Voodoo: Hello, again, Jason. Good to talk with you again. A lot has happened with Icarus Witch since the last interview. Lets begin with the response from the general public and the press regarding Capture the Magic. It’s been well over a year since its release so there has been plenty of time for opinions to be made. What has the feedback been like? Mostly positive, I’m sure.
Jason Myers: Hello, always a pleasure talking with you & the Living For Metal community. It has been a whirlwind since Capture was released. I didn’t really know what to expect as far as reactions, since we basically formed the band around the precept of doing what’s in our hearts, without regard for trends or public opinion. Yet when it’s time to release that art, you subject yourself to the opinions of others. Fortunately for our egos, the response has been predominantly positive. You’ll never please everyone, and if you fall into that trap of trying to, the integrity of the band is shot. Overall, we’ve touched a nerve and possibly awakened some hope in others that the classic traditions of hard rock & melodic metal are being preserved & developed for a new generation.
Voodoo: You played some shows over in Europe over the summer. How did you enjoy your time across the pond?
JM: We had the time of our lives. There may have been some lost luggage, some alchohol abuse & a period of adjustment getting used to warm beer, warmer hotels & fizzy water, but outside of that, I think we found our home away from home. I had been to Germany & England before for festivals like Wacken & Metal Bash so I knew this was our scene.
Voodoo: What is your fondest memory of your time in Europe?
JM: The overall sense of community within the metal scene. Seeing an army of crazy metal heads camping out in the field under flags from their respective countries and great music blaring from speakers everywhere you wander. There were so many nights of raging until the sun came up as we tried to navigate through the countryside or the streets of the red light district depending on where the party was. There were many pranks, many fuzzy memories and a few things that can never be commited to print for legal & moral issues.
Voodoo: Did you make any good contacts while you were over there? What are the chances of going back over for more festivals, or even a mini-tour?
JM: Yeah, we made a couple thousand good contacts! All of those people packing in front of the stage waiting for us to impress them. By the end of our set at Headbangers Open Air, we had the chants of “We Want More! We Want More!” going through the crowd, so I’d say as long as they want more, it’s our duty to give it to them. We’ll be back.
Voodoo: I would much prefer a tour of the US, of course, especially the East coast. Is there anything in the works, yet?
JM: There are some pretty exciting things being discussed, but I’ve learned not to say anything until the contracts are in hand, so stay tuned to Living For Metal for show confirmations later in the year.
Voodoo: You also were at NAMM and on the Icarus Witch message board I asked you how that went. While I won’t ask for you to recap everything again, I do have a follow up question. In your response you mentioned going out to eat at vegan friendly restaurants. Is it hard to find a restaurant that caters to customers such as yourself? I would think that in LA there should be plenty of choices, but what about Pittsburgh? Are vegan-friendly restaurants plentiful or do you usually end up cooking for yourself most of the time?
JM: L.A. is one of the best places to find restaurants of every kind. Being vegan when I lived there was simpler due to the overall health conscious mentality of California. Pittsburgh is a much smaller city obviously & more of a blue collar place in general, so there aren’t as many places with “Vegan” in the title, but I’m pretty resourceful in terms of finding places that cater to the non flesh consumers. There seems to be an increasing ammout of eateries & healthy stores here that are offering cruelty free faire. But I don’t go out as much when we’re not on the road because I’ve surrounded myself with all of the creature comforts at home.
Voodoo: One of the things I look for is what band is friends with what band (usually found in the “Thank you’s” in liner notes) and all the different connections that stem from those friendships. I recently heard through the grapevine that you helped Machine Men get signed to a US label. Is this true, and if so can you describe the connection you have with Machine Men? How did all that come about?
JM: I used to work for Century Media Records & after that, for Cleopatra. Machine Men were one of those amazing young talents that I felt needed to be heard by an American audience. Century was developing the band in Europe, but didn’t feel they were ready to release them in America. I helped broker a deal with Century Media & Cleopatra to put our their last album here on our Magick Records imprint. I hope we can do some shows with them at some point because they are coming from a similar place of inspiration.
Voodoo: OK, now on to the new record. Where are you in the process? Are all the songs and recorded, or only a few? Is there a tentative release date set, yet?
JM: I am actually answering these questions in the studio as Matt is singing the last of 3 songs he has yet to track. After that, we’ve got just a few final touches, those little special effects that we labor over for our fellow headphone enthusiasts. I believe the U.S. label wants to put the album out in July. We’re still talking to some European & Japanese companies about coordinating a release so everyone in the world can get their copy around the same time.
Voodoo: What can we expect from the new album? Can you give any kind of description of the direction you are heading in?
JM: Yesterday, I played a few tracks for our friend Robbie at Brave New World (the local vintage metal store where we played our record release for Capture). He said Icarus Witch fans are going to love the new stuff. He thought the production was improved, heavier guitar sounds, more straight ahead drumming, some soulful bluesy rocking leads from the new guitarist Quinn to compliment Steve’s neoclassical shred.
In my view, the new album, Songs For The Lost, has more variety & more extremes. The rocking songs, rock more, the slower songs are doomier. There are more textural instruments like acoustic & 12 string guitars. I would say overall the vibe is darker, a bit more haunting & less “triumphant.” Then again, there are songs that are straight up melodic, arena rock riffing. So I guess our direction isn’t linear in as much as it is outward in all direction. I think we’re becoming better songwriters and taking more chances with the increased confidence that comes from playing live & developing chemistry with one another.
Voodoo: On the last album you had two guest musicians, Frank Aresti and George Lynch, offer their services. Do you have any surprises for us this time around?
JM: Yes, but if I said anymore, it would ruin the surprise now, wouldn’t it?
Voodoo: Within the past year the band has gone through some lineup changes. Can you discuss what has been happening with your drummer situation?
JM: We’re still auditioning drummers for the next round of shows. Details on how to apply for the position can be found on the blog section of myspace.com/icaruswitch.
Voodoo: The band has also added a second guitarist. How did you find Quinn Lukas, and what was the recruitment process like? Did you ever audition other guitarists, or was it him all the time?
JM: We had talked to Quinn earlier in the band’s career because we heard him play with some of his previous bands & knew that stylistically he’d be great fit. At that time he was still in school studying to become a mortician. In the studio recording Capture, it wasn’t an issue having a single guitar player because you multitrack the rhythms, play leads over top and add in the additional parts that will make the song the best it can be. Once we got out & started playing shows as a one guitar band, we felt that adding a second axe to the attack could fill out our live sound and allow us to do a lot of the harmonies & dual leads closer to the record. At that point we put the word out to a few of the top players in the region that we were on the hunt. Matt & I were in Lower Erie one night & saw Quinn’s band playing. His live presense was really exciting & he had the chops to back it up, so we opened a dialogue once again. This time the timing was better, the band was more established & Quinn realized this opportunity was too good to pass up a second time around. He came down to jam with us and the magic was there from the first song. We did talk to & played with some other guitar players who were all very skilled, but Quinn won us over with his enthusiasm, personality & everyone felt he would provide the missing piece to take the Witch to the next level. Plus everyone seemed to feel he had really nice & well conditioned hair.
Voodoo: How did all these changes affect the writing and recording of the new album? Did the whole process get set back at all? And how did the addition of a second guitarist change your approach to writing the new songs?
JM: Any time you lose or gain a new member, there is a certain period of adjustment. It has cut back on the ammount of shows we played because of the time it takes to work a new player in and get them up to snuff on the set, but I don’t think either of those changes affected our schedule for recording. Our producer, Eric Klinger is also a professional drummer who has toured internationally, so he played on the sessions and it worked out even better than if we had a new member. He has engineered every song we’ve ever recorded so he is a big part of our sound & development. It’s actually easier working with a session musician in many ways, because it’s one less opinion or battle to negotiate. Quinn & Matt are both drummers as well, so there are plenty of ideas on how to write drum parts, but when you get a guy who knows his role and is doing the part the way the band wants it, the process is a lot smoother.
Having Quinn involved in the writing process was great, because not only could we open up new avenues of laying down multiple harmonies & layers with the confidence of being able to reproduce them live, but his style of writing & playing brings a new dimension to the band. While these guys share a common ground with a love of bands like Dream Theater & Queensryche, their differences make for the real sparks. Steve is really a fan of progressive metal & cleaner, more precise neoclassical productions. While Quinn also appreciates these styles, he is more of an open, rocking type guitarist with influences that also include the 70s pioneers. So where Steve really specializes in super fast tapping & precision picking parts, Quinn can also fire up the wah wha pedal & rip a bluesy lead that tears into your soul. The two of these guys together make a formidable duo that should be fun for guitar fans to watch & listen to as they fold their arms in the back of the theater secretly wishing they were on stage showing the world how it should be done.
Voodoo: So, aside from any new Icarus Witch music, what else have you been listening to lately? Do you listen to certain bands or types of music in a search for inspiration for your own new music?
JM: In some ways I may be one of the more open minded listeners in the band, in that on any given day, my iPod shuffle could go from Miles Davis to Pretty Maids to VNV Nation. But on the other side, when it comes to rock, I rarely listen to anything besides 70s & 80s metal & classic rock, so that’s where the mind closes a bit. The bands that always inspire me are Rainbow, Uriah Heep, Ozzy, Whitesnake, Alcatrazz, Priest, Scorps, Purple, Sabbath, Queensryche… I can listen to Rainbow every day of my life and not get tired of it, so if nothing else, that type of aristocratic, classy, Euro proto-metal permeates my subconscious with the music I write. But as for direct inspiration, if I’m sitting in front of my recorder with a series of riffs and stuck on arrangement ideas, I’ll often look to the masters of songcraft like Journey, Ratt, AC/DC, Leppard…bands that really perfected the formula for hard rock hits. Not that we sound like any of them, but in terms of creating patterns for intro/verse/chorus, I’ve found it’s best to look to the successful models for guidance and eventually it helps you become a better writer yourself.
Voodoo: Again, aside from the new Icarus Witch, what releases, if any, are you most looking forward to in 2007?
JM: I wish I could say, but as you may have gathered, I’m pretty dedicated to the old school so I’m probably looking forward to a deluxe reissue of some 25 year old classic. I really want to find a new band that excites me, but it rarely happens. In some ways that void in finding new bands that I’m passionate about was the driving force in developing Icarus Witch. The goal was to create a band & music that sounded like, looked like & played like the arena rock icons that defined metal’s pure glory days. Pretty simple really, create the kind of band you wish you could go see or buy a record from. Well, sounds simple. The reality of it has been one challenge after the next.
Voodoo: Finally, here’s a gear question for you, sort of. How have the eBay auctions been going? I know you have put quite a few things up for bid there. Have you had many takers?
JM: Oh yeah, ebay, I’m addicted. Well, you know, I’ve always been a collector. Starting with KISS cards, Hot Wheels & guitar picks as a kid to albums, CDs, DVDs, rare occult books & art to the larger toys like amps, effects & bass guitars. But I always get to a point in this collection cycle where I start to feel cluttered by every room in my house having hundreds of THINGS. Then I just want to get rid of everything & start over. So I’ll have a love affair with a bass guitar for a year and think it’s the best piece of wood & metal every assembled, then one day, I’m over it and shipping it off to make room for the next one. I bet Steve & Quinn could retire now if they sold off all of their guitars & gear, but they won’t. I like to keep a quiver of 3 or 4 axes one main rig, a backup amp & a practice set up. Beyond that, it’s just more stuff to trip over in the night!
There must be a huge resurgence in vintage thrash at the moment because I’m floored at the prices people are paying me for old Carcass & Entombed vinyl! You know the saying about one man’s trash? Well, if I’m looking through my collections & thinking, “when is the last time I really enjoyed this obscure, out of print Canadian goth demo?” and I find out that some kid in Oregon wants to give me $160 for it…well, to me that’s like found money. Reaching into an old coat pocket & finding a $20 bill makes your day; imagine doing that 8 times in a row! Maybe it’s the Gene Simmons in me, but I just get a rush from selling.
Voodoo: OK, I think that does it for my questions this time around. Thanks again for taking the time, and I am really looking forward to hearing what the band has come up with on the new album. And now is your chance to add any other comments before we go.
JM: Thank you for caring enough to ask. I want everyone reading this to know how much we truly appreciate all of the support & encouragement we’ve enjoyed from the Witch circle over the past few years. It’s been a wild ride & hopefully one that’s just starting. We will be revamping IcarusWitch.com soon with a new layout & art to coincide with the Songs For The Lost campaign. In the meantime, the shop is still open there for CDs & merch (again with the Gene) and I try to update myspace.com/icaruswitch as much as possible as well as posting & answering our friends on the inner circle at livingformetal.com. So stay tuned for some of the best music we’ve ever created coming your way this summer.
Final thoughts? Don’t steal music. If people don’t support the bands & record labels, the musicians will have to actually work “real” jobs and won’t be able to make albums & tour. Then you’ll have to listen only to old albums like me. And always remember, when it comes to music & art, bow to no trend.