Antagonist

09.07.2008 | Cam | 0 Comments

Proving that New Zealand can produce more than Lord Of The Rings and bad jokes about sheep, Antagonist are ready to level Australian audiences yet again as part of Parkway Drive’s pending Australian tour.

Antagonist front man Sam took some time out to give us the following interview…

Interview w/ Sam (Vocals) of Antagonist (New Zealand)

By Cameron Chambers 

Hey mate, thanks for speaking to us today. 

Hey bro, how you doing? 

Really well thanks man. Just for the record, can you tell us your name and what you do in the Antagonist? 

Yep. My name is Sam Sam and I sing. 

For those that are unfamiliar with the band, can you give us a bit of background info on the band, how you got together etc… 

In about 2004 and myself and our bassist Josh… we were putting together a band that was going to be like Martyr AD and we met up with some other dudes who were trying to do a band like Arkangel… real Euro stuff. Anyway, we joined up through mutual friends and we all knew each other through our old bands. 

We had a different guitarist at the start who ended up leaving and then our drummer left so we ended up finding Ross who had played with Josh in The Warpath. We knew Boozy because he had played in other bands in Auckland and yeah, everyone was down to play metalcore coz no one was really playing the style we wanted in New Zealand at the time. So yeah, it just went from there! 

Did you have a set idea of what you wanted the band to sound like when it first started up or was it just a case of jamming and seeing what happened? 

We just wanted to be a Euro sounding metalcore band, ha ha. We wanted to sound like a US band trying to sound like a Euro band, ha ha. I have no idea what that means but I’ve heard a few people describe us that way before.  

After we lost our first guitarist we got Ross and Boozy so we really started focusing on writing and we just wanted to write good metalcore that wasn’t watered down and you know… we just wanted to keep the integrity and just be super heavy but still be hardcore at the same time… just with a metal edge! 

By all means we’re a metalcore band but we still think of ourselves as a hardcore band.  

How would you describe the band to someone that hadn’t heard you before?  

Like some random dude on the street? 

Perfect, ha ha. 

I dunno hey. If it was some random dude then I’d say we sounded like Slipknot except good, ha ha. Slipknot with better style or something. We’re just heavy and fast and I dunno. We’ve got a lot of shit behind it and besides the music there’s a lot of fucking passion and hate and energy. 

It’s a good outlet for us… or as much of an outlet as it can be.  

A hard stance on social issues is becoming less and less common with bands these days, but you guys have taken a prominent pro-vegan stance. Are your lyrics a way for the band to let people know how you feel about veganism as individuals or are you hoping to educate and encourage others to look into the vegan lifestyle? 

Well, all our lyrics, whether or not they’re vegan… they all bring issues to light. It’s not so much preaching as just being yo, this shit is going on! If I write a vegan song then I won’t just write that it’s bad to eat meat or diary… I generally speak in metaphors. As long as people see it then hopefully they’ll fall through the cracks that you open up for them… you know, encourage them to check it out. 

We have a song about Suicide Girls and back home in New Zealand it opened up a whole bunch of shit. No one had questioned that before or said that they didn’t like it so just saying something can hopefully open some people up to question things. Most people that listen to music don’t really listen to the lyrics… they don’t really pay attention but for the few kids that do it’s all about letting them know that there is shit going on.  

For a small country New Zealand is consistently churning out quality bands. What’s the scene like back home and how do the shows compare to the ones you’ve played here in Australia? 

That’s kind of a hard one. It’s so up and down, especially lately. When we were starting up… or even before we started, it just seemed like every good band in New Zealand bar a couple… well, most of the bands that were drawing big crowds broke up over a six-month period. We lost a lot of venues and a lot of promoters left and got married and got over it, so there was this whole period of time where there was nothing going on. 

A year ago it was killer and we had really good shows.  I mean, we don’t really have big numbers but the kids are sincere and siked. There’s not as much focus on the shit doesn’t matter, like hair and that shit. Kids just do whatever… they look mongrel and they are there for the music. 

Just lately it’s gone a bit strange. There aren’t many bands playing and things are a bit stagnant. Shit goes through phases and New Zealand is especially so up and down. From what we’ve experienced Australia is pretty standard, like, if the shows are done right then there’s always a crowd. There’s always going to be kids that suck but you get that everywhere and it doesn’t matter because for everyone one of those kids there are a million that rule.  

Who are some other bands from New Zealand that kids should check out? 

There’s a band called The Chase and they’re awesome. They used to sound like Casey Jones and Comeback Kid but they’ve come into their own. They’re really good and I’ve been trying to get them to come over for so long. They just put out a CD called Paranoia and people should get it. 

There’s a band starting soon called The Burial… Boozy plays in that band too and it has members from another band called Damage who were one of the better New Zealand bands. They are super heavy and its just fast Euro stuff and they’re seriously fucking good. It’s going to be mental! 

All the emerging bands like Brick VS Face, Cry Wolf and Wasteland are dope.  

Your first record “These Cities, Our Graves” has just been re-released in Australia by Trial & Error. For those who missed the record the first time round can you tell us a bit about it, why you chose to re-release it etc… 

The CD is kind of a demo. “These Cities, Our Graves” was pretty much a recording of all the songs we’d written at the time so it wasn’t like we wrote an album… we just recorded all the songs we were playing at the time. When we started we were so stoked to record a CD… shit, we were stoked just to play outside of our hometown or even to play at the venue in our hometown.  

When it came to recording a CD we didn’t think about it too much so yeah, they were all our songs from 2005 and 2006 and we’ve had it out for a while and we’re gearing up to release another album in September. It’s going to be a big tour with Parkway so we packaged the older CD and put two extra songs we recorded on it. There are a lot of kids here in Australia that have downloaded our album so I liked the idea of having it out so kids can actually read the lyrics and know what we’re all about.  

I’m sure you would have had a few offers to put the record out in Australia, how did you end up working with Trial & Error? 

We had a few. Basically it was kind of like… when we went with Eleven Fifty Seven Records we were stoked because they were the label in New Zealand that put out all the bands we loved, like DSM and Balance so it was like, no we’re down with all those bands that we look up to.  

With Trial & Error they released some stuff from one of my all time favourite bands from New Zealand, Sommerset, and that sealed it for me. Nigel was really keen and he had a good rapport with our label in New Zealand and he’s really keen to push it and get behind it and if it weren’t for him then I wouldn’t be talking to you. We wanted the CD out everywhere and we wanted everyone to know out it… we trusted Nigel and he’s doing a great job.  

When can expect your next full length? 

In September we’re releasing the record back in New Zealand so I think we’ll be releasing it in Australia in October. Basically, the only reason we’re delaying it so we can put the CD out and then come to Australia right away and do a massive tour to make it work.  

We finished the guitars just before we came over and when we get back we’ll do vocals and bass and then we’ll send it off the US to Zack Oren for mastering, and this dude Max who did The Ghost Inside record and I think he may be mixing The Red Shore record as well. That will be dope and it’s going to be called “We Are The Dead”.  

Your tour with Parkway Drive starts this week, are these the biggest shows you’ve played to date? 

In Australia for sure! We did Taste Of Chaos and Big Day Out at home and that was just mental. They were the biggest shows that I’d ever imagined I’d play in my lifetime. It was different, I mean, Taste Of Chaos wasn’t really anything… especially in New Zealand. It’s just random dudes that I’ve never seen before. 

Big Day Out was just this massive, broad festival so I was siked to play it. This is different though. I’m siked to play to a room full of kids who are frothing. 

Resist have done a great job in putting together a really diverse tour with Break Even and Have Heart (USA) taking part as well. Do you enjoy playing as part of a varied bill and exposing kids to different kinds of bands? 

Seriously! When we were told we were in a van somewhere in New Zealand and we got told about the Parkway Drive tour. We didn’t even know it was with Have Heart and Break Even and just before it got announced someone told me and I was like “no way”! I hadn’t heard Break Even before but I checked them out and I was siked and man, Have Heart is one of my favourite bands! 

Apart from the Parkway tour what other touring plans have you got for the year? 

When we get back to New Zealand we’ve got this animal rights festival going on and then throughout September we’ll be touring New Zealand for the album and then hopefully coming back to Australia in October or November. We’re actually hoping to come back to Australia in August for some shows in Sydney and Melbourne. 

We’ve got a lot of work to do to finish the album and then once that’s done we want to play in Australia as much as possible.  

Once your new record is released later this year are you going to be focusing on more touring outside of New Zealand? Have you had any offers from Europe or the States? 

At the moment we’re just trying to make some contacts over there. Next year we’re hoping to go over there but we’re just having heaps of fun going to Australia at the moment man. It’s seriously awesome. I never expected to be over here, releasing CD’s so I’m still just finding that hard to fathom.  

At the moment we’re talking to some people in Europe and the States and if that happens I’ll lose my mind but fuck man, at the moment I’m in Castle Hill in Sydney and I’m just stoked to be here, ha ha.  

Just got a few quick questions to finish up if that’s cool man? 

Definitely man.  

Favourite place you’ve travelled to?  

Melbourne or Byron Bay for sure. 

Favourite album at the moment? 

That’s a hard one man. Either The Ghost Inside record or the new Cancer Bats CD, Hail Destroyer.  

Veronicas or Olsen Twins? 

Ha ha, The Veronicas. 

Most embarrassing experience? 

I fell off stage this one time. I was kind of running across stage and I managed to slip down the side and fall off and graze my whole leg, ha ha. Then I landed in the pit during our biggest breakdown and as I got up I got punched in the face about five times by kids dancing.  

Oh, there was this other show with Blindspott. There were about fifteen hundred kids there and we were so nervous so we came out and the band was ringing out and everything went really quiet. So I grabbed the mic and said, “what’s up” really loudly, or something cheesy like that, and as I grabbed the mic I kicked the lead out so it was silent and I looked like the biggest moron ever.  

Pre-Bad or Post-Bad Michael Jackson? 

Pre-Bad man. Kiddie Fiddler Michael Jackson is a good one, ha ha.  

That’s all we’ve got time for man, is there anything else you’d like to add? 

Check out our CD read the lyrics. I don’t care if you download it, just read the lyrics.