Whitechapel – Alex Wade

With their new album ‘Our Endless War’ firmly established, American deathcore 6 piece Whitechapel are set to destroy Australia on their upcoming tour with DevilDriver this September. Metal Obsession had the pleasure to speak with guitarist and long time member, Alex Wade. We discussed the new album, the deathcore movement and their upcoming Australian tour in September.

Metal Obsession: Hey Alex, where are you at the moment?

Alex Wade: We’re at home in Knoxville, Tenessee.

MO: Oh okay, so you’ve just been chilling out after the hometown show?

AW: Yes.

MO: You shot the DVD there, any crazy moments we can expect to see in the footage?

AW: It was a really crazy show, the hometown team came out and supported us strongly so we’re excited to put that DVD together and see how it turns out.

MO: Any plans to add any more shows to the DVD or just that one show?

AW: Yeah we’ve been filming most of our performances on tour, overseas and the US so we’re hoping we can have a good collection of footage for the DVD.

MO: Awesome, looking forward to it. The new album is an absolute venue destroyer, have the fans reacted how you thought they would to the new material?

AW: Yeah it’s been really good, a really positive response. All the fans have been way into the new album and it’s really good to see they’re all behind our musical progression.

MO: You haven’t had anyone come up and say “Oh Whitechapel’s changed, we hate you guys now” or anything like that?

AW: You’re always going to have a couple fans who want to be haters, and talk about how your old music is better than your new music but that happens on every album. So we try not to be too concerned with it.

MO: That leads into my next question on what sort of sound were you aiming to create with ‘Our Endless War’ since it’s a bit of a departure from your earlier releases?

AW: Just a more mature sound, an overall more metal sound. Something that’s not just pigeonholed as you know ‘deathcore’, and all those kind of subgenre things. We’re all getting older, and as you get older and more mature people are listening to our music, when we sit down and write a song we don’t sit down and think, “Okay, let’s write a deathcore song”. We just say, “We’re a metal band, let’s write a metal song.”

MO: What’s your opinion on genre labelling, for example with ‘deathcore’ and ‘metalcore’ and sub-genres like that?

AW: I guess it is important to an extent because it does help further label bands, but to us it’s not important. People can call us whatever they want. If they want to call us deathcore, that’s fine, we’re not going to get mad about it. To us, I guess, we’re just a metal band.

Our Endless War out now via Metal Blade Records

MO: Have you found that your music tastes have broadened since the band has grown and grown?

AW: I’d definitely say so. Honestly, as I grow older I find myself listening to less metal. Mainly listening to things I wouldn’t have listened to when I was younger, you know?

MO: So what have you been listening to at the moment?

AW: I like to listen to a lot of country being from Tennessee, but not really like radio country but, you know, something like the older Johnny Cash. There’s an artist from Tennessee called Lucero, I can listen to him a lot. Kind of more alternative country; more underground stuff.

MO: I’ve never heard of underground country before, I don’t think we have that in Australia.

AW: [laughs] Yeah, definitely kind of odd, it’s hard to describe. It’s definitely country, but it’s very sad and dark, like, I don’t know. It’s not Kenny Chesney or Billy Ray Cyrus or anything like that.

MO: So they just have underground country battles in abandoned garages?

AW: [laughs] I guess, probably.

MO: Leading on from that, I was going to ask you, what’s one band you’ve been listening to recently that you don’t think have had as much exposure as they deserve?

AW: There’s this band from the UK called Monuments and they just came out with a new CD on Century Media and it’s really great, it’s an awesome CD. I highly recommend it if you like bands like Periphery and Volumes, you know all that kind of Djenty stuff. They’re a really great band and their new CD is awesome.

MO: I saw the new lyric video of it and loved it because I’m a big fan of Northlane.

AW: Yeah, they’re real similar to that.

MO: That seems to have exploded in popularity, that whole Djent scene/genre, what’s your opinion on that?

AW: I think it’s cool, it’s just another subgenre or they could just call it progressive metal or something. I enjoy it, Meshuggah is one of my favourite bands and they were the first to do that whole kind of thing, so anything that sounds like Meshuggah, I like!

MO: Fair enough. Which bands were the ones that introduced you to the world of metal, and do they still inspire you today?

AW: Yeah absolutely, the bands that were around when I was younger that got me into metal like Slipknot, even Hatebreed, even though they’re more on the hardcore side of things, they’ve got a very strong metal influence. You know, even the classic bands like Slayer, Cannibal Corpse, and Suffocation, so those were all bands that really got me into metal when I was in high school.

MO: Cool. For the upcoming tour, Whitechapel and DevilDriver is a killer bill for the Australian fans, can you give us any hints as to what to expect for the upcoming tour?

AW: It’s definitely going to be a lot of fun, we’re going to be doing a lot of songs off our new CD ‘The Endless War’; probably have about 5 songs from the CD in the set. It’s definitely going to be a great heavy metal show for people who are fans of all kinds of heavy music.

MO: With so many albums out, how do you pick and choose the setlist?

AW: Mainly we just try to find the songs that flow best together, you know, sometimes there’ll be 3 songs from a CD and they’ll flow back to back or we’ll have one song from one CD and one song from another CD and we’ll come up with a transition to bring the songs together better. But it’s really about just what is the best for the flow of the live set.

MO: Yeah, talking about the flow of the live set, and you guys as a band as a whole, is it often crowded when you write the guitar material and you have 3 guys together or do you take bits and pieces to make a song from everyone’s guitar demos?

AW: Sometimes somebody will write a whole song and everybody will be like “yeah, alright, that’s cool, that’s a really good song.” But sometimes we’ll piece songs together from different riffs that we’ve written.

MO: Okay cool, I’ve seen a few photos of Phil’s portrait tattooed on fans, do you know if anyone has a portrait of you on there somewhere?

AW: Not that I’ve seen. I hope they don’t. [laughs]

MO: Have there been any tattoos inspired by you, like any autographs or they’ve got you to draw the saw blade or anything like that?

AW: I’ve definitely had people let me autograph them and they say they’re going to get it tattooed the next day, but no I’ve never seen the finished product of that so I hope that nobody actually has my signature tattooed on them.

MO: Well if someone does do it they’ll have to tweet it to you or something like that.

AW: Yeah, absolutely.

MO: Just talking about the tour again, unfortunately you had to miss Soundwave this year but you are coming back to make up for it. What’s your favourite moment from Soundwave in previous years?

AW: When we got to play in 2011, I think it was, my favourite part was Meshuggah. They’re one of my favourite bands and they’re legitimately the heaviest band I’ve ever seen live. It’s absolutely insane how they sound live. You know, that’s something that will always stick out to me, watching them live.

MO: Did you discover any new bands when you were on the Soundwave circuit?

AW: Umm, no, not that I can think of.

MO: That’s fair enough. Just some overall questions, do you believe that torrenting albums is justified in some cases, like if you’re going to buy a ticket to the live show?

AW: It’s not really stoppable, you know, I wouldn’t say it’s justified. But, you know, I don’t go to McDonalds and ask them for a free cheeseburger when I’m going to buy an apple pie or something you know? I don’t know, like I said, it’s not really justifiable stealing something other people have worked hard to create. But in the same breath, you can’t stop it so you just kind of have to accept the fact if someone’s going to torrent the CD, that hopefully they either like it enough to buy a physical copy or that they at least come out to the show and buy a shirt or at the admission to the show.

MO: So you’d be more of buying a CDs guy than downloading? Or you’re still fine with iTunes and services like that?

AW: I’m not a huge CD buff, I don’t really buy a lot of physical copies. iTunes is definitely a great tool to be able to buy music and still have really great quality.

MO: Alright, cool. Just finally, you guys have done crowdfunding before, do you think that’s how bands will be able to express themselves most creatively in the future?

AW: It’s tough to say. I think crowdfunding is a really great tool but I don’t think it replaces the role of a label completely. I definitely feel like bands still need labels to help guide, promote, and market their music because a band can’t do that by themselves. I don’t think crowdfunding will replace the label completely, but it’s still a great tool for artists to use.

MO: Yeah, and you guys have been on the same label for ages. What’s been the best part of being on Metal Blade?

AW: They just treat us like family over there, you know. We love everybody over at Metal Blade and everything they do for us. They always work really hard to make sure that we have the best opportunities available.

MO: Thank you very much for talking with Metal Obsession today and we’ll see you at the gig later on this year.

AW: Awesome, thanks. Take care.

Whitechapel are touring Australia this September alongside DevilDriver! Presented by Soundwave Touring, tickets are on sale now via Oztix. Head on over to this link for further details.

DevilDriver/Whitechapel Australia Tour 2014

Friday 5, September – Brisbane, The Hi-Fi (18+)

Saturday 6, September – Sydney, The Hi-Fi (Licensed, All Ages)

Sunday 7, September – Melbourne, 170 Russell (18+)

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