Brent Rambler - August Burns Red (04/09/2013)
From stages across the U.S. to Europe, Japan, South America and more, from renowned fests such as UK’s Download Festival to the Warped Tour, the industrious outfit August Burns Red have spent years taking their music and message directly to fans. We caught up with Brent Rambler to discuss their return to Australia for the 2014 Soundwave Festival.
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat to us here in Australia, we’re really appreciative, how are you today?
I’m doing great thank you very much.
August Burns Red are a band from Manheim, Pennsylvania, tell us about the music scene there.
(laughing) As far as Manheim goes there isn’t much of a music scene, I mean we were traveling to Philadelphia which is about an hour and half away if we wanted to go see concerts or there’s a smaller city called Lancashire which is a little closer to Manheim and there’s a club that would get bands there once in a while but as far as the music scene goes in Manheim, we were pretty much it.
August Burns Red have made waves world wide, how has Manheim reacted to the band locally?
It’s actually funny in Manheim as far as local media goes no one covers us which is hilarious, we get way more attention from everywhere else than we do at home, I remember my Mom would get upset when we were on the Billboard charts but there was never anything about it in the newspaper but if a cat gets stuck up a tree it’s on the front cover so that’s always made our parents a little angry but we come from a very rural area and not many 60 year old farmers want to read about a bunch of young kids playing in a metal band so I guess I understand.
Given your upbringing and background how did you get into metal music?
We first got into punk when we were kids like NOFX and Millencolin and bands like that and then we kind of just segwayed I mean it isn’t that rural, it’s rural you can definitely get out there and be in the country, but like I said we were only about 80 miles west of Philadelphia so not too far from big cities. I think when we were in high school we were the kids that listened to punk and we were the kids that listened to metal. The first thing heavy I got into was The Deftones when I was 12 or 13 and then it grew from there, Poison the Well, Thursday and bands like that and it just kind of snowballed into heavier music from there.
And now we have August Burns Red who has made waves in the metalcore scene over the past few years, have you noticed the genre change over the past few years?
We’ve made a constant effort to try and be a little bit different, use different instruments, have more dynamics in songs and just have songs that actually flow together as individual songs and I think that’s important. When we started we were just kids playing music and trying to put parts together that some what made sense and now I think we can all say that we make parts into whole songs and they sound good together, so apart from anything else we’ve always wanted to have dynamic within songs and just change up your records as you keep putting them out because this genre can be very sterile and stale and can get quite boring so I think you need bands to push it forward.
The bands latest album ‘Rescue and Restore’ shows diversity in the bands influences that makes for a unique and stand out sound, does this also cause friction and conflict within the band when writing?
Not really. There’s not really arguing or anything like that. The only time we ever really get in an argument is if we have something pretty set in stone at practice and then we’ll come in and someone is tracking their individual part and they’ve made a change to that part and then we all get together as a band and feel like “well is this better than what was there before?” and that’s when I feel we get into any sort of argument, other than that everyone’s on the same page, even though we like things different in music, as far as what August Burns Red is about everyone’s pretty on the same page and together with that.
Every album does grow and change, with this album it has different sounds to the previous releases and explores different themes, although proud of the album, do you have any fears before releasing it to the public?
Yeah, you do. I think when you have a new record you’re always going to be a little bit scared especially with some of the songs that are very different than anything you’ve ever done before, you’re like “are people going to like this? We hope they do, if they don’t like it we’re out of a job and screwed” so there is that pressure to come in and make new music that people still like and if you fail that, you’re done, you’re out of a job you better start looking for a new career, so we always have that fear and pressure before we put out any record.
And on that topic, if that were to happen, what would you be doing?
For me personally I think I’d get into Real Estate (laughing). I kind of fell in love with real estate and working with houses when we were looking for our house to buy about five years ago I fell in love with just looking inside houses and something is new everyday, you open the door and don’t know what to expect so that’s kind of what I could see myself doing, we have some time off soon and I’ll probably take some real estate classes and see if I can sell myself some houses in my down time.
It is a good industry to get into but it doesn’t take you around the world like music has and August Burns Red are a band that has travelled quite a lot throughout their career, coming from a small town that as you mentioned earlier hasn’t given you much local support you had to travel further to be heard?
Yeah I think we have. I mean local media don’t support us but we have had a lot of support from home, we played locally for a really long time and we started to tour on the east coast. It’s great as far as travelling goes, we always tried to do it as often as we could and there isn’t too much down time but as far as the support locally it’s been nothing but good things, I remember we sold out our first show at the local club in 2006, so we’ve had good local support for a good couple of years.
Internationally you’ve played world famous festivals such as Warped Tour and Download Festival, do you crave those big audiences?
Me personally, when you see walk on stage and see 27,000 people scream back at you, that’s quite a rush and those big shows have their place and you use it to get new fans, you do Warped Tour in hope you can get new fans, you do Download to gain new fans and there may be 20,000 people there but maybe 1,000 of them are actually going nuts, it’s harder to see the reaction whereas when you play a club show and there’s just 1,000 people there that are there to see you and that’s it you can’t really beat that energy, there’s not anything like that as far as a big festival can match, you just don’t get that amount of energy playing a big festival.
Given there is quite a lot of genres showcased at these festivals do you experience any backlash being a metalcore band?
No, not really. I think it’s good that there’s all different kind of acts at festivals because you can kind of pull fans from other genres. For me personally I know a lot of people who listen to all kinds of music, so if we play festivals that are more rock festivals the idea there is to gain the cross over fans.
And speaking of festivals August Burns Red will be returning to Australia to play Soundwave 2014 with a phenomenal line up, are you overwhelmed by the line up?
We’re just nothing but excited! We’re been waiting to play Soundwave for a very long time, it’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time and the timing has never worked out for us so it’s something we’ve been looking forward to for a very long time and as far as Australia goes, for us it’s been nothing but a good thing. However we’re a little bit anxious as the crowds can be rather intimidating once you get that large there’s going to be a lot of bands that we grew up listening to that if they come watch us play we might get a little scared, who knows, we will wait and see, I just think it’s going to be an absolute blast!
Well we are looking forward to having you here next year and hearing the new album live on Australian shores.
Thank you, we love you guys, you’re awesome, great and beautiful fans and your country is beautiful and we love coming there, we can’t wait to see you next year!
Cassie Walker
Tickets to Soundwave Festival 2014 are on sale Thursday 5th September 9am.
SOUNDWAVE 2014
Saturday, 22nd February
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Sunday, 23rd February
Sydney Olympic Park, Sydney
Friday, 28th February
Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
Saturday, 1st March
Bonython Park, Adelaide
Monday, 3rd March
Claremont Showgrounds, Perth
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat to us here in Australia, we’re really appreciative, how are you today?
I’m doing great thank you very much.
August Burns Red are a band from Manheim, Pennsylvania, tell us about the music scene there.
(laughing) As far as Manheim goes there isn’t much of a music scene, I mean we were traveling to Philadelphia which is about an hour and half away if we wanted to go see concerts or there’s a smaller city called Lancashire which is a little closer to Manheim and there’s a club that would get bands there once in a while but as far as the music scene goes in Manheim, we were pretty much it.
August Burns Red have made waves world wide, how has Manheim reacted to the band locally?
It’s actually funny in Manheim as far as local media goes no one covers us which is hilarious, we get way more attention from everywhere else than we do at home, I remember my Mom would get upset when we were on the Billboard charts but there was never anything about it in the newspaper but if a cat gets stuck up a tree it’s on the front cover so that’s always made our parents a little angry but we come from a very rural area and not many 60 year old farmers want to read about a bunch of young kids playing in a metal band so I guess I understand.
Given your upbringing and background how did you get into metal music?
We first got into punk when we were kids like NOFX and Millencolin and bands like that and then we kind of just segwayed I mean it isn’t that rural, it’s rural you can definitely get out there and be in the country, but like I said we were only about 80 miles west of Philadelphia so not too far from big cities. I think when we were in high school we were the kids that listened to punk and we were the kids that listened to metal. The first thing heavy I got into was The Deftones when I was 12 or 13 and then it grew from there, Poison the Well, Thursday and bands like that and it just kind of snowballed into heavier music from there.
And now we have August Burns Red who has made waves in the metalcore scene over the past few years, have you noticed the genre change over the past few years?
We’ve made a constant effort to try and be a little bit different, use different instruments, have more dynamics in songs and just have songs that actually flow together as individual songs and I think that’s important. When we started we were just kids playing music and trying to put parts together that some what made sense and now I think we can all say that we make parts into whole songs and they sound good together, so apart from anything else we’ve always wanted to have dynamic within songs and just change up your records as you keep putting them out because this genre can be very sterile and stale and can get quite boring so I think you need bands to push it forward.
The bands latest album ‘Rescue and Restore’ shows diversity in the bands influences that makes for a unique and stand out sound, does this also cause friction and conflict within the band when writing?
Not really. There’s not really arguing or anything like that. The only time we ever really get in an argument is if we have something pretty set in stone at practice and then we’ll come in and someone is tracking their individual part and they’ve made a change to that part and then we all get together as a band and feel like “well is this better than what was there before?” and that’s when I feel we get into any sort of argument, other than that everyone’s on the same page, even though we like things different in music, as far as what August Burns Red is about everyone’s pretty on the same page and together with that.
Every album does grow and change, with this album it has different sounds to the previous releases and explores different themes, although proud of the album, do you have any fears before releasing it to the public?
Yeah, you do. I think when you have a new record you’re always going to be a little bit scared especially with some of the songs that are very different than anything you’ve ever done before, you’re like “are people going to like this? We hope they do, if they don’t like it we’re out of a job and screwed” so there is that pressure to come in and make new music that people still like and if you fail that, you’re done, you’re out of a job you better start looking for a new career, so we always have that fear and pressure before we put out any record.
And on that topic, if that were to happen, what would you be doing?
For me personally I think I’d get into Real Estate (laughing). I kind of fell in love with real estate and working with houses when we were looking for our house to buy about five years ago I fell in love with just looking inside houses and something is new everyday, you open the door and don’t know what to expect so that’s kind of what I could see myself doing, we have some time off soon and I’ll probably take some real estate classes and see if I can sell myself some houses in my down time.
It is a good industry to get into but it doesn’t take you around the world like music has and August Burns Red are a band that has travelled quite a lot throughout their career, coming from a small town that as you mentioned earlier hasn’t given you much local support you had to travel further to be heard?
Yeah I think we have. I mean local media don’t support us but we have had a lot of support from home, we played locally for a really long time and we started to tour on the east coast. It’s great as far as travelling goes, we always tried to do it as often as we could and there isn’t too much down time but as far as the support locally it’s been nothing but good things, I remember we sold out our first show at the local club in 2006, so we’ve had good local support for a good couple of years.
Internationally you’ve played world famous festivals such as Warped Tour and Download Festival, do you crave those big audiences?
Me personally, when you see walk on stage and see 27,000 people scream back at you, that’s quite a rush and those big shows have their place and you use it to get new fans, you do Warped Tour in hope you can get new fans, you do Download to gain new fans and there may be 20,000 people there but maybe 1,000 of them are actually going nuts, it’s harder to see the reaction whereas when you play a club show and there’s just 1,000 people there that are there to see you and that’s it you can’t really beat that energy, there’s not anything like that as far as a big festival can match, you just don’t get that amount of energy playing a big festival.
Given there is quite a lot of genres showcased at these festivals do you experience any backlash being a metalcore band?
No, not really. I think it’s good that there’s all different kind of acts at festivals because you can kind of pull fans from other genres. For me personally I know a lot of people who listen to all kinds of music, so if we play festivals that are more rock festivals the idea there is to gain the cross over fans.
And speaking of festivals August Burns Red will be returning to Australia to play Soundwave 2014 with a phenomenal line up, are you overwhelmed by the line up?
We’re just nothing but excited! We’re been waiting to play Soundwave for a very long time, it’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time and the timing has never worked out for us so it’s something we’ve been looking forward to for a very long time and as far as Australia goes, for us it’s been nothing but a good thing. However we’re a little bit anxious as the crowds can be rather intimidating once you get that large there’s going to be a lot of bands that we grew up listening to that if they come watch us play we might get a little scared, who knows, we will wait and see, I just think it’s going to be an absolute blast!
Well we are looking forward to having you here next year and hearing the new album live on Australian shores.
Thank you, we love you guys, you’re awesome, great and beautiful fans and your country is beautiful and we love coming there, we can’t wait to see you next year!
Cassie Walker
Tickets to Soundwave Festival 2014 are on sale Thursday 5th September 9am.
SOUNDWAVE 2014
Saturday, 22nd February
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Sunday, 23rd February
Sydney Olympic Park, Sydney
Friday, 28th February
Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
Saturday, 1st March
Bonython Park, Adelaide
Monday, 3rd March
Claremont Showgrounds, Perth