GOD FORBID Guitarist: 'Our DVD Is F**King Incredible'

MetalSucks recently had the opportunity to sit down with GOD FORBID guitar player Doc Coyle on the New York stop of their Stillborn Fest tour with HATEBREED, AGNOSTIC FRONT, NECRO, AT ALL COST, and SHAI HULUD. Doc went into detail about what to expect from the band's upcoming DVD release, the band's currently in-the-works album, the art of metal showmanship, and insight into the band's writing process. An excerpt from the chat follows:

MetalSucks: 2008 seems like it's gonna be a big year for you guys. You've got the DVD coming out. Is there any update on that?

Coyle: DVD is pretty much done. We pretty much just need to finish up the editing of the documentary. The concert is pretty much done too. We have to do the menus, and kind of get the final cut on everything. But I'll tell you, the DVD is fucking incredible. Honestly it's one of the best metal DVDs I've ever seen. It came out even better [than the show]… honestly we were so nervous, we didn't know what to expect. We knew the crowd was really good, and that, you know, it went so fast that we just didn't really know what to think. We were just happy with the turnout and everything just seemed like it went really smoothly. But when we went back and looked at all the footage, it looks fucking epic, the look of the whole DVD. We had Eric Rachel who did our last couple of records record it and mix it and it sounds incredible. We're actually gonna release a companion disc with it, because it sounds amazing. We're not the hugest band in the world so I don't know how many people are gonna buy it, but hopefully word of mouth will spread it. At least the people who buy it will pick it up and say, "Damn, that was worth the 15 or 20 or whatever bucks I spent on it."

A lot of bands put out some shitty DVDs. I'm not gonna name any names. But ones where you they shot it with their momma's 1984 VHS, them hangin' out backstage, them prankin' each other and throwin' up on each other and downing beers. It's like… that shit's cool, but we wanted to have a great concert. 'Cause I know when I was a kid I couldn't afford to go to the concert. I watched "Live Shit Binge and Purge" [METALLICA]! That's how a lot of people who have never seen you before are gonna learn about your band, and what it might be like to go to one of your concerts. And we also wanted to show the personality of the band. A lot of people talk about how when they tour with us we're a cast of characters, we're off the wall. A lot of bands bring us on tour 'cause they like hangin' out with us. So we wanted to kinda show people who didn't know us personally what we're all about. And also the story of our band… it's a very interesting story. It's not like a typical success story — like, if you watch the KILLSWITCH DVD it's like, "We did this, and it was amazing. And then we did this, and it was more amazing. And then we got big, and then we got rich!" I mean whatever, they're not, who knows how much money they have. But I'm just saying it's all great stuff, and with us it's like yin and yang — it'll be good, we've had good stuff happen to us and we've had bad stuff. The tale of a struggling, working band, in the fight, but not where they wanna be.

Our shit, the thing about it is it makes us look a lot bigger than we are! The show, the lights looks crazy, we had ten cameras and a fuckin' crane. It was a big show, so it just looks good. We're really happy with it.

MetalSucks: We were talking to Brodsky [Dave Brodsky, director] about it and he was over the moon about it.

Coyle: I can't believe how well it came out. The documentary is fucking incredible. Lex Halaby did it, he did KILLSWITCH's documentary. But ours is just so much edgier. We talk about the race thing, and just the struggles of our band. The shit is the REAL shit. It's fuckin' hilarious. People who are fans of the band are gonna be really stoked on it. Hopefully it'll come out and build some hype before the CD.

MetalSucks: And how far along are you with the new album?

Coyle: We're actually pretty far along. We have three songs compeletly done. We're still tinkering, you know, it's never done till it's done. But we've probably got another 10 or 12 that are almost done or half done, and probably another dozen ideas we haven't even gotten to yet. But we have another two months of straight-up writing and preproduction and we go into the studio in March. It's coming along really well. Sometimes you get so wrapped up in working on it that you don't even know how good it is and how people are gonna react. We've shown some people the songs we've done, and it's been an overwhelming response so far… it's a lot different.

MetalSucks: How so?

Coyle: We're just doing different… trying different types of song. We're not tied into a formula. One song we have, it sounds like a DIMMU BORGIR song. One song sounds like OPETH. Then we've got more stuff like "To the Fallen Hero", more hook-oriented stuff too. And some really technical stuff. Some super, heavy slow stuff. In a way not being a massive band like KILLSWITCH or LAMB OF GOD or SLAYER, you don't have as much to risk as far as trying different things. I don't know, we're trying to make an impact.

Read the entire interview at www.metalsucks.net.