JAMEY JASTA: 'Next HATEBREED Record Is Going To Be The Biggest, Best One'

Rick Florino of ARTISTdirect.com recently conducted an interview with Jamey Jasta of HATEBREED and KINGDOM OF SORROW. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

ARTISTdirect.com: Do you guys go back and forth between New Orleans and Connecticut to record [the KINGDOM OF SORROW album]?

Jasta: Yeah, I flew Kirk [Windstein] up in May of '05. When we got back from the UK tour, I just made it a point. We had toured for over five days. I said, "Let's not make this a drunken conversation that goes nowhere." I said to Kirk, "I will fly you out, I will get a studio, we can jam, I'll get musicians. Let's really make it happen." I got home and got held up with the label and the clothing line, and I was still doing "Headbanger's Ball" at the time. And he called me and said, "Yo, I'm ready. Let's do it." I was like, "Alright, let me fly you up." I flew him up, and we put a mobile ProTools rig in my friend Ryan's garage and started recording there. We just started rocking it.

ARTISTdirect.com: Was it more than one session or just that session?

Jasta: It was a lot of sessions. It lasted two or three weeks. We would riff out all day and jam all day. Our original drummer was Dave Russo, the original HATEBREED drummer. He was coming after work and would lay down beats. I would bring riffs that I had on my hard drive. I had a lot of stuff that was tuned to A and B that was very CROWBAR-inspired. I would just go to my local studio and riff out for a couple of hours, and I would keep it all for the archives in this hard drive. Kirk brought a lot of ideas to the table. We just started picking the riffs and parts that we felt had their own identity. We took a break, and he went home. I worked on all the vocals and stuff. Then Katrina happened, and CROWBAR was going to be out of the mix for a while. Their jam room was flooded. So I flew him back up, and that's when we decided to scrap the recordings that we had done above the garage. We just went full force like it was a big-budget record then.

ARTISTdirect.com: It seems like it still happened really quickly, given how much time you spent on it.

Jasta: Yeah, I mean the majority of the delay was caused by the label and by our schedules. Because it had been so long, I finished the record a year later in September. I keep forgetting the timeline, because there was a good portion of the year that the record was done, and we were just waiting to release it. Then we went back and changed a lot of stuff last minute too. I'm glad I had that opportunity to do that. I went to New Orleans, and I sort of engrossed myself in a different place. No phones, no computers. I drove around and looked at all the devastation. Even a year-and-a-half to two years after, there were still places that were totally demolished, and people were still displaced. It was good to kind of get a different outlook.

ARTISTdirect.com: Was it really fun bouncing riffs and vocals back forth with Kirk?

Jasta: It was so much fun. It was probably the most fun I've ever had in the studio. If I look back on the scenarios, you know, like on HATEBREED's "Satisfaction Is The Death of Desire", we had nine days to do everything. Our drummer was arrested at one point. We were freaking out. We had no budget. We had no hotels. It was not fun. Then on "Perseverance", we knew Lou was going to quit the band. He was showing up late, he didn't come to practice. He never even recorded on that record. And there was turmoil in the studio. It was a huge-budget record, and we were with a big producer. We had to follow up this huge record. We had to prove we were going to still come up as hard as hell and make a great sounding record. There was pressure there on "The Rise of Brutality". And then on "Supremacy", there was just so much pressure. With this, I would drink beer with Kirk. He would come up with a riff, and I'd come back with something, there was no stress. It was just fun and creative from start to finish.

ARTISTdirect.com: What's next for HATEBREED? Are you going into the studio later this year?

Jasta: Yeah, I think it would be good to get another thanksgiving and Christmas time to be at home again. This last year was the first time in the last nine years that we were home. So this year is the same deal, we're going to be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas and probably Halloween too. End of October/November to December, we'll probably get into the studio, but already Beattie's got a ton of ideas, I've got a ton of ideas. HATEBREED's ahead of the snake. HATEBREED's my number one priority. I can't wait to do another record. I'm really pumped. I know we have a better record in us than "Supremacy", although I love the record and I still listen to it, and I enjoy it, I know I have a better vocal performance in me, especially after being able to do what I did in KINGDOM. I just feel like this next HATEBREED record is going to be the biggest, best one, I really do, I feel like now there's more. I just think it's bigger and connecting more than it ever has just from the last live shows, and especially the last European tour where we broke the record for the biggest hardcore show ever in the world. I think it was like over five thousand people for us, AGNOSTIC FRONT and IGNITE, and that's just incredible. It's just insane — five thousand people singing every word — it's just unreal.

Read the entire interview at www.artistdirect.com.