INTERVIEW: Riley McShane – Allegaeon

Since the recruitment of Riley McShane in 2015, ALLEGAEON have gone from strength to strength. Since his recruitment, the Colorado shredders released the stunning Proponent For Sentience in 2016 and last year, finally crossed the pond to tour across the UK and mainland Europe; a tour many our side of the Atlantic have craved for. Now, a year later, with a second European run under their belts and the release of their fifth album Apoptosis on the horizon, it seems that the future is very bright for the band. Back in February, as the band toured across the UK and Europe supporting OBSCURA (read our review of the Manchester show here), we spoke with vocalist Riley McShane to discuss the band’s fruitful recent years, their brand new album Apoptosis (including how it represents the brand new era for ALLEGAEON) and how the band are striving to take their career to the next level.

So you are about a week into this European tour supporting OBSCURA. How’s it going so far?

Riley: It’s been awesome man! We’ve been visiting a few of the same markets we played last year with NE OBLIVISCARIS so we’ve seen a few old faces come out again. This time we’re playing with more bands so we’re seeing new faces and making new fans so it’s going really well!

So how does it compare to last year’s tour as last year was the first time ALLEGAEON came over to Europe?

Riley: I feel like last year, since it was our first tour, there was a little bit more urgency if you know what I mean? Between fans actually being able to come out to shows and all that kind of stuff but at the same time, I’d say it’s about the same. I think that maybe last time there was that sense of urgency because it had taken so long to get us over here that people would go “oh if takes another ten years we have to go and get our shirts and see them live!” But now that we’re back less than a year later I think that a lot of the old school fans are just stoked and are still coming out.

It must be nice knowing you are building a platform to come over to Europe more?

Riley: Yeah, exactly. It’s good. The first tour did so well for us that its been a lot easier for us to get tour offers and stuff like that.

So what’s the setlist balance for this tour?

Riley: It’s a mixed bag. We’ve only released one song from the new album so that’s the only one that we are playing. Since it is only our second tour over here, a lot of people who may have missed us last time, we want to play songs that span the whole catalogue.

Speaking of the new album Apoptosis. It’s coming out in April and it’s been three years since your last record, Proponent For Sentience, how has ALLEGAEON developed in that time?

Riley: We’ve developed a lot. We had a little bit of a personnel change. Our long time bassist Corey Archuleta left to pursue a career in law so we got Brandon Michael on bass and I think that he really brings a new flavour to the band. He really adds a lot to the song-writing and the dynamics of the songs with his bass playing. On top of that, we’ve all just grown as musicians. The whole theme of the new record Apoptosis is like leaving behind the old for a new and better state. Whether it’s socially or scientifically, anything like that. With us personally, it resonates musically. We haven’t left behind ALLEGAEON‘s core style by any means but we’ve started to write songs more from the perspective of songs we want to write rather than being “oh is this an ALLEGAEON song?” Proponent For Sentience had a lot of that, in hindsight we scrapped a couple of really good songs because we were like “oh it doesn’t really fit the ALLEGAEON sound”. With this one, the core sound is still there, we’re experimenting and branching out a little bit more.

So has it been a bit more of a liberating process this time round?

Riley: It has! I feel more proud of this album than I did with Proponent For Sentience for sure.

You mentioned about the theme of the record, does it have more of a personal connection to you and the rest of ALLEGAEON than the overarching philosophical theme?

Riley: Yeah, like I explained, the musical element of it is very dear to us. That’s not really mentioned in the lyrics or in the songs or anything like that. When I presented the name of the album to the guys they said it was perfect! It’s perfect for us for the last few years you know? ALLEGAEON has always gone through member changes but at this point in time, we feel that there are no weak links in the lineup. We feel like we’ve shed off all that old skin and really emerged as the perfect incarnation of what we could be and what we are going to be for the next x amount of years. It’s hard to say and it’s a tough pill to swallow but I feel like this is where ALLEGAEON‘s career is really starting. Yeah, we’ve already released four albums, but I feel like we’ve really embraced that idea of Apoptosis. We’ve systematically killed off the old to make room for a better and brighter future.

I think that definitely shows on the record. On the last record you introduced clean vocals which was a first for ALLEGAEON. Apoptosis builds on that more, was that something you always wanted to incorporate?

Riley: It was more something that Greg always wanted for ALLEGAEON. The first vocalist, Ezra Haynes, just wasn’t really a clean singer. So he had flirted with the idea of guest vocals but wasn’t really able to lock anything in until the last record with Björn from SOILWORK. There were a couple of clean vocals from me but on this one, like I said before, we just felt a bit more liberated in our song-writing process. So when there were parts that were like slow and melodic, it was like “could there be a cool clean vocal section over this?” We played around with it and some of them stuck, some of them didn’t but we didn’t close that door if you know what I mean? We allowed ourselves to experiment with what clean vocals sounded like on certain parts. Some of them we thought were sick so we kept them!

A lot of the record was tracked whilst you were on tour which is a new process than what you did before. What benefits did it bring and is it a practise you’d do again?

Riley: It gave us less time to nitpick. Musicians, especially metal musicians or anyone who writes really technical music, will often write something then re-listen, re-listen, re-listen. They’ll tear it apart and eventually will go “fuck this song”. I think that because we had less time to dissect the music, it ended up with more of a raw and natural feel to the songs. I think that’s ultimately very beneficial. It’s more real. I don’t want to say stale, because no metal is stale, but it’s less of that hyper-produced, meticulously written kind of metal. There is more emotion behind it.

With Apoptosis being ALLEGAEON’s fifth record, it may be a difficult question, but what do you want to achieve with it?

Riley: We’re hitting a couple of new markets this year. We’re going to Australia with NE OBLIVISCARIS and a couple of other great bands in May. We’re hoping to lock in some Japanese stuff, maybe doing some Canadian headliners which we’ve never done so basically, we want to use this record as a launchpad to send us up to that next level. Taking us that bit closer to being an international headlining band. I don’t think that’s too far out of the realm of reasonable expectations.

Thank you so much for your time Riley

Riley: Thank you so much.

Apoptosis is set for release on April 19th via Metal Blade Records.

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