The interview was originally supposed to take place with Adam Fischer, but he was unavailable at the time, so it was put in Brandon’s capable hands.

May I speak to Patrick, please?

This is Patrick.

Hey, this is Brandon from Fear Before the March of Flames. I was just calling to do a phoner with you, or something like that?

Or something like that.

(laughs). Our tour manager came out the door and was like, ‘here take this phone number and do this.’ I was like ‘ok, cool.’ So, yeah, here I am. How’s it going?

Good. They gave me a number for Adam and said call it, and when I called it, they said ‘Adam’s not here. Let me get someone else for you.’ And you were the lucky winner.

Yeah. Adam’s gear got all messed up last night. So he has to basically, systematically go through all his equipment to see what’s wrong. So, he’s gonna be awhile. I figured since I’m just sitting on my ass, I may as well talk for once. I never do these (laughs). It’s cool.

Excellent. Are you guys in Arizona today?

We’re actually in Albany, NY.

Albany, NY?

Yes.

Hmm.

It’s where Eagle Vision is. We’re hanging out at the offices today, ‘cause we have a day off.

Aren’t you guys supposed to be on Sounds of the Underground, or did you already finish that up?

We only did a week and a half of that, and then we started a small headliner that we’re on now.

Ok. Cool. I was confused, but now I’m not.

Yeah. Now, you’re in the know (laughs).

Let’s talk about that. How was Sounds of the Underground for you guys?

It was a lot of fun. It was definitely something that needed to be experienced. We did Warped Tour last year and I thought Sounds of the Underground was going to be the same, but it was different because there was a lot less bands and the genre actually was what the name was. It was underground music, I guess, for the most part. So, because of that, the moral and everybody on the tour, it was just like a really good time even though it was really hot and kind of miserable. But, for the most part, it was a really awesome experience for us. I think we’d like to do it again, if we were invited. It was a good time, so we’d go back. There were definitely some cons to it, like metalheads that weren’t really into us and stuff like that.

What was the biggest difference between performing on a Warped Tour and performing on Sounds of the Underground?

Warped Tour, definitely, it was so much bigger and more complicated that you just kind of,  you had to know what you were supposed to be doing, otherwise you’d just get skipped over, like no big deal. You had to know exactly where to be at the right time. And you got there and you set up your gear. You never really got to know anybody just because nobody really cared. You had your core people that you met and you got to hang out with everyday, but it definitely didn’t have the same camaraderie that Sounds did, ‘cause Sounds was all on one stage and the production crew … everybody actually knew everybody’s names. I guess there was a lot more respect on that as far as that aspect goes. As far as the difference between Warped Tour and Sounds for us, as far as playing, the crowds were very, very different because Warped Tour is a much younger crowd and they’re used to whatever is being played and they only go to see the headliner because they are familiar with them and then they see all these other bands they haven’t heard of and so they get way into it on Warped Tour. Where Sounds is more of the opposite where it’s kids that are going to see a certain band and they want to see that band and they have to wait through all these other bands to see ‘em and you have to really win ‘em over and you have to try to make sure that you give them the best version of yourself. You have to really fight to get them to give you a chance. So that was a challenge.

Was Sounds of the Underground more of a traveling, barbecue, just hanging out with your friends kind of a festival?

Yeah. Yeah, it definitely was. It was a lot of hanging out. Since there’s one stage, it was more centralized because everyone was in one area. It was awesome ‘cause all the bands had their own tents that they set up and you just kind of, I anyway, I’d just bounce around and chat with anybody that I’d see and have a good time. Warped Tour you just ended up in one area and it would just be the people that were there where you happened to be playing because there were so many stages. It was different.

How was it getting up and seeing GWAR play everyday?

It was a blast. I didn’t get really into the line of fire so I never ended up coming out soaked in blood and all the other nonsense that they shoot out. It was hilarious watching them everyday. I never thought a long time ago that I would be on something where I would be hanging out with the dudes from GWAR when they’re not in costume and being all crazy. They’re actually really cool people and they’re actually kind of old. They’ve been a band forever. It was crazy. They had a big challenge too doing Sounds of the Underground. They’re an indoor band. All their production is crazy and complicated and so they had to retool what they were doing for an outdoor atmosphere. When we started on the tour, they said they had started getting the kinks out of what they were doing. It was definitely insane. The kids were way, way into it too. It was fun to watch.

You guys are from Aurora right?

Yeah.

I grew up in Fort Collins, so I’m very familiar with that area.

Oh. Awesome. Fort Collins is cool. It’s not as cool as Aurora (laughs). Actually Aurora is very boring. It’s very suburban. I actually, I prefer North Denver, but Aurora’s cool. Fort Collins is awesome though.

I left there after I got out of high school and live in Montana now, but I make sure I head down to Colorado every year.

Wow. Yeah. It’s fun. Montana, that’s interesting.

You don’t really hear a lot about metal bands coming out of Colorado and making it nationally. How hard was it for you guys coming out of Denver?

We were very lucky because … it’s so hard because each person in our band has a different perspective on what we’ve done. But, for me, it was purely … the band was done completely as something to do and it’s always been like that. We just kind of did our own thing and it became whatever it is we became out of our influences and all of that. And along the way we’ve met amazing people that became friends with us and that truly is how we are the way that we are now. Just being able to become friends with bands that decided that they wanted to take us out on tour and therefore we were able to meet people at Eagle Vision and all that stuff and it just kind of happened. Now we’re like, ‘holy crap, this is insane.’ I was thinking about that today, while I was sitting around reflecting for some reason, ‘cause I don’t normally do that, and I realized that I was sitting in Eagle Vision and I was just like ‘what am I doing here?’ It’s so weird. Denver, it used to be kind of a tough place, but now the music scene is a lot better than it used to be as I’m sure it is pretty much everywhere else, because of the Internet and all of that. It’s a much easier opportunity to find music that you like and I believe that’s a huge reason why we’ve been able to do what we’ve done.

Were you guys disappointed when you got hooked up with Sounds of the Underground and saw that Denver was the last show and you weren’t going to be on it?

We actually are going home to do the Denver date. We’re pretty excited to be able to do it. Last time we played a really metal show in Denver was with Darkest Hour and Between the Buried and Me and it was kind of rough, so we don’t really know what to expect from the crowd. That seems to be within the metal scene in Denver, and I mean like really metal, not … I don’t really consider us that metal, but the really metal people don’t seem to like us very much and I’m sure they’re gonna be the dominate group at Sounds, so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes. Especially with our families and friends watching (laughs).

Why do you think that is? Why do you think people react that way? It is kind of an interesting perspective that there’s little intricate little cliques within the metal industry. You go to see a metal show and there’s a metal band on stage, but it’s not necessarily what everyone likes. Some people will hate it and some people will love it.

Yeah. I think mainly, it’s just … there’s people that don’t like certain kinds of music and they’re very outspoken about it. And that’s one part of it. That’s fine. There’s bands I don’t like. It’s cool. But, there seems to be a small group of people … there’ll be a local metal band from Denver that they feel like deserves to be big or whatever and they think that we don’t deserve it. They’re like ‘aw, screw that band, they don’t deserve it.’ They don’t mind telling us about it from the crowd and it usually gets drowned out by some other noise that’s going on as we’re playing, so we don’t really hear it. It’s not a big deal. We don’t get too bummed out on that. Try not to anyways. It’s hard to explain. The whole sociological aspect of all that is so hard to understand why people do the things they do. In a perfect world, people would be a lot more uplifting to one another, because if they actually knew how it affected people that are in bands that are just trying to make music just for fun. They just don’t really help the cause that much. Most of the bands that I know all have their own ways of basically ignoring people that are just jerks. It’s not that bad (laughs).

It’s a hard place to be for metal. It’s strange because you’d think there would be a lot more metal bands making it big out of Colorado, but it seems unless you’re a jam band or whatever, it’s all gonna stay local.

I really, truly believe that it all comes down to how much you wanna work for something. There’s not very many bands that I know of that are just unbelievable and they work as hard as they possibly can and they go nowhere. That’s not very likely that that can happen. There’s just a lot of bands who are mediocre who think things should just be handed to them and it’s kind of rough. I don’t even know what I should expect for anything. Some bands think that everything should be handed to them on a plate. I can’t put my head around being able to think that way. It’s hard to see the thinking process in that. It’s ok ‘cause those bands, they experience a lot from having that mentality too. They kind of figure out the way the world actually works and all that. It ends up being ok for everybody in the long run I guess.

The album’s been out for almost a year now and you’ve been able to tour in this cycle during that time and soak it all in. What’s next for you guys? Do you have more touring coming up? Are you planning on hitting the studio?

We’re gonna be on the road. From today on, we’re basically gonna be finishing up this Northeast part of the tour, then we go up into Canada for a few days and we’re really excited about that. We’ll be touring through the Midwest on our way home and then August and September we’re going to write our new record. Other than that, we really don’t know what’s gonna happen because the way we’ve been writing lately has been very different for us and we just really wanted to take time and experiment with what we have and really try to push the envelope for us and just try to really get to know all the different ways to do this because we’ve kind of been a lot more interested in the knowledge of how all this works and all the equipment and all that stuff. So, we’re gonna be doing that and probably demoing after that, but we really don’t know when we’re gonna be recording at all. Then October, we’re supposed to go to Europe, I think, and then November we go out on a headliner with Circle Takes the Square and the Fall Of Troy.

You say that the new stuff you’re writing is kind of different and you guys are gonna go in a different direction, tell me a little bit about that.

It’s kind of hard to explain. We’ve done a couple of demos so far, and everyone that we’ve played it for that we were actually kind of nervous about hearing it, have been really, really into it. But nobody’s been like ‘whoa, you guys did it really different, it sounds like this now.’ So, we really don’t know. It definitely sounds like us. Every album that a band does, in a time that they go out and tour on it, they meet people that are into different bands that they’ve never heard of and because of that we’ve come into a lot of new bands that we’re really into. It affects how we look at music and so because of that we write differently. It’s hard to say exactly how we’re gonna be doing until we write more in August and September. Sorry to be so vague about it, but I honestly don’t know.

That’s cool.

Now, if you could set up your ultimate festival show and you could pick any bands that have ever played to go on the lineup, and you guys are one of them, which bands would you choose?

Um. That’s very difficult. Oh man. Our bass player just put camo shots on and they look ridiculous. What band is that? Terror? Why are you wearing Terror shorts? Oh, you’re straight edge now. They look good on you. Um. Anyway. That’s the thing. I would lean towards the Curioso festival and when you asked me that I started thinking about all those bands that were on that. Then I was like ‘why am I thinking that?’ I guess it doesn’t really matter. I would really love bands like Muse and Radiohead. We love stuff like that. Our idea of festival would pretty much be a festival of all the bands we ever toured with because that’s the whole idea behind festivals it seems, from what I’ve noticed. It’s just a great, gigantic good time and everybody gets to be with all their friends. So, if I could make a festival it would have like Norma Jean and Fire When Ready and Circle Takes the Square, all the bands we’ve toured with. Then all the bands like the Cure and all that to headline. And then I would be content. And there would be a lot of confused people wondering why this thing was happening.

So, people who were part of last year’s Lolapalooza?

Yeah. (laughs). Exactly. They’d be very confused and I would probably be really confused on how it worked out and happened, but I would enjoy it immensely.

Brandon, thanks for calling me. I appreciate it.

No problem, Patrick.