INTERVIEW: Connor Garritty – All Hail The Yeti

Just when you thought ALL HAIL THE YETI couldn’t get more supernatural, Highway Crosses takes the YETI universe to the next level. After a challenging year losing a key band member, frontman and mastermind Connor Garritty explains the LA crew’s third opus and their survival thanks to the nature of their own determined beast.

How’s the year been for you so far?

Connor: It’s been good and bad. Obviously we went to the UK and Europe and it was awesome as it always is, we got back home about a week ago. The parting of Alan Stokes from the band this year was a big hit for us, he just decided he doesn’t want to tour anymore and he wants to move forward with his life. It’s all good though, we’re all still bros. Then the record got finished and everything’s been great since, but it’s been all over the place this year and I wouldn’t be happy any other way!

We’re rather new to ALL HAIL THE YETI, how did you guys first meet?

Connor: I started the band in 2007 with a friend of mine, our original guitar player. We were both in different bands that were coming to a close so I approached him about writing some music that was something different, he liked the ideas I had and the blend of music I wanted to do. Nick Diltz joined not that long after, about a year later, Nick was apprentice piercer at the tattoo shop I was working at and we had similar tastes in music, plus he was playing bass in my other band at the time. We had a bass player for ALL HAIL THE YETI at that point but I couldn’t just kick him out for Nick, but it ended up not working out with him so we brought Nick on. We’ve had multiple member changes since but Nick and I have been the basis of the band since pretty much the beginning.

Lives change and it’s hard to keep hold of band members when life gets in the way.

Connor: It’s really difficult, there are so many different pieces of the puzzle and they have to fit perfectly to work, you can’t have a guy that’s a super skilled player but he doesn’t know how to tour, he can’t handle the road or he’s an asshole. On the reverse, you can have a guy that’s awesome on the road but he doesn’t know how to play very well. There’s so many things that have to fit perfectly and these days, it’s almost impossible to find somebody that has everything, and the guys that do want too much money! For us, we’ve always wanted to keep the integrity of the sound of the band so we make sure the people that have been with us have understood that. Alan was a big hit, he wrote the last two records with me, but he’s gonna continue to write with us and we’re not stopping now!

ALL HAIL THE YETI have such a diverse sound, what music did you grow up with that’s influenced this final sound?

Connor: I started with a lot of the 80s heavy metal stuff, LA bands like MOTLEY CRUE, RATT, KISS, DOKKEN and all that. That has a big part to play in it because of where we’re from and where the band started, but I think the real thing was when I discovered the New Orleans sound – ACID BATH, EYEHATEGOD, PANTERA, DOWN, that kind of stuff was a big thing for me in my early twenties when I started discovering music. A lot of grunge is in there too, ALICE IN CHAINS and PEARL JAM. There’s so many influences, I couldn’t even begin to list! We go from that to jazz to blues.

It’s impossible to put ALL HAIL THE YETI into one box, you’re your own genre!

Connor: That’s been our arch nemesis since the beginning, which is strange to me. When we were first trying to get signed, we kept hearing the same thing, “We don’t know where to place you, you don’t sound like anything” – isn’t that a good thing? That’s been our thorn in our side but because we’ve persevered through it all, now people are understanding these guys aren’t just some band trying to do what’s hot at that time. When we first started, metalcore came around and I like it and I appreciate it, but I didn’t want to sound like everybody else.

It’s been two years since Screams From A Dark Wilderness, what do you feel has changed in that time?

Connor: A lot of our writing style has grown, we’ve grown as musicians, we’ve worked with a lot of talented people and had the opportunity to tour with a lot of talented bands. I think that, as in life, everything you experience you take pieces with you and try to hang onto the positive ones more than the negative ones. I think because it’s our third record, we didn’t want to do the same thing we did on the second record, we didn’t want to stray too far from the first and second record but we wanted to try something different. I think it’s hard for bands to do that because everyone’s expecting to hear the same thing, “Oh that’s not what they sound like,” they want to hear the first record, the songs they grew up with, the songs they liked. I’m guilty of it too if a band’s second record is different from their first. Instead of doing a big drastic change from one record to another, I think without planning it, we did a gradual change rather than just all of a sudden writing rock songs and not doing heavy anymore. We’re gradually adding different stuff and trying different things.

Sudden style changes never go down well in this scene anyway.

Connor: I’m sure you’re familiar with BRING ME THE HORIZON, that’s a perfect example. I’ve followed them over their career, I’m not a huge fan of them and I respect them and I like their original style. Then gradually from their first record to Sempiternal, it was a completely different record but it wasn’t like they came out with that record straight after the first, they did that over a course of five albums and it was a great transition and now they’re one of the biggest bands in the world and I respect them for that.

The industry’s changing so much around us, it’s hard to keep up.

Connor: The industry is such a mess, the labels want you to do all the work and I don’t mind that, I’d rather do all the work and know I did it and not rely on people. It’s a tough world out there, especially in the States because if you don’t get a song on the radio, you’re gonna struggle. Either you’re gonna be in the underground DIY world, which is great too, or you’re gonna be like all these bands striving to get a song on the radio or write a radio-friendly song. I think they focus so much on that that it takes them away from writing what they really love to write. I think that’s the way of the world now with social media and instant gratification, if you aren’t posting things three or four times a day, you’re irrelevant. Holy shit, I wanna go back to the days of standing outside a club and handing out flyers! Let’s just say we’ve paid our dues from those days.

Highway Crosses is the new album, how long was this writing process?

Connor: It actually went quite quickly compared to the last couple of records, we had a couple of songs written a year ago. We did a few tours and when we got back, we decided to stop focusing on getting tours and just sit down and write the record. So we did it over the course of last summer and we finished recording last November. We got it in hands in January, just under a year ago, and we weren’t really happy with the mixes, then the stuff with Alan started happening and he was questioning whether he wanted to be in the band anymore. The actual writing process was three or four months long, we weren’t sitting eight hours a day writing in the studio, it was after work and whenever we could fit in time. Once we had the core songs written, we wrote about 25 songs and a couple of them were leftovers from the last record we wanted to work in, then we just brought everything to the table and we picked the 10 best ones. When we got into the studio, a couple of them didn’t even make it, two songs turned into Slow Season so that was when we really started. We spent a month on them in there, that was when they really became what they are now.

The album sounds like you’ve spent years perfecting it.

Connor: I’ve always wanted to strive to keep the listener interested and make it an experience rather than putting on one song that you like and then turning it off. All of our records are meant to be listened to from start to finish so without intentionally doing stuff, that’s just what we do.

Closing an album with something like Nuclear Dust is amazing. What inspired that song?

Connor: We had a song on the last record called Nemesis Queen and there’s a theory that there are two opposite parallel universes and two opposite suns, the sun we see in the universe we know of and then there’s the polar opposite where the sun is like a dark star. Their energies push off each other and create this alternate universe. That song is basically the battle between those two stars, it’s a big story I made up but when the Nemesis Queen happens, that’s the battle between the planets and Nuclear Dust is in the future from that, that’s the aftermath, humans on Earth figuring out a way to create these giant machines to fight off the war in the sky between the stars. These giant robotic machines turn on the humans and decide they’re taking planet Earth and they start wiping out the human race just because they can – that’s where Nuclear Dust came from.

We expected something as simple as listening to Trump speeches inspiring something apocalyptic but okay…

Connor: We definitely have our songs that are about real things that happen, but sometimes I like to tell stories and keep people interested. I’ve never really wanted to write about my problems and sing about a breakup, I have done and See You Never is about a past member who basically turned into a piece of shit. I dealt with it at the time by pushing it to one side and not thinking about it, next minute I needed to write a song and it needed to be said. That’s usually how it happens with me, I remember something that happened three years ago or intrigued me years back and it inspires me.

There’s only so many times you can bite your tongue.

Connor: There’s only so many times you can solve a grown man’s problems with music too. I get it, whatever motivates an artist to write something, but I’d rather tell a story and escape the reality of life because that’s how much has always been for me. I’d ask myself what artists were thinking about when they wrote songs, and whether it’s true to how I pictured it or not, I think it’s cool to make my own interpretation of what it’s about.

Sounds like we need more bands like you that don’t write breakup songs every day!

Connor: I guess when bands are younger, that’s what they do, I’ve done it, I’ve been there, I know what it feels like but as I get older, I’m a grown with a career, I’ve been playing music for 20 years and I don’t need to be writing about this girl in high school that dumped me for another guy. There’s so many more important things going on in the world and a lot of shitty things, some stuff we want to write about and some stuff is about escaping reality into a completely made-up story like Nuclear Dust, Before the Flames and After the Fire.

What was it like having Grammy winning producer Warren Riker helping out?

Connor: It was unbelievable. We’ve known Warren for a long time and he was supposed to mix our first record but for whatever reason, it never came to fruition. When we started this record, everyone threw in names for producers and I suggested Warren Riker, he was really excited about doing stuff with us before and he said he was 100% interested, he’d just come back from a two-year hiatus. It was like he’d been part of the band for 10 years, he was a really cool dude and we were all happy. There are always stressful moments but we were having a great time and it was the first time we had specifically stayed in one spot and recorded every day for a month. For the past two records, we were always juggling day jobs and working hours, we were distracted before. This time, we were 100% immersed in writing and recording and finishing it. It was an exhausting and painful experience but it was worth it. He brought stuff to the table that we never would’ve thought of and would never have happened. Everything you hear on the record is all natural and organic sounds, there’s no programming, no digital nonsense, everything’s either done with pedals or instruments or tubes or amps and keyboards. Everything’s physically played by us as a band. What we ended up with is what you hear and it’s supernatural, it was unbelievable and Warren is an amazing talent – there’s a reason he has three Grammys! We’ll definitely be doing the next record with him and we’re already talking about it. He’s insane in a good way, just like we are. When you take five people that have insane amounts of talent and imagination, it can either go really bad or really great and this time it went really great for us. We’re excited, he’s excited, we’re hoping this record is what helps us get to the next level.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen in a ALL HAIL THE YETI crowd then?

Connor: Oddly enough, a dude dressed up in a pink yeti suit. We were out on tour with HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD in Winnipeg, Manitoba and we were standing side stage while our intro was running and I looked out to see this guy. I thought, “he’s wearing a neon pink jumpsuit or overalls,” and I get on stage and see him in the pit, wearing a full pink furry gorilla suit. That was fitting for us as ALL HAIL THE YETI but he turned out to be a really cool kid, he hung out at the merch booth and took a bunch of photos afterwards.

HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD fans are fiercely dedicated, aren’t they?

Connor: They are! We did two tours with them and they have some of the most diehard fans, they’re very accepting. We’re coming up and playing completely opposite music to them but these kids were going crazy. We had an hour-long line for signing autographs when we were done and selling out our merch. HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD have done pretty good to keep it going over a good amount of time and they’re great dudes.

Highway Crosses is out now via minusHEAD Records. 

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