Into Eternity – Tim Roth, Guitars/Vocals

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

SMN shoots the shit with Tim Roth about The Scattering of Ashes and getting Into Eternity’s name out there, as well as the approaching Swedish/Canadian War.

So 2007 has been a busy year for Into Eternity so far. Making new videos, touring non-stop… how have you been holding up with all the activity?

Sounds exciting! Yeah, I think we have to do things the old-school way, the Metallica way and try to take every tour that we can and get known in the States. And now getting on MTV is going to help us. Now that we shot our second video that’s going to go straight to MTV so you know, we can get people more aware of our band.

The new album has been pretty critically well-received. Are you happy with how the album turned out and the response it’s been getting?

Mmm-hmm. I think it’s our best album. Some fans are going to like other albums but for us the newest stuff is the freshest of course. It sounds good and the album’s full of energy. Not a lot of acoustic stuff, just straight fast songs. That’s what we’re going for: shorter songs, 3 minutes, with big choruses… so yeah, I’m happy with the whole album for sure.

Yeah, I noticed that the kind of progressive side of Buried in Oblivion like “Black Sea of Agony” kind of stuff has been forgone for a straight, pummeling assault. Was that on purpose?

Yeah, it was on purpose, because we have to play the stuff live. Every single song on The Scattering of Ashes still has off time-signatures, and 7/4’s, and 9/8’s, so it actually will still have some progressive elements but we kind of mask our off time-signatures to make it kind of 4/4 so people can still get into it. But yeah, the new album I think is still good, I still listen to it.

So it’s still keeping the progressive aspects but condensing it into a shorter time-frame so it packs more of a punch?

Yeah, exactly yeah! That was the whole goal.

Do you have a particular favorite song off the album?

Yeah, I guess I like “Timeless Winter” lately. That seems to get the best response. And “Severe Emotional Depression” was cool too, the very first track.

Certainly starts with a bang, huh?

Haha, yeah exactly, right away! At first we start with that melodic guitar line but then instantly..

Boom!

Haha, yeah we did that on purpose.

There were some pretty major lineup changes between…

Oh no, we’ve had the same lineup our whole career.

Hehe. There were some pretty big changes between Buried in Oblivion and The Scattering of Ashes… how does something like that change the band, and how do you manage to keep the trademark Into Eternity sound?

Well, as long as I write the music, a lot of the music will always have our sound. I mean, that’s where our sound will always be the same album to album.. not in some crazy new direction as long as I, you know, come up with the riffs and stuff. It does of course change your sound though… having a new singer and a new drummer of course it will change. But when we put up Buried In Oblivion, band members weren’t expecting that we’d be touring all the time and the band kind took off! So, now we have members that are up for touring constantly so…

Did the addition of new members affect the songwriting at all?

No, because it was all done before we even got the new members. Before we had Justin in the band because he didn’t play on the album, and before we had Steve our new drummer. Um yeah, after we got off the road in December ’05 from our Nevermore and Opeth tour I started writing for The Scattering of Ashes and then that brought us up until May and we recorded.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a metal band with as many vocalists as Into Eternity. Everyone seems to have a part. Are there ever disagreements over who gets to sing what part?

Haha, no. Stu’s our lead singer so we leave the bulk to him. On the new album I come in on like the choruses so we always know who’s going to do what. Then Troy will put his death vocals on certain parts to accent, it’s like a team.

Let’s look at some of your song titles… “Severe Emotional Distress”, “Spiraling Into Depression”… how do you manage to write about such dark topics yet still sound catchy and uplifting?

Hehe yeah. It’s kind of like therapy you know, write out these crazy songs and these depressing lyrics. Then you let it out and go about your day because we’re all really happy people but I don’t want to write about fantasy or um, happy things.

No trolls for you?

No trolls or dragons! I like these depressive dark lyrics, I think for us it fits our music.

Are you the lyricist then or is it a collaborative effort?

Yeah, I do the majority but Stu on this album also wrote lyrics for four songs so it was like 60/40.

Let’s move on to your new videos; the one that was recently released for “Severe Emotional Distress”, and the upcoming one for “Timeless Winter”… these are the first promotional videos Into Eternity has had, is that right?

Yeah, because we’re starting to, you know, sell albums now so I think the label thought it might be a good idea to get us in the public’s eye. Now people who have always dug us and our music, now if they can see the live show and us giving energy… if that comes across in the music videos that’ll be cool.

How was that experience? Was shooting a music video something new for you personally?

It sucked! It was kind of like doing air bands as a kid, you’re air banding to this video. It’s hard to do! We did like 7 hours straight I believe on both videos so you’re doing the same song constantly and you’re drenched in sweat and you’re trying to give it as hard as you can because on-camera you have to do exaggerated moves so it comes across better. So you’re expending more energy than I think you would on-stage so it was tough to do a video. I don’t know how Mariah Carey and Britney Spears do it!

How did the “Timeless Winter” video turn out other than featuring a lot of really cold snow?

Oh it was killer. Yeah it was awesome and the new video’s cut really fast so it’s exciting, and you’ve got the epic snow blowing in slow motion parts and the snow is going backwards…

Hair flowing in the wind?

Haha, yeah not mine! But our singer’s. (Editor’s note: he doesn’t have any)

Speaking of videos, you’ve been doing a series of YouTube guitar training videos. That’s a pretty cool thing to do for your guitar-playing fans out there. When did you come up with that idea?

I didn’t, my label roped me into doing it. My rep called me up and said “Hey, can you somehow film yourself, do it for free, and put it up on YouTube to promote the new album?” – So I was like, of course, no problem. So I had to figure it out, I had to film it myself and edit it just using an XP program, this Movie Maker that comes on my computer. And I’ve never done that before, I’m not a teacher, so I filmed it as naturally as I could, try to explain the frets and exactly what I’m doing. Hopefully, a few kids will learn something. It ended up winning some YouTube awards or something so it ended up being pretty popular…

I was about to say, how’s the response been? Have you gotten any feedback from it?

Yeah it’s been great! Every single city we play there’s always kids that have seen the YouTube and I just got in Guitar One magazine that should be out this month. In that I explain “Timeless Winter” and some of my licks and they videotaped it in New York City so I’ll have another instructional thing coming but this time in a huge magazine, Guitar One sells like 150,000 copies in a month!

So it turned out to pretty worthwhile huh?

Yeah! Guitar One and Guitar Player, they saw those YouTube things and I think that helped me get in the magazine.

As for the touring, you recently wrapped up a tour with German thrash legends Destruction. How was that?

It was killer yeah. When I was like 15 years old I used to buy the Destruction cassettes when I was a kid. I loved it. I grew up on thrash like California thrash, Bay Area thrash and also German thrash metal so… they’re legends they started in like ’82 so I heard a lot of good stories from Schmier, the lead singer. Pretty cool!

So what’s your favorite thrash band?

My favorite thrash band would be a tie between Forbidden, Testament, and Megadeth.

I love Testament’s first album.

Oh of course yeah, it’s a classic. Anything they do is a classic.

They kind of remind me of Metallica if, you know, they continued with thrash style…

But with better leads and sweeping arpeggios and, yeah, killer.

As for this tour you’re on now: The Haunted, Dark Tranquillity, Scar Symmetry.. seems like a metal fans’ wet dream! Even though it just started how’s it shaping up?

Great yeah, lots of kids had this Canadian Flag in the crowd screaming and yeah last night was off the hook in Florida it was amazing. Our response has been perfect so hopefully it continues tonight. Of course now that I’ve said that tonight will suck and we’ll get like no response.

Haha, we’ll try not to disappoint you! And what songs are you guys playing this time around? There’s obviously going to be a focus on the new album; what cuts will you be taking from it?

We only have a half-hour, six songs, so it’ll probably be an even split between Buried in Oblivion and The Scattering of Ashes.

As a supporting band, is it really hard to select what you’ll be playing during that short time frame? How do you choose?

Yeah, usually we fight it out. There’s staples we have to play: we’re going to play the video tracks of course so that’s three songs right away. We have to do “Spiraling [Into Depression]“, “Severe [Emotional Distress]“, and “Timeless [Winter]” for sure. Then we only have 3 other songs to play with so it’s tough to juggle your set.

Does it feel strange being a lone Canadian band touring with a bunch of Swedish bands? Are you looking to pick up a new language on this tour?

Yeah I hope to pick up some new swear words! We’ve toured with Swedish bands before and I think there’s a lot of similarities between Sweden and Canada in climate and just overall bond – they’ve got our same sense of humor so yeah, it’s going to be cool. They’re also all pretty nice guys, we’ve talked to everyone, and they’re cool.

So, in what could be the most unlikely situation ever, if Canada and Sweden got in a war, who would win?

Oh god! Well we have no army so it would be a draw because I think Sweden’s in the same boat.

I have to ask the typical cliché question: Who did you look to as influences for your guitar playing? What guitarists out there do you just worship?

This interview’s over then, we don’t go for cliché questions!

Haha!

Uh, growing up with like Yngwie Malmsteen, even now.. Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert.. I was big into the speed pickers: James Murphy, Chuck Schuldiner. You know the whole Death as a band blew me away then when Cynic came out in ’92 that kind of jazz/progressive. Then Dream Theater… So I like the cool heaviness of the band Death and the progressive-ness of Dream Theater and stuff. You know then traditional metal like Maiden and Judas Priest too, I loved growing up.

What CD are you really digging on right now?

Well, I got this band Twisted Into Form, they used to be Spiral Architect. It just came out on Sensory Records and it’s like insane prog. Just a wicked band. Also, I hate to say it, but that new Trivium is pretty fucking good. They sound a lot like Testament honestly. But I don’t buy albums anymore it seems, unless I get promos through my record company I don’t really go hunt for albums now.

Not enough time right?

Yeah, there’s no time!

So looking to the future, what’s the state of Into Eternity? Where do you see yourselves 5 years from now?

Well I hope to break up soon and then I want to reunite and make a lot of money!

And finally, do you have any last words for your fans out there online?

Yeah, onlines a huge thing now. You know, websites like SMNnews, and these YouTubes and the MySpaces… it’s like you’re instantly connected and we can talk right to the fans so yeah, thanks for all the support!

Interview by Martin Parets