JAMEY JASTA Talks New KINGDOM OF SORROW Album

Brendan Crabb (a.k.a. Spiritech) of PyroMusic.net recently conducted an interview with Jamey Jasta of HATEBREED and KINGDOM OF SORROW. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

PyroMusic.net: You perhaps had some more time to write and record [the second KINGDOM OF SORROW] album ["Behind the Blackest Tears"] than you did with your debut. Was it a more organic, natural process this time around?

Jamey Jasta: Yeah, it was just when I was inspired, I just kept pumping out the riffs and writing lyrics and sending them back to Kirk [Windstein, KINGDOM OF SORROW guitarist]. You know, he put his input in there on a couple of tunes, and it just happened really naturally. And here it is; I can't believe it's out. I'm actually looking at it right now; it's pretty crazy.

PyroMusic.net: You're looking at right now — can you tell us about the artwork concept for this album?

Jamey Jasta: Well, there's two different covers and they both kind of go with the theme of the first record. On the first record we had this like dark kind of knight figure and... we just wanted a really metal, dark, evil kind of looking guy to represent this fictional place that we're visiting, the kingdom of sorrow. That's what we mean that dark place, 'cause it's kind of like a fictional, alter-ego kind of creative thing. Musically, it's more melodic, it's more raw, it's more metal, it's more... it's just different for us, different type of lyrics, everything. So the art needed to be like that and kinda stays with the theme of the first record as well.

PyroMusic.net: There seems to be more variety on this record as well. Was this a conscious thing?

Jamey Jasta: Well, I think we were just listening to different stuff. When you do a side project it's kind of like emulating the bands that you look up to and that you love. We were both I guess listening to more SABBATH, PENTAGRAM, TROUBLE and just some different influences (ended up) on there, whereas on the first record I just think we were trying to maybe please DOWN and CROWBAR and HATEBREED fans too much. This time we didn't have to worry about the please the fans (that way).

PyroMusic.net: That said, I still think a lot of the people who liked your debut will still like this album. Were you pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out?

Jamey Jasta: Yeah, it's like we have our own sound now. I'm definitely having people tell me like, "I liked the heaviness of the first record better" and then I'll have people who are like, "I love this record, I didn't like the first record". So it's nice to get different feedback on it. You can't please everyone; you have to try to do whatever is genuinely inspired. Like, the only thing was if it gave us chills or it gave us a charge or it gave us a good feeling, we were only interested if it was inspired and genuine. So it's nice to kinda step outside your comfort zone and say, "Man, this is not what I would do (normally),but this is cool."

PyroMusic.net: Where did you derive your lyrical inspiration from for this album?

Jamey Jasta: Well, it's kind of split down the middle of stuff that's personal and then stuff that's just not even about me. So that's cool, 'cause it's nice to step away from yourself and just sing about other people or sing about situations that don't involve you. But then there's songs that are really personal, like "Salvation Denied" and "From Heroes To Dust". That's important to have in there, but at least in this band, there's no kind of like set subject matter, so there's all different topics on here. There's everything from forgiveness and taking a different look at yourself, but then there's also songs about violence and corruption, witch-hunting and those kinds of things. They're also often things I can't sing about in my other bands.

PyroMusic.net: Is that a release, to have that creative outlet, whereas with HATEBREED you are surely restricted in what you can and can't write about?

Jamey Jasta: Yeah, totally. With KINGDOM, the first record there were like songs about relationships and both of our daughters, there's songs about drug abuse, there's songs that are really personal, kind of introspective ones. So with this record, we wanted to have that, because people have that connection, but then we also didn't want to... we wanted to do some other stuff. I mean, there's a song called "Envision the Divide", which is basically about the effect that music has once a person who created it has passed away, and kind of like influences a lot of other musicians from beyond the grave. We were talking about that, that whole like, we wouldn't have this on a CROWBAR or a HATEBREED record, it just wouldn't fit within the themes of our records. That was cool, just to do go outside of that.

Read the entire interview from PyroMusic.net.