It’s all happening in the All That Remains camp at the moment. The metalheads from Massachusetts last month released their new album For We Are Many which debuted at number ten on the US Billboard charts and is getting a very positive reaction from around the globe. The band is returning to Australia on Soundwave 2011, their second appearance on the festival, so Deborah Konopnicki had a chat to guitarist Mike Martin about the new record, touring, and their return to Australia. Click below to expand this post and have a read.

Yo!

Hey, Mike. How are you going?
Great! Yourself?

Pretty good, thanks! How’s the tour treating you so far?
So far, so good! We did four weeks with As I Lay Dying and we’re doing our headlining tour now. Kind of like two tours in one, but it’s been really good so far. We’re playing a lot of new songs already which is really cool. Unearth are one of the bands that’s opening with us, so the funnest part so far has been touring with those guys because they have been such great friends of ours for so long. It’s gone by really fast just hanging out with them.

How has the response been from the fans in terms of the new material? Have they started to latch onto it yet considering how fresh it is?
Yeah, there’s been great, great feedback so far and especially with all of the places on the internet where people go to hate you. It’s been an overwhelmingly positive reaction so far which has been really nice for us. Usually every time that you put out an album, I have definitely seen more people liking it then making fun of us for it which is a good thing!

It’s only been out in Australia for a little while at the moment. How are you feeling about it as a whole? What do you do when it’s out of your hands?
Just make sure that you’re happy with it. As long as you’re happy with it, then that’s cool. No matter what, you’re going to have people telling you what you should have done and they’re going to tell you what you were thinking or should have been thinking when you did it. They think that they know, but they don’t know. Just make sure that when it’s finished that you’re happy with it! Other than that, go out and play the songs and enjoy it instead of letting all of the negativity drag you down.

The album debuted at number 10 on the Billboard charts, which is no mean feat in today’s industry. Were you expecting the album to do so well initially?
We were hoping to. We did about the same amount unit wise of our last one. We knew that if we did the same as out last one then it would be close to debuting in the top ten. We definitely felt like it was a strong possibility that it would do the same amount or a little bit more, and it actually ended up doing a little bit more. We just squeaked in a number 10 there. We were hoping that it did because it’s just a cool thing to say; that you had a top ten album. It’s something that you don’t except and especially when playing this kind of metal. It’s a big deal for a lot of people. I still think that it’s cool. I never thought that it would have happened. I don’t know what as a whole it does though. I just think that it’s cool just in general, and just in terms of people on the internet who are always dogging you and saying that “Your band sucks blah blah blah”, They see this and just go, “Wow” and just gives them that little bit more of an incentive to check it out and see what’s going on that they don’t know about and they’re just too busy being angry about it!

How was the process this time around for you? It seems that there is a slight music progression from that last album. Was that something that was decided upon before heading into the studio?
It has such a polished sound. It’s usually pretty natural. If we play something and we’re just like, “Yeah. this sounds just like this song that we already did” we’re just conscious that we didn’t want to put out the same album. It’s a natural thing for us to try and have natural sounding stuff. It’s always been that way. People tend to latch on to certain albums, like a lot of people say, “Oh, why don’t you write ‘The Fall Of Ideals’ again?”, well it’s because we already wrote ‘The Fall Of Ideals’! We don’t want to write an album twice. We want to do something different! So, it’s a natural progression but at the same time you’re definitely aware if something sounds exactly the same as something that you’ve already done. We get asked a lot if there are any bands that we’re listening to at the time that influenced our writing, but there’s really not. Oli writes a lot of the music and I know that for a fact that he tries to not listen to any music when he’s writing for a new record because he does want to be influenced. Even if he doesn’t realise it, he doesn’t want to be subconsciously influenced. Plus a lot of the people in the band don’t even listen to a tonne of metal, so it’s not like we’re getting influenced by other bands that are metal.

How much of a role did Adam D play in the process? It seems that whenever his name is attached to a project you can just assume that the production quality is going to be insane.
Yeah, every time that he’s involved is great. It’s just all of the little stuff that he contributes. Sometimes he has big idea for big parts and stuff but a lot of the time it’s just small stuff that you might not think of at the time, just little stops here and there and little additions – an extra bit here and an extra beat there. Little things that make everything a little more tasteful. He’s always really good with things like that. He just a adds a nice twist on the overall everything in general.

The album has such a killer opening track in “Now Let Them Tremble”. Was there an idea behind having an intro track to the album? Did you just want to set the tone for the rest of the record?
Jason wrote a drum beat that just turned into that. We were trying to write a song around it, but we just kept on playing through it. We had a couple of variations on the part over and we just turned it into that. We thought that it would be a very cool minute and a half intro just to open up the CD that was really heavy. We were trying to figure out something, but we were just happy to have it as an intro. It has a really cool feel to it going into the next song.

Yeah, it has a really cool feel to it. It flows really well. Is that something that you’re going to start using as an introduction to your shows?
We already are. The whole five or six weeks that we’ve been on the road, we’ve been opening with that already.

Oh, cool. How is that going down?
It’s been cool! I think that people are a little confused. They’re like, “What is this?” but I think that now that the album is out and has been for a week now, I think that people are starting to catch on a little bit. The first couple of weeks of the tour, people were like “Argh.., I don’t really know what this is…” (laughs), but whatever. I’m glad for the album to be out and for people to start catching on.

Have you noticed a massive change in crowd participation in the past week or so since the album has dropped?
Yeah. I think that it takes like four to six months until you start getting a proper and real reaction from the newer stuff. We’re playing a lot of new songs already, but the reaction is still pretty mild because people are just listening at the moment as opposed to when we’re playing the songs that people know really well and they’re flipping out. So, we understand that it takes some time for people to catch on. So, the album is out now and I’d say by the next time that we come through the US in whether it’s January or March or whatever, by that time I think that people will have a bigger idea and there will be more of a reaction.

Is that a weird feeling? Having people go totally nuts for a song and then have them standing stiff with a puzzled look on their face?
It’s awkward at first. I don’t like playing too many new songs. I keep on arguing with people on this tour about it. Phil is insisting that we play more new stuff because he’s sick of playing so much old stuff. I hate when the crowd is standing around too much. I’m starting to get used to the amount of new songs that we’ve been playing so it’s not really bothering me anymore. I feel better now that the album is out.

What have you found to be the best live tracks?
“For We Are Many” has been getting a lot of attention already. That’s the getting the best response. We’ve been playing that every night. “Aggressive Opposition” is my personal favorite. I really like playing that song a lot. Every one of them is so fun right now because they are so fresh. “Dead Wrong” is another one that is fun to play as well.

Any tracks that you’re looking forward to debuting?
Yeah, pretty much all of it! Usually with albums – and what makes me most excited about this album is that I can usually pick four or five songs right away that I know that we’re never going to play live. If anybody suggested pretty much any song off of this album, I’d be pretty excited to play it live. I’m excited for all of them actually.

Well Australian fans are going to get a taste of the new album quite soon with your inclusion on the Soundwave festival next year.
Yeah! We’ll be there for those five big shows. We did Soundwave already a little while ago, which was amazing. It was our first time over there. We’re looking forward to it! We’re excited to go back. We’re excited for the flights!

It seems like a pretty good deal having the tour planned around then… it gives fans down here enough time to get really familiar with the album just in time to see you!
Yeah! I’m already getting people online saying things like, “oh I can’t wait till you come down here and play this song” and things like that. People are already reacting which is really cool. We’re psyched to go down there. I don’t know when – I’m sure that it will happen eventually – but I don’t know when we’ll maybe be able to do like a club tour over there. For now we’re just going to do Soundwave again and then after that go back and do something smaller like in clubs or something like that. Right now as far as I know it’s just the festival dates. Last time we were there we played one show in Melbourne with Devildriver. That was the only one. If we were to play a club show this time I can’t imagine that there would be more than one. We need to save the time to fly between the cities.

Did you have any memorable moments from the last Soundwave?
Yeah, for sure. Just being on the tour with Alice In Chains for me was huge. They’ve been my favorite band all of my life and being on the tour with them was just so cool. I got to meet them as well and they were really nice guys. We’ve actually kept in touch since then, which was really cool. I’m psyched about this time around because Slash is on it. He’s been my favorite guitar player since I was eight years old so I’m beyond excited that Slash is going to be on that tour. I really hope that I get to meet him.

Just finally, what’s on the cards for All That Remains for the rest of the year? I assume you’re going to be touring as much as possible to promote the new record?
Yeah. We’re touring the rest of this year and then all of next year. Just touring, touring and more touring.

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