It was a fitting coincidence that I met up with Armed for Apocalypse guitarist Cayle Hunter and drummer Nick Harris only a few hours after the band’s campaign on crowdfunding site Kickstarter — begun the week before in a harried attempt to fund flights to Europe for a three week string of shows (including a UK tour with 36 Crazyfists and shows with Napalm Death and Hatebreed) — had met its $5,000 funding goal. The day was also something of a homecoming for the Chico, CA based quintet, who had only two days before returned from a grueling month-long US tour on the heels of releasing their highly anticipated sophomore record, The Road Will End on Ironclad Records in the US, and Candlelight Records in Europe earlier this year. But such skin-of-their-teeth turnarounds and triumphs have become something of the norm for Armed for Apocalypse, or A4A for short.
In the four years since making their debut on 2009’s Defeat, A4A has added a member - touring guitarist Nate Burman is now an official member alongside Hunter, Harris, vocalist/guitarist Kirk Williams and bassist/vocalist Corey Vaspra — made their way across America a couple of times, toured Europe with Sepultura and Crowbar, and took their sweet ass time crafting their recently minted follow-up disc. But the extra time spent on The Road Will End has paid dividends; the sometimes hodgepodge array of influences the band showed on Defeat has coalesced into a mature, diabolically heavy sound, seamlessly integrating sludgy downtuned riffs with haunting melodicism, with incessantly angry vocals layered atop of the whole mess. Over the course of an hour, we discussed the bands’ long-awaited return to Europe, the stark contrasts between national and international touring, and how The Road Will End might actually be just the beginning.
(((o))): You guys met your goal on Kickstarter today to fund your travel expenses to Europe. How did the idea of going over there get started in the first place?
Cayle: The record came out and we started getting press from our label, Candlelight over in the UK. They sent out the record to different press outlets - this website probably even got one at some point - and would just forward on to me “oh here this site reviewed it, this magazine reviewed it.” And the press was amazing. We would get all these “10 out of 10”, “album of the year” “5 out of 5”, all of these really cool reviews. They were shocking to us. Our last record got some really great ones too, but a lot of mediocre reviews. And that’s what you expect. But it was going so well, that our US label head was like “You guys should look into touring over there. You obviously connect with them really well. That audience is readymade for you.” So I just hit Candelight up and asked “Is there anything we could possibly even look into hopping before the end of the year?” Because if you start putting it off until next year, the record’s already forgotten about, right? We wanted to keep the momentum. And he literally the next day wrote me back “Hey what about this 36 Crazyfists tour? They said you guys can play main support if you say yes.” So then we just started to try to put it all together, having no idea of how we were gonna get over there, we just knew that the guarantees of the shows was going to be almost exactly the amount that we needed to get around once we got there, to stay in hotels and put gas in the van. We couldn’t even afford to rent gear. We’re borrowing gear from our record label, one of the dudes there. That’s how little money we had. So we had to put all that together first: “If we make it over there, can we get around, can we afford to live and get city to city?” But it came over that we needed to confirm it or not, because they were booking the dates. So we said yes without having any clue of how we were gonna make it happen. And then we knew we were going on a tour for a month in the United States, so its not like we get to be home and work. That’s how it normally works: you go on a tour, come home and work, save up a little bit of money and go out again. But we didn’t have time for that.
Nick: It’s like 27 days that we have in between, which is not very long.
Cayle: It’s enough time to get one paycheck if you work. And you still have rent and everything to pay.
(((o))): So was that when the Kickstarter idea came up?
Cayle: We didn’t have any plan for how it was going to happen, at all. We started talking about a Kickstarter, we had seen other people be successful with it, so we just said “We’re gonna do a Kickstarter and then work really hard for it and see how far we can get.” And so we put it out there, as a total Hail Mary, like if this works out, then we can go, but if not then we’ll probably disappoint a lot of people and never be able to tour over there again, probably burn a lot of bridges and it was just gonna be a mess. But it was just something you couldn’t say no to. If we didn’t take that chance, we weren’t gonna tour over there again anyway. It was like: we’re gonna take a chance and if it works out then great, and if it doesn’t, it isn’t gonna work out anyway. So it was worth the risk. And then the Kickstarter got funded and it’s totally mind-blowing. In your head, you knew you were gonna work hard for it, and we’ve had a lot of people who’ve been really nice to us, but I was still totally in shock that it actually happened.
Nick: We were on the road when the Kickstarter started, and it was for 14 days. And today there’s three days left. So it’s weird, that it wasn’t that long ago.
Cayle: It was a 14 day Kickstarter that raised $5,000 dollars. You just don’t think that’s gonna happen.
Nick: Day one, we were like “holy crap, this is gonna work!” But then day seven, it was just, stagnant.
(((o))): Were you like “Oh shit…”?
Nick: In the first 2 days, we were getting close. [Ironclad Records owner and Unearth vocalist] Trevor Phipps texted me and was like “You’re 1/6th of the way there.” Monday he texted me “Your Kickstarter needs a kickstart…” I texted him this morning before I knew, like “What are we gonna do?” Can they front us the tickets? Can we split it between the labels?
Cayle: We were thinking of a Hail Mary on top of a Hail Mary: who could we talk to, who could we do a favor for? I feel like we still could have gotten there, but we would have been sweating it until the last minute.
Nick: And we needed to buy the tickets, like, tomorrow; the sooner the better.
Cayle: You never know with plane tickets, maybe its gonna be a popular flight, and tickets go up. But we lucked out.
(((o))): Part of your drive to get there is that you guys have been there already with Sepultura a couple years ago?
Cayle: Yeah it was killer. That was probably the peak of our musical lives, thus far.
Nick: And the new record seems to be doing better there. Every single review from over there just seems better. It seems like things are moving faster over there.
(((o))): Why do you think that is?
Nick: Right away, the last time we were over there, we were playing in front of a lot more people. So we built a bit of a fanbase. We sold merch every night, decently well. And we were getting emails and Facebook messages from fans for years, like “What’s up with the next record? When are you guys coming back over?” So people were just waiting. On our US tour, we were playing in front of 7 people every night. So one person from every place that we played might be waiting for the new record…[laughs]
Cayle: It’s weird though, as far as our type of music being more accepted over there. It’s a strange thing. Will Haven did better over there, Abominable Iron Sloth did really well over there when I was in that band. Ghostride did better over there; basically every band that I’ve ever been in has done better over there than over here. And I don’t really know what it is. Same with Crowbar: Crowbar kills over there. They do really well. And Sepultura. We toured with them over there and they did really well. They did OK in the US, because they hadn’t been over here for like a decade.
Nick: And they were nervous about coming back over here.
Cayle: It’s just really strange why it catches on over there. I don’t really know, but I love it. I’m really thankful for it. Randy from Lamb of God said the same thing: they busted their humps forever in the States, and then they got their first European tour, and people embraced them right away and they were able to build on it so much faster than they were in the States. And he loved the European fans, they just jumped on new heavy music. And he also said what he noticed, is that European metalheads aren’t as bound to age. Metal is a very young man’s thing in America. All the Warped Tour metal bands, those are all young, young kids. There’s not a lot of new riff-based bands with dudes in the their late-20s, early-30s coming out and doing well. Everything’s all about the kids.
(((o))): Seems like there’s a certain amount of dumbing down that bands do to cater to that age bracket.
Cayle: You have to. You have to have your band name written out in that certain font, you have to have those choruses and those certain types of riffs, otherwise you’re on the outside looking in. I get why bands do it, and I’m not even hating on them at all. If you want to be in a popular band, there’s a little bit more of a formula to take you there. But in Europe, I feel like they like us maybe because we’re a little different. And it’s our job as a band, whenever there’s a spark, whenever anyone shows any kind of interest in our band, you better get on it. Because most bands don’t see a spark anywhere. So if you see it, and you don’t do something about it, you’re a fool. There’s a teeny bit of a spark over there, so we’re just hoping for the best.
(((o))): How does it feel to be on this phase of the touring cycle, doing sort of a similar routine as the first record but the second time around?
Nick: I feel like we’re way more of a well-oiled machine, personally. Way more confidence. Even this US run we just did, 27 shows in 29 days and right now, sitting at my kit, I feel like whatever we play, you’re gonna like. We’re gonna do our thing and people are going to like it. And even if they don’t like it, they’re going to appreciate how much heart and soul.
Cayle: And I think that comes from, like you were saying, the first cycle there are questions about everything. Like, what songs are we gonna play? We didn’t even have that many songs to choose from the first time around. We played a song that wasn’t even on the record, that has never been released, on that whole tour because we didn’t have enough heaters that we felt confident in playing live. But now the second time around, we can definitely see things coming a little bit more. Before, with the first record, there were times, after it got released where everybody was just sitting “What even happens now, I feel like we’re not doing anything. Is anything gonna happen?” And I would always say, “It always happens slow until it happens fast.” Nothing goes on, but when it starts, then it goes really fast.
(((o))): And things have sort of followed that trend this time, where things all seem to happen at once. Where you’re on this last tour, wondering what you’re gonna do then suddenly today it all works out.
Cayle: This morning I got two texts from Nick in a row. One of them was “We’re fucked” and the next one was like “Holy Fuck!”
Nick: I seriously woke up and I fought it “He’s doing family stuff, he’s doing family stuff but as soon as it’s 8 o’clock I’m gonna hit him up, like what do we do, what do we do? How are we gonna do this?” I went through, like 20 different scenarios, of what do we do? Should we do this? But then I got the text “I don’t know if you guys have seen the Kickstarter yet, but we made the goal.” And I was like WHAT? I guess I should’ve checked that first. [laughs]
Cayle: It was crazy because it was so comical. I had just learned about it when I got your text, “What the fuck are we gonna do?” It was pretty nuts. But now we know where we were lacking the first time, on the first record: what did we do wrong on the business side, what did we do wrong touring. There were so many things that we just didn’t know, that now we can say “We don’t want to do that, because that’s not going to help us. We’ve tried that and failed before. Here’s what we need to succeed.” Now we can dictate what we need and try to make that happen, as opposed to just being a slave to what people hand you. “Oh here’s this tour, you’re gonna lose a ton of money on it.” Now we can just say no, we’re not gonna do that, and say it with confidence.
(((o))): Was there a similar feeling as far as the songwriting went for the new record? There seems to be palpable change from the last record to this one.
Nick: I think we went to Europe, last time and we learned from the best: Sepultura, Crowbar and Hamlet. Those guys have all been in bands for 15, 20 years. We watched how they did things. And we also watched how they approached things. When we came home, it kind of just flew out of us, the way a song should flow. It kind of just came out naturally, this record. Just literally learning from the best bands, who have been doing it forever.
Cayle: What I took from it, personally, is that they’re still able to play songs that they’re been playing for 20 years every night and they’re still relevant. Because they’re good songs. So we learned that instead of just being the loudest, craziest thing, why don’t we just write good songs and play them in a loud heavy way, and its gonna come out so much better. And then we stopped just taking the next part that came along in a song. Sometimes you can do that, and write a song really fast. But your next instinct isn’t necessarily your best, because maybe it sounds like something you’ve already written, or you’re writing a part just to write a part, to make it through the song. So we didn’t stop, until we got that feeling, on every song “I love this song, this song could be my favorite song of ours.” And then you get it again, and you get it again. And some of them happened in a day, but some of them took a year to write. We just kept pecking away at them. We just wouldn’t stop until it was a good song, all the way through.
(((o))): It almost seems like in the three years between these two records, there’s a record sort of implied that was never written or made, making this almost more like a third record.
Cayle: In a way. The first two songs on Defeat were the last two songs written, and they were kind of the spark for The Road Will End. And the first four songs we wrote for this record were almost like the last songs written for the first one. Which we were stoked on at the time, because they were better than what we were doing and they were growth, and we really loved them, but when we left on tour and saw the real deal, saw what we were up against, in the real world of music not just in our practice spot, it made us refine everything. So it’s almost like at that point, the “third record” started on its own independently. By the time it all ended, it was pretty clear which ones stood on their own and that’s why the record sounds cohesive. Once we got rid those first four, which were more like a bridge between the two and put together all of our best songs, which just happened to be our newest ones, it sounded like a full record, instead of just a collection of a bunch of songs.
(((o))): Instead of just taking whatever songs you could get pull together.
Cayle: Yeah, and the first record was like that. Record a few songs at one studio, record a couple songs at another one. Record the last two to fill out the record. Vocals in three different places. We needed a record, so we had to fill out the songs. Same with the lyrics; we’re writing lyrics as we’re recording them, because we need vocals for the last couple of songs. Writing guitar leads. We didn’t take time to ask ourselves “Are these good?” It was like “They’re really loud, and they’re tuned low and they’re pretty pissed off sounding, so they must be good.” Not to say that the first record isn’t good but in comparison to what it could’ve been, it wasn’t. And I think that over time we’ve realized that that record probably won’t stand the test of time; there will be songs on it that are around for awhile. Probably the first few because those are the ones we put are hardest work into. Like Nick said, watching Sepultura and Crowbar be able songs that are 20 years old and have them still be good, and still be heavy. We wanted a record like that.
Nick: We watched those guys every night. I can’t remember a time when all 4 of us didn’t. Every single night, we learned.
(((o))): You guys recently made your touring guitarist Nate an official member of the band. What’s the story there?
Nick: He’s a hard working dude.
Cayle: How that came about is because of me: I have a wife and a daughter, and a steady job. So that came from me not being able to do, like this most recent US tour and just random dates. It was just weighing really heavily on me, missing out on stuff, and knowing that they were going to go out there and be a three-piece and gonna try to make the best out of it, but its just not the finished product; you’re missing a vocal, the guitar. And that’s a huge part when you’re only a four-piece band. And I didn’t know when the end of that would be, so at first, it was we needed to find someone who could come on the road with us every time, who could do merch when I was there and play when I’m not there. And Nate was the first, and really the only dude who we thought of.
Nick: He filled in for one whole tour, for nine dates. And a couple of random shows. And he lives with Kirk.
Cayle: And plus with him, when he was in his other bands around town, we love watching Nate play. So when you can get someone like that, who you’re stoked on already. So for us, it was perfect. But Nate said he couldn’t really do it, as a fill-in, because he wanted to either be in a full-time band, or go cook. He’s a really talented chef. So he said “If you want me to do the half-and-half thing, I can’t do it.” So we either had to make him a full time member, or search someone else out who we’re not really stoked on.
Nick: And he’s already our really good friend.
Cayle: Yeah and the personality is the hardest thing to find. I think any musician will tell you that. Unless you’re in some crazy shredder band, where there’s only a handful of people in the world who could play it. But for us, personality is such a huge part of it because you’re only playing a half-an-hour a day. That’s 23 other hours that you’re just hanging. Every day.
Nick: And Nate’s a really good driver…[laughs]
Cayle: Yeah that’s a plus. And now it’s still Armed for Apocalypse, even when I’m not there. And when I am there, it’s Armed for Apocalypse but even heavier. I think the only risk is that people would clown us for using three guitars. But it’s not something we can’t handle.
Nick: Here’s what I can say about three guitars. We’ve done it three times now. The first time it was like, this is cool, this is fun. We all kind of knocked the dust off of it. But the show last Friday in Chico, it was like “This is how we’re gonna do this! Holy crap.” What I’m really looking forward to is the four mics across the front.
Cayle: I knew he was going to fit right in. The only tough part is musically, when you tune that low, then you run the risk of it sounding sloppy. But that just takes hard work, to get it tighter. And work ethic, I think, is the least of our worries.
UK/Europe Tour Dates
FRI NOV 1
O2 ACADEMY - BIRMINGHAM, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
SAT NOV 2
O2 ACADEMY - OXFORD, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
SUN NOV 3
RESCUE ROOMS - NOTTINGHAM, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
MON NOV 4
THE SUGARMILL - STOKE-ON-TRENT, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
TUE NOV 5
O2 ACADEMY - LIVERPOOL, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
THU NOV 7
THE ACADEMY - MANCHESTER, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
FRI NOV 8
KING TUTS WAH WAH HUT - GLASGOW, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
SAT NOV 9
THE GARAGE/CAMPUS - ABERDEEN, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
SUN NOV 10
O2 ACADEMY - NEWCASTLE, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
MON NOV 11
THEKLA - BRISTOL, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
TUE NOV 12
THE WEDGEWOOD ROOMS - PORTSMOUTH, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
THU NOV 14
THE UNDERWORLD CAMDEN - LONDON, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
FRI NOV 15
THE ROAD MENDER - NORTHAMPTON, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
SAT NOV 16
THE COCKPIT - LEEDS, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
SUN NOV 17
CENTRAL STATION - WREXHAM, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
MON NOV 18
THE UNDERGROUND CAMDEN - LONDON, UK
W/ 36CRAZYFISTS & THERA
THU NOV 21
ASTRA - BERLIN, GR
W/ HATEBREED & NAPALM DEATH
FRI NOV 22
KUADRAT - KRAKOW, PL
W/ NAPALM DEATH
SAT NOV 23
DEKOMPRESJA - LODZ, PL
W/ NAPALM DEATH
SUN NOV 24
UCHO - GDYINA, PL
W/ NAPALM DEATH
