Interview with Adrenechrome dummer Matt Copeland

Adrenechrome bring a new idea to music, mainly with their outstanding comic book inspired album art. Recently they decided "hey let's release an album" and in doing so were stuck talking to me about its production, the idea behind the art and influences from bands like Mastodon and Baroness! Read what drummer Matt Copeland had to say below!

Hello! How are you?

Hey, very good, thanks.

Tell us a bit about being a metal band from Orillia, I’ve been there and participated in perch fest many times but never heard anything about any metal bands being there.

Ya, we get that a lot. There are actually many great hard/metal acts from Orillia that have been pushing it for a few years now along with ourselves. Our good friends in Starved at the Root and Like Animals have also recently released and are in the process of releasing new music as well. Definitely worth checking out. But, to answer your main question. It’s a little odd sometimes when people ask us where we are from and we say ‘Orillia, Ontario’ They have usually either never heard of it, or can’t believe that anything other than folk music or Gordon Lightfoot have emerged from here

Can you talk a little bit about the album cover? Where did the inspiration for a comic book cover come from?

The inspiration came from the artist who came up with the concept. Our friend Kartigan who goes by the handle ‘Clownbaby’. We had a few idea’s floating around and when he had presented this one in particular with us we knew right away this was the one.

This album also jumps around a bit with lyrics, can you talk about the over lapping theme of the songs?

That’s all our guitarist/vocalist Chris. He didn’t want to stick with just one overall theme for this album. So, I think that’s where we get the maniacal style lyrically on Tales...

You kicked off the anticipation for the album with the single “God Sized Shadow” back in August and the album officially came out at the end of November has the overall reception been good?

The reception has been great! We’ve been getting many reviews that have been putting some pretty big smiles on our faces and we’re getting more everyday. Really exciting.

Now that it’s out and you can’t go back are you happy with the album or do you find bits and pieces where you go “why did i do this?” not to say it’s a bad album of course!

I think we’re always going to have a bit of that, ya know? Even with the last album where we had been playing the songs for much longer we still had certain parts we thought we could’ve done differently. But, I think that goes with being a player in a band in general.

What was writing and recording like? Did everything just fall together or were there struggles here and there?

I found that this one came together pretty quick. We had the tunes finished up and rehearsed the hell out of them for a good month straight then went to the studio. I believe we were in the studio for a total of 4 days and it was done. Pretty quick process.

Fairly standard question but who are your inspirations? I get a huge sense of Mastodon while listening, and I love it because it’s done so well without sounding like a rip off, but there’s also other sounds in there for sure.

We get that one a lot. Haha There is a huge Mastodon and Baroness influence of course. But, there are many, many others as well. We’re all really into Little Feet, Thin Lizzy, Intronaut, Sabbath( Of course), Dave Brubeck and Van Halen... Realistically the list could go on for days.

Tour plans, are there any at the moment? I know you just recently opened up at a show i would have loved to have gone to, Protest the Hero in Barrie, ON.

We did! Yah the Protest dudes are great. We opened for them at the end of our last tour and were happy to get on another bill with them. As for tour, we’re planning on doing an east coast tour in the spring and a west coast tour in the fall.  We’re gonna try to cover the whole stretch of Canada this time.

Last but not least, is there anything you can share with your fans? Hints, sneak peaks, possible announcements?

Big things on the rise for Adrenechrome in 2016 folks! So, stay tuned and keep updated on our social media outlets. www.adrenechrome.com our website will link you to all our outlets and let you know the latest news.

Well, thank you very much for your time! Hope to see you out in the Toronto area soon enough!

Thanks a lot for taking the time to ask these questions. We really appreciate it.

Adrenechrome "Tales From Adrenechrome" Review

                This is a band I’m not certain on how I would classify, they have a lot of groove to them but they’re full of heavier section, so how about we just call this Heavy Metal. Adrenechrome are a Canadian Metal band that can show most older bands how to write, with so many sounds from other bands you’d almost think they had Mastodon and Megadeth in the studio with them one day then High On Fire and Baroness the next. All “Tales From Adrenechrome” needs now is a studio report called “Tales From Tales From Adrenechrome” just to start confusing people.

                                 

                Right off the bad you face “A Familiar Face,” which starts off the album sounding like an incredible Mastodon jam, after the intro plays out you’re jumping right into “Lockstep” which begins again sounding a bit like Mastodon from the “Blood mountain” era, but the interesting part is when we get to the chorus. The chorus takes on more of a Dave Mustaine, softer Megadeth feel. The contrast between the high speed almost harsh vocals and slower cleaner vocals is nice and allows the musicianship of the band to show that they don’t have to be playing 1000 chords a minute.

                “God Sized Shadow” takes on a more Baroness sound knocking the speed down a little bit and keeping the tempo a little more constant, the only real change is right near the end as the song slowly, well, slows down up to a final conclusion of “she says hello.” The albums closing track “The Led Elephant” and talk about saving the best for last! Building up slow until it hits the point of explosion the song kicks into high gear going the incredible guitar work of both Tim Kehoe and Chris Friesen, not to mention the vocals of the latter mentioned Friesen that almost offer a tone of desperation while yelling “we cannot win.” The song closes out the same way it opened, with a slow crawl to the end playing probably what is one of the best riffs in this album with constant double bass pounding away in the background until it comes to a halt.

                Adrenechrome wrote one hell of an album, then recorded one hell of an album and finally, released one hell of an album. This is good ol’ Heavy Metal full of Rock N’ Rock sounds and grooves from bands that most modern Metal fans love, plus look at that album cover! The comic book inspiration mixed with Metal makes for an amazing formula for great album covers, this is  style the band should embrace and release with each album, but that’s just my opinion. There’s no reason for anyone not to check “Tales From Adrenechrome” because it’s probably better than most albums you’ve heard this year.

5/5