John Laramy of Epicurean
Interviewed by Jordan Campbell on 3/29/2008
Transcribed by Jordan Campbell
When the Metal Review powers-that-be proposed that I attend Epicurean's CD release show, my first thought was, "Who the fuck is Epicurean?"
Despite living within the periphery of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metal scene for the past six years, my disdain for most of the local acts has kept my ass planted in largely metal-free taverns. I'm more than apt to venture out to the semi-comfortable confines of Station 4 or First Avenue when my favorite underground acts pass through town, but I rarely troll the scenester crowds. But, I had to admit, the prospect of seeing a freshly-signed-to-Metal Blade local crew for the first time (at the Cabooze, no less) was pretty appealing. Also adding to the appeal was the fact that I had the next morning off from work, and I didn't have to drive to the venue. In the words of Ric Flair, "Whoooo."
The Cabooze isn't a venue known for hosting metal bands. In fact, my dad used to hang out there, if that tells you anything (and it probably doesn't, because you don't know him). Can't rip the old bluesman too much, though, as he was responsible for my introduction to Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and Van Halen, as well as my inherited penchant for constant criticism. Regardless, The Cabooze now stands as the nightclub of choice for fans of crunchy folk/rock, reggae, and jam-band shenanigans - needless to say, this was my first experience inside the four walls. As I took shelter from the bitter, late-winter wind, the first thing I learned as I stepped up to the bar was the fact their bartenders flat out sucked at cutting limes. Seriously, when ordering a Corona, it's not unreasonable to expect the fucking lime to fit inside the bottle. Whoever prepared these particular green orbs had little-to-zero comprehension of the fact that if you slice them in freaking thirds, there's no possible way that they will fit into a longneck; I was forced to squeeze whatever juice I possibly could into the bottle and chuck the lime onto the floor. Little things like this piss me off, so I'm already frustrated by the time the first band of the night hopped onstage, and their stock-and-trade breecore with hip-hop beats didn't do much to change my mood.
I wrangled back over to the bar midset (my girlfriend and I were hoping to drown out the suck with alcohol, and we were pounding these things), and across the way, I spy a guy holding a bottle of Beck's that is bigger than my thigh. A dim bulb above my head is illuminated. No more wrangling with oversized limes. No more crowd-fighting suicide dashes. Beck's it is.
The opening band finishes their set, only to make way for local strugglers Rivkit. This band has had a revolving door of musicians for longer than anyone cares to remember, and this current incarnation of the band doesn't seem to be any more compelling than versions past. I was midway through the first bottle of Beck's (but wishing I was midway through my ninth) while these guys thunked away onstage, desperately trying to mask their nu-metal/hardcore buffoonery with the metalcore sheen that is more palatable for the masses of 2008. However, even the people in the front row know bullshit when they see it, and their set is met with utter indifference. Here's a clue, guys...if your poser of a lead vocalist has to beg the crowd to mosh, you aren't doing your jobs. Kick some ass, and the crowd will follow.
Disgusted, I procure another brew from the bar and seek out Epicurean vocalist John Laramy, so we can sit down and have a few words about his band. Granted, I don't know much about their music, aside from a quick listen to their latest album earlier in the day. But it's my duty as a soldier of metal to cull some info for you, the loyal reader, and hopefully school myself in the process. I find him at the merchandise table, sandwiched between the skinniest, most ludicrously scantily-clad merch girls I have ever seen in my life, and we head to the back to avoid the din. Our Q&A session is as follows:
MR: For the sake of the uninitiated, give us a rundown of the band's history since its inception.
JL: There was actually an "old" Epicurean, that our drummer is the only original member of. In late 2003, he started to rebuild the band, in which case we dealt with a lot of fill-ins and other awesome people that helped us out a lot, which helped us form this version of Epicurean...we sort of just kept the name and continued up.
MR: So how long has this current incarnation of the band been together?
JL: This group has been together since about 2004.
MR: Would you say that your approach to the band's development was different from the typical local Twin Cities band? Granted, the deal with Metal Blade is proof in itself, in a way, but you seem to have followed a different trajectory than the numerous local crews that are pounding away onstage as the crowd filters into the venue. Was there a different mindset as you set things in motion?
JL: I don't know...I don't ever really remember us having a predetermined idea of how we were going to conduct ourselves, or anything like that; but we've all been into this for awhile, so we've always taken it seriously when it needed to be taken seriously, and kinda laughed about it when we didn't have to. But we were never that "party band", or set out to be that "party band". So when it comes to band stuff, we try to mean business as much as we can, but not in a douchebag/pompous way...we just, like, take it seriously, 'cause this is what we do - we always have kept it cool, we don't get drunk onstage and all that. But we never sat down and said "this is how it's gonna be" or anything like that. We all just felt the same way about things.
MR: Right on. As far a influences go, I hear a slight Borknagar vibe in your stuff...is that far off base? What stuff has infuenced your sound?
JL: That's a tough question. You'll get drastically different answers depending on which one of us you ask. We actually spoke to someone else about that recently (Ed: Is there a more cliched question than this one?), and there are a couple of bands that all six of us are into; I know Symphony X, Dimmu Borgir, and Dream Theater, to name a few, are bands we are all into, but after that our tastes kinda go every-which-way. A couple of us are really into punk, a little bit of classic rock, but depending on who you ask, you'll get a very different answer.
MR: With the advent of the Metal Blade deal, how hands-on have they been with the release of A Consequence of Design, and how much contact have you had with the direction of what they are doing?
JL: They've been really good, actually. Our contact was really minimal until we went out and met them. Five months ago we went out to meet everyone, and contacts started to grow. They are all really cool people, so it has almost gotten to the point where when we talk, its not like we're talking business, it's more like we're buddies about it. They've been great. We e-mail and text each other nearly every day, keeping in contact and asking questions and stuff. Things have been going really, really good so far.
MR: Concerning this Metal Blade debut: it is actually a re-release of a 2006 recording. What is different from this release compared to the initial one?
JL: We added two new songs, and, obviously, new artwork, and we were fortunate enough to get a remix/remaster as well. So, overall, the sound quality on this one is, like, a universe away from the one we put out ourselves. The one we self-released...I wouldn't say it sounded "bad", per se, but it definitely sounded like a CD that we put out ourselves. We've got a lot going on in our songs sometimes, so it was really hard to get a clear sound - there were tons of spots where it got really muddy, really choppy. Sonically, this version is a lot better.
MR: Was that a difficult process? I mean, as you've said, there's a lot of shit going on in your music.
JL: I don't know. We weren't there for most of it (laughs). We discussed the situation before the release, and we all agreed that we should add some songs to it. The studio that we had in mind to record the new songs was a good one, Track Six in Cleveland, and we were all pumped about it, but then we realized that if we record these new songs, they are going to sound great, and the old ones are still going to sound like shit. So something had to be done, so we just had the old studio put the original recording on a hard drive and ship it out to Cleveland. He recorded the two new songs with us, and then we continued on our tour while he spent the next two months cleaning up every single track and putting 'em back together. I would assume it was a pain in the ass, but I wasn't there to see most of it.
MR: What is next on the band's agenda? Are you going to be touring your asses off in support of the new release? Is there going to be any writing going on...what's on tap?
JL: We are trying to write as much as we can, because there's a looming possiblity of a new record, but in the meantime we are just trying to tour as much as anyone will have us out. Unfortunately, we weren't able to go out in March, as we had some things get cancelled, but there is a Metal Blade tour planned for the summer, we're headed to Canada in April, and there's been some talk of us going to Europe by the end of the year. If anyone is willing to have us, we'll be out...we're just going to keep touring.
MR: Any word on who's going to be joining you on the summer tour?
JL: So far it's ourselves and The Abscence, Woe of Tyrants, The Destro, and possibly one other band.
MR: What can the cash-carrying metalhead expect from purchasing an Epicurean disc?
JL: What can they hopefully expect or what should I tell them to expect?
MR: Either or.
JL: 'Cause I could just say "expect the best metal album ever!"
MR: The heaviest, fastest...
JL: Yeah, right? I don't know...I hope the people that are willing to spend the money aren't disappointed. I think that, unconciously, we've never tried to attach ourselves to any 'scene', and...in avoiding what a lot of the bands sounded like around here I think we ended up with a sound that's sort of...everyone says they are "unique", but our sound is such an amalgamtion of different things because we're all so different from one another, and I think they'd be getting a CD that harbors a bit of a fresher sound. We don't have any breakdowns or any of that stuff, so hopefully, hopefully, it's something different and refreshing.
MR: On the subject of the breakdown...the quote on the top of your MySpace page reads "Breakdown Free Since 2003".
JL: Yep.
MR: Is this a thinly-veiled jab at the deathcore thing that's sort of usurped the nu-metal thing amongst the kids these days?
JL: It is a little bit. I have nothing against that style; I think there are some good bands in that style. We put that quote up when we were on a tour that was more of a scene/hardcore tour, and most of the time it was really good, but, ah, a few times on the tour we had these young kids come up to us and say "Sooo...what's your music like?". And we'd explain, and they'd come back with "Well, do you have breakdowns?" No, we don't. And they'd say, "Well, I'm going to hate it." Well, okay, shit.
We're not necessarily taking a jab at it, just stating that we're not a part of it. It seems like when we played to those crowds a year ago, they seemed have a 'it's different, but it's cool' attitude, but now it seems to be getting seperated to the point where we just want to avoid it entirely. A lot of these kids just hate our style of music, just because it doesn't have breakdowns. And I just don't get that.
MR: That's fucking ridiculous.
JL: Yeah, none of us really understand it. The idea that a band is only good if they have, like, a million breakdowns...I mean, it's cool if you do, I'm not taking a jab at that...but that shouldn't make a band, you know? So it's more of a jab at the mentality that some of these kids have.
MR: I must be getting old, because I've never even heard of anyone saying anything like that before.
JL: Neither have I!
MR: I never knew that people held that criteria for liking a band.
JL: It was the worst in the Southeast, that's where it happened for the first time. When we got down through Georgia, it seemed like all the scenekids thought breakdowns were the requirement for being a heavy band. And it's weird that there are bands out there playing heavy music...I mean, heavy music is fucking heavy music, you know? It shouldn't be like, "I'm into heavy music, but metal sucks!", which seemed to be a prevailing attutide. We saw 'Metal Sucks' t-shirts on that tour.
MR: No shit.
JL: Yeah. So it's more of a jab at that crowd.
MR: Cool, let's wrap this up. Anything you'd like to say to the Metal Review readers, any potential show-goers, any new listeners? Give us the hard sell.
JL: Well, if anybody comes to a show, we work really hard to deliver our music as best we can live, that's always been really important to us. We try extremely hard not to disappoint as far as our live show goes. I hope people can get into something a little different, a little out-there, a little progressive---but not unreachably progressive. We put a lot of time and effort into these songs, we love this record, we are really proud of it, and we hope other people will feel the same way.
Fuckin' a. We broke from our converstation to head back to the show---him to mingle, and me to quaff more beverages. Coincidentally enough, the band that was onstage at this point, With Dead Hands Rising, probably fits in pretty well with the scenekid crowd that shows so much disdain for Epicurean's technicality. With their skritchy-skitchy logo, obviously choreographed headbanging, and posturing vocalist that was as much of a douche onstage as he was during our brief green room encounter, they should easily appeal to the crowd that thinks Winds of Plague are worth listening to. Sometime during this set (maybe it was Epicurean's, I don't really remember), I ended up dragging some drunken idiot through the entire crowd by his shirt collar and into the hands of a bouncer, spilling his Captain and Coke all over some random bystander in the process. This surely would've been the highlight of the evening if...
A) I hadn't been so twisted from the combination of German beer and pure adrenaline, because the event was kind of a blur, and...
B) Epicurean hadn't come out for their set and completely owned the stage.
From the start of the first song to the end of the last, it was readily apparent that the label interest they've garnered is well deserved. Displaying a level of tightness and class that bands with twice the experience would envy, they ripped their way through a furious set of slightly proggy, highly melodic heavy metal that defies categorization. Whatever it is, it's modern and it's sharp...maybe a less poppy/polished, more spastic (and less boring) Mercenary with a penchant for Norway-inspired symphonic backdrops? Who the hell cares, they kicked ass.
Spitting rapid-fire verses and obscenely catchy choruses, Laramy bounded about the stage with an exuberance matched only by lead guitarist John Major. In particular, he fired off solos and riffs with unbridled enthusiasm, rocking a massive shitgrin at all times that made him resemble a cross between Ross Dolan and Galder; but credit is due, as all six of them exhibited a dominating stage presence that, I must say, was pretty damn enthralling. If this show is a precedent for their emerging talent, they shall undoubtedly gather a solid following as they bring their wares from city-to-city...especially among fans of upbeat, forward-thinking metal. Top-notch stuff, and I will assuredly be more familiar with their material upon their return.
So, what the hell, eh? Catch 'em on tour, and check out their debut album for Metal Blade, A Consequence of Design.