Spellcaster
There is Potential for a Band Like Us

02.01.2012

U.S. label Heavy Artillery is famous in the underground for having an instinct for good bands. They may not be releasing too many albums, and these albums may not be selling millions, but you can always be sure that every release of the label will be welcomed by old school metal fans. Spellcaster are among the label’s finest outings, and their recent debut album is so full of drive, relentless emotions and true metal that it’s next to impossible tor resist it. We spoke to guitarist Cory Boyd about the life of a young band in the U.S. underground.

Hello Cory! How is it going with Spellcaster? I heard you’ve done a big tour supporting your newest effort “Under The Spell”.

Hey man! Things are going really well, we put out our first album in July, and apparently it’s selling pretty well and getting great reviews, so we couldn’t be happier.  We just did a West Coast tour last month that went really well, but we haven’t really done a big tour to support the album yet, we’re gonna save that for next summer.

By the way, what are your best impressions from touring? Isn’t it hard to be on the road if you’re just a young band without a major deal?

Yeah it can get pretty tough not having the financial support of a bigger label on the road, but it’s something you can’t dwell on, you just have to make the best of your situation, and go for it. In all reality, you’re going to lose money most of the time, but you gain fans, and that’s what matters.

I guess Spellcaster isn’t a well known band in Russia, so please introduce the band and tell the band’s story to Russian readers – how you came together etc.

We started back in 2008 under the name Leatherwitch and had pretty much the same lineup we have today minus Gabe (Franco, bass) and Tyler (Loney, guitars). After playing with that lineup for a while, Gabe and Tyler came into the picture and we decided to change our name to Spellcaster, because we felt like there had been too many metal bands with the word ‘witch’ in the name, and we wanted to try something a little different. After polishing up a few songs, we went into a studio in Portland and recorded a 3-song EP called “Spells of Speed.” We handmade about 100 copies on CDR’s and handed them out at shows for free in Portland. A few months later we were contacted by Heavy Artillery Records. They had heard the EP online and liked what they heard and offered us a recording contract. We signed with Heavy Artillery, and began working on the songs that would become our debut album. We also embarked on our first U.S. tour with label mates Evil Survives in October 2010. After we had an album’s worth of material ready to go, we went into Falcon Studios in Portland, and recorded our debut album “Under the Spell.” The album was released by Heavy Artillery on July 12 of this year. At the moment, we are in the process of doing more touring and writing new music for the next album.

Now let’s speak about your newest album “Under The Spell”. You decided to include all the tracks from you EP “Spell Of Speed” in this album. Did you use old tracks or did you completely re-record them?

We completely re-recorded them. We felt like we had progressed as musicians and songwriters since the EP and we felt that we could give the songs a better performance and wanted to show it by re-recording them.

“Under The Spell” is your second studio experience. What lessons did you learn during the first studio sessions for “Spell Of Speed”?

When we recorded the EP, it was the first time most of us had ever recorded professionally, so I think we went into it so anxious and excited that we didn’t really do many takes of things because we just thought everything sounded so good coming out of the studio monitors! (laughs) So I definitely think we learned to take things slow and really try and get the best takes possible, even if it means playing a drum fill, or a guitar lick 10 times.

The opening track “Chainsaw Champion” is a very impressive piece of metal, but can you tell me about the lyrics of this song? Is it about any serial killer?

Thanks man! (laughs) Yes. There’s no hidden message behind “Chainsaw Champion”, it’s simply about a serial killer with a chainsaw going on a killing spree!

What can you say about creative process in the band? Do you write songs together?

Sometimes. Most of the time myself or Gabe will come up with a riff or an idea at home by ourselves and bring it to rehearsal and show the rest of the guys. From that point we either decide to use it, or maybe tweak it a little, then we pretty much just add layer after layer until we have a solid song.

Speaking about your songs, I think “Molten Steel” was influenced by early Helloween and their classic “Walls Of Jericho” album. Am I right?

Absolutely! I’m a huge Helloween fan, so I definitely think Kai Hansen’s guitar work has rubbed off on me in terms of my own playing.

And what other bands did influence you to play music and write your own songs?

Man, so many bands. For me personally, I would have to say the stuff that really got me on the right track was Ozzy Osbourne’s “Blizzard of Ozz” and “Diary of a Madman” albums because Randy Rhoads is my favorite guitar player of all time and he really influenced me at a young age. Other bands that really influenced me early on were Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Mercyful Fate, Grim Reaper, Helloween, Dio, Motley Crue, all sorts of killer metal with great songs and guitar work.

What can you say about producer Gabe Johnston? Why did you pick him? Would you like to work with some old guys like Alex Perialas or Bill Metoyer?

Gabe is a great producer and he really helped us feel comfortable and confident in the studio. We picked him because he did the “Spells of Speed” EP and we really liked what he did with that, and figured he could do an even better job on a full length. That would be great to work with a producer who has some killer credentials, I suppose it’s just a matter of how much that would cost. (laughs)

The booklet of “Under The Spell” reads that the cover painting for the album was made by Andrei Bouzikov. Is he from Russia?

He’s actually from Belarus, so pretty damn close. (laughs)

I noticed that both EP and the full length album have the word “spell” in their titles. Will you continue this tradition with your next records?

(laughs) No. We didn’t intend to do that, it just kind of happened. Now it’s kind of an ongoing joke with our buddies as to how many releases we can put out with the word “spell” in it! (laughs)

The EP and full length album were released as CD and LP. What do you think about vinyl? Do you have vinyls in your own collection?

I love vinyl, that’s the only music format I buy. It’s perfect because you can get killer albums for dirt cheap sometimes, and the artwork is so big, you could practically frame it, not to mention the cool stuff they come with sometimes, patches, stickers, etc.

And what do you think about CD sales nowadays? Do you support mp3 downloads?

I think it’s all great, whether you prefer vinyl, CD, Mp3’s, or just downloading shit from the Internet. As long as you get the music, that’s what matters.

To me your music is perfect, but I guess there are some people who would call it cliché. What can you return to these people?

Thanks man! If people want to say it’s cliché, whatever. We love our influences, but I feel like we have a unique sound, and that’s what we are aiming for.

Do you think the band like Spellcaster could be highly successful nowadays like Iron Maiden or Judas Priest in the 80s? What can you say about the metal scene in the USA nowadays?

I don’t know about Priest or Maiden big, but I definitely think there is potential for a band like us to be successful in this day and age, it’s just going to take a hell of a lot of work! The metal scene in the U.S. is pretty good, there’s tons of people who are into the real stuff, but there is twice as many who are into total garbage, like deathcore, emo bullshit. But hopefully that will change soon.

I heard Marco Barbieri who managesWarbringer and Bonded By Blood showed some interest in Spellcaster. Did you get along with him eventually?

I don’t want to say he showed interest in us, but he did come and check us out in Las Vegas on tour and liked what we were doing. Yeah, he was a really cool guy, he showed up wearing an Anvil shirt!

What are your plans for the near future?

Tour as much as possible, hopefully get over to Europe, write more songs, and get another album out next year.

Can you say a couple of words about your life outside the music? Do you and your band mates have some hobby or whatever?

Oh sure, outside of the band, we all enjoy drinking beer, breaking shit, and acting like perverted scumbags!

Do you think that it’s important to be real friends with your band mates or is it enough just to do your own work professionally?

I think it’s very important for band members to be friends, it just makes a band seem so much more in sync and real, when the members are truly friends even outside of the band.

Imagine that you need to describe your band mates just in one word for each.

Then it would be:
Thomas Adams – Flashy
Shad Covert – Spaz
Tyler Loney – baked
Gabe Franco – Destruction

To round up this interview please tell a few words for Russian readers.

We want to thank everyone in Russia who has bought the new album or supported us in any way, we hope to be able to play some shows in your fine country in the future. Cheers!

Spellcaster on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/spellcaster123

Konstantin “Hirax” Chilikin
December 12, 2011
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