Darkest Hour – Kris Norris, Guitars

Friday, March 2, 2007

A semi-sober Kris Norris took the time to answer some of SMN’s most thoughtful questions. Whilst holed up in frosty Vancouver in the gay district, and in between beer runs to Pumpjacks gay bar…behold what is know as…Darkest Hour

Kris, how are you!

I guess first of all, and most importantly, what’s going on with Darkest Hour currently, and what can we expect for 2007 from you crazy cats?

Well as for now we’re couped up with the mad scientist in Bryan Adams studio. It’s awesome I mean they’ve done some killer records here I may have shat today where Christina Aguilera and Shakira did! How fucking cool is that! But you can expect us to just, I don’t know, not sing about our girlfriends, not wear make up, and not sell 200,000 records.

“Undoing Ruin” made me wet in the crotch area, and fans across the globe are itching to get their muddy paws on whatever new dastardly creation you guys can come up with up north in Vancouver – how’s the recording process been?

It’s been great. Devin is such a perfectionist he is pushing us to our boundaries musicianship wise. I have never seen Mike practice scales and solos so hard in his life and it’s awesome to see a bunch of dudes pushing themselves so hard because of one mad genius.

I’m sure it’s hard to adequately describe what the new stuff sounds like without uttering something colloquial like “our best work ever” or “louder, harder, faster”, but…give it a whirl.

Well its more epic, more melodic, more intense, and more shred but I think if you took all the adjectives the one that would apply more than anything would be tasteful. It’s metal but its tasteful, there’s no gimmicks its just music and its different but its shit we’re definitely proud of.

This one’s for the guitar nerds out there, and considering I (a) think you are a guitar virtuoso, (for those who don’t believe me, head to http://www.krisnorris.com) and (b) don’t know ass about guitars, what tuning/settings/methods/approach are you using when it comes to this new album?

Well we for a few tracks tune up! I know its crazy everyone wants to be pseudo nu metal and down tune to the bottom of the spectrum but we are tuning up Van Halen style (that’s for you Mike) and for this I’m trying to, well, to use a guitar nerd term “think outside of the box”. The solos are very modal and experimental scales, very Petrucci influenced. This record is about redefining ourselves and I’m 100% in the belief I think we have. We may lose fans gain some whatever we’re happy with it and that’s awesome to me.

What’s your favorite track so far?

Well we don’t have titles for most of them yet but actually its funny I was playing a song that Devin wrote tonight and its in the same key as a song on the new record so I joke titled it ‘devinkool’, and its probably my fav track because it reminds me of Dream Theater, Opeth, and Devin and its got a ton of melody speed brutality and solos.

Any clue as to an album title or roughly how many tracks there’ll be on this new masterpiece?

Well in one week we are gonna do a formal press release with all that info. We’re doing some in the studio web stuff and you can find out all that there when we do the first one.

How are things with Victory?

Labels will be labels. I mean we’re recording in an amazing studio with Devin fucking Townsend so for that side of things they rule then again I own a shitty 91 Honda Civic so well you can’t pick your battles.

Locked up in a recording studio with Darkest Hour must render some crazy antics, what’s been one of the funniest moments so far?

We are in a apartment in the gay district of Vancouver and the local hot spot is called Pumpjacks…..well they sell beer here at bars called off sales or something and john and I are out of beer so we have to go to a bar to get beer so we go to Pumpjacks. Nothing crazy has happened yet just check out Pumpjacks Vancouver on the web and know that that’s where John and I go to buy beer…..

Switching gears here…If you had to divulge what the most disgusting moment has been so far in the studio, what would you tell us?

This may not be disgusting to most people but me fucking up its horrible and horrid.

After jetting about on some pretty sweet tours in 2006, you have started your touring of 2007 by lining up some gigs with JFAC, or for those not in tune with the world of brokeback, Job for a Cowboy. What are your summer plans and beyond? Can we expect any ‘large’ or ‘major’ tour announcements?

I can’t comment on this one man sorry.

You released a solo DVD back in 2006 – can you tell everyone a little bit more about that release, what it was, and why you chose to sell out?

I chose to sell out for a few reasons. I grew up wanting to play guitar, bought an Yngwie DVD and basically everything I saw was “watch this, watch me shred beyond what you can ever do!”. No one ever had a DVD or VHS at that time that was “here’s a minor scale, here’s a pattern, here’s how you metal riff like a jackass”, so I thought why not show kids how you can play simple. You don’t need arpeggios and 10,000,000,000 notes to be cool; you can do it with 4 notes and a cool rhythm. Ahh I’m getting off on a tangent now but I just think that beginner guitar players are looked over and I wanted to create something for kids who always feel left out watching guys shred and never saying here’s how you get here. I don’t know, I felt like I’m not the best guitarist but I have something to offer and here’s what it is take it or leave it.

Basically it was a stupid idea that actually now has become something cool. I wish guitar players I admire would sit in front of their computer in their house and do the same thing I’d love to see like, Alexi from Children of Bodom or the dude from Dragonforce to sit down and just explain things in layman’s terms. That’s what I’m trying to do.

You are able to perform licks ranging from jazz to neo-classical to Gothenburg, with that said, who are some of your biggest influences?

My favorites right now, since they are always changing, are John Petrucci, Alexi Laiho, Andy Timmons, IA, and Devin Townsend.

On a solo level, you recently issued some ‘solo’ material you’ve recorded over the past 10 years. I have to admit, most of it was pretty rocking. Tell us all a little bit about that project/idea.

I get emails all the time about “are you gonna do a solo record” and man I’d love to sit down and write a record and go solo but I’m a riff writer. And so sitting there cleaning off my iPod, I was thinking man “some of this stuff, is cool is it solo record cool?”. No its not, but fuck it, a solo record doesn’t have to be shred and I thought why not release a solo record that has songs, shred, piano, electronic blah blah so I just compiled a bunch of songs I’ve written over the last 10 years and decided to make it like a TV show sitcom – every week you get something new….it may not be the best this week but last week was awesome, or next week I’m looking forward to it….an internet installment solo recording. Man either I’m a genius or I’ve lost my fucking mind.

Name one thing you aren’t able to bring on tour with you that you’d most like to?

My wife and my dog.

Do you miss the fact Andrew WK isn’t touring or recording any new music?

Man he’s lost his mind more than I have………WK read this and have me join your band I love you!! Record some more shit.

Its obvious SMNnews is a pretty cool webzine; give me 3 words to describe SMN. You can be as rude as you like.

Your name = gay band name (not 3 words but fuck it)

Who are you voting for in 2008?

I don’t vote, never have, never will. Darkest Hour is a political band Kris Norris is not, he’s a drunk.

Tell me a joke. A good one Kris…

Why is a big girl like a moped….because they’re both fun to ride until a friend sees you.

Any last words?

Yeah I want to set the record straight … Still Remains are Christians, and yes I made out with the guitar player, how gay is that?!