure. I’d say I went into this recordwith my own game plan, and Greg kind of edited it.
Some of the ideas he broughtto the table were totally killer, and some I wasn’t the biggest fan of, butcompromise is part of what being in a band is. A) We’ve worked with Jimpaler for a few things now. Hedid the art for the “War Begins With You” EP and the “Year One” compilation, inaddition to a few shirt designs. I wanted consistency in the art, like Slayerand Megadeth had in the 80s.
The way we’ve always worked is he will base theart off of the lyrical theme for the record, so the art matches the vibe of therecord. He does a great job with that. I am not an artist at all, so I give himfree reign and he always comes up with the best shit. A) I know people download our music for free, and franklyI don’t care.
I download music for free all the time. I don’t have any moneyand I’m a music junkie, so I totally get it.
Download Enabler All Hail The Void Rare
I won’t release our music for freebecause of the fact of how much money it costs to run the band, and the factthat it devalues the music. You appreciate it more when you pay for it. Ifpeople want to pay for our music and help support us, then that’s fuckingawesome, if they want to download it for free, I’m still stoked that they arelistening to Enabler.
Download Enabler All Hail The Void Rarest
The details on the anticipated new album from Milwaukee-based extreme hardcore/metal crossover killers ENABLER are in.