FLOTSAM AND JETSAM's ERIK 'A.K.' KNUTSON Still Dreams Big: 'We Want To Get To That Next Rung Of The Ladder'

By David E. Gehlke

The quality and even occasional brilliance of FLOTSAM AND JETSAM's first two and now last three albums are not in question — it's everything in between that has kept the long-running Phoenix thrashers stuck in the middle. Elevated to MCA Records in time for 1990's "When The Storm Comes Down", FLOTSAM AND JETSAM were being groomed as "the next METALLICA", yet a myriad of things stood in the way, from poor label direction, questionable album cover choices and a shifting landscape that favored grunge. By the middle part of the decade, FLOTSAM AND JETSAM was cast aside and had to start all over.

The band's long, sometimes precipitous road eventually led to better days. While co-founding guitarist Michael Gilbert rejoined for 2013's "Ugly Noise", it was the 2014 addition of fellow guitarist Steve Conley that has proven to be the real difference-maker for FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, beginning with their 2016 self-titled album. At last, vocalist Erik "A.K." Knutson was being used properly alongside potent and melodic thrash that had the band sounding fresh and invigorated — traits that were largely absent during some of their lean years in the late 1990s and 2000s. The band's new album "I Am The Weapon" continues that trend, which made it the prime opportunity for BLABBERMOUTH.NET to catch up with Knutson.

Blabbermouth: This is not an original idea by any stretch, but it feels like these last several years have marked a career renaissance for FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. What can you attribute it to?

Erik: "It seems that this lineup that I've got now is just really smooth. There's no egos; there's no fighting. There's no jealousy within anybody. We all know our writing parts and they seem to be working really well. When decisions come up for touring or songs on a record or picking a new manager, we all seem to agree. It's making life very simple and very nice. I think these records are kind of a product of that."

Blabbermouth: Are you saying the band environment was stressful before all of this?

Erik: "I don't know about stressful, but there was always something that was kind of in the way. Whether it was one person or our need to be partying rock stars. Whatever the situation was, there was always something in the way. Now I've got a bunch of veterans who have been through all that crap and came out on the other end. It's just a completely different atmosphere being in this band than it ever has been before."

Blabbermouth: Who is steering the ship these days? Is it you and Mike Gilbert?

Erik: "Everybody has an equal say in everything. We rely on Ken [Mary, drums] for some stuff. He's been through a lot, so when it comes to the business end of things, there's a whole list of stuff that we nod to Ken for. Mike Gilbert and I have been through 40 years of this. We know what not to do. And when it comes to what to do, we lean on Ken a little bit. Steve Conley is a songwriting machine. We ask that guy, 'We need to start thinking about working on the next record. Can you come up with songs?' The next day, he hands in five that are amazing. That's kind of a neat thing, too. We ask for something from one of us in the band and it happens. Three days after Steve gave us five songs, I already had four lyrics and melody lines. Every aspect of the whole writing process just gets us more excited and more pumped up and next thing you know, we have a whole record and ten songs left over that we were going to work on. It's really a very nice place to be when you're writing."

Blabbermouth: It sounds like these songs are more suited for your voice than what you were doing previously.

Erik: "The more I tour with those guys, the more they realize what types of melodies and keys that I flourish in and the most comfortable with. They lean toward that stuff for me. I've asked them a few times, 'I need some more room to come up with vocal melodies. You have all this stuff going on at a million miles an hour. It's hard to come up with a melody.' Then, boom, the next ten songs had definite spots for me. I've never had that before. I just took what was given and tried to come up with something. Now I ask for a little room and they give it to me."

Blabbermouth: Were you typically brought in later into the songwriting process?

Erik: "Yeah. It's always been kind of a chore. There are so many parts in some of the older songs that had so many different speeds and keys. I had to try to come up with something catchy for all of those. There are a lot of albums where in most of the songs there are at least one or two parts in a song that I just don't like it all and it ended up being recorded. Now, I listen back and go, 'I'd love to go back and change it and put a cool melody on it.' I don't like to live in the past, but I do like to learn from it. Anything that I didn't like from earlier records, I make sure that I address that with everybody and they do the same for me."

Blabbermouth: Well, you have to be pretty satisfied with a song like "Primal", right?

Erik: "I really did not like that 'Primal' melody line at all. Every time we went to record it, I told Ken, 'I need to come up with something different.' He said, 'You're out of your mind! That's an amazing melody behind one word.' I said, 'I don't like it. It sounds a little too hair metal.' He's like, 'No. You're nuts, dude.' I've learned over the last few records to listen to what Ken tells me. [Laughs] Blame Ken. It's like, 'Ken told me to leave it!'"

Blabbermouth: What keeps you releasing records? You're on a pretty consistent release schedule.

Erik: "I think it's that we feel that we never got to that level where we should have been. We still have a garage band drive. We want to get to the next rung of the ladder. We don't have any misconceptions of what we are or what we can be. One of my early goals for the first and second record was to end up with a different color Lamborghini every day of the week. I know that's not going to happen. [Laughs] If I can not do a day job in between tours, that would be nice. Our expectations and goals are lowered down to something we can reach. That keeps the drive going."

Blabbermouth: It's refreshing to hear that. Most bands pushing 30 and 40 years in the business are content where they are.

Erik: "We want to get to one level farther than we are now. We'd like to make a living at it. Maybe get a Grammy here and there. That would be nice, but we don't have super-high expectations. We don't think we're going to be making rap artist money. It would be nice to get some accolades and just make enough money to have this as a profession rather than still leaning on the hobby side of things."

Blabbermouth: Do you wonder if we were to flip it around and albums like "Blood In The Water" and "I Am The Weapon" were released when you were on MCA in the 1990s that we'd be having a different conversation?

Erik: "Yup. I always thought that our albums as far as what's cool and hip and what's going on, we were always an album ahead of where we should have been. If you release 'Cuatro' and 'Drift' today, they'd probably be great albums. They didn't make it back then because they were a little too 'That's what's coming up next, that's not what is now' kind of thing. Our writing style has caught up with the times. I think we're finally in the same rung as what people are liking and leaning toward right now."

Blabbermouth: The mid-1990s was such a brutal era for just about every metal band. If you were a metal band, you were automatically uncool in the eyes of the mainstream. How did that impact the band?

Erik: "Metal went from a garage band kind of thing to start to be talked about a little bit, then grunge hit and knocked us back into the garage. That was hard for a lot of metal bands to take. It even changed our style a little bit. 'Cuatro' and 'Drift' were directly affected by that. We kind of had to lean toward something else because metal was going right back down in the tubes again. We didn't want to give it up at the same time, so we kind of tried to mix what was trying to be new and our metal sound at the same time. That's what we got out of 'Cuatro' and 'Drift' and even the 'High' record was a result of that."

Blabbermouth: Did you have anyone at the label telling you what to do?

Erik: "They tried to a little bit. We took some suggestions here and there, but for some of the stuff, we were like, 'No. We're not doing that. That's not us. That's not who we are.' We kind of let them run with some of the album cover ideas, photos and media stuff. They're the professionals. They're a huge label and should know what they're doing. When it came to the music, they tried to bend us in a little softer, or even 'rock' direction. We were already bending that way anyway because we were so afraid of what grunge was doing. It got to the point where it was, 'We're not going to write 'Cherry Pie' [WARRANT]. We're not. It's just not us.' That was a weird thing because MCA was gearing us up to be their version of METALLICA. Everyone wanted their METALLICA. They had us and within three records, they spent over a couple of million on us. They were gearing us up, then they got bought by Seagrams or someone. The story I heard was that they went through the list of bands. 'Elton John?' 'Keep him.' 'TRIUMPH? Keep them.' 'These guys?' 'Get rid of them.' 'These guys? Also, get rid of them.' We were one of those bands and we got dropped. That's the crap we've always gone through with the business side of the band."

Blabbermouth: Were you relieved or bummed out when you were dropped?

Erik: "At the time, we were really bummed out. We almost quit. We almost hung it up. Looking back now, it actually was a really good thing for us. It knocked our dick in the dirt and kept us grounded. It kept us from being the biggest jackasses on the planet. It was a good thing. It has kept us in this spot, this rung of the ladder, but it's not a bad place to be. Almost every hard rock and metal band on the planet knows who we are and credits us for doing what they do. That's really a super-nice place in your heart to be."

Blabbermouth: Do you know who has the rights to those records?

Erik: "There are two or three records where there are no masters anymore—the first couple of records we have re-licensed to Metal Blade. For the MCA stuff, we've done some licensing to some smaller record companies that just want to re-master and put it out. They've done that over in Europe a few times, but they're hard to find. 'The Cold' record, the masters, they were on a hard drive and got burned in a fire, so they're gone forever. There are a couple of other records, maybe 'My God' and another that the masters are just gone. Nobody knows where they are. We'll never see them. It's tough."

Blabbermouth: You've been the only consistent member of FLOTSAM AND JETSAM since the beginning. However, there was a short blip in 2001. Can we revisit that?

Erik: "I was really sick of pouring my heart out into songs and tours. I just wanted to get to a point where I wasn't working 12 hours a day and practicing four hours every night. That was my whole life. I just wanted to do music. I didn't want to do anything else. The business end was just crushing me at every turn. Every time something good would happen, three bad things would happen. It got to the point where I was like, 'I've had enough. I'm done being the red-headed stepchild of the metal industry. I'm done being bullied by promoters, agents and managers.' I was just done with it. I felt very disrespected. I started to listen to a bunch of country music artists. I told the band, 'Do whatever you want with the name and the band. I'm done.' They did half of a tour with James Rivera from HELSTAR, who is a great singer. I call him 'Little Dio'. He's a really good dude. It just didn't work for them. They had 13 or 15 people showing up at the shows. The tour bus dropped them off on the side of the road somewhere and said, 'Call me when you have the money to pay me and I'll bring your gear back.' I started getting flooded with emails from fans going, 'Dude. You have to come back. You can't let this band die.' I came back and made some really harsh decisions about the lineup that I didn't handle very well. It ended up being a good thing, as I had hoped it was going to be. I decided to take another stab at it. I had to change my whole attitude and thinking. I had to change everything in my head in order to start fresh and see how far I could push it."