THREAT SIGNAL (Eng.)
– Hello, thanks for taking the time. What’s the band currently up to?
We just got back from the Czech Republic playing the Brutal Assault festival. Now we’re doing a few Canadian dates, and a festival in Portugal at the end of September. We’re really focused on promoting our new record and trying to play as much as we can!
– And what are the band’s main musical influences?
That’s a tough a question to answer because all of us listen to many different kinds of music. I’d have to say that our influences vary from bands like Alice in Chains to bands like Meshuggah. We are influenced from jazz to metal from blues to rock.
– Your new «Threat Signal» will be released next October; what are
your own expectations?
We hope for this album to make a mark in metal, to be remembered as a great metal album. We hope this record finds us new fans and also makes our current fans excited. I feel this album will push Theat Signal to the next level.
– And what are we going to find in this album?
The album has nine songs, and is about 48 minutes long. Our goal to was make a straight-up, in your face, heavy album. So, you’ll find tons of thrash and groove, crazy guitar playing and drumming, insane vocals…we tried to step everything up on this one!
– The CD has been produced and mixed by Zeuss (CHIMAIRA, ALL THAT REMAINS), are you satisfied with his work?
Absolutely satisfied! Zeuss killed it. The mix is huge and punchy, yet retains
all of the clarity so you can hear every little note and hit. Zeuss also really pushed us to get the very best performances possible. He wasn’t affraid to share his opinion good or bad, and honesty is the best thing you can get from a producer.
– How was or how does the songwriting process tend to be for THREAT SIGNAL? Is it a collective work?
It’s definitely collective. We made a point this album to have every single member involved in the writing process and to add their own flavour. Everyone in the band lives so far from each other, so we use Guitar Pro to write. It makes the process very easy because we can just email song ideas to each other and add in whatever ideas we have. After we’re satisfied with how a song sounds we’ll demo it, and Jon will add vocals to it. That’s pretty much it. It’s a very simple process.
– Could you please shed some light on the album’s artwork? Who
crafted it, its meaning, etc.
The artwork was all done by Colin Marks. We couldn’t have asked for a better artist this time around. The album is themed around conspiracy theories, and various acts of hatred in the world. The artwork is meant to depict how corrupt goverments are and how man tries to control the world with greed and power, but in turn is destroying himself. Absolute power corrupts absolutly.
– There have been some changes in your line-up; Alex Rudinger is now replacing Norm Killeen on drums while Chris Feener is doing so on guitar. I would like you to tell us a bit about this…
Adam and Norm both left for their own personal reasons. We quickly needed to find a new guitarist and drummer since we had a European tour coming up, so we put out some press about it and got a youtube search going. I had known Chris for years, so I recommended him and he ended up auditioning anyways. I already knew that Chris was amazing, so I had no doubt that he would kill the audition. Alex sent us his videos and completely blew us away. We’d never seen someone so accurate and hard hitting….and he was only 18 at the time! The audition process went very smooth and we couldn’t be happier with Alex and Chris’s playing and writing.
– You’ve been with Nuclear Blast since the first album; how positive is this for you as a band?
It has been great! They are great people to work with and really understand what we’re going for. They give us the creative freedom as a band to do what we want artistically, and musically. And speaking for every musician in the world, I can say thats extremely important!
– You are the only founder member remaining. When you started the band; what are your expectations and goals?
When I first started the band, I really didn’t have many expectations, I really just wanted to create great heavy music I could listen too. The music industry is saturated with such bullshit, its hard to sift through all the crap to find the gold. Great bands get burried and dissapear so I really wanted to create some awesome heavy music and hope people found it and enjoyed it as much as I did. I honestly never thought I could come this far… touring the world and meeting my idols… Its amazing! If I had never been signed to a label and if nothing worked out for me in the industry, I would still be making music, for myself. Thats the whole reason I did this anyways.
– And what have been the best and worst moments of all these years?
I’d have to say the best moments have been hanging out with my friends (my band) on the road, seeing places we would have never dreamed to see. We hang out with no cares in the world other than playing music and having a good time. Those moments will always stay with me and I hope there are many more to come!
The worst moments are when a band member has to leave. Most of them have left because of finanical troubles, and its very sad to see… There’s no money in the music industry at our level, and its almost impossible to surrvive unless you work 24/7 on many projects at once to pay the bills. Its hard to see someone go, but its always been for the best. Everything happens for a reason.
– After these years of existence for the band; what’s left for THREAT SIGNAL?
Honestly I feel we have not even come close to where we should be…. There is still a long road ahead. Its a constant battle to get your music noticed and even more of a struggle to fit in. There are a lot of haters in this world so it takes time and dedication to prove them wrong. This is our third album, we are here to stay, get fucking used to it.
– Last year you toured Europe with RAUNCHY and some other bands; how did it go? What are your memories?
That was our very first EU tour, and we were very happy with the turn out! It wasn’t a large tour by any means, but it was very fun and we made a ton of new fans. I remember a lot of shirts off parties on the bus rocking out to 80’s cock rock.
– And what are your near-future plans? Do you plan touring to support this brand new album on stage?
We want to tour the shit out of this album. We need new booking and management at the moment, so there are really no plans set in stone yet. All we want to do it play!!!!
– That’s all, thanks again. Now feel free to add some final words.
Big thanks to all the true Threat Signal fans who have stuck through the good and bad over the years. We really appreciate the loyalty and support. Please spread the word and help us keep releasing albums!!
