ALL THAT REMAINS Singer: 'I'm Not Interested In Repeating Myself Over And Over And Over'

The Scream Queen of TheScreamQueen.com recently conducted an interview with vocalist Phil Labonte of the Massachusetts metal band ALL THAT REMAINS. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

TheScreamQueen.com: First of all, how does it feel to have debuted on the Billboard Top 200 list at #16 this week?

Phil: As a band with this style, you'd never expect it, ever. You know? Like getting started in bands, my first band was a full-on doom metal/rap metal band and that kind of stuff, so to think that we write stuff and play stuff that people would actually go out and buy. I mean, we sold a lot of records that week. You know, it's like, holy crap! No one goes out and buys records anymore! You know? It's awesome.

TheScreamQueen.com: What do you think has made you break into the Top 20 this week?

Phil: Probably just constant touring. I think that our record we wrote is good. I love this sucker; I mean, I'm real proud of it, I'm real happy with it. But what it really boils down to just being on the road a lot and touring a lot and being out there a lot. That's where bands get their name, really.

TheScreamQueen.com: Do you think that metal has made a "comeback" this year. I mean, you have METALLICA, SLIPKNOT, and then you guys all within the top 20 this week?

Phil: You know, maybe. I don't know, because you can never tell because metal is gone, or kind of on a on a downturn, and it often kind of changes. Whether you kind of like nu-metal or not, real metal kind of went away and then the next thing was nu-metal, you know what I mean?

TheScreamQueen.com: Before you formed ALL THAT REMAINS, did you think that you think that you'd ever make it to this level of success that you have now?

Phil: No, no. Because like I said, I was always playing in death metal bands. The biggest bands to me were like CANNIBAL CORPSE, CARCASS, GRAVE. I remember I saw GRAVE in 1995 and there were like 30 or 40 people at the show or something like that. I was flabbergasted — I was like WHAT?! This is the best band in the world — and to me they were the biggest band on the planet! And no one cared! You know, I would never think that the stuff that I do would ever be considered to be popular mainstream.

TheScreamQueen.com: Is there anything vocal-wise that you accomplished on "Overcome" that you didn't on "The Fall of Ideals"?

Phil: Yeah. "Overcome" was the first time that I had ever sung a song all the way through. On the other ALL THAT REMAINS records it was all screaming and singing thing and it was cool to do that, it was really fun. I really like singing and I've been screaming for a long time. I kind of am at the point where it's like you know, I get everything from being a brutal underground death metal band, to a hardcore-esque screaming band, but I've done all that stuff. I'm not interested in repeating myself over and over and over. Now I think, it's not that I'm saying that the next ALL THAT REMAINS record will be all singing — absolutely not, I don't think there will ever be a record that we put out that doesn't have screams on it. It never could work. At the same time, we don't want to continue to put out the same stuff.

Read the entire interview from TheScreamQueen.com.

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