SHADOWS FALL Frontman: Being Signed To A Major Label Was 'A Great Experience'

Bryan Reesman of Attention Deficit Delirium recently conducted an interview with vocalist Brian Fair of Massachusetts metallers SHADOWS FALL. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Attention Deficit Delirium: The new album ["Retribution"] is more melodic and has many acoustic sections, and you're singing more. How are your hardcore fans reacting to this maturing musical shift?

Fair: I think it's something that they've always heard anyway. We've always had melodic moments, since the first record and since even the demo days. I think it's always been an intrinsic part of our sound. But there are probably some people that if they were only into the extreme moments may not be as into some of [the other stuff], but at the same time you've got to make music that's a balance of your influences. We're just as much into arena rock and big, anthemic stuff as we are into thrash and melodic death metal, so you've got to be true to your own influences.

Attention Deficit Delirium: In the past you have spoken about how your lyrics explore Eastern philosophy, and you live a vegetarian lifestyle. With groups like SHADOWS FALL and vegan death metal band CATTLE DECAPITATION, do you think that some of the fans hear the message in the music? Or do you think that they're just into the aggression?

Fair: Some will, but some are just going to be in for the sonic reasons, like they just love the way it sounds. That was like that for a lot of hardcore back in the day. There were always messages behind it, but half of the audience was into it and the other half just wanted to jump on top of each other and go crazy during the show. Back in the day you'd see kids that you knew were wasted drunk with leather jackets on singing to EARTH CRISIS, a straight-edge vegan band. They were obviously not in tune with the message, but they were feelin' the riffs. It's funny for me to see that.

Attention Deficit Delirium: Do you find it ironic that people would be moshing to a song with a more peaceful or introspective message?

Fair: I always loved that, too. Like a song from our new record, "War", which has lyrics from a speech by Haile Selassie that was used By Bob Marley before, but it's the most brutal song on the record. So it's this song about brotherhood and unity with an anti-racism message just being screamed at you. But I've always loved that dichotomy in hardcore to begin with. Even old thrash metal would have these very political or environmental lyrics — NUCLEAR ASSAULT had "Critical Mass", which is a song about saving the earth and going green, but it's screamed at you over thrash [riffs]. I've always loved that kind of duality.

Attention Deficit Delirium: You released one album on a major label. What was that experience like, and why did you switch to releasing the new album on your own label?

Fair: It was honestly a great experience, but one big obstacle we ran into was the major labels started being affected by the shift in record sales and the economy being so poor. They're more used to spending a ton to get results, whereas we're a band that's all about being as cheap as possible. We grew up as a D.I.Y. metal band, so we're about just skimming by and getting it done. Unfortunately they started downsizing, and suddenly everyone who signed us at the label was gone, so we were left without our team. We signed an option and were able to renegotiate that option to where we actually still have a deal with Warner Bros. for distribution, but we now own the record. It worked out perfectly. They hire Ferret Records to do the everyday promotions, so we have a smaller, thinking, D.I.Y. hardcore label to do the everyday work that before was being done by the major label staff that may have never understood this well. But we still have the major label presence at retail. So we're using their strengths but also using smaller label strengths for a band like us. That's what we need more. We know what works for us. We're more of a peer-to-peer kind of band — going out and spreading the word on the road and direct through our message boards and websites and Twitter. We don't need some of the major label mechanics behind it because that's not how we operate, [with] a big video, a big single. We don't have singles.

Attention Deficit Delirium: Some people argue that metal bands, especially extreme metal bands, should not be a major label because they don't understand how to market those bands. It might be better for a metal band to be on a major indie.

Fair: Sometimes it can be. The [Warner] deal was worked out so well that it would have been silly not to take it. We had a chance to make one record at a great studio, so at the time it made total sense. We still moved over 100,000 records at a time when records aren't selling. It was great, but we realized what we could do if we own it, [which] changes everything. Now we own the record and the royalty rates shift. Before bands always got fucked. First everyone gets paid back, then everyone gets paid, and the band gets paid last. It's a trickle-down pyramid where you're at the bottom. Now we've taken that and switched it so everything you do to stay on budget and the money you spend you know is for the best of the band because you're the one who made that decision. The label is always going to tell you, "We're doing this in the best interest of the band," but they're doing it in the best interest of the bottom line. Now the bottom line is us, so it makes sense to do that. We know that it's for our best interest because we made every decision. It's a lot more work, but for bands like us who have been around for 10 years or more and have that kind of leverage to create a deal like this, it's the way to go because at this point if you haven't learned everything in the business then you weren't paying attention anyway. And if you have, you might as well use it to your advantage and put out your own music because you can do it these days.

Read the entire interview from Attention Deficit Delirium.