SHADOWS FALL Frontman Says New Album Is 'More Aggressive' And 'Immediate'

Chad Bowar of About.com recently conducted an interview with SHADOWS FALL frontman Brian Fair. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

About.com: What led you to release "Retribution" on your own label?

Brian Fair: A lot of things led that way. It began with us coming through every cycle of the music industry since our beginning. We self-released our first album, then we spent years at Century Media, which was a great independent label that was growing at the time. Then we had the major label experience with Atlantic. So we've pieced together through all our experiences how we want to do everything. Having the leverage of being a band for ten years with a decent track record and a good following, we were able to work the dream deal. We just found a distributor that had the major label strength to put the record in stores. Then we hired Ferret Records to do the promotions. But at the end of the day we had the final say and input on every decision made, from little things to big things. It's really to us how we've always wanted to work it. Also, at a time when record sales are diminishing and labels may be losing some of that traditional power they had, it's easier for us to stay focused on having a peer to peer style in our approach, where we're reaching out to OUR fans, not trying to blanket things we know are unnecessary. And we are changing the business model of how we get paid and keeping ownership of the record and publishing so it's in our hands as opposed to being owned by a label.

About.com: Is this the first album where you'll own the masters?

Brian Fair: All of our deals had a clause where we do own the masters at some point in the future, but this is the first time where out of the gates it's our record. That's opposed to the traditional trickle down of royalties, where everything gets recouped, everyone else gets paid, and the fractions of cents left are sent to the band. We flipped that upside down since we are officially the label. Like any business, the labels have a bottom line and are trying to make a profit. Now us making a profit only benefits the band. None of those decisions will be in lieu of our career. That's a nice feeling. Of course, a label will always tell you they are doing things in your best interest, but now we actually know.

About.com: "Retribution" isn't a dramatic departure sound-wise for SHADOWS FALL, but it does seem a little more intense than the last album.

Brian Fair: It's more aggressive, maybe a little more immediate. The songs come right out of the gates and are unrelenting, where with "Threads Of Life" we had just come off tour with bands like IRON MAIDEN and JUDAS PRIEST and were in that very grandiose, big-hook songwriting stage, which was awesome. I think we're in more of a thrash metal, technical style. I think a lot of that had to do with us writing the songs in the practice space all together at full volume. It wasn't like we were sending audio files back and forth and messing around on computers and listening to each other's ideas. We were jamming them out, which probably added more energy out of the gate.

About.com: You went back to using Zeuss as your producer for this CD. What do you like about his producing style?

Brian Fair: Zeuss knows us and the bedrock of our sound better than anyone. He's been there since our earliest of days. Even though he didn't produce the last record he mixed it, so he was still involved in the process. He gets amazing guitar tones, great drum sounds, really knows how to get us to play our best because he knows everyone's skill level so well and knows what you can do and won't settle for any less than that. This is also the first record where we did vocals elsewhere. It originally came up as a time constraint thing, because Zeuss had signed on to do the MUNICIPAL WASTE record. We couldn't physically finish the record with Zeuss at his studio. So we went to Virginia and did vocals with Michael "Elvis" Baskette. It was amazing. He's got an incredible studio right on the beach, tucked away in this little spot. You're isolated and locked in with this amazing gear. He's listened to our band, but we've never worked together. He didn't know where we thought our limits were, so he started thinking beyond them and pushing us to try things that we wouldn't have thought of, because you get stuck in a comfort zone. He's got a great ear for harmonies. I think having someone that understood our sound like Zeuss, and then bringing in a fresh set of ears as well, really gave us the best of both perspectives and added to a very cohesive record that helped us retain our identity, but pushed our sound to new places.

Read the entire interview at About.com.