Chimaira: metal’s future playing near you

Although not many Metal albums provided the required Heavy-pleasure to this soul during the year, amidst the few were Chimaira’s ‘The Impossibility Of Reason’. Our reason beingis that this CD simply embodies all the elements that are of the genre’s essence - power, passion, dissonance, progression - whilst hooks onto great legacy to such an extent they’ve been tipped as the leaders of ‘The New Wave of American Heavy Metal’. However the tag is a tad tacky, it is essentially true.

To find out what made the members - singer Mark Hunter, guitarists Matt DeVries and Rob Arnold, bassist Jim LeMarca, electronics/sfx-ist Chris Spicuzza and new drummer Richard Evensand (x-Soilworks), replacing Andols Herric who blames “touring burnout” for quitting - the metal muthas they are, we caught up with the band before the extensive dates in February.

If you’ve missed them so far, rectify it now; Chimaira are worth checking out with a guarantee to snooker your balls or compress your chest, depending on your constitution.

Arnold is our willing conversationalist, with a guitar in his hands he proceeds to strum throughout the interview. The dialogue starts with the remark that the current album sounds as if recorded by a different band [than ‘Pass Out Existence’], like an altered set of references had sprung.

“Yeah, and it had to be,” Arnold plucks few chords as he replies, “because the previous one was recorded like a set of songs from different periods, with ever-changing members and we were learning. We’ve got a steady line-up now, we work together on music and have toured long and hard to have learnt a lot. That’s why this album sounds completely different to the one before.”

If we could triangulate, its points are Fear Factory, Slayer and Alice In Chains?

“Oh yes, all huge influences of ours,” Rob twangs in agreement. “Add to that Metallica and, a bit of, Pantera and you’ve got it. Mark is a great fan of Alice In Chains and he is very influenced by Layne Staley… Slayer are a big influence, we toured with them and what we’ve learnt from them is how to do certain things; we had them in ourselves but didn’t know how to express it, until we saw these guys close-up.”

Metal Moses

Chimaira, which takes its unique name from a mythological beast comprised of several disparate animals, has built its fan base with solid albums [1999's ‘This Present Darkness (East Coast Empire)’, 2001’s Roadrunner Records’ debut, ‘Pass Out Of Existence’] but more by being a live beast. These touring junkies shared the road with Slayer, Fear Factory, Machine Head, Danzig and delighted the OzzFest crowds.

Guitarist Rob explains that ‘living-on-the-road’ has helped them greatly.

“We all had a certain motivation about the music we wanted to create. The fury. The speed. The aggression. We learned a lot from being on the road. We don‘t have a lot of money - hell, we have none! - it is the love for music that drives us.”

Augmented by few name musicians‘, like Kerry King, praises; how much did you pay him to ‘hype’ you?

“Ha, ha…”, plunk go strings. “We couldn’t pay him, he is the guy! Well, we got Slayer tour and the first night was in New Orleans; when we were soundchecking they were all standing on the balcony, watching us. It was nerve wrecking, it was like passing a test where your hero is your examiner… After the first show we took beer and went to the Slayer dressing room and started hanging out with them. We‘ve been friends ever since and they told us they respected our coming over instantly because other bands, they had taken took out on tour, would wait a couple of weeks before speaking to them.”

It appears you are a band that likes to go walk naked into rose bushes?

“Yeah, we take chances; we went on OzzFest, after waiting for three years, and killed everybody from the Second stage. I think Chimaira is born for Festivals, just the way Mark can handle crowds, he does this ‘Parting the seas’, the ‘Metal Moses’ thing, and 10,000 people on an OzzFest, every night, it was really something special!”

“Of course we didn’t get to meet Ozzy,” Arnold sighs, “but we could have; there is an AA (Alcoholic Anonymous) meeting every evening on the tour and that’s the best way to meet him.”

Perhaps Chimaira members are not up to that level, they have a lot of drinking yet to do!

Blackcherry bite

Cleveland, Ohio, home to the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame, is not really renown as the hotbed of metal or… much else, in international terms. [Even their basketball team, Cavaliers, hasn’t been much of a NBA force over the past decade or so.] Arnold argues that there are some artists from there, such as Mushroomhead, Trent Reznor, Derrick Green of Sepultura… Okay, Chrissie Hynde and Devo as well, but - no Slipknot kinda global stars…

Arnold explains that ten years ago it was a great place for hardcore. But not that great that, after further probing, when they start to make money, Hunter and Arnold would move all the way across the country to San Diego, America's last post before Mexico.

Chimaira had a song, ‘Army of Me’, on the ‘Freddy V Jason’ soundtrack well aware that such inclusion helps a band get its name known on a much wider scale. During their recent instore-signing sessions, the band was afraid they’d have ‘Spinal Tap’ moments [i.e. no-one turning up] but were more than surprised to see hundreds of Britons who’d tell them either to have noticed them on the film soundtrack or when they played at the Download festival.

“Whichever way people hear of us,” another couple of chords ring out, “is fine. We are slowly working towards longevity; we believe that the faster you come up the sooner you come down. We are rising slowly and we’ll be around for a long time and don’t think we need to sell ½ million albums by the end of the year. We are a touring band, we have few videos, but we don‘t get TV, or even radio, support, apart from few metal stations.”

“Real metal band are real world-of-mouth thing.”

“Like Metallica, man,“ guitarist’s emo-level rises, “I got to meet them and that was a real thrill for me. Kirk [Hammett] is my greatest influence, he is my hero. Shaking his hand was almost as exciting as meeting ‘Dimebag’ Darrell!”

While gearing away [well, putting Mini-disc recorder in a pocket] we observe Rob walking on and firing strings, keeping his fingers nibble, trying out some ideas and working out riffs for future songs. Bless his soul.
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Chimaira are releasing a special limited edition enhanced 2-disc package on 02 February of 'The Impossibility Of Reason' to coincide with the tour. Complete with special slipcase art the package will contain the 13 album tracks, plus an enhanced extra disc including 10 previously unreleased bonus tracks + the videos for 'Pure Hatred' & ''SP LIT'.
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Tour dates:

02 February - Zodiac, Oxford
03 February - Engine Rooms, Cardiff
04 February - Lemon Grove, Exeter
05 February - Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
06 February - Mean Fiddler, London
07 February - Academy 2, Birmingham
08 February - Hop & Grape, Manchester
09 February - Rock City, Nottingham
10 February - King Tuts, Glasgow
11 February - Corporation, Sheffield
12 February - Joseph Wells, Leeds
13 February - Soundhaus, Colchester
14 February - University, Liverpool
15 February - Temple Bar Music Centre, Dublin
16 February - Limelight, Belfast
17 February - Northumbria University, Newcastle
18 February - Venue, Edinburgh
19 February - Soundhaus, Northampton