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Atheist Vocalist/Gutarist Kelly Schaefer enlightens us on the progress the first Atheist music written in the past 15 years: "You asked for it, the first new ATHEIST material in 15 years has risen to the surface and it was truly amazing, much better than we could have expected! We ended up with a bit over three minutes of truly ATHEIST, brutal, fast-as-hell, technical metal madness!!!!
"My trip to Atlanta [where ATHEIST drummer Steve Flynn currently resides] began in true ATHEIST 'cursed' style. I enter Avatar rehearsal studios and with guitar and backpack in hand, I proceed to bust my fucking ass... like really bust ass and fucked up my knee; shit, I have not fallen like that in years. So I hobbled to the practice room, and plugged in my guitar… knee bleeding and all, and, of course...my guitar does not work!!! Most of you know I am left-handed so... I could not play anyone else's guitar SO..... Friday was a wash. I did, however, get to watch GNOSTIC [Flynn's other band] rehearse and that was incredible; you all are in for a treat when that record comes out. Fortunately for me, the GNOSTIC boys enlisted one of their buddies, Rick, to perform some guitar surgery, and I am very grateful to him for that 'cause we would not have been able to write anything had he not fixed that fucker up for the next day so everyone say... RIGHT ON, RICKY BOY!!!
"Saturday I get my guitar back and it's perfect, and from about the sixth minute of jamming (after smoking out), the new ATHEIST riffs started surfacing off my brain and Flynn's brain, and just like old times we were rolling, smiling ear to ear all the while.
"I have not written with Steve Flynn since 1991... so we did not know how it would be, but, people, it was fucking magical and inspiring. Me and Flynn used to always do most all of the arrangements for the ATHEIST music, and so once we started spitting riffs, we started sewing together what will be the first new ATHEIST material in many moons.
"We are thrilled to death (pun intended) to say that I will indeed be eating my words about not doing new material, but I want old fans to know how serious we are about this. We are not making a record again for any reasons but the right ones. Sure, we all need to take care of our families, but our intentions are to rip a brand new hole in the ass of technical metal and raise the bar of expectations on the fusion of death metal and progressive musical mind-blowing. We hope that people will understand that this is truly for all the right reasons. I do expect old-school metal people to be skeptical, and my words to you are DON'T WORRY! WE AIN'T ABOUT TO FUCK THIS UP!
"Steve Flynn is one of the most musically articulate, motherfucking monster drummers alive on this planet...if his performance level on 'Unquestionable Presence' was a 9 or a 10, then he is now gonna be on 20; he is faster, smarter and more creative than I have ever seen him be, and I have known him for over 25 years. I just stand in awe of his ability to manipulate rhythms; it's such a signature style that he makes it very easy for me to drop brutal riffs and NEVER lose sight on the heaviness that separates us from that sort of epic, finesse-orientated technical metal you hear from a lot of today's tech bands. We want to confuse you, then punch you in the back of the head at the same time before your brain has time to do anything about it!!
"What do I need to say about the skills of Tony Choy (bass)? He was masterful at piecing the 'Elements' bass and drum sections together so he will no doubt be laying down some dizzying shit, fo sho!
"We know more than any writers, or others, who think they know what's best for us, and we hope everyone will not choose to be negative about all of this; life is to short to worry about shit like that.... Ask our good friend, the late great Roger Patterson [former ATHEIST bassist who died in a road accident on tour in 1991], about borrowed time!! We will not sleep 'till we have created the Theory of Technical Evolution!
"Me and Flynn discussed this sort of 'Einstein scenario,' whereas Einstein was never the brightest or smartest amongst his peers, but he was extremely creative and clever, and I think that combining the technical knowledge of this metal we play, with cleverness and creativity will trump the equations of the many bands of today who may have more complicated scales and within their tunes, and maybe are more technical than ATHEIST, but lack the ability to put it together in a brutal and creative manner so that people can actually still count on us not losing sight of the latter half of the definition as it's written of our sound death metal!
"With that said we ALSO intend on celebrating the 20th anniversary of 'Piece of Time' [ATHEIST's debut album] release with a bunch of shows in 2009 in Europe and the U.S., A live DVD and now a brand new set of ATHEIST's metal puzzles for your confusing enjoyment, of course. We will keep you posted on all of the details as they happen. Hold on to your brains, fuckers!
"Promoters and labels, contact
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to book shows or show interest in helping us take the record to the people who made us!
"We thank you all so much for making this happen for us; we totally could not do this without your endless urging to DO ANOTHER RECORD! No longer can we ignore the masses of young metal heads just getting into our music for the first time. We never could have imagined it would happen that way, but once it was realized after the Hellfest gig in France last summer.... we knew we had to consider it." "On the new ATHEIST record we are going to record a blazing cover of the brilliant 'YYZ' from RUSH. As you all know, we have long been fans of RUSH, and we know this cover is a bit outside the box of what most metal bands do, but then again as a band we are very outside the box of what most metal bands do. And I can confirm that it will fucking destroy, and when people hear [Steve] Flynn's [drums] version of this tune. He renders me speechless. He has always claimed Neil Peart as a major influence, and so it makes perfect sense to cover this amazing piece of music. I thought I would share that with you, along with the fact that we are working hard on compiling the riffs that will soon set the technical metal world on their asses. We will not rest till we have made the record that we and you all hope for when listening to technical metal, it will be a punishing, brutal display of all we have to give... Rest assured there will not be one stitch of vaginal metal on this motherfucker! And then in 2009 were coming for your brains fuckers! Horns to the motherfucking sky! ATHEIST 2009!"
"So I will be heading to [Atlanta, where ATHEIST drummer Steve Flynn is based] just after [daughter] SkyeLilly's birthday [November 11] zipping back home for Turkey Day [Thanksgiving], and then back to the lab for more technical metal brewing. We hope to have [the new ATHEIST album] ready by spring 2009 and then it's off for some/lots touring and hope to hit some countries we have not been to as well as ones we have not been to since '93. Australia, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, as well as, of course, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia etc."
"I am here in Atlanta. I drove up after my art show which went really really well for my first showing. I sold six pieces and I wish to thank those who purchased very much, including SKID ROW's Scotti Hill, and I look forward to doing it again soon.
"So my drive up [from Florida] was only eight hours, and I got here last night around 8pm, hung with [Steve] Flynn [ATHEIST drummer] and talked till late in the evening, and also viewed this ultra rare footage of ATHEIST recording 'Piece of Time' in 1988. We stayed at a hotel in Tampa for a week, and were so excited to be recording our first record. We were 19-20 years old and full of metal. Some really classic footage of the late great Roger Patterson [bass], that no one on this planet has seen, not Flynn, not any one from back in the day. This was sitting in my garage for the last six years after someone gave it to me while I was on tour with NEUROTICA in 2002 on the Ozzfest tour. A girl we used to know was in line and the signing booth and gave me these VCR tapes, and they are amazing, including Roger tracking 'I Deny' and all of us at different points with this video camera was was actually a bit rare in 1988. This will most certainly be on our planned double DVD for 2009.
"Fucking 20 years ago this week we were recording literally an album that helped define our sound as a band. Roger's birthday is this week coming up, he would be turning 40 years old in a few days, and I think he would be so excited to see the passion we are pouring into making this new record. It is inspired by him, and I am certain he knows it.
"Tonight me and Flynn sat for four hours and worked out this unreal section of music that honestly is just inspiring. We had such a great time working through these pieces of music that just appeared on our brains on this night.
"It is the 20th anniversary of our first record, and we have come full circle, and tonight we wrote together what will truly be an honest continuation of a journey we started 20 years ago, and never really got to finish... we can hardly wait!!
"Also caught a GNOSTIC [Steve Flynn's new band] practice as well today and they were staggeringly tight!!! Their record will be coming out in early 2009, produced by yours truly, and we plan on making that announcement soon.
"As some of you know Chris Baker (guitar) and Sonny Carson (guitar) from GNOSTIC played on all of the [ATHEIST] reunion touring we did in 2006 and 2007, and they will be joining us, along with Tony Choy (bass) on this new record. I also talked with Rand Burkey (guitar) and while he will not be able to do the touring with us, he will take part in upcoming writing sessions with me when I get back to Florida. We are going to put pieces of music together, and I will bring them up to Atlanta and see how it goes. As you all know, he is a very unique player with a very specific style that we appreciate as much as you do, so the whole family is involved for this one, ladies and gents.
"Gotta jet, but watch for updates this week, and once again thanks to you all for helping us make this happen. We will not let technical metal fans down....but more importantly, we won't let Roger down! It's going to be hauntingly, sick, and insane!!!"
It's late Saturday night and i am reflecting on a very productive week for Atheist and me personally. It has been many years since me and my lifelong friend Steve Flynn have made music together. All I have to say is it was well worth the wait, the stuff that we wrote this week confirms in my head that this Atheist album is going to be a contemporary continuation of where we left off with Unquestionable Presence. My carpal tunnel is killing my hand, but we wrote a ton of great riffs this week.We wrote 2 complete skeletons of new Atheist songs this week, and they are full of interesting broadminded metal lashings. Talk is cheap so i will not go on and on about it, but I know in my heart that I fucking dare someone to doubt this record, I know there will be many that will have some shit to say, but, those who truly know and understand this band will be as excited as we are to hear these crazy, insane time sigs and brutality combined. Me and steve have been friends for 25 plus years, and when you are that close to someone for that long, you can hardly go wrong when creating art together. It's still a daunting mountain that we are in the early stages of climbing...but already it's clear as a bell that this will be very authentic, and honest. With that said i miss Skyelilly so much, this is the longest i have not seen her since she was a baby baby when we toured in europe in 06/07. I love you Skyelilly, and daddy will be home tomorrow. It's fucking cold here in atlanta, i love the thought of being on the beach tomorrow back home in Sarasota.....it's good to live in paradise, no matter how crazy life gets. I wish to thank my dear friend Coley for watching my little stuey dog this week as well, I know he had a good time. To my friends in Sarasota...see you soon! Cheers Khttp://www.officialatheist.com/ http://www.myspace.com/kellysatheistwebsite http://grindingtheapparatus.net/the-graveyard/a-tribute-to-atheist.html Discuss this article on the forums. (1 posts) |
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