Here's War of Ages singer Leroy Hamp talking about working in the studio with As I Lay Dying singer Tim Lambesis, who produced WOA's fifth album Arise and Conquer. The disc, which came out last week, is the follow-up to 2007's Fire From the Tomb:
"When I heard Tim Lambesis was getting into producing records, I wanted to work with him. I didn't think it would be possible for us, scheduling-wise, because of how busy he tends to be. We asked our label and management about the possibility and they contacted him. He said he would be stoked to make it happen!
We didn't know whati t would be like at first because we were like, "Okay, he's a singer, but can he help arrange songs? What kind of ideas will he have about the music?" We had never worked with a full-on producer before, so we knew we had to be open to ideas and suggestions, however we didn't know what he was going to bring creatively to the table.
We had our own way of structuring our songs and they never quite came out as full as we wanted them to be. However, collaborating with Tim seemed to bring out everything we ever wanted in an album. He sat us in the practice room and re-structured songs with us and we even wrote two in the studio with him.
Musically, this album is way more metal and less hardcore than our previous albums. One thing even Tim has said about our album is that he likes the fact that we use the Swedish metal kind of attitude in our music; however, it's very heavy. We take it a little heavier than most Swedish metal, which is pretty cool because I like the heavier stuff and he likes the more melodic. So, the combination of the two ended up working out really well.
We didn't use any studio tricks; we've never really been fans of that kind of stuff. One thing we've always said is that if we can't pull it off live than we shouldn’t do it at all. Overall, Tim and his engineer Daniel Castelman were very easy to work with. Their input musically was a great help to us in our overall writing process."
Lyrically, Arise and Conquer is about all the crap that life throws at you from the moment of conception. One thing I want to put across to the kids is that without pain, suffering and hurt there would be no love. No matter what's happened in our past we must continue to look forward. Don't be a slave to yourself or your past.
Good advice. Now, until we can get a new video from the band, here's "Strength Within."
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