Bless the Child – Band Interview

Columbus, Ohio isn’t known for their prominent death metal scene, yet Bless The Child is one of most well-known death metal bands in the area. Their sound has a Black Dahlia Murder vibe to it, and eschews an overload of breakdowns for a triple-guitar assault of riffs and leads. The band just finished their debut album, Unveiling Retribution, and it’s geared towards the modern metal fan. It does have some old-school tendencies, but make no mistake; Bless The Child is looking to shoo away the monotonous deathcore bands and trendy breakdowns plaguing metal today.

I was afforded the opportunity to speak to the entire band (vocalist Brian “Jonesy” Jones, guitarists Mark Crumpler, Derek Young, and Nate Mercer, drummer Mark Evans, and bassist Steve Shelini) to get a clearer picture of who Bless The Child are and why people should give Unveiling Retribution a listen.

 

How would you each describe your sound to someone just hearing about the band for the first time?

 

Mark Evans: We’re a melodic death metal band, but we’re not like the typical cookie-cutter death metal. We draw influences from old Carcass, At The Gates and even some of the newer bands, like Black Dahlia Murder. A lot of our influences are bands that just get up and go, not just a breakdown fest.

Derek Young: Even though we just get up and go, we’re a lot of thrash, we’re a lot of high-paced, high-tempo music.

Mark Evans: We also do like to incorporate breakdowns into the songs that we do play. It’s just something that’s been kind of part of our formula as far as writing.

Derek Young: Lately, I think our stuff has kind of gotten maybe a little more dismal or ominous.

 

Do you think there is an over-reliance on breakdowns in a lot of today’s metal music?

 

Mark Evans: I think it’s more of a crutch or a lack of creativity for bands anymore. They rely on it too much and base the song around that, instead of actually writing good riffs. They use that as their way out, instead of playing their damn instrument.

Derek Young: There is an over-reliance, especially here locally. There’s a lot of bands that are just breakdown bands; that’s all that they do. We’ve very meticulous about incorporating a breakdown. We try to really put a lot of thought into it. It’s not something that’s thrown together. We try to do it with taste when we do it.

Mark Crumpler: I agree with Derek. I kind of give the whole comparison as bands today will use breakdowns like the choruses that people would use in the ‘70s. Take Queen for instance. They always had these hooks that would just stick in your head for weeks at a time. They actually used choruses as their hooks, where a lot of times, bands will try and use breakdowns as a cash point.

 

When you’re sitting around writing songs, when do you guys feel like it’s an appropriate time to use a breakdown?

 

Brian “Jonesy” Jones: The biggest thing about having a little bit of everything in there is that the vocals and everything go along with the feeling of the song. If we start out fast, we don’t want to have that same tempo through the whole song. We want to change the tempo to change the mood of the song. That way, you don’t get bored halfway through. We like to change it three or four times. We don’t just go from speed into breakdowns. We like to kind of slow it down and do a little more groove. We try to build-up our breakdowns, so that when we do a breakdown, it hits a lot harder. If you do a breakdown for five minutes, it kind of loses its luster.

 

As you guys started to write songs for this new album coming out, did you notice that your songs were evolving as each one were written?

 

Mark Crumpler: Absolutely. Pretty much from the inception of when we actually started writing songs, we still had a lot of a kind of metalcore sound to us. Our first few songs were more along the lines of As I Lay Dying and thrash metalcore style of bands. No clean singing, of course. As time went on, we found ourselves kind of getting more pissed (laughs), just to put it in layman’s terms. After we got rid of a couple of members and grabbed some new ones, our writing style got really dissonant. Our writing emotion is very dark. Our keys are more in a minor pentatonic scale, which pulls out a lot more different emotions than it did beforehand. Before, it was tap your feet, get up and go two-step; now, you want to smash a baby’s head in with a sledgehammer.

 

You guys going to use that as a slogan for your new album?

 

Mark Crumpler: Actually, one of the slogans we’ve been tossing back-and-forth with each other for about a year-and-a-half…we had a review done in one of the local magazines and the author put in quotes, ‘Tuned lower than Satan’s nut sack.’ (laughs).

 

Tell me what it was like for you guys to go into the studio and record Unveiling Retribution. Was there any challenges in taking on such a large project like a debut album?

 

Mark Evans: Most of the bands nowadays are going with all programmed drums. You can cut your time in half by doing it on a computer and the drummer never even enters the studio at all. They just send some demo tracks and some guy makes them and takes the beats. What we wanted to do was we wanted to prove that playing extreme music that we could go in and have a real drummer go in and actually play this stuff on the record and live. Me personally, I like the sound of real drums on a CD instead of everything sound replaced and fake. I don’t want it to sound like a computer. To me, that was a challenge as a drummer, going in and having to spend a solid 20-plus hours on nine tracks to make sure they were where I wanted them to be. The rest of the guys could vouch for that.

Derek Young: I think there’s definitely a lot of weight on the entire band’s shoulders to go in and really perform well and do everything to the best of our ability. Make sure that everything is played right and is played clear and audible and do the absolute best we can as musicians when recording. We’re doing it, we might as well do it right and do it the best we can. This album is long over-due. We’ve had an EP out and been a band for over three years now. We definitely have to say something when we come out with this. A lot of people are expecting something from us. We got to not disappoint people.

 

Did you guys feel like there was anticipation for this album? Did you guys feel any pressure in trying to live up to whatever expectations you thought people had?

 

Mark Evans: Yeah, I think we were definitely under the microscope amongst our peers, you could say. There’s only a couple of bands in our area that even do anything remotely close to what we do. Columbus is a very rock/hard rock-based city. There’s probably only three death metal bands here and a few thrash bands. I would say in the last year, we’ve definitely made more of a name for ourselves, playing a lot bigger shows at home and on the road. There’s been a good hype about us, so there’s a buzz about us. People are expecting something that’s going to be aggressive and big from us. So that’s why it’s taken us almost six months to get this completely done and where we are happy, all the way from the recording to the artwork to the photos; the whole nine yards. We like to represent ourselves in a bigger light. We’re trying to come out, throwing all our punches at once.

 

What’s the big thing you guys learned from being in the studio and taking on this project?

 

Mark Crumpler: Basically, the importance of pre-production. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had either engineers or other bands come to me either stressed or panicked, because they didn’t prepare well enough for their album or their EP or their demo or whatever they were doing at the time. Organization is key. It’s a lot more than just picking up your instrument and doing it. You have to go through each song. You literally have to pick it apart note by note to make sure that all your band members are on the same page.

When you’re not on the same page and you get to the studio, it’s going to show. That’s going to cost you time and it’s going to cost you money. We spent almost two months just in pre-production, going through every song, and picking it apart. If me or somebody else wasn’t doing something right, we had to change it. Just a lot of preparation. If you’re going to do it right, you have to spent a lot of time before you get into the studio.

Derek Young: I agree with Crump. The biggest thing that helped us the most is that we’ve all recorded before, so we weren’t really worried about the pressure of going in the studio so much as doing everything right. The pre-production is really what helps make all of that go a lot smoother, everybody being on the same page with every song.

 

Did you guys use practice sessions to help you out with the pre-production?

 

Mark Evans: Before going into the studio, yeah that’s definitely what we did. Sometimes, we would be in practice three or four hours, and just focusing on one song, making sure it was sonically correct. Right now, since the album is done, our practices are mainly for rehearsals for shows and throwing around new ideas for new material. Before the album was recorded, we spent every practice almost every other day working and picking apart the songs to make sure they were correct in our eyes and we were comfortable and happy.

 

Did the band ever get frustrated from trying to pick apart these songs and get them as good as the band thinks they should be?

 

Mark Crumpler: Yeah, there’s a lot of little stresses here and there, but nothing that’s really out of the ordinary. There wasn’t any long, drawn-out stresses between band members or anything like that. You play a song for two months and you’re like, ‘Oh man, I did something wrong.’ It’s more or less a self-correction more than a band thing. We lucked out a lot in this group because we really don’t have any kind of stress between the bandmates at all. We’re all feel really lucky. Even throughout the whole studio process and getting ready for the album, there wasn’t any kind of heat between any of us or anything. It was really smooth. We knew what our roles were. We knew what we had to do and correct. Beyond the average stresses of any kind of mistake, we really didn’t have anything out of the ordinary, which was great.

 

Are you guys going on extensive touring in support of Unveiling Retribution?

 

Mark Evans: We’re hoping to, yeah. As long as financially we can do it – we are a six-piece band and we get like seven miles a gallon – if we can get from city to city and get support, we will definitely do that. Hopefully, down the road, if there is a bigger label that wants to take a chance on us and invest some money on us and hopefully pick us up and throw us on a tour and help us get out there a bit more.

 

Do you think the band can get by without a major label? A lot of bands are taking the independent route due to how the music industry is.

 

Mark Crumpler: DIY is definitely a growing trend. Label support is waning, as far as their ability to financially back a lot of bands, which I can fully understand. There’s always an ebb and flow to every industry. The music industry is not exempt from that. It’s absolutely possible to be 100 DIY. I’m not saying anything bad against doing it, but it is much more difficult. A lot of musicians get in the mindset that they can do it themselves, and all too often, they find themselves way in over their heads. That’s something we’re trying to avoid. We’re playing things very smart. We’re very level-headed when it comes to the business aspect of what being a musician is. Trying to do things DIY, while it is possible, it’s much harder, which is one of the reasons why we tend to stick regionally, instead of going on cross-country tours. It is much more difficult for a DIY band to financially back themselves in doing so.

 

With the lack of bands in your area playing this style of music, do you find it hard for you guys to have a following?

 

Mark Crumpler: Honestly, I’m going to say no. We kind of surprised ourselves with a lot of the shows. We most recently played with All That Remains at the Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio. The response we got was insane, to say the least. It was very humbling. We had so many people coming up to us, absolute strangers, they didn’t know we were from Columbus. They would ask us where we were from and we would be like, ‘Hey, we’re hometown heroes,’ and they would be shocked. We really lucked out on the fact that we’ve been really well-received everywhere that we’ve gone. We present ourselves as actual musicians. We’re not fly-by-night rockstars. We’re not your average garage band that just does it for fun. We’re very serious. We take it very serious and we take great pride in entertaining the fan base that we play for.

 

If you could tour with one band, past or present, who would it be and why?

 

Mark Evans: For me, At The Gates (pauses) or Journey (laughs). Just saying, that’s just me.

Mark Crumpler: It would absolutely have to be Strapping Young Lad. They are my main influence to be a musician.

Brian “Jonesy” Jones: I would have to say Sepultura. I can’t even imagine all the places they went back in their prime.

Drake Tullock: It would have to be Amon Amarth.

Steve Shelini: Definitely would be Weezer.

Derek Young: I would have to say Ted Nugent.

 

By Dan Marsicano