Interview w/ Phil from As I Lay Dying

Recently while at warped tour I got the chance to sit down with Phil from As I lay Dying and chat for a bit. Here's what Phil had to say.

 

If you could state your name, and what you play?
 
My name is Phil and I play guitar for As I Lay Dying.
 
 So how long have you been on the Warped tour so far?
 
Uh about 2 weeks maybe 2 and a half weeks

Okay cool, I would like to take a second to talk about your new release "An Ocean between us." which was released in spring of 07?

Well…August of ’07. So...summer…yea.
 
Now this was your 4th release with Metal Blade records correct?
 
Well...

Well 3rd full length but forth total?
 
Yeah, if you count the old stuff.

Which we do…

Cool; haha.

This album was arguably unlike any other album you have produced. What made you guys go such a different direction and away from such and already successful comfort zone?
 
I think we all just got kinda bored with just that style of, you know, I mean, I don't feel like we completely abandoned our melodic sound but we just felt like incorporating so many other ideas. You know making things faster at times and slowing things down. We were just willing to...we didn't want to limit ourselves at all. We were willing to take a chance on a different sound which over all I think it made the record sound more dynamic.

With that being from ‘07 will you have the opportunity to go into the studio here in the near future?
 
Umm...haha 

Kinda just taking a break after Warped Tour?
 
We're, well…we just keep touring so. We tour like 8 to 9 months out of the year. I think in another 6 months we'll kind of start gathering ideas for a new album.
 
Right on, so you're going back out on tour after Warped Tour?
 
We go to Europe after this, then we come back home and we have a month off, then we go back to Europe for 3 weeks. After that then were gonna do a secondary market tour in January for like a month in the states. Then we're gonna probably, PROBABLY, gonna be flying to like Alaska and Hawaii, umm Mexico and South America, then after that do maybe a major market tour in the states, and that will pretty much close out the your cycle for us, so yeah

 

Now you guys are consistent headliners, are you going to be headlining any of those tours?
 
Uh, yeah we will be. Europe we're going to be doing festival tours with off dates with Killswitch Engage. Then we're going to Russia to do two headline tours, then we are doing 3 weeks with Atreyu as the headliner for Taste of Chaos International in the UK, and…uh…co-main support with Story of the year. And of course all the tours in the states we will be headlining.

 

What’s the craziest thing that you have encountered while on tour so far?
 
The craziest thing we've encountered...ugh…I dunno; nothing really to crazy has gone on. We played with dry ice bombs one night; that was pretty crazy, pretty safe too.
 
Haha, yeah that's safe...you don't need your fingers to play guitar or anything.
 
Haha, yeah, exactly
 
Unlike an ‘Ocean Between us, Shadows are security which was the album right before an ocean between us was considered to be a concept album. What brought that on?
 
 That was just kinda Tim's vision for lyrical direction or whatever. You know.

Do you guys have like a process when you go through and record, do you do like lyrics first music later or vise versa?
 
Um, we'll do, this last record we did half days guitars, Jordan did his drums in like four days then we would go back and edit everything, then we would do half day guitars and then Tim would do half day vocals. Once we had enough songs done, like three songs, Tim would come in and start doing vocals. We don't necessarily need to have; to have all of the over dubs, just pretty much rhythms. We also demoed every song from the last record so in a way we recorded everything twice because pre production is pretty much the same exact thing.

With on a tour or festival of this size, what do you consider to be a must have thing while on the tour?
 
A must have thing? Um...sleeveless shirts. Which I’m not doing, but yeah you gotta have sunscreen and drink tons of water. You just gotta take care of yourself out in the heat. Most of the time I just stay on the tour bus because it has A/C. The bus has GOT to have air conditioning. August Burns Red, theirs went out one day and they were just miserable. So yeah, you just gotta take care of yourself out in the heat.

+-Okay, so it has become a fundamental fact that since you have signed to Metal Blade that you have become there largest act. To a lot of people your band is Metal Blade. This could be said that this is contributed to an intense devotion from your fan base. Do you think that with the release of this new record that your fan base will increase?
 
Yeah, I think this has increased out over all popularity, but we keep touring and we’re always active, we don't really give kids enough time to forget about us, we're always around. But over all I think that there are a lot of metal heads out there that might appreciate the new record. You know, like with shadows are security, there's a song called ‘Darkest Nights”, which is a poppier direction. I think it’s the poppiest song, well it is the poppiest song we've ever done. Um…but I don't think that just any one song defines who we are. Like we can do that, like a poppy song or whatever, or we could do like a slower song like ‘I Never Wanted’ which is a slower more like Deftones style song. When I was writing, it had more of a slower more melodic groove to it. I guess we really have something for every one. You like Thrash, we have some thrash songs, you like the melodic stuff we have that too.

 

With you guys being so influential and interactive with you fan base what kind of advice would give to anyone of your fans or anyone in general that's looking to start a band?
 
Uhh, write good songs. Well apparently you don’t have to do that these days you can be the worst band and still get huge but I mean you have to have a good image and with MySpace that helps just go out and add as many people you can. Its weird how huge bands can get from MySpace I mean its cool but it is becoming a lot more difficult for bands to tour because of gas prices are so high. With so many bands doing the same thing you really have to stand out. I guess just do music because you love it is really my advice. Don't try to do anything else because there is no longevity if you're just doing it to make a quick buck here and there.

 

Speaking of gas prices with that becoming and increasingly topical issue how is that effecting you as a band on warped tour?
 
Well everyone…I mean yeah we're driving everyday, I remember when gas was like a buck something and now its like three times that and it’s just…it’s money out of our pockets, but as we've become more successful we can afford to do these tours. One of the things that is going to screw us over is flights because we have to check in all of our crap, and now we have to pay extra for each additional bag, and its just like in a way it might get to a point in time where its just not worth it to tour or at least tour as much. But with us becoming more successful, we can afford it, but smaller bands can't. It’s a fact that a hundred bucks a night isn't going to pay for gas to drive eight hours, so its hurting a lot of bands. It just sucks everything is getting more expensive, so yeah it makes things a lot harder.
 
Well we've picked your brain for long enough. So do you have any last thoughts before we let ya go?
 
Ummmm...Nope. Haha
Haha. Alright man thanks for taking the time to talk with us today.

To visit As I Lay Dying's MySpace page click here

By. Tim Fisher

TimF@getinmagazine.com