DIVINE HERESY Singer: Our Drummer Is 'Far More Technical And Faster' Than RAYMOND HERRERA

Justin Donnelly of Australia's The Metal Forge recently conducted an interview with DIVINE HERESY frontman Tommy Cummings. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

On the recording process for "Bleed The Fifth":

"In February 2006, I moved to Los Angeles to be a full time part of this band. The moment I hit Los Angeles, we went into the studio and then started writing songs for the album. We recorded our own demos for around a month, and then in March, we went into Logan Mader's (former MACHINE HEAD/SOULFLY guitarist) studio and officially started recording the album's demo tracks. I think we recorded four songs the first time around, and then five songs in the second session. So by the time we'd gone in to record the record, we'd already recorded demo tracks to all the songs on the album, and we already knew what we wanted to do with them. We knew the changes that we wanted to make, and I think it was just an issue of wanting to get the tones correct. We wanted the drums, the guitars and just everything else on the album to sound perfect. We wanted 'Bleed The Fifth' to be an album of real quality, and not just a good sounding demo. Mader and (Lucas) Banker (who are collectively known as the production team Dirty Icon Productions) really gave us a great sound. Mader is amazing as a producer and an editor. He knows the sound that we we're going for, so it made it work all the better. I think Mader is really on a roll at the moment. He just finished working with STILL REMAINS, and I think he's working on a new project with Marc Rizzo, Max and Igor Cavalera next. So he's pretty much in demand these days. Overall, it all ran rather smoothly, and we're all happy with 'Bleed The Fifth'."

On the group's songwriting process:

"Basically I wrote all the lyrics on the album, but there was around thirty percent of the album where Cazares and I discussed over in order to get our feelings and inspirations together on. To give you an example, 'Failed Creation' was like a collaborative idea. We were watching a documentary on the History Channel about The Book Of Revelation, the Antichrist and the end of the world, and then basically switching to CNN and taking notice of the obvious comparisons. We thought it would be cool to suggest that it might be the end of the world now with basically the war, all the terrorist activity and the natural disasters like tsunami's and hurricanes that have been going on in recent times. We were just kind of playing on the tragedies of the world and comparing them to The Book Of Revelation in the Bible. We used a lot of religious metaphors elsewhere on the album as well. There are a lot of other lyrical influences as well. There are songs like 'Savior Self' and Impossible Is Nothing, which are kind of like positive reinforcement statements. They're songs where you can take the negative aspects of life out of the equation, and you persevere and you push through and come out the other side a better person. The lyrics are kind of like life lessons, and they apply to everyone in the band differently. Obviously, I think Cazares would say that he could take some of those positive messages and apply them to making the transition from not being in FEAR FACTORY anymore to doing this new project now and coming out stronger. It's the same with Yeung and me as well. We feel the same way about having dropped everything, leaving behind our past lives and moving to Los Angeles to make things better with our lives. Those songs are written in a way that's vague enough so that anyone listening can apply it to their own life. We all go through struggle, and we all go through hardship, and that's the tone of those songs. You know, there are also some personal things on the album too. The last song at the end of the record is called 'Closure', and it's basically about dealing with my abandonment issues from being adopted, the things that I've gone through in my life and living with the question of never knowing my origins. It's very therapeutic, as well as cathartic for me."

On cmparisons to FEAR FACTORY:

"Of course there's going to be a comparison between the two bands. I mean, Cazares has a signature sound. I think that sound is always going to be a part of DIVINE HERESY's sound, but there's also a difference between the two bands as well. I think Cazares took his playing to another level on 'Bleed The Fifth'. The riffs are constantly changing, and I think the playing has become more technical sounding. I think that's because he has both him and Yeung are very locked in. Yeung, in particular, is a big part of that technical aspect of DIVINE HERESY too. I think he's far more technical and faster drummer than Raymond (Herrera, FEAR FACTORY drummer) is, and I think that shines through."

Read the entire interview at The Metal Forge.