CHIMAIRA Guitarist: 'We're Happier Than We've Ever Been'

Ellen Gager of Midwest Excess recently conducted an interview with CHIMAIRA guitarist Matt DeVries. A couple of excerpts follow:

Midwest Excess: With "Resurrection" having just come out in March, are you pleased with the reception that it's gotten?

DeVries: Yeah, actually we couldn't be happier right now. We broke the Billboard Top 50, and we've never done that from the first week's sales, so we were surprised. And all of the reception has been great. We're playin' the new songs live and the reviews have been amazing from different magazines, so I'm pretty stoked. Gonna ride it out.

Midwest Excess: Was there any difference with the writing process on this one as compared to your previous albums?

DeVries: Yeah, I think different from the last one especially. Rob, it was pretty much his concept to write most of the self-titled record, whereas this one was pretty much equal between myself, Mark, and Rob, with writing, and I think everyone else putting in their two cents. And then we did something that we've never done, we kind of wrote on our own and had our own little ProTools rigs and kinda sent MP3s back and forth and didn't really get together with it for a little bit, just a head start towards the end of the last tour cycle, so it was cool.

Midwest Excess: With all of the changes you've had, like splitting from Roadrunner, teaming up with Ferret and Nuclear Blast, changing drummers, things are starting to settle down at this point, right?

DeVries: Yeah.

Midwest Excess: Has it all proven to be positive experiences?

DeVries: Yeah, it's kinds funny 'cuz everyone's like, "Wow, what a …" It's not negative record, but a very mean tone, mean…even the melodies are kind of dark, but we're happier than we've ever been, so kids expect us to be just bummed out, but I think it's, you know, that's our outlet, which music has always been. But at this point, yeah, we couldn't be happier as everything turned out to be positive. In the long run.

Midwest Excess: Does the title itself, "Resurrection", have anything to do with the kind of rebirth of the band, or is that something that's completely non-related?

DeVries: No, it's 100%. You nailed it. We just think that we're rejuvinized [rejuvenated] and then it is kind of a rebirth, seeing as far as everything we've said with Andols back and the new label, new producer, new…you know, kind of a new outlook on everything. Like with this record, when we were writing together, we were just having fun, just like we used to before we were worrying about a label, or numbers, or trying to top the last record or anything. Writing exactly what we want. If people didn't like 'em, kind of an F.U.-type attitude, so it was cool.

Read the entire interview at Midwest Excess.