ALL THAT REMAINS Frontman: 'It Gets Harder And Harder To Make A Living' As A Musician

Jay Nanda of the San Antonio Metal Music Examiner recently conducted an interview with vocalist Phil Labonte of Massachusetts metallers ALL THAT REMAINS. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow.

San Antonio Metal Music Examiner: This San Antonio show will probably feel light years away from what you just went through in Japan. What was the most harrowing part of that experience?

Labonte: Yeah. Well, it was nothing really harrowing for us. First of all, the actual earthquake, the epicenter, was 250 miles away. We felt the shaking in Tokyo, a 5.5, but you walked out of the building, and that was it. In Japan, a 5.5 is fairly regular. I wouldn't say fairly regular, but they build their buildings up to codes for that. The biggest thing was that it shut the airport down, and we had to wait in lines when we had to leave. It wasn't like, "We've gotta get out of here now."

San Antonio Metal Music Examiner: You guys have had labels thrown at you such as metalcore, and lately some say you're more mainstream or melodic. How would you describe the band's music?

Labonte: I would just say we're a metal band. There's a bunch of different styles of metal that are out there and that we touch on. We create our style. I think it's just metal. It's a fairly all-encompassing kind of term nowadays. It used to be if you were metal in the '80s, it was fairly easy to figure out what metal was between '83 and '88. There was not a lot of sub-genres. You had metal and hardcore that got mixed a little bit, bands like BIOHAZARD or AGNOSTIC FRONT. But in the '90s, there were bands like EARTH CRISIS. We do so many kind of things when it comes to vocal styles. Like the song "Two Weeks", Oli and Mike never play the same riffs. That's a very thrash metal progressive way to write a song. There's a complete moron riff, and I'm doing some CANNIBAL CORPSE type of lows. We don't sweat what we're labeled. We're just a metal band.

San Antonio Metal Music Examiner: Stubb's in Austin (in Feb. 2010) was one of the first shows you played as a fill-in for KILLSWITCH ENGAGE for (singer) Howard (Jones). How was it playing shows and performing their songs?

Labonte: It was fun, man. You know, it's not my job, you know what I mean? It's not my band, so I just went up there and did my thing to put on a good show. Most of the bands that came out were really cool and pumped that the show was happening. It started out with the guys in KILLSWITCH saying, "Let's do a few shows, and pay the bills." They were thinking it was going to be just a little bit, and it turned into a special thing, like, "Hey, you're not going to be able to see this again." When we were in New York and New England, Jesse (Leach) — who used to be in KILLSWITCH before Howard and sings in TIMES OF GRACE — came out and did a few shows, too.

San Antonio Metal Music Examiner: ALL THAT REMAINS is coming up on 10 years of the first record. What comes to mind when you reflect on the past decade, and where do you see the band 10 years from now?

Labonte: Oh, I don't know. To be honest with you, being in a band isn't what it was 10 or 15 years ago. It gets harder and harder to make a living. When you get older, you don't want to leave on tour as much just because you're never around. Gas is $5 a gallon, the music industry is at an all-time low for people buying CDs. People who think ALL THAT REMAINS is loaded, they're completely wrong. I've never made six figures. So I don't know if there will be another 10 years of ALL THAT REMAINS, but . . . (chuckles)

Read the entire interview from San Antonio Metal Music Examiner.