August Burns Red: Still Going Strong

AUGUST BURNS RED have been a band since March 2003. Over their 20 year career, there has been lineup and label changes, but the thing that has stayed the same is the band’s passion for what they do. We sit down with JB Brubaker whilst the band are on their second leg of their North American 20 year anniversary tour to discuss the band’s tenth album, Death Below, their move to SharpTone Records, and the joys of collaboration with other bands.

“The label change didn’t affect our album,” JB explains. “We’ve been fortunate enough to never have a label meddle in our creative process, and SharpTone was the same way. We’ve been a band for a long time, and the label knew what they were getting into when they signed us. They let us be us.”

The album artwork is striking, and the story behind how it happened is fascinating. “We found this artist called Andrei Riabovitchev on Instagram, and we reached out to him and asked if he wanted to do the album artwork.” He unfortunately said no as he was really busy with other projects. “I was scouring his Instagram page and I found the artwork that we eventually used for Death Below, and I asked if we could buy it off him. He said yes, and that’s what happened. We found an artwork that we thought really fit the vibe of the album, and the rest is history.”

Death Below has twelve songs on the album, which includes the first single, Ancestry. It almost wasn’t a single as JB admits that he didn’t intend for it to be a single, as it is “pretty techy, kind of long metal track. I loved it, but I don’t think of it as a single.”

However, all that changed when KILLSWITCH ENGAGE frontman Jesse Leach stepped up to the microphone. “That chorus part he did really elevated the song for all of us and we felt made it a lot more appealing to the masses given the fact that it has this big sing-along chorus that AUGUST BURNS RED songs never have.”

The collaborations on the album also include UNDEROATH‘s Spencer Chamberlain on closing song Reckoning, CHELSEA GRIN guitarist Jason Richardson on Tightrope, and ERRA‘s vocalist J.T. Cavey. “It was really great. Jesse came into the studio and he just sang it. he was very professional. Working with Spencer was a similar experience. He was really gracious about it,” JB explains. He says that Jason sent the band his guitar solo two days after they contacted him about it. “He’s an insane guitar player,” JB says with a smile. “J.T. followed the template we had on hand, but he did a great job as well. Great experiences all round.”

“Collaborations have been something we wanted to do on past records, but the timing simply hasn’t worked out with the folks we wanted to work with. We always put inquiries in, but this time, the stars aligned. It was a stroke of luck that everyone we asked this time around wanted to work with us.”

Thankfully, this positive experience means that AUGUST BURNS RED have not ruled out any future collaborations. “It adds a unique flavour to a song, especially for a band like us, as we have been around for so long.” It also brings fans of the collaborator to the band.

As Death Below is the band’s tenth album, it is inevitable that the band will have songs that sound like callbacks to older songs. However, that isn’t a bad fan as JB explains that he has seen fans point out the Easter eggs. Furthermore, AUGUST BURNS RED has a definitive sound, so therefore it is more likely that there are callbacks. But JB says, “I think that is just a product of our back catalogue.” For those who have not heard of the band, they are a technical metalcore band, which JB describes as “a big heavy buildup to lots of breakdown. The songs are not linear. We’re not big into choruses.” But with so many albums, where do one start?

“The fan-favourite albums are [their third album, 2009’s] Constellations and [their 2007 second album] Messengers,”JB explains. But he would recommend 2015’s Found In Far Away Places. “It’s our most polarising record as there’s a lot of experimentation, but that’s what I love about it.”

As for Death Below, it kicks off with the Premonition and The Cleansing, which was originally intended to be one big song. But due to the total runtime being over ten minutes, the song was chopped in half. JB found that those two songs are his favourite to write. They were also the first songs he wrote for the album. This album also saw AUGUST BURNS RED dabble in black metal, especially on the drums. “It’s a cool little sub-genre of metal to experiment with. I don’t think it’s overpowering, so those who don’t like black metal aren’t overwhelmed by it.”

As for the future of the band’s sound, they will never say never to branching out into different genres of music, such as rock or pop-punk. However, at the moment, they have no interest in doing so. JB explains that he feels very protective of where AUGUST BURNS RED lie on the musical spectrum. He also acknowledges how jarring it is changing genres. For the moment, they are focusing on the 20-year anniversary tour, and although they are not planning on writing their next album just yet, they are concentrating on the yearly tradition of releasing a Christmas song. Whatever the future holds for AUGUST BURNS RED, they look towards it with hope.

Death Below is out now via SharpTone Records.

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