Guitarist ROB ARNOLD On The 'Resurrection' Of CHIMAIRA

Guitarist Rob Arnold of Cleveland metallers CHIMAIRA recently took time out from his busy touring schedule with DIVINE HERESY, TERROR and KATAKLYSM to sit down with MetalSucks to discuss what fans can expect on the band's current tour, their newest album, "Resurrection", and their recently cancelled European trek. An excerpt from the chat follows:

MetalSucks: You guys have actually spoken pretty openly about a lot of the problems you've had on the last couple of tours, and especially on the tour right after the self-titled album came out. Do you feel like you've worked past those problems now? Do you feel like the "resurrection" of CHIMAIRA is continuing?

Arnold: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. This particular break was due purely to exhaustion, whereas with the self-titled tour, there was just a lot of animosity with guys not getting along with Kevin [Talley, drums] and feeling betrayed by the label [Roadrunner], if you will, and things like that, so it was just a general sense of, just, "Fuck this." Whereas this little break wasn't like that at all, it was just about taking a little time off.

MetalSucks: This album is being really well received, it seems like. We saw you guys in New Jersey a few months ago on Sounds of the Underground, and the crowd had been dead all day, and then you guys came on and suddenly it was like — Vince got hit in the face within fifteen seconds, people were just going nuts.

Arnold: Sorry about that (laughs).

MetalSucks: So do you feel still feel really enthusiastic about this record?

Arnold: Yeah. Y'know, I think people like it and stuff, and that's cool. And really, y'know, you start out doing a lot of support tours like [Sounds of the Underground] to put in the ground work, and then you get to do a tour like this where you come and headline — we haven't headlined since the self-titled record, y'know, 'cause we've been doing a lot of supporting tours, so you come out here and do a headlining tour to kind of gauge the success, to see if the work you've done supporting is gonna pay off or not, and whether you want to continue to headline, or go back to the drawing board and start supporting again or make a new record again and everything, so it's kind of this month coming up that will really give us an indication of, y'know, if what we've done has been paying off.

MetalSucks: So something else we gotta ask you: the song "Six". We think that song's a fuckin' masterpiece, it's just a monster. Why the hell is it called "Six"?

Arnold: I can't tell you that.

MetalSucks: C'mon, dude!

Arnold: It's not that I don't want to do tell you, but I have no idea. I have no idea. It's the kind of thing where maybe I asked Mark [Hunter, CHIMAIRA vocalist] once, like "Six? What does that mean?" And he was just, like, [makes a dismissive farting noise], or something, I don't know. I honestly don't know.

Read the full transcript at this location.