“It’s more about helping other people out than yourself.” Brad Bell on the next phase of Chiodos

In early September, post-hardcore unit Chiodos entered the studio with producer David Bottrill. While the band were holed up in the producer’s Woodstock, New York, studio—described by Bradley Bell as “an old, hollowed-out church from the 1800s”—the keyboardist took some time away from the studio monitors to speak with Jason Pettigrew about his dreams and hopes for the follow-up to Illuminaudio, as well as what the future presently holds.

READ PART ONE WITH VOCALIST CRAIG OWENS

What was the Warped Tour situation like?
We figured Warped Tour would be a good situation for us to test it all back out again because it was a familiar environment, and it’s not like we’re doing a headlining run where we’re playing for an hour and a half every night. We knew that it was a tour where you can just get away from each other for a minute if you need to, and go hang out with other people. It was a good test to see if we still had our chemistry there—and we did. No circumstances got out of hand with each other. I think those years away let us develop our relationship into what it’s become now. We all had chances to take a step away and realize what we had done wrong in the past, and we matured to a point where we got over that and know how to work with each other better.

The whole vibe of the band has completely changed. The great thing is that you guys can work on music and your friendships.
I feel like every single person has taken an approach to this in a much more selfless manner than before. It was all so new to us years ago, and we didn’t really know how to handle it. This time around, we’re realizing that being in a band is a compromise, and it’s more about helping other people out than helping yourself.

How are you helping each other out on this record? Obviously, the chemistry you and Craig have goes way back.
There are a lot of the old elements that are still shining through. I feel like we’ve taken a different stab at it this time. Each person is more involved than they’ve ever been in the past with songwriting. It’s not just one or two people running the show this time, and I think that you’re gonna to be able to hear that in the songs themselves and realize what difference that makes. We’re more prepared this time than we’ve ever been before, too. Like, with Bone Palace Ballet, we went into the studio with our backs against the wall super-unprepared, and we were just writing the whole time that we were in the studio panicking—which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I think that when you’re under pressure like that, sometimes that’s when the best things are written. This time, we were able to actually get ahead of the game, and we came in here with, at least, 20 songs prewritten. The hardest part is deciding which songs aren’t going to be on the record.

Nobody’s interested in making the same record twice. Do you think that this far along, the notion of what Chiodos can be expanded, in some context?
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve never really felt like there was much of a ceiling on us for expectations. A lot of times, when you listen to our albums, a lot of the songs don’t even sound the same. They all have different personalities to them, you know? I feel like a lot of the songs we’re doing on this record might be a little more universal than what we’ve done in the past. We also still have a lot of our older theatrical moments and very heavy elements as well.

What’s your favorite song on the record thus far?
I don’t know. They’re all still babies; we just started tracking drums a few days ago, and we only have pet names for the songs right now.

So do you just write the pieces, and then figure out what it’s going to be called afterward?
Yeah. For now, we usually just look around the room, and the first thing we see is what we call that song. We have one called “Blanket,” one called “Lemon Drop.” [Laughs.]

What does new guitarist Thomas Erak bring to the mix?
This has been a learning and a growing experience for him, as well. He’s definitely not bringing the Fall Of Troy to us; it’s completely different. I’ve felt that our two bands have had similar energies in the past: We both came up around the same time, same label, and we grew up listening to the same music, so we get each other. It’s a totally different personality than what the Fall Of Troy were, but he’s still that guitar player. When you hear him play, you’re like, “Oh, that’s Thomas Erak.” It’s very identifiable, but it’s outside of his box to work with us because we’re a little more in the box than what he’s used to. But there are a lot of similarities from him to Jason [Hale], our old guitar player. He brings a stronger lead guitar presence that we haven’t necessarily had in the past. He’s bringing a new story element to the guitar world and taking us outside of our own comfort zone when it comes to trying new chords, key signatures, time signatures, and coming back to them. So it’s been a challenge for us all. >>>

The previous records are all well-defined in their certain strengths. I don’t want to ask if the new music is, “more like Bone Palace or Illuminaudio?”
I’d say it’s touching back toward the Bone Palace roots, but Thomas kind of brings us an All’s Well That Ends Well vibe with his playing. And then, there’s a new frontier that we’re exploring, as well.

What is that new frontier? Is it more of an aggressive rock thing?
I don’t think any of us are listening to too much metal these days. When you grow up, less becomes more. And I think we’re all challenging ourselves to accept that and make music that is a little easier for ourselves to listen to. Making sense of songs; making them complete thoughts; making sure our chords work together instead of fighting each other. When we first started, it seemed like we were going out of our way to not make sense. At this point, it’s more cohesive.

So we can expect a cohesive rock album with Thomas bringing it and Craig doing his “Craig thing.”
Craig is challenging himself on this record to sing in different ways. He’s been working on using his actual falsetto a lot instead of screaming his high notes just to bring it to a new dimension. He’s even singing lower on a lot of stuff than he has in the past.

Is it going to be a situation where people are going to say, “That’s not Craig. Who else is singing?”
Yeah, there have been moments when I’ve played some demos for people and they’ve been like, “Is that Craig singing?” So, he’s definitely going out of his normal comfort box, as well. But he likes it; he’s embracing it. He says he doesn’t want to be defined by a high voice. He wants to be defined by his voice, in general. So, he’s going out of his way to not be up in that area too much, to not make it redundant and to use it more tastefully.

At this point in time, does Chiodos have a mission statement? Because it seems like what the band wants to do may or may not fall in step with what the fans want the band to do. What is Chiodos’ purpose in 2014? Are you feeling like you can do anything you want to and still maintain your own personal integrity?
Personally, in this band, there are no rules to what we do. We need to play the music we want to listen to, and not cater to what the fans want necessarily, because if were doing it right for ourselves then hopefully they’ll come along with us and enjoy it with an open mind. If you’re going to try and please everybody, you’re going to fail. Not everybody liked the Beatles. You can’t please everybody; please yourself. That’s always what we’ve tried to do first.

When we decided to write this record, I mean, we didn’t even know we were going to make a new record. We were just getting back together to play shows, put a period on the story. That period turned into a comma. It took us a minute to catch our chemistry: Craig and I did an acoustic tour, and that is really where we started to get each other again. It was important for us to do other things outside of Chiodos, and be able get back into the headspace that we needed to be to do this again, together. We were trying to write some songs acoustically at first, then, at the beginning of this year, we all got together and started writing for two months. You can’t just walk into a room and expect things to be perfect again just because you’ve reunited. There’s always a tug-of-war going on when you have six people trying to control one thing. We’ve learned that. And I think we’ve gotten all of this to a spot where we’re extremely proud of it. We’re not panicking; we’re just ready to prove who we are again to new fans that we’ve gained over the years who haven’t been able to see us—and the old fans that have come along this ride with us.

You are working with David Bottrill. His vibe seems a lot more art-metal than any kind of “scene” thing.
That’s kind of what I was looking at when I was going through this [selection process]. When we were talking about producers, he was one of the first ones who stuck out to me. It’s about bands who have stood out from the packs they ran with. If he could help define the personality and individuality of those acts in the past, then he’d be a good fit for us because we don’t wanna be lumped in with any genre in particular. >>>