HATEBREED Frontman: 'The Level Of Success That We've Attained Is Baffling To Me'

Shawn Macomber of The Nashua Telegraph recently conducted an interview with HATEBREED frontman Jamey Jasta. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On the band's popularity:

"The level of success that we've attained is baffling to me. I try to keep old flyers and passes from our tours, and somewhere in that pile, I've got our ticket stubs from the Grammys. Just the idea that a band like ours could be at the Grammys is surreal."

On writing such dark anthems as "Betrayed by Life" and "Healing to Suffer Again":

"For me, there's no shortage of things to be angry about, even when things are going good in my personal or professional life. If you look at the news, things going on in America today . . . How else can you feel? The reason I got into hardcore in the first place was because it was a way for me to express myself and take a stand.

"What a lot of people outside the scene don't understand is that all this negative energy we're throwing out there does have a positive aspect to it. It's not aimless. Kids go crazy at the shows and get out their aggression, but at the end of the night, pretty much everyone leaves with a smile on their face.”

On how much the Connecticut hardcore scene meant to him in his early teens:

"Those early shows had such a huge, positive impact on my life. That's part of the reason why I work so hard with my band and label to get this music out to as many kids as possible. I would never want to try and keep the scene small or exclusive. I've always believed what we're doing here is bigger than that.

"If what we do changes someone's life for the better, even if it's only for the half hour we're onstage or the half-hour someone is listening to our record, then it's all worth it. I get mail all the time from 14- and 15-year-old kids telling me they just found 'Satisfaction is the Death of Desire', and it changed their lives. To know that HATEBREED was sort of their gateway into the hardcore scene is just amazing. It makes me feel as if I still have the same purpose I had in the beginning."

On the next HATEBREED record:

"We're trying to throw different tempos in to the mix. We're taken the ferocity of some of the fast parts and making them even faster. We're adding more thrash elements, but also going to the other extreme these slow, pounding, crushing guitar riffs. Basically, we're trying to take the intensity of what we normally do and just try and push it a little bit further."