CHIMAIRA Talks To CLEVELAND SCENE About New Album

D.X. Ferris of the Cleveland Scene recently conducted an interview with CHIMAIRA frontman Mark Hunter and rhythm guitarist Matt DeVries about the group's forthcoming fifth album, "The Infection", which is set for release on April 21 via Ferret Music. The new record will arrive in five different versions: a songs-only download, a CD with a making-of bonus DVD, a box set, a vinyl version and a special edition with b-sides (one of which may be a cover of STATE OF CONVICTION's "Convictions", which CHIMAIRA recorded with STATE OF CONVICTION singer Jason "J Mann" Popson).

A few excerpts from the Cleveland Scene interview follow below.

Cleveland Scene: What's the new album like?

Hunter: The album is a little slower than people might be expecting. It's at this groove tempo where the whole time you can't stop bobbing your head. Some of the songs are "Venom Inside", "Secrets of the Dead", "Destroy and Dominate". There's one song in particular I think Cleveland fans will enjoy: It's called "The Heart of It All". We're no stranger to doing instrumental songs. And as we were writing it, I kept thinking, "Wow, it sounds like Cleveland to me." It's long, epic.

DeVries: I've been super-stoked on everything, and we're proud of everything. But for this record, it's a different kind of taste, and it's a different kind of stoked. Every single song is catchy to us and has a lot of groove and has a lot of CHIMAIRA in it.

Hunter: All the lyrics and vocals were improvised, for the most part. I came in with nothing. I work really well when there's a gun to my head. Some of my best songs I freestyle, and it's perfect the first time. And if you're not recording, you lose it. The underlying theme, I guess, is being put in the worst point at your life and how you deal with that situation.

Cleveland Scene: How is that different from "Resurrection"?

Hunter: "Resurrection", we were thinking very much about the band, the band persevering and getting off Roadrunner and people saying we'd be finished. This is more personal.

Cleveland Scene: What's "Destroy and Dominate" like?

Hunter: Heavy and sludgy. The best description I heard of it was "like you got hit really hard and you're getting dragged through the mud for four minutes."

Cleveland Scene: Matt, what are your favorite songs from it?

DeVries: "Secrets of the Dead". It's kind of a roller coaster of groove-slash-thrash. "The Heart of It All" is a song where we kind of fused all our influences into one.

Cleveland Scene: You were going to record with some bigger names, but you decided to stay home and record with Ben Schigel. What did he contribute?

DeVries: Ben's got a brilliant musician's ear. When we started pre-production, we were dissecting our songs. There were a couple of songs he hadn't heard yet, and he would change the verse to the chorus and vice-versa. And we listened to it, like, "Wow, that made all the difference in the world."

Hunter: He had to virtually become the second singer of the band. Working how it was — zero lyrics, zero ideas — if I'm stuck on a part, I need somebody that's going to complement that. He was the other half of me. We would work six, seven, eight hours a night for three weeks straight. We had good riffs, but the riff's only as good as the song is.

Cleveland Scene: The last couple of albums have been strong, but to me, they didn't have the kind of memorable songs that you can hum.

Hunter: I think that has a lot to do with the tempo. We write really heavy riffs, but it needs to be slowed down a little bit so people can hear the riff and feel the power, instead of being like an axe to the face the entire time. You can still have that feeling, but it will be that much more drastic if you bring it down 20 bpm. And once I had more breathing room and could sing a little slower, my tone got way more aggressive.

Cleveland Scene: How long is the album?

Hunter: About an hour. Some songs are around three minutes, some are around ten. I would say the songs are on the shorter side this time. Most are in the three- or four-minute range.

Read more from the Cleveland Scene.