Interview: Jake and Joseph of Witherfall
Interviewed by Tim Finch
Witherfall are one of the hardest working bands around, a band who by their own admission never stop writing new music. With their latest album, 'The Curse of Autumn' out next week, we caught up with band masterminds Jake and Joseph. We talk about the impact the pandemic had on the recording of the album, working with Jon Schafer, future plans and more...
The Razor's Edge: Welcome to The Razor's Edge
Jake: Thank you
The Razor's Edge: Life’s been fairly crap for a good year now, so how are you guys holding up?
Joseph: Drinking too much [laughs]
Jake: Well we were able to create the record during that time, it was kind of a pain in the ass scheduling wise. Once the world went upside down so did our schedule so it wasn’t cheap to re-schedule everything and a bit of a pain in the ass. But beside that we got the record done and then all the videos and that kind of stuff. During the pandemic there’s just one more step of anxiety around everything, we don’t want to catch this thing too.
Jospeh: I’m pretty sure, at least I know that I thought I had it. I was in bed, unable to breath, I had to sleep sitting up for a couple of weeks. Then going to the gym was next to impossible for a couple of months. I’ve never had anything like that before, I didn’t test positive for that but you don’t need scientific evidence to see the elephant in the corner of the room.
The Razor's Edge: I’ll try to avoid too much more covid talk, as it’s just depressing. Onto why we are really here. The new Witherfall album comes out in a few weeks. You are all members of other bands as well, do you consider Witherfall a super-group?
Jake: When Joseph and I formed this back in 2013 we were part of another band together, but I didn’t join Iced Earth until two years after this band was formed. We didn’t have a record out but we had written and recorded a record, it was already in the bag.
Jospeh: Unless you call two members of White Wizzard a supergroup [laughs]
Jake: Yeah I wouldn’t call it a supergroup.
The Razor's Edge: It’s three years since your last full album. How long has ‘The Curse of Autumn’ been in the making?
Jake: Well we started writing it after we finished recording ‘A Prelude to Sorrow’ back in 2018. Joseph and I never stop writing, we just get together, pour a glass of red wine and grab a guitar and start. Even some of these songs, ‘The Other Side of Fear’ as an example, have their origins in the ‘Nocturns and Requiems’ days but they just didn’t make it on the records for various reasons, so we completed those.
Joseph: We just don’t stop writing at all. 'Prelude' was 2018, then we did the 'Vintage' E.P. in 2019. This record was scheduled to come out in 2020, but covid happened. The music was done in mid-2020 but scheduled for release in November. But the artwork, there was a hang up because Christian the artist didn’t have access to his studio.
So there wasn’t much time in between all. We did the Vintage' E.P. then jumped straight on a plane to Japan. So we don’t take any time off. We are continuously writing, but sometimes thing set in the way, like touring, pandemics, you know things like that..., STD’s [laughs]
The Razor's Edge: You said the artwork was delayed, but did COVID affect the recording process at all?
Joseph: No, we lucked out. Originally we had Gergo Borlai, the drummer who played on ‘A Prelude To Sorrow’ he was going to do this record. He was stuck in Spain and just by chance I happened to message Marco [Minnemann] because we needed someone fast. He said yes and he was in Germany and was able to come back, so that really helped us out. Not that it wouldn’t have been great with Gergo, but the way it is now I am really happy with.
We also ended up producing the drum tracks ourselves completely without the main team there because those guys couldn’t fly to L.A. So we got this guy Brad Cook, who did the Foo Fighters, Slash, Chris Cornell, he did all the drum tracking and engineering in the first sessions. Then we took a month off to see how bad the virus was going to. Then we spent a month in Indiana doing all the tracks and then mixed in Florida.
We pushed forward and said fuck this, we are going to do this anyway. We’ll try and be safe about it. This is our life’s work, our passion. I’m happy that we pushed through it and I think by doing that and overcoming the hurdles, it ended up better than it would have.
This record is really about rage, regret, anxiety. This whole thing, tiptoeing around each other with masks, it added to the weight around the atmosphere of the recording. We soaked up enough alcohol to keep it at bay, but it added a little bit of nervousness to it and gave it an edge.
Jake: Anything that was normal to do, like saying “lets take a break and go grab some food”. Some places we couldn’t go out and do that or you could go do that but someone’s coughing and you’re thinking “oh shit, we’re fucked”. It all added an agitation towards it too, which I’m sure does subconsciously bleed into the record.
The Razor's Edge: I’ve spoken to other bands the last few months and they’ve all considered pushing the release date back because of the current situation. Did you consider that?
Jake: Well we actually did. We were supposed to tour in February with Evergrey so we scheduled the release for afterwards in March. Also the record got pushed back too because all the vinyl manufacturers are operating at half capacity, so I didn’t like the idea of putting the record out and then fans having to wait months to get physical copies.
We didn’t want to keep delaying it because when can we tour? We do have the Evergrey tour rescheduled for October, but who knows if that is going to actually happen?
Jospeh: We might actually have another record by then! We start getting together in a few weeks to start working on the next record so you never know.
Jake: I did see something from these bigger bands saying “theres no point doing this, theres no point working on a record that you can’t tour”. But I think it was the Foo Fighters who said fuck it, we’re just going to release ours. But when you’re the Foo Fighters you don’t need to tour to sell records [laughs].
The Razor's Edge: There is a lot of anger in the lyrics. Where does the drive and inspiration for these come from?
Joseph: Useless people, hostile people. Certain people you meet along the way in the industry… and I’m not even talking about White Wizzard [laughs]. When you work a regular job there is always that manager who has it out for you, that makes you clean up puke in the toilet just because they think they can, that sort of thing.
There are some personal songs on there. Like ‘The River’ which is about my father and how he died and I wasn’t able to go to the scattering of his ashes because of 9-11. We wrote ‘A Prelude of Sorrow’ because we were going through the death of Adam. ‘Nocturnes and Requiems’ was Jake and I feeling our way around a new song writing partnership. We are in the midst of building this band in the industry and the things we are going through are not easy. Whether it’s dealing with musical partners who are not up to stuff and don’t understand that this isn’t a garage band where it doesn’t matter. There is so much to deal with and so many really awful people in the world in general, but especially in the music business. It’s not like you can lash out to them, to their face, but you can put it in your art and at least have an outlet for it.
The Razor's Edge: Album cover art is always something that will draw a potential listener in I feel. Did you give the artist a specific direction to go in with this?
Jake: We worked with Christian since our ‘Nocturnes and Requiems’ debut and this is now the forth painting we’ve commissioned him for. He’s one of the guys that Joseph and I, from a creative aspect, we kind of let him do whatever he wants to do. We basically just give him a colour so when we were first working on ‘The Curse of Autumn’ with all the talk of rage this colour of red came through. That changed a little through the writing process. Joseph gives him the lyrics and he’s the only person outside of the band who hears the demo’s. We give him that and that’s pretty much it. He gets the album title and just goes from there and he hasn’t failed us once.
The Razor's Edge: For the fans listening to the album. Is there anything you want them to take away from it?
Joseph: No [laughs]. Just that it’s a very personal record. Nothing here is contrived, we are not trying to sound a certain way and I would not expect the next record to sound the same either. We don’t have a sound, we are more a band along the lines of Queen, where no one composition really defines the band’s sound and this is just where we were at when we were writing.
Jake: This is the natural progression on the Witherfall tree branching out. The ‘Vintage’ E.P. was all acoustic for the most part so it’s just adding on to the different variety of it. Joseph and I don’t like records that you put on and every song sounds the same. That has no interest to us. We want each record to be like it’s own movie, it has to take the listener on a journey and make them feel something. If they don’t feel anything by it, there is really no point.
The Razor's Edge: You brought Jon Schaffer in on production duties. Obviously he has a wealth of experience to draw on. What did he bring to the table for this recording and how did he help you shape this album?
Jake: Well we hired Jon, and we also used Jim Morris and Tom Morris. So Joseph and I did all the writing on the record before we walked into the studio. Jon and Jim have really great ears. They really did a great job making sure we executed the best takes and we got the best performances that we could. Which was great because we would leave the studio knowning that nothing was going to leave the studio between Joseph and I and Jon and Jim.
Joseph: We knew Jon’s intensity and passion for music would match ours, he wasn’t going to let us get out of there with a sub-standard performance and that’s why we brought him on. Jake and I always produce Witherfall records but we brought Jon in as co-producer and he gets top line credit on this. It’s our baby and he understood he’s there to help us get what we want and make it the best it could be.
It was fun making the record and we were like little kids playing around with different guitar pedals, mics etc. Musically it was a great experience.
Jake: This was the one record where it was a real pleasure. Recording a record can be a lot of fun or it can be hell and there is no in between. When stuff is working it can turn into a really creative time too and we had four people who were super excited about it and going off and the energy in the air is incredible. Luckily on that record this was the case. Sure we had disagreements every day, you are going to when you have a lot of creative minds in there we were going to disagree on shit.
Joseph: What flavour pork rinds… [laughs]
Jake: That was inevitable.
Joseph: For reference ‘A Prelude of Sorrow’ when you count the mixing time was over 100 days in production. This record was 35, 40 tops, during Covid with all the traveling. We just had a solid, tight, professional team with no fucking around. I mean I would wake up in the morning and go into the studio for Prelude and there were bags of Oxycotin in there. I’m not going to say whose they were, but that was the environment we were working around.
Jake: Yeah this was a totally different experience from that. Working with a team like this is not cheap, but working with a team that is sub standard and having to get more guys that are good works out more expensive.
The Razor's Edge: Jon's life has taken somewhat of a different turn the past few weeks.
Jake: Oh, I hadn’t noticed [laughs] it’s news to me!
The Razor's Edge: Do you think having his name associated with album, coming out just weeks after the actions he took in Washington, does that have any effect on the release?
Jake: The timing could have been better. It’s not great. I’d like to think that Witherfall have nothing to do with this, I have nothing to do with this. Jon was an employer for me, I worked for his band. My views are nothing compared to his. I hope that people understand that and to throw Witherfall into this is nonsense.
Joseph: We didn’t hire Jon for his political views. I mean didn’t the Beatles producer, what did he do, he went to jail for something crazy. People aren’t going to stop listening to Beatles records because the producer did something wrong.
Jake: For sure we’ve gotten comments, it’s just trolls and shit. We don’t condone anything that happened on the Capitol and to not listen to Witherfall because of that is just stupid.
The Razor's Edge: To finish off, what are your plans for the rest of the year? Do you see yourselves being able to tour any time soon?
Jake: We have a lot of videos coming out. Before the Christmas break we shot three videos, we did a cover of the Boston tune ‘Foreplay / Long Time’ we did the full extended version. We have ‘The River’ coming out. No one really knows how to navigate these waters right now for bands. We’re putting our heads out there are try and do it with videos, and do it that way. We don’t like live streaming, I don’t think it really works for a lot of bands, this is all we can do right now.
Jospeh: We have a tour with Evergrey coming but we don’t really know if that’s going to pan out. I hope so because we are visiting a lot of my favourite places in the world. I'm sure everyone it itching to get back out on the road. Hopefully everyone take the vaccine and it works!
Jake: I read today it’s going to be months until Americans can get it. So say the tour goes on but there’s a travel ban and all of us can’t get it in time and you have to have a vaccine passport to travel, we’re then fucked! Taking it day by day. We have another show in September at the US version of prog power but we don’t know with that, a lot of bands on that bill are coming from Europe and they are in the same boat.
