‘Life has been pretty busy actually. We’ve played a lot of shows lately, we’re writing songs for the upcoming full length, and in between we’re trying to get our name out as much as we can.’

‘Right now we have about 10 new songs ready, most of which we’ve been playing live, and we’re working on 4 new songs at once. I think the main difference from WLBE will be that we’ve found our style. The songs on the EP were some of the first songs we’ve written as a band. The new stuff is more tightly knit, more cohesive, more to the point, and a lot harder and faster. I think lyrics-wise I’m opening up more. Most of the lyrics are pretty personal to me, and I recently realized that when you place them in the order in which we wrote ‘em, you get the story of the past year or so of my life.’

‘Well, in the past few months we’ve been playing everywhere we can; all the Dutch shows of the last Pro-Pain tour, supporting Machine Head in Luxembourg, supporting Hatebreed in Amsterdam, and a lot of small shows all around the country.’

‘A My City Burning show is basically the most hardcore and thrash metal we can fit into the time we have. Dense and intense. As for the crowd participation, it seems that where-ever we play now, there’s always some people coming specifically for us - even if it’s only one or two. As for the pits and such, we’re seeing a lot more of that. On the coolest shows so far we had circle pits, sing-a-longs, kids jumping off stage speakers. Craziness, yo! Me gusta!’

‘Since our last interview we’ve been in touch with a couple of labels, but we’re keeping up the search. It’s hard to find a label you connect with, you know? We’re keeping up our relentless campaign, though. We’re bound to find our soul mates sooner or later.’

‘Well, after the show we hung out with the guys from Hatebreed and some friends at a couple of bars near the venue. I think the other guys had lengthier conversations with them, but my most memorable thing was walking up to Jamey, wanting to say something like “Hey dude, cool show!”, but before I said anything, he told me “Hey dude, cool show!” Crazy. It’s such a weird thing, playing with bands you’ve been listening to for so long. But it’s awesome when they turn out to be cool dudes.’

 

(picture by: Paco Weekenstro)
 

‘Well, as always in this world it’s who you know, I guess. Friends of us know those guys personally. They suggested to Robb to check us out. As it unfolded, Machine Head did a festival tour this summer, with a handful of headline dates in between. We got contacted by their management two days before the show, telling us we could play the show!

 

We ended up playing for 2,000 people and got a good response; sing-a-longs, some pits, fists pumping in the sky. Next to that being fucking awesome, it was really good to be on a stage like that and feel comfortable doing it. It was almost like a test of strength.

 

The coolest thing was standing on the back of the stage, watching Machine Head play and seeing the massive crowd. That was the moment the reality of the situation sunk in with me; that we just opened for Machine Head. Fucking surreal, man..

 

Spit, our bass player, told me that at one point during our show he turned facing his amp and saw Robb standing back there, nodding approvingly, and went like “holy shit!”. Haha!’

‘With big shows there’s always a lot of planning involved. You want to get everything perfect down to the details, also in the organization. Thing is, that you have to deal with tour managers and such - people who don’t take kindly to bands that don’t have their shit together. So it’s basically a mix of being extremely focussed and on the verge of a nerve breakdown.

Our crew takes the edge off, though. They’ve dealt with all that stuff before. Our guitar tech, for instance, is also the guitar tech for Epica, and worked with Dimmu Borgir and lots more. We just try to get everything done as fast as we can, and stay out of the way as much as we can. Because you know, we’re just the opening band.

 

Apart from the organization stuff, we tend to goof off a lot. Lots of “your mom” jokes, farting (to my great discontent, which I guess makes it even funnier for everyone), and errr.. You know what, drifting off here; I’ve noticed that when you have to sit in a poorly ventilated van with 5 other men all day, they tend to serve you anything with either beans, eggs or onions at the show.’

‘Our perception on the band is still the same as it was when we started. This band is a group of good friends, doing what they love. I feel that playing big shows only makes us more driven. With every step we take, we set our goals a bit higher. I don’t think we saw any of the bigger shows or tours coming 3 years ago.’

‘We’ve always said that we wanted to try to see how far we can take this. In the meantime we have played with some of our favourite bands, played with some legendary bands, played different countries, and made a lot of new friends along the way. So no, our goals haven’t really changed. I think that everyone in the band is willing to sacrifice more and more to make this work, though. More conversations with “if we could do this or that tour, fuck it.. I’ll quit my job.”’

‘As for the remainder of this year, we’ll be playing shows in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Be sure to check us out with Death Before Dishonour in Amsterdam, and on Cilinderfest, with Legion of the Damned, Kickback, Length of Time, The Setup, Divine Sins and lots more! Early next year we will exchange a tour with Palm, a Japanese hardcore band. We’ll do a European tour with them in March and a tour in Japan in May. I’m taking care of the bookings over here, and Toshi from Palm will set up shows over there. DIY for the win!’

‘You’re more than welcome, man!’