Thy Art Is Murder Tours 2017 Bring Me the Horizon Tour

Sat opposite me on a sofa that is far too low to the ground by anyone's standards, is The Purest Strain Of Hate Himself; CJ McMahon of Thy Art Is Murder fame, apologising for his sore throat… we can allow him off on that one though. Sat in a small-scale room in The Electric Ballroom ahead of what volition exist the biggest headline show of their career thus far, CJ is open and reflective on the band and deathcore, where the two intermingle, where both currently sit down in metal and where both are going. Read on for more.

So how is the Dearest Desolation bout going so far?

Honestly, it's great man. We had the first testify in Munich which was just shy of 1000 people, our biggest headline bear witness in Europe at that bespeak. Nosotros've had some big back up slots with Parkway Drive and Architects and festivals but it's comforting to know that we're still growing. Most of the shows on this tour take sold out or are real close to selling out which is just groovy, man. The record's done really well, the shows are sick and the crowds are the craziest they've ever been so information technology's a great feeling.

Yes, people are going crazy outside!

I gotta stay inside, man or I'll become chased downwardly the street! That'south all cool only I've got shit to do today. I don't get to hang out with fans every bit much as I used to or every bit much equally I desire to. The opening band Justice For The Damned are friends of ours from Australia and it'south their first time out of the country. To meet them see us equally beingness their friends and Australian and for our record to be doing so well, it'southward all peachy for them because they run into that they can achieve peachy things from what they're doing. It feels great to give that dorsum to a young band from our abode land.

How is the material from the new record going downwardly at these shows?

Information technology'southward going bang-up homo to be honest, before we released the tape we weren't sure how the crossover would be only there'southward 3 songs in particular from Beloved Desolation that when nosotros outset playing, you hear the crowd really reacting to it.

I know exactly what three songs y'all're talking nigh!

We have in-ear monitors now and microphones that option up the crowd sound and there'southward parts where I'grand looking down and clapping my hands and I can hear the roar from the crowd and I think "Aye, this is sick!". Honestly the last few months have felt like a dream, man.

It'southward actually doing quite well in the charts likewise, were you expecting anything like that?

No, we by and large don't take expectations for our releases at all then that we're not disappointed! At the same time, it'southward hard, especially with this tape where there's been a slight change in the sonic and emotional arroyo to it. It's been different to our previous releases so we weren't sure how people would take it. Nosotros were very charily optimistic about the whole thing. Nosotros knew it would do alright but we never knew it would get this well, that'due south for certain.

Then, it completes the Hate, War, Desolation, trilogy. When you were writing Hate was it a witting decision that y'all were going to map out the 3 albums like this?

No. When we wrote and recorded Detest, we were in the mindset that we were going to go to New York and spend all this money to exercise the record every bit well as we could. If it does shit, we're just going to break upward and go our separate style. That was genuinely the plan. We had had plenty. We loved information technology but we all lost our jobs because of the band and we didn't take any money so Detest was the final shot to see if we could do something cool. It ended upwardly blowing upward and then Holy Warwas a case of "Let'southward keep this railroad train running" and nowDear Desolation is "Permit's find where nosotros are as a grouping". Now the trilogy has washed equally well as it has, we've found what is truly us. That was the idea backside it and we did everything every bit best as we could. The feedback and the acclaim from it has been amazing. We never thought nosotros could get that well in the charts. We're very happy.

With the 3 albums all saying something a little different in the storyboard of the trilogy, was there much of a different process in the creation of Dearest Pathos to create a different story?

Well, we wanted to take something that was more than of a "real" record and I feel that Dearest Desolation is that. Lyrically, information technology'due south about real things, information technology'due south very politically driven though it also has usual side-elements of what we tend to write almost like anti-religious stuff. There'south the political movement of Trump's administration, the people that work for him and with him. "Burn down In The Sky" is about the Dakota access pipeline. We talked nearly things of a real nature and I think it feels more than devastating because it's fucking existent. This isn't about a demon coming up and destroying the earth and all of these mythological stories. These are real things happening and information technology's driven by real issues in the real globe by real people.

It seems that with these three albums, a story has been mapped out quite well. With the next album, will information technology follow this theme or are you going to attempt something else?

To be honest, man, the thought hasn't even crossed our minds. At this stage, nosotros're not going to be thinking most that stuff for at least some other yr. Nosotros go into the mindset of writing to write nearly a month or two before nosotros become to record where we kickoff gathering ideas for lyrics and riffs. So in that location'll be a few months where Sean and Marsh will write riffs and me and Marsh volition work on lyrical content. Having just done a new tape though we don't want to think most anything new for at to the lowest degree another 12 months! We're similar: "That's it, nosotros're fucking drained!". By the end of writing and recording a new Thy Art record there's e'er a few days where we're like "Where do we get adjacent? What tin we write virtually?" similar a writers block so I think information technology'due south best for u.s.a. to let information technology happen organically when nosotros need to.

I've got to ask the dreaded deathcore question. Beloved Pathos feels like some other pace away from deathcore whether that was purposeful or non. With Suicide Silence similarly distancing themselves from the genre, where do y'all call up information technology's future lies? It feels like two of its biggest bands have jumped send…

Yep. It's a foreign thing. I fully respect what Suicide Silence were trying to practise. I think their goal and vision was amazing but I too think they had the wrong producer guiding them in the incorrect direction with their vision. And with all the bullshit that Eddie is running his oral cavity about us, it'southward just jealousy, 12-yr-sometime fucking bullshit. Information technology'south sad because we used to exist practiced friends simply now I just don't requite a fuck. I fully respect what they were trying to do just they didn't pull it off. Carnifex went: "Fuck this, we're gonna go a bit more blackness metal" and that's working for them. It's their natural progression and they're killing information technology. Whitechapel have always but been Whitechapel. They had their own sound and their own way and they impale it. I don't fifty-fifty know where nosotros're going! We're just doing what we want to do. I don't know what that is!

It'southward working!

[laughs] Yeah. It'due south working and information technology'south definitely something we wanted to attain. We wanted something dissimilar considering nosotros similar dissimilar things and we've taken elements from all of these different bands like Behemoth, Meshuggah, Gojira and at that place are hardcore elements from Poison The Well and Bleed Through. There's so many elements in this that make us who we really are. Nosotros bankrupt down a lot of things that nosotros knew worked for us in the past and we've got these new things that we've never touched on before. With me as a vocalist in that location's been accented screams in different places that required something other than just being brutally heavy. It'due south trying to be tastefully seductive with accents and things like that. In moving and readjusting things that we're adept at and that work for us, in a fashion we're branching out and I think deathcore has always left a sour taste in my mouth when people put u.s. into that category considering nosotros're very different to a lot of those bands. Deathcore as a subgenre is and then vast. At that place's so many bands in that realm but they all sound and then very different, like I was saying virtually Carnifex.

And so yous've got bands similar Chelsea Grinning too, where there are a few elements that tie it all together just everyone'due south got their own spin on it…

Exactly, and when people say "Oh what kind of band are you in?" We say "A metal band" or "A heavy metal band". We won't say "Nosotros're a deathcore band and we have elements of this." Fuck all that, nosotros're a fucking metal band and at the end of the day we play metal. I'm non a rapper or a punk, nosotros don't play reggae, nosotros're a heavy metallic band.

With deathcore being kind of directionless where it is, where exercise y'all think the side by side movement in metallic is going to come from?

Phwoar! Well I can't say because I've got something in the works only I don't desire to requite it away so I don't desire to answer the question [laughs]!

So, going back to the album. Some people have said that information technology was quite rushed to capitalise on your return…

No, not at all.

Not to whatsoever extent?

No, to be fair they had already begun writing by the time I came back so when Sean and Marsh started writing, it was way before nosotros started chatting about me returning. They had already written a few songs and they had a lot of riffs in the storage for whoever was going to front Thy Art Is Murder. Regardless of me coming back or not, musically, the tape would be the same. Vocally, I don't know but everyone has a different and unique sound to their voice and how they rhythmically do their lines. It could have ended up sounding completely different with the vocals only the tape as whole with the lyrical content and how the music was made would take been exactly the same whether I was at that place or non. To be off-white, I didn't actually accept very much to do with this tape lyrically. Phrasing and patterning-wise information technology had a lot to do with me and Marsh sitting downwardly and going "Information technology could be said like this" and I'd say "We tin can do that but on the last ii words I could practice it like this". I wrote a lot on Holy War and a flake on Hate but the least I wrote was definitely on Love Pathos. The credit for that goes to Sean and Marsh, our 2 guitarists and as well our producer Will Putney. I brought frontwards a lot of concepts for this tape and I wrote stories about the different songs which were and so cleaved downwardly into lyrics. That had a lot to exercise with it but I didn't exercise as much every bit I did on previous releases.

And where does "No Absolution" fit into all this? Was that a test of the waters for your return?

"No Absolution" was more than a instance of but writing a song for the fans because it had been a while since we released annihilation. Information technology was a dainty manner to tell the world I was back but too to say "Sorry we haven't released annihilation for a while, hither's a song for free"; more than to just tide fans over till we could bring Love Desolation into the world.

And lastly, in that location'due south a lot of themes in the album from "Slaves Across Death" being well-nigh anti-consumerism, "Man Is The Enemy" existence quite self-explanatory and "Puppet Mastery" on independence. What practice you want listeners to accept away from this record?

I never really desire anyone to accept away annihilation, I just want them to enjoy the music really. I don't want to push our agenda and beliefs on anyone considering that's exactly what we stand against. With political infrastructures being nigh moving political campaigns to pressurise ignorant people. The same agenda-pushing happens in faith. We're just singing about the things nosotros believe in and if people are only coming to the show and take no thought what we're about and they're just enjoying the music and the stage presence, that's enough for me. I'thou not trying to force anything on anybody else. If they really wanna get involved and then that's great also but really I want people to come and say "That's a real fucking ring", "That ring is heavy, they play perfectly tight, their vocalist is incredible. The fashion they motility, the mode they act etc".

I want them to walk away from the experience of "That'south what a live show should be about" and every bit far equally our agenda goes and the lyrical content, if people want to bound on board then that's cool. Nosotros've got a lot of religious fans around the world which is very surprising and that's what they're there for and I respect that more so than anything. Our belief structures are very different but they're in that location appreciating what we're doing and I appreciate them doing that so I don't desire anyone to accept annihilation abroad except for thinking "That ring is killer". If people walk out like that then I'm happy man!

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Source: https://www.moshville.co.uk/interview/2017/10/interview-cj-mcmahon-of-thy-art-is-murder/

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