Intro by Morgan Y. Evans
Interview by Christine Natanael
LINKS:
The new track “No Excuse”, currently on F5’s MySpace as the lead-off single, reunites Ellefson with the progressive and locked-in grooves of his former Megadeth cohort (and ex-Suicidal Tendencies, Alice Cooper, White Lion and Lita Ford drummer…to name a few) Jimmy DeGrasso, someone with whom Ellefson shares a special musical link. Along with this excellent new F5 material and the new Iced Earth album that re-teams John Schaffer with that band’s perhaps most fitting singer Matt Barlow, it looks like there is something in the air for old cohorts finding their way back to their unique and powerful metal bonds to pave new paths with solid foundations. In the case of F5’s new release, it really gels, as Ellefson and DeGrasso build a great backdrop for talented vocalist Dale Steel to drop his cool mix of accessible melody yet sharper themed and knowledgeable and searching artistic range on top of. This band of expressive individuals are going to carve themselves a nice little kingdom, regardless of past work’s accolades.
From spending time together on the road to balancing but allowing for their personal lives and the band to co-exist in their right times and places, F5 have grown as an outfit and returned strong. Inspired by traveling and turning an eye inward to face one’s faults to move beyond self pity to shake things up and punish yourself for things done wrong, among other themes, The Reckoning is a very real rock/metal disc that should inspire many people and hopefully get them concentrating on a band that uses artistry and musical competency in a beneficial, not-snobby, constructive way. Perhaps it is somewhat in part because of Ellefson’s current lifestyle as a family man and Christian yet one who is still very much a part of the world he has inhabited for decades, unlike, say, that guy from Korn who quit and just seemed to have become cuckoo for cocoa-puffs…not to judge!
The Reckoning will be out in mid-August via Oarfin Distribution and will be sure to turn heads, as the band did last time around opening for Staind and hitting the road like champs. This time out they are growing even louder and more elaborate, branching out more from F5’s earlier more basic rock sound. Regardless of what elements are in place, it is great to see an artist like Ellefson still so committed to and in love with creating new material, even with such a track record and such major contributions already to the genre he holds most dear. He’s even doing the Rock’n’Roll Fantasy camp tour these days with other life long hard rockers like Gilby Clarke!
Crusher’s own Christine Natanael talked with Ellefson about the
new F5 record and all manner of other subjects, from writing and drawing
on different sources to breaking apart preconceptions and musical should-and-should-not-listen-to-limitations.
The world is a collage and all good art reflects life’s multi-faceted
nature, and F5 are no exception, using it all to reach out and shake their
demons, document their lives and move forward into the unknown.
DAVID ELLEFSON: It’s a relaxed kind of day. I’m actually outside, so tell me if the wind is kind of blowin’ in the microphone here on the phone.
CHRISTINE NATANAEL: No, I don’t hear anything.
DE: Okay.
CN: So, you’re in New Jersey?
DE: Yeah. I’m in New Jersey. My wife grew up in the area, down the shore down here by LBI, Long Beach Island. We come back here usually every summer for about a month and just get out of the heat—because we live out in Arizona, in the Phoenix area, and it gets very, very hot back there. So, when the kids get out of school, we come back here and hang out down at the beach. It’s nice.
CN: Cool. Very cool. The beach sounds like fun today.
DE: Yeah.
No, we didn’t hit the beach today. It looks like we’re gonna
go later and hit some miniature golf and do some stuff. I’m startin’
this Rock’N’Roll Fantasy Camp tour on Wednesday. [July 30th]
I gotta be up in Boston to kick that off, so we’ve only got a couple
days left, and then we’re all kind of getting’ out of the
beach area, so…
CN: I know. I saw that on your MySpace. You’re actually gonna be here next Monday with that.
DE: Yeah. Yep, at Irving Plaza.
CN: So, who else is on that with you?
DE: The other “counselors” that are on it are Chris Slade, Kip Winger, Mark Slaughter, Glenn Hughes, Gilby Clarke…
CN: Oh, that sounds like fun.
DE: Yeah, it’s gonna be cool. Yep. Yep. It’s a lot of fun.
CN: That sounds like real fun. I should come down and take pictures of you guys.
DE: Yeah!
CN: Oh my gosh. I haven’t seen you since the tour for the first album.
DE: Yeah, for the Drug For All Seasons record? Yeah. No that was good. That was a good little run. It was nice to go out and do a run around the country get everybody—kind of get our feelers out there. I think in a lot of ways, it was the impetus to really help get everyone unified for writing this new album. So, sometimes a tour, you know, touring is where bands grow, you know? They either grow or they go. And in our case, we grew, I think, quite a bit, and were able to get onto the second record, which, has got, I think, a pretty good progressive move forward for us.
CN: So, tell me about the headspace you were in between the writing of the two [albums].
DE: Well, it’s interesting, because we wrote the
first one, the initial writing was 2003. We recorded it in ’04,
which meant we went through another, you know, final writing/pre-production
phase to really kind of rip the tunes apart with the producer, Ryan Greene,
and put everything in shape for the recording. You know, the record didn’t
release until ’05; we toured it ’05 into early ’07,
so a lot of years went by. You know, it doesn’t even seem like it’s
been that long, but a lot of time went by. So meanwhile, I think in ’06,
when we did the U.S. tour for the first record, when we were on the road
everybody was really—you know the road can really be a very creative
spot. I know it is for me, and it seemed like it was for F5, too. It seemed
like everybody was really inspired to start writing, and we would write
songs, take them in, rehearse them at soundcheck, and if they were pretty
up to snuff, we would just play them that night on stage and see how they
went. And a couple songs like “Cause For Concern” and “Control”
off the new record were born out of that initial phase of the songwriting.
And then we came off that tour and in the fall of ’06 we continued
another phase of writing and that’s where songs like “My End”
and the beginnings of like, “No Excuse” and maybe even “Through
Hell” and some of those songs came out of that phase of writing.
And then that went into ’07, we continued on as we were getting
the record deal in place, and I think that’s where songs like “Wake
Up” and “Love Is Dead”, even, and well, maybe “Wake
Up” and a couple of others came out of that phase. And then right
before we went in the studio, I mean, literally within days before we
went in the studio, a whole ‘nother batch of songs were written
like “Final Hour,” “Love Is Dead,” um, you know,
kind of finishing up “The Reckoning” as we wanted it. So there
was really about three or four different phases of writing that we went
through to put the record together. So, you know, I think the headspace
was always improving, and I think the more we were writing, the more we
would, “Yeah, let’s keep it going in that direction.”
And I think if anything, we, instead of broadening the scope, we started
narrowing it so that it was very specific and very—we really wanted
to make this a very searing metal record, and I think we accomplished
that.
CN: Right. Well, I know that lyrically it’s dark and vindictive and a lot of the songs are just very—go right to the bone.
DE: Yeah. I asked Dale, I said, “Who did you write these lyrics about because you’re obviously hating somebody really bad.” And he goes, “Oh, no. Those are about me.” [laughs]
CN: Really? I was going to ask you that.
DE: Because
I was asking, in particular, about “The Reckoning,” and he
said, yeah, “The Reckoning” is not like a—that’s
not like forgiveness and offering a sort of a burying of hatchets, “The
Reckoning” is the punishment of past mistakes of deeds. And so he
said, “When I’m singing ‘The Reckoning,’ basically
I’m singing that to me about past feelings of guilt or remorse.”
And I was like, “Interesting.” So Dale really did a good job
of writing his life. And it’s interesting because Dale went through
some big life transitions that really, quite honestly, started--the beginning
of the end for him was when I met him in 2002 when I was producing some
stuff for him, for his band that he had up in Minneapolis. And in ’03
he moved down to Phoenix to join F5, and through the making of the first
record, he was really fighting “personal demons”, we’ll
say, and was going through that, and I was able to help him transition
over into a new, cleaner life, let’s say. You know, he doesn’t
write about that, so much, in his lyrics, but I think musically he was
kind of inspired to kind of go back into his life on this record and write
about some experiences, again, kind of from first person, and anytime
he was taking a second person view, it was almost like he was writing
almost down to himself or down at himself, which I thought was an interesting
perspective as a lyricist to write an album from.
CN: Yeah, it is. It’s like self, internal conflict, like the dialogue you have in your head.
DE: Yeah, and I think what’s interesting about it is that he wasn’t going through these things, I mean, maybe a few things he was, but it was almost like he did a retrospective of his life and revisited a time in his life two or three or four or five years ago and wrote about that. You know sometimes when you hear a lyricist singing you know, “you” this and “you” that, usually it’s first person. The lyricist or the singer is lashing out somebody or the establishment or that kind of a perspective, but in this case, again, him, almost like he’s looking at himself in the mirror singing to himself.
CN: It’s a very cool perspective. So, now Dave [Small] has left the band and Jimmy [DeGrasso] has come into the band. How did all that happen?
DE: You know, that was an interesting transition. We found really, I think, on the road, you know, as we were writing new material, there were a couple of moments where there were some very heated battles where I think Dave wanted to be doing more writing, even lyric writing, and I know Dale got very personal about that. And I think it was because of the perspective of where Dale wanted the lyrics to come from, knowing he was going to be singing them, of course. And also the fact that, as a music was getting heavier and more progressive, I just think Dave kind of felt like maybe this wasn’t his home anymore, you know? So he actually offered to step down, which was kind of him to do, and immediately the guys in the band just looked at me and said, “Okay, call Jimmy DeGrasso.” [laughs] And I said, “Well, maybe we should think about auditioning some local guys.” Because Jimmy lives in the San Francisco area and we’re all out in Phoenix. And they said, “Look, whatever with that, just call Jimmy.” [laughs] And look, I’m all for working with Jimmy any time I can, and I was always, certainly, I was 100% about having Jimmy play in the band, but one thing about F5 is that it’s a creative process that was easy to do because we could get together on any Tuesday or Wednesday night when we’re all home and rehearse and write songs and do that, and that dynamic changes when you start having band members that live out of town. But, we made the decision to have Jimmy come in and play on the record, which I think, in my opinion, quite honestly, this is one of THE best records he’s every played on, I think. I think his drumming is some of the best he’s ever recorded. And we just gave him an open template. We just said, “Here. Here’s the scope of the tunes. Here they are. Here’s the click track. You know, you and Ryan, (who’s also a drummer, the producer), you two just sit in there and just go nuts.” And so, Jimmy, I think, really—you know, I’ve worked with him in a lot of past situations, and he works well with direction. He also works very well when he’s able to just go off and do some things that are not dictated to him. So, that’s what I wanted for him on this record, was just, go in, and outside of maybe a couple little spots where we had definite ideas of what we wanted him to do, let Jimmy DeGrasso be Jimmy and be the best that he could be. And I think he really, really shines on this record.
CN: And for you, it’s like, very easy working with him, having worked with him before.
DE: Yeah, exactly. Yep. I know his pocket. I know what his meter is. I know what his sense of time is. I know where the quarter note is, you know, and I’ve played with him in a lot of situations. We’ve done a lot of different things together, so doing it in F5 is, I think, really a treat, you know? Because, again, he’s really, you know, we wrote tunes knowing we needed drumming that was really gonna, really allow this music to really go to the nines and really develop, and we needed a guy like Jimmy who has the mechanical abilities to pull that off as well as the musical sensibility to know where to help steer things. Like, any really good metal record, in my opinion, is primarily drums and guitars. You know, the bass is kind of the mortar between the bricks to glue it together and then of course the vocals, the vocals either own it or they suck. There pretty much is no middle ground. [laughs] So, I think we’ve got a winning combination here now with F5.
CN: Sounds good. Now, you did the live DVD for the last tour, are you thinking about doing the same thing now that you have a different line-up when you tour this?
DE: The last one we did was actually a show that we did in Ithaca. And ironically, we were thinking of calling the record One Night in Ithaca, which I find funny because my former band then came out with a DVD called One Night in Buenos Aires or something. [laughs] So, for whatever reason we decided not to go with that. I just thought it was kind of funny because the parallel universes are minds think alike kind of thing. So, it was a really good show. We played a lot of new material at that show, which is why the DVD is not really that long, which is why we don’t charge a lot of money for it, either, quite honestly. But I think it was a great performance and really captured the spirit of what that band was at that time with Dave Small on drums and just where we were. Again, bands that go on the road really grow. They get tight and they really develop and turn into a whole different entity than they are when they just go in the studio and record the songs. So yeah, moving forward, to me, content is king. The more audio records, the more versions of songs, the more audio/video/photos, you know, any of that stuff you have, to me, is great. And fans love it, too. You know, they always love to see new photos and new things, so, I think anything that’s you know, like that that we can always acquire to have in the vault is always good.
CN: Tell me, you’re still at Peavey?
DE: Yep, I still do an artist liaison thing for them.
CN: Very good. Enjoying it?
DE: Yeah. I do enjoy it. It’s been a fun transition over to some new things, which have always… In my world, I’m the kind of guy where I like just positive synergies between everybody, you know? Where everything helps the next thing and then that helps the next thing, you know what I mean? And everybody wins. Those are the kind of situations I like to be in, and I’m really happy that I can say, really, in every position, everything I have in my life is like that right now. It took a few years to kind of transition into that, but now I really feel like that is the case, and I’m really, really happy about it.
CN: Excellent. So what’s next for you? Are you going to go on tour with this soon, after the Rock’n’Roll Fantasy Camp?
DE: Yeah, I mean, the next thing up to bat here in a couple of days for me is the Rock’N’Roll Fantasy Camp, which will run all though the month of August. The F5 record releases August 19th, so at this point, it’s mostly just promotion and interviews and things like that. We’ve got offers coming in for shows and for tours. Between me and Jimmy, we’ve got some scheduling we’ve got to work around, just ‘cause we’ve got other stuff that we do and other calls for other gigs and things that we do, so, that’s kind of the roadblock to just booking a full-blown tour, at this point. But, at the same time, with F5 being a new band, and having taken it around the country once, we know how we want to tour the band. Ideally, doing some other shows with some bigger artists is more, I think, a goal that we have, moreso than only doing our own headlining stuff.
CN: Sounds good to me. Hopefully I’ll see you in NYC again.
DE: Yeah. I’d like to get back into this area
again. Bands that are out playing are productive, you know? If you’re
not either recording or touring or doing something, you’re kind
of sitting on the sidelines. So, I think for all of us, we’d like
to be out working and playing.
CN: Yeah. It’s really intense. It’s really nice work.
DE: That’s why I like the whole concept of the reaper [laughs] and the whole thing, the yin and yang between the demon with the reaper scythe versus the woman sort of transcending up out of the spirit and, you know what I mean? There’s a lot of ironies there, and I think it really—he spun a great visual out of the lyrics from the record.
CN: There’s a lot of stuff going on there. I wish I could see it, like—I wish they still had LPs.
DE: Right. Right.
CN:
The hardcore bands are doing vinyl, and that’s the big thing with
indie bands, is doing vinyl, again.
DE: Well, it’s interesting, because when we were doing the artwork, you know, obviously you need album cover and all that, but at some point, more and more of this stuff is sold online, so to what degree do you knock yourself out and go through the time and expense and everything else to create an entire CD package when hardly anybody’s gonna see it? But us being metal guys, and us being metal fans, that’s what we like when we buy a record. Like, I buy most of my music online, but I like to be able to go to the website or go to, uh, even to a record store and buy a copy of the CD just so I could actually have that copy, you know, have the booklet that pulls out, so I can see the artwork, I can see the band photos, I can read the thank-yous, I can maybe read the lyrics and whatever else is inside of it, you know? To me, that’s all—to me, a new CD, a new release is a whole listening and visual experience. It isn’t just hearing a song. You know? I like the visual of the artwork. It creates an impact when you’re listening to a new record.
CN: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I think a lot of that is lost when you’re just buying an mp3 online.
DE: Well, we’re trying to do, at f5theband.com, which is our official website, we have a mechanism where if you go to the e-store after August 19th and buy the record—in fact we’re actually gonna be doin’ some pre-sale starting earlier in August—but, if you go to our website, you can buy both the first record and then this new record you can buy it and download it immediately, and then about a week later it’s shipped to you anyway, so you’ll get the hard copy. So, it’s like the best of both worlds. You get the immediate satisfaction of iTunes, but you get the consumer satisfaction of coming to your local record shop and actually owning the CD.
CN: Oh, that’s very cool.
DE: Yeah. So, that’s the way that we’ve done that. And we may even offer up some artwork and various things on the website, just for those people who do buy it online, so they also get to have the experience of feeling like they are at least looking at or touching, feeling, the record.
CN: Very cool. Also, the other experience is the merch, the shirts and things like that, too. You’ve gotta have good art for that.
DE: Sure. Because, you know what? Rock and roll is a lifestyle, you know? Exactly. It’s about the shirts, the music, the whole experience wrapped in that, that’s what we really liked. That’s why we all started listening to it, right?
CN: Had to drive the parents crazy with something, and the teachers. Remember the days when you actually got sent home from school because of what shirts you wore?
DE: Yeah! You know, and some of them just go beyond the point of reason. Like, when they just write, “F*** You” this and all kinds of like, nasty words all over the back just to create a rise. To me, that’s not rock’n’roll. That’s just stupidity. You know what I mean? But when you’re clever, and you’ve got something really hip and cool on there, when that gets a rise out of people, that’s kind of funny, I think. [laughs] Because it goes to show that rock’n’roll is clever. It is cool. And when people look at that and they don’t like it because maybe they’re too conservative, then, as far as I’m concerned, the problem is on them, not on us.
CN: Exactly. I loved the study where it said that kids who listen to heavy metal are actually the most intelligent ones.
DE: Yeah. I mean, let’s face it. I have kids and you have kids and, heck, a lot of our listeners, at this point, have kids, you know? A lot of them are grown up, and one of the things that you find is that there’s one system to teach all people how to learn, and that’s so impossible. All people do not learn the same way. Some people learn by visual, by touch, by, some people learn by certain mathematic teachings, other people are more artistic, and so it’s kind of, we get sort of a general education, at least in our country. We get sort of a general education, but if you are a different type of learner and you don’t fit into that box, you can very often be not only labeled as an outcast, but it’s very frustrating for you as a student. So, I think one of the coolest things is when you step out and hopefully get the support of your family or your parents to try to seek out a learning method that really is fitting for you so that you can enjoy the experience. Then you don’t have to rebel. Then you can actually embrace learning, because learning is cool. Learning new things is awesome. I know for me, I grew up learning how to read and play music and taking piano lessons and playing in band orchestra and stuff, but I never thrived at music until I got a bass and I got in my garage with my buddies and we started playing Aerosmith and Lynyrd Skynyrd and KISS songs. [laughs] You know? That’s how I learned the best. And that to me was a powerful lesson that, you know, it’s still music, but I learned it as music with a bunch of people that I enjoyed and really dug being around as opposed to having to have it shoved down my throat.
CN: Right. Do you still remember the first album you ever bought?
DE: The first album I ever bought, I think, was Bachman-Turner Overdrive Not Fragile. A buddy of mine had it. He had the LP and it was awesome. And all I had was an 8-track player so I had to buy the 8-track version of it, but uh…or maybe even cassette. I think I bought the cassette, which is even worse! Talk about not getting any artwork! Oh my God! And then after that, I think I bought KISS Destroyer, and then on it went. And then I think someone gave me, even, Queen Night At The Opera as a Christmas present and I was off and running after that.
CN: Now when you were really little, earlier than that, do you remember your first memory of music?
DE: I do. My mother had a record player and she had a bunch of music. There was this one girl, Mary Wells, who was a Motown singer. [Ed. Note: --Wells was Motown’s first solo star whose best known hit is “My Guy” and who recorded with The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, and also toured with The Beatles.] I remember listening to one of her solo records that she had, and I just loved her. Oh my God, she just had the prettiest voice and had these cute little 3 minute songs that were very pleasant to listen to. Around the same time, I had a 45 of The Beatles “I Want To Hold Your Hand”, and those are my very earliest memories of music.
CN: Those were the days. We had some interesting music back then, didn’t we?
DE: No, absolutely, and it’s interesting because you know now—then I grew up playing rock’n’roll. And quite honestly, The Beatles came out the year I was born, like in ’64, I think, so I missed that whole thing. Even by the time I started buying KISS records, Led Zeppelin was almost over, you know? I remember my mom bought me a copy of Hit Parader magazine that had Roger Daltrey and The Who on the cover, and so, that was kind of the generation that I grew up on. Aand that’s why it’s been fun with the Rock’n’Roll Fantasy Camp to play with a bunch of guys, a few of them who are older than me, and they’re kind of bringing me back to a whole generation of music that I just didn’t grow up playing. You know? These are songs that they grew up playing in their early years in garage bands and growing up as kids playing in rock’n’roll. So it’s…I’m able to educate them on some newer stuff and they’re able to take me back in time and get me up to speed on a bunch of stuff that I just quite honestly have never played because of the age group of guys I grew up with.
CN: Yeah. See, I always hung out with older people, not to mention that my parents always dumped me off with my aunt, my dad’s baby sister as the babysitter, so I remember watching Captain Kangaroo in the morning but when it was nap time she’d be playing Blind Faith and stuff like that. So I got this really cool musical education.
DE: Right, right. Understood. I grew up in a very rural part of Minnesota, so when I moved out to Los Angeles in 1983, that was when I got really turned on. Because obviously I would turn on the radio and they were playin’ Zeppelin everyday and they were going back and playing Blind Faith and Traffic and old Hendrix stuff and even guys I played with years ago, Chris Poland and Gar Samuelson, you know, when we were riding around the country in a motor home for the Peace Sells tour, they were playing all kinds of The James Gang and old Hendrix stuff and all of a sudden I got turned on and got educated by a lot of guys who got a lot of different stuff. And these guys were awesome musicians, you know? These guys weren’t like, hack musicians. These guys were like jazz, quality level jazz musicians who grew up on some really cool blues rock and roll.
CN: It’s good stuff. It’s really good stuff. You know, I hate to see musicians, or even worse, fans that their musical tastes are just so narrow and they can’t think outside of one box.
DE: Well, I agree. And it’s interesting because when you get known as an artist, like I probably fall into this category, of helping create a type of music with thrash music, right? I mean, in a group that was such a vibrant part of that and one of the innovators and creators of that, sometimes it’s easy to get locked into a box. And when your whole career becomes, and when your whole life and your career becomes writing and performing only your own music, it’s easy to—you know there were times in my career where I felt very frustrated, like I couldn’t grow beyond what I was just doing day-in/day-out. And as popular as it was, and as however millions of people bought it and loved it, bought our records and loved it, you know, I often felt, creatively, very, just kind of immature, you know what I mean? I felt like, "Geez, I should be able to do more than this." You know? And I think probably here in recent years, you know, moving on with my life into a lot of new settings, I think initially, what I got hip to in 2002 and 2003, was a lot of the current music that was going on, a lot of new guitar tunings, new rhythms and a lot of stuff that some of the modern bands five or six years ago were doing. And then now more recently, in the last couple years I’ve gotten to go way back down some historic rock and roll roads and learn some of that kind of stuff, and that’s really opened my eyes to a lot of things. Because I think what happens when you go back in history and you see origins of things, you start to appreciate the people who did it first. You go, “Wow, I see why everyone hailed Jimmy Page.” Because he was really the first, the only guy doing that at that time. And there are guys since who have perfected that and become much better at it, but he was the guy who started it. And for that, when a guy’s out there innovating like that, out there in uncharted waters, that is just so huge, creatively. So then I get why people look at those of us who were the thrash metal founders, why they look at us that way. Because we were the guys who first started doing it, ya know? So I’ve been able to really enjoy kind of a…I’ve been able to have two or three lives within one lifetime, at least musically I have. So, no complaints over here.
CN: Did you find that some of your initial fans from your other band were disconcerted by the first F5 album?
DE: Yeah, they were. There were a lot of them that were excited about it, and I think, you know, hoping for good things for me moving forward. And certainly I think when members leave bands or bands break up like ours did, and guys move forward in other settings, I think initially there’s, you know, there’s kind of a heartbreak there. Like, “Oh my God. What’s goin’ on?” And it’s interesting because F5 started moving forward and was moving forward and in motion at the same time that my former band was then again reforming. So, I think people were hopeful that I would be a part of that, but as things turned, you know, I ended up not being a part of that. And so, it was a little scary, to be honest with you, because I was kinda going, “Well, I could either get just completely left in the dust here, or I gotta just be honest with myself on all levels and with that honesty translate out to the fans to say, ‘Hey, for whatever reason, reunions didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean that we’re, you know, that we can’t all move forward and do new things, and who knows what’s gonna happen one day in the future.’” And that’s my real, my gut feeling on that, is that there’s always a “No”, sometimes a “Yes”, “Not now”, or there’s something better in store, you know? So I kinda try to live my life along those lines rather than just say “No” and closing doors to things.
CN: Well, when I first heard the F5 music, I was like, “Oh wow. This is reeeeaaaallly different for David.”
DE: Right. Right. Again, I think it’s because first of all, it’s a new set of faces I’m playing with. You know, these are new guys. These aren’t the same guys I just played with for 20 years, you know what I mean? And one of the things I tried to do with it was not dictate to it to make it sound like the Peace Sells album, or go, “Okay, now that I’m in the band it has to be like Rust In Peace or nothing.” Because then all of a sudden I’m forcing it to be something it’s not meant to be. And all I knew was when we were in the band room writing songs and putting the band together, it felt really good, and it resonated well, and it was heavy. It had melody. It had some great musicianship and it just rocked. It just felt good. And so the first record was more about really cool three to four minute, really cool rock and high energy songs as opposed to a bunch of really over-the-top guitar playing. And I think that’s why on the second record, you know the guitar players, Steve and John, really wanted to get that aspect more into the mix because I think they probably felt, if anything, maybe a bit denied of showcasing their abilities with the guitar playing.
CN: Yeah. I really, really liked some of the guitar work in “Rank and File” and “Final Hour”.
DE: You know what? And I would agree. I would agree. “Final Hour”, to me, is just to me it has one of those, you know, kind of epic, masterpiece feels to it. It starts one place and has changes and things and breaks in the middle, and is very much indicative of how we used to write thrash metal records back in the late ‘80s, you know? Where songs would, almost like “In My Darkest Hour” or something, which is completely just stop in the middle and start a new tempo and go off on a whole new thought.
CN: I like when songs do that. I really do. I like the changes of tempo and time and key. It’s almost like when you’re listening to a symphony, you know, different movements.
DE: Exactly. And I think on the first F5 record we kept things in a box arrangement-wise, but on this record, when we were sitting down in the pre-production with Ryan, we just said, “Yeah, let’s not do that this time.” ‘Cause we did that all the way through the last record and we felt very satisfied with what we did on the first record, but it was like, “Look, this is the second record. This doesn’t have to be just like the first one.” And I think one good thing that anyone will notice right away when they hear The Reckoning album is that F5 is not a one-trick pony, you know, and that there’s a lot of abilities and a lot of talent in the group, and as time has moved on, the band has improved. The writing and the playing has gotten better, and we’re on a musical journey not just trying to bang out little one-hit wonders.
CN: I like the fact that you get the chance to do a more melodic thing, because you were doing thrash for so many years, and like you said, I’m sure you did feel stunted for a while.
DE: Yeah. You know, look, everything that I did in former settings is good, and I’m certainly not diss’ing it at all, because that’s just where we were at that time. But by the time it all kind of wound down, you know, sometimes, I don’t know. I’m of the belief that there’s forces other than ourselves in this world, and sometimes you need changes in your life. Sometimes when you’re in situations that are maybe, you know, financially comfortable or you’re comfortable on other levels, sometimes those are not the times when you want to change, yet they are the times when you need to change the most. And so for me, I think what has happened in my career is maybe I might have been too, uh, too afraid, honestly, to make some changes on my own. And one day the changes came down the pike. And they turned out to be some of the best things that have ever happened for me, which again, I think is why it’s better not to get upset about ‘em, not to fight ‘em, not to cause problems with ‘em, but rather leave doors open always because this is all… No one gets out of here alive and it’s all just kind of one big journey. When you’re playing music and doing creative things, I think a lot of it is just being able to go with the flow in whatever setting you’re in and give it your all. Make it killer. You know, make every bit of it as killer as it can be because you never know if it’s… I’ve heard people say, “Man, if I knew I was gonna be doing it for this long, I certainly would have done it a lot better.” And who wants to have that attitude? I’d rather know that everything that I did was a good as I could possibly make it at that time instead of thinking of everything as, “Well, I don’t know how long I’m gonna be here anyway, so I’ll just do the least amount to get by.”
CN: Yeah. Exactly. Why would you do that?
DE: Yeah, exactly. So musically, as I look back, everything I’ve done, I’ve tried to give it my all in every single setting that I’ve been in.
CN: Well, if you’re going to do something, don’t do it half way. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.
DE: Yeah, exactly. And then at the end of the day, if the fans like it or they hate it, that’s kind of out of my control. What I can control is to make it as good as I possibly can with the team of people that I’m workin’ on at that time. You know, that’s all I can do. You know, albums, when you think about it, when you record a song, really it’s just a musical photograph. It’s just a snapshot of a moment in time. And an album is just a collection of a bunch of snapshots, just like a family photo album is, ya know? So, some photos come out better than others, some albums look better than others, and the same thing is true with music, you know? Some records come off better than others, but I think if you’re being honest and you’re being in the moment, you can really picture your life at that particular time. It’s one of the hardest things to do with a band, with a group, is to get everybody to be on the same page at the same time. It’s really a difficult thing to do. And I think with F5 we’re really lucky that we’ve been able to make two records that are really powerful hard-hitting records. And I think The Reckoning is, and has really been, a good synchronization of all five of us in the band really being on the same page at the exact same time.
CN: Excellent. So what kind of equipment are you using these days?
DE: You know what? I’ve been using Peavy amps now years, since about 1996, so I’m using the Tour series heads and cabinets. D’Addario strings, Jim Dunlop picks, if I use any effects I use a little MXR or a flanger, or a Digitech stereo chorus. Sometimes I use a Jim Dunlop bass Wah for a couple of things. For basses I use—I’ve got a bunch of stuff, I’ve got a couple things I record with, but live I use my Peavey. I have a signature model bass. I have a thing called the Zodiac model DE [Scorpio] and I’ve got several four string versions of that and I was actually just at Peavey this last week and we just finished the prototype for a brand new five string Zodiac DE [Scorpio], which I think is just friggin’ killer. In fact we had it…I decided…we thought about doing it for a while because being a signature line it’s nice to have a 4 and a 5-string as a bass line. Then as we made the F5 record a lot of the tunings were so whack that I felt that it would just be easier to use a 5-string so I wouldn’t have to keep re-tuning my 4-string all over the place. So it’s definitely a tool for me to keep close by.
CN: Well, David, I think we’ve got a good bit here. We’ve been on the phone for almost 45 minutes now. You have a great day and a great time with your family at the beach.
DE: You, too. Great talking to you again, Christine.
