CHIMAIRA Frontman: 'We Have Accomplished Every Goal We've Ever Set Out For'

Brian Fischer-Giffin of Australia's Loud magazine recently conducted an interview with vocalist Mark Hunter of Cleveland, Ohio metallers CHIMAIRA. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

Loud: ["The Age Of Hell"] is quite surprising considering what the band was going through at the time.

Hunter: Well, it's a testament to the listener that no matter how shitty things are, you can go forward. You can create your own roadshow. And if you want it bad enough, you'll get it. So I mean we wanted to make the best album we could, we wanted to make it worthy of the name CHIMAIRA and everything that happened sucks, but you gotta move forward.

Loud: CHIMAIRA seems to be a band that's always moving forward in any case. Comparing the first couple of albums to the most recent ones, there is definitely a lot of progression there.

Hunter: I think a lot of it comes from playing every night and touring and life experience. I think that we've always been one to put our soul into the music and our soul into the live performance. We don't ever half-ass it. And we might disagree on the bus and have some tiffs and have some bullshit going on, but all that stuff is a distraction. Our eyes are always on the prize of making a great album, play the best concert you can, and the fans will appreciate that. That's it.

Loud: And just how are the new guys (Emil Werstler - bass, Sean Zatorsky - keys, Austin D'Amond - drums) working into the band?

Hunter: Excellent. There's always going to be a bit of energy to have new faces around. Life is just a series of relationships, you know?! Male or female, you get together, you've broken up, you get a new lover and whoa! "This is new, this is exciting, I've never experienced this before." There's so many pros to bringing in new people and to us, it was important that we brought in guys that were our friends. You gotta live with these people for over a year and a half, so that can be difficult.

Loud: You said earlier that your career could be called "the age of hell," but what would you say would be a clear highlight that stands out for you?

Hunter: To be honest, we have accomplished every goal we've ever set out for. To look back on that is truly mind-blowing. We have played with every single band we grew up listening to, with the exception of maybe a few that weren't around anymore. Sharing the stage with METALLICA, MAIDEN, ANTHRAX, MEGADETH... Every band we grew up with. SABBATH, Ozzy, SABBATH with Dio, SABBATH with Ozzy. I've seen Robert Plant walking in backstage. I've lived the dream you know! Lived the dream and got to see the world.

Loud: So is there a goal that CHIMAIRA hasn't yet acheived?

Hunter: Maybe make money from it! (laughs) Maybe make a living? To be honest with you, I don't know. I just think to maintain a loyal fanbase and have it increase slow and steady is good for us. The ability to be able to travel and tour and play and create music... to me, like I said, everything else is a distraction and/or icing on the cake. So, hey, if METALLICA calls and says, "Hey, we wanna take you out", I tell you what, I'll be jumping up and down and crying and whatever else emotion you wanna put in. But other than tha,t I'm not gonna be too impressed (laughs).

Read the entire interview from Loud magazine.