With the release of their new album ‘Nightbringers‘ fast approaching, we caught up with frontman Trevor Strnad of The Black Dahlia Murder to talk about the new album, being a villain and his love for retro gaming.
Your new album ‘Nightbringers’ is out on the 6th October, how would you say it compares to your previous albums?
I feel like it’s the next step in the evolutionary growth of the band. I think it’s where we’ve been headed for a long time but this is by far the most professional tight album that we’ve done. I think it’s the most varied album that we’ve done, and that’s been something we’ve been striving for for a while. You know, just trying to make each song individually strong and stand on its own. And now I feel like we’ve achieved that in a major way here, and I think this is really the proudest moment yet in our catalog. So I’m very very excited for this thing to come out in a few days.
How long has it taken to write and record etc?
It was pretty quickly actually. It was in like two or three months. We were just off the road and then we took six months off, two or three months to write and about the same to record it too. The way we did the recording I mean we had our old bass player, Ryan Bart Williams come and he tracked the drums, the rhythm guitars, the bass and then Brandon went home and tracked his solos in New Jersey. Then I did my vocals here in Michigan at my house with Joe Cincotta. Then finally we sent the whole thing to Denmark to be mixed by Jacob Hansen. So you know that’s pretty much how we’ve been doing things in the last while you know recording mostly at home and we’re not really all together during the recording process anymore it’s just a more cost effective way to do things for us, just bring one person here and have them stay with us rather than put the five or six of us up somewhere else.
Do you have a personal favourite song from the album?
It’s hard to choose, I think maybe the last song, The Lonely Deceased. That might be my favourite. I don’t know it’s a really cool song it’s a really emotive has a gripping feel to it. Yeah it’s just one of the best songs that Brian’s written I think. It’s just got a real you know catchy thing going on. He’s been going toward this like three guitar thing where he’ll have you know both guitarist doing something completely different but now the bass is having a third part that’s really different too. And he’s just like ultimately realizing that on that song I think.
Next year you’re coming to Europe with Cannibal Corpse, what can we expect from those shows?
A lot of carnage. A lot of sweat, spilled beer, crowd surfing, stage diving and a good time all around. Cannibal Corpse are freakin legends. It’s really an honor to tour with them again. I believe this will be the 8th tour we’ve ever done with them. So I mean they’ve really embraced us during our time and obviously they are a band I really look up to in the first place but for them to be extending their hand to us and kind of helping us out so many different times has just been you know a huge honor. So you know I definitely try to go as hard as I can when I’m with those guys because you’ve got to keep up with Cannibal Corpse too, I mean they’re disgusting.
That sounds great, can’t wait! What’s the deepest meaning behind one of your songs?
Well really what I’m trying to say with Nightbringers is, the Nightbringers are us, it’s the people that are into the hidden world of the underground, the hidden world of metal and you know I feel like being on the side of metal is you know an atheistic thing to do, a satanic thing to do, just rejecting religion and then I’m promoting an inner strength. You know a strength of the self, rejecting the idea that there’s some kind of cosmic spanking waiting for us at the end of life you know and I just want people to live their lives to the fullest and have a blast and you know that’s the kind of message I’m trying to send at the very heart of Nightbringers.
That’s super cool, I’m going to do some fun, more personal questions now, so what is the funniest thing that has happened to you on tour?
I guess that would have to be when we got all our gear stuck in an elevator in Russia, and nobody else was in the elevator, we just like sent it down and ran down the stairs, and it was full of all of our equipment. We were about to leave for the airport and the elevators stopped a foot shy of the bottom and we just could not get it to open and we were just like in a panic you know trying to pry open this fucking elevator door, we’re all screaming at each other, there was like a doorman there that was trying to get involved and he was trying to stop us from like physically prying it open. And then eventually, we were trying to get picked up, so a driver was sitting outside in a van wondering what the hell we were doing, why we were taking so long. So he comes in, he’s like ‘What the hell’s the matter’. We’re like well we can’t get this shit out of the elevator. And he says, ‘hey I used to work at an elevator place’ and he just took this little stick, popped it in a hole and it opened up and we grabbed the shit, threw it in the van and drove literally like 150mph to the airport. That moment wasn’t very funny at the time but it is definitely funny in retrospect.
What’s your craziest fan experience?
It has to be the kids that ask me to punch them in the face, or ask me to spit on them or ask me to fuck their girlfriend. I think that’s probably the weirdest one.
Yeah, that is a little bit weird…
I haven’t taken anyone up on any of those three haha!
What’s your go to drink on tour?
Lately, it’s Gin. I like gin and juice. Gin and orange juice, gin and pineapple juice. Delicious. Lots of whiskey. Jameson, I think is what we all agree upon. It’s the common ground right now. So lots of Jameson, lots of beer, for me I’m into wheat beer, white beer. Lots of IPAs go through the band too.
Favourite fast food?
Uhhhhh, tough one, I love it all so much. I guess Taco Bell is my ultimate.
What’s your guilty pleasure?
Oh, I mean I don’t really have a lot of shame in my life I’m pretty upfront with all the corny shit that I like but I think my dark secret is probably The Bodyguard soundtrack and movie. See you wouldn’t expect that huh?
Nope haha! What’s your favourite thing to do in your spare time?
I collect metal, death metal. I have like 4000 metal CDs or something like that. I play a lot of Nintendo. Like old school NES. I like retro games a lot. You know Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo that era in particular is my favourite. Smoke a lot. Otherwise, I’m not that much. I’m pretty simple, I’m a pretty simple man.
Favourite album of all time?
That would have to be YES – 90125. It was something my dad played for me just incessantly as a kid and I didn’t really realise I liked it so much then but I heard it when I got out of high school I was at a record store and someone at the store was playing the album and I realized ‘Wow I know every lyric to this record and I love it’, so I just went home, I found my dad’s CD and busted it out and I had pretty much never given it back. But I still love it. I still play it all the time. I think it’s just incredibly diverse, gripping, amazing music.
If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
I think freezing time or some kind of time travel thing would be awesome. I guess the very first thing I do think about when having a superpower is how I’m going to get money with it. So you know that’s kind of selfish. Maybe I’m more of a villain.. haha.
Haha, amazing! Favourite film?
Kingpin or Big Lebowski or American Beauty. The original Dawn Of The Dead I really like. Evil Dead 2. One of those movies, maybe PCU as well, I really like that one.
If you could describe your personality with any song in the world, what would it be?
Ummm, maaan, jeez. Trying to think of songs about losers, but nothing has popped into my mind right now. Haha! I don’t know, maybe a Fat Boys song about eating a bunch of food. All You Can Eat! That’s one of their songs. There you go.
Haha! Just to summarise what are your plans over the next few months?
Well, we have a tour kicking off in a few days here in the states with Suffocation, exhumed, Decrepit Birth,Necrot and Wormwitch, and then we’re home for the holidays. Then we come to Europe and the UK in February with Cannibal Corpse, and then after that, we are trying to formulate a tour for the spring. After that, I’m not sure, but there are just no signs of stopping, man. You know, I guarantee we’ll be touring somewhere and we’re just getting started. The album is just about to drop so we have much plans to conquer it in the next two years.
Perfect, I look forward to it! Thank you for your time!
Thanks for having me, it was fun!
You can read our review of Nightbringers here.
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