Interview

Interview With At Home In Hell

Hardcore band At Home In Hell put a unique spin on their music by providing an elaborate black light show and utilizing masks and costumes during live performances. After playing their set at the Hostferd tour they spoke about how their lyrics come from real life, every day anger that anyone can relate to and how they are trying to make their band as big as it can get.

xFiruath: How long have you been playing music and what first made you want to be musicians?

Ben: This house opened January of 2005. That was back when we had our original guitar player Taylor, and he (points to Jake) just joined the band in January of 2008.

Chris: Our last guitar player went insane.

Ben: Yep. You could definitely say that.

Paul: We drove him nuts.

Ben: Yeah we got him committed to Warm Springs and he’s still there. He’s been there since what, December? But that’s how long we’ve been doing this, we’ve all been in metal bands forever. Jake was in Requiem.

Jake: Requiem and Quietis.

Ben: Me and Paul were in Faceless Remains. He was like our official roadie and we just gave him an instrument.

xFiruath: Hey you’re around all the time anyway let’s just use you.

Ben: Yeah you’re at practice more than I am so we might as well give you a job. So Chris does all the lights. Everything that’s done up there, like as far as lights go, it’s all run by him on stage, and runs samples too.

xFiruath: Montana isn’t very well known for hardcore or metal or anything like that. How are you finding the scene here and what kind of support are you getting?

Paul: We’re trying to build as much of a scene as we can and the support that we’re getting, the support is good.

Ben: We’re seeing people ever show, they do show up. We’re trying to do it, we get out of state a little bit, and as we go out we try to recruit other bands to bring in the state so we can make a scene. You can’t have a big metal scene in a town where the same fucking metal band plays every weekend. We’re working on trying to get touring bands in and build the scene up here. Coalition records has done fucking huge amount of that too. Without our local support of the X though (X 107.3 was a metal and hard rock radio station that turned into an easy listening channel)

Paul: When the X was around the scene was at its best ever, it was huge and amazing. All the shows were packed full of people no matter where it was, whether it was the Loading Zone or the northwest center or even up in Black Eagle.

Jake: Yeah back then people actually heard the music.
Chris: No we pretty much just have the Hot Ticket (the local entertainment section of the town’s newspaper). It took a big plummet when the X went down.

Ben: It kills the scene when you don’t have any means of promoting. You can only make so many flyers and that shit gets expensive, and then to feel like you’re not going to even break even is worse.

Paul: MySpace helps, but not as much as we’d like it to. It does help though.

xFiruath: What is your song writing process like, does everybody do it or just one person?

Ben: We all pitch in, it’s a group effort.

Chris: Make up a riff, no that sucks change that. Try this, no that sucked too, get rid of that, some more of this. And then a couple of months later we have a song.

Ben: We all through in our two cents.

Paul: The writing process before was almost like pulling teeth because Taylor wrote a lot of those older songs that we play and they both have two different styles. Taylor had a lot more of a classic metal style and we’d butt heads a lot. But now our writing style that’s going to continue on into the future with At Home In Hell is great because Ben and Jake will work a lot with that and they have a lot of the same style together. So writing songs will actually become a lot easier than they had in the past.

Some of the people from the venue come up to us at this point and ask the band to move all of their equipment out of the building as it is closing. After the band puts all of their stuff back into their van we continue the interview outside on the building’s steps.

xFiruath: Alright we are back on. So what is the focus of your lyrics and where do you draw your inspiration from?

Chris: It’s all Ben.

Ben: The focus of the lyrics are basically, I sing about shit that pisses me off. People are always asking me “Oh you’re the nicest guy I’ve ever met how can you play metal music?” I’m so nice because I sing about all the shit that pisses me off, so pretty much every song is based on daily shit.

Paul: Real life situations.

Ben: Feelings and things like that, just shit that gets on your nerves. A lot of people are like “At Home In Hell, that must be religious based” and they’re fucking Satan worshippers and this and that. We incorporate no religion in our songs. I sing one song called “Right to Sin” that has a little bit of religious points made, but it’s not bashing Christians or any shit like that.

Paul: It mainly bashes hypocrites, like the righteous people who are like do this or do that.

Chris: People who use their religion to get away with sins and then go fucking confess.

Ben: People who go break bread and drink the wine and then they go out and molest a little kid, but then go back to church and feel all good about themselves. So we did write that one religious song, but basically At Home In Hell is all about Great Falls and living in a shitty situation. Like being stuck in a shitty relationship with kids and there’s nothing you can do about it, you’re just comfortable. You’re unhappy but you’re comfortable, you don’t want it to change. So At Home In Hell, you’re comfortable in a shitty situation. And it’s Great Falls, Montana. If this isn’t hell I don’t know what is.

Chris: Yeah the river Styx is right down town.

xFiruath: When did you guys start doing the light show, how did that come about?

Chris: That pretty much started with the beginning of the band, it just got bigger. It started out with just black lights, a webcam, and some strobes and then we just kept buying shit.

Ben: When we were Faceless Remains we did the masks and everything , we’ve always been focused on putting on a show, you know performing music, and when we were Faceless we did the mask thing and we were mobile and shit and that got a good response. When we started this band we thought what could we do more than just put a mask on a be mobile, what could we do? So we’ve just been upgrading the lights, and this was just a little portion of it. We’ve got pyrotechnics coming, the shits already here but we just haven’t started using it yet because we’ve got some contracts to fill out. We’ve got little pyrotechnics and crazy stage props coming in the future. You saw how we did the drums, how they were wired up, we’ve got some crazy stage props out of that shit coming. It’ll get a lot bigger. Our main goal in At Home In Hell is we want to be the little stage that puts on a big stage show.

Paul: Yeah, little stage band ready for the big stage pretty much.

Ben: We’re a nobody band but when people come to our show we want them to think they just saw a concert like at the fucking…

xFiruath: Have the total experience?

Ben: Oh yeah.

xFiruath: So speaking of shows, what do you think was the best show you’ve put on or do you have any crazy show stories to share?

Paul: Crazy show stories?

Ben: I don’t know, we’re pretty mellow, I mean we smoke weed all the time.

Paul: Most of our road trips consist of driving home really late at night because Ben’s a stay up until three o’clock in the morning driving kind of guy.

Ben: Yeah I refuse to pay for a hotel room, if we play Billings we’re fucking getting back that night we did the show.

Chris: We always try to be the first band there, set our shit up before anybody even starts showing up, that way we can fucking relax and get in our zone.

Ben: As far as our best show, if I had to say what our best show was, was our first time we went to Seattle. We played with this band called Earth Wreck, and they weren’t even a metal band but they fucking scared the shit out of us. We were like “we don’t want to follow that band!”

Chris: I was standing there watching the drummer just going “Holy fuck!” We’ve got to follow this??

Ben: Yeah our first time in Seattle and the music scene is just explosive because there are so many bands so when you go there as a Montana band you want to make an impression, you want people to be like “woah.” Ok, these guys fit right in, so Earth Wreck opens the show and we’re like “Oh fuck” and we got up there and that was probably the best show we ever did.

Chris: Yeah we were all so nervous.

Ben: Let me tell you it was definitely “A” game that time.

Chris: That always seems to help, the atmosphere, the more people that are out.

Paul: The Freaker’s Ball (a local Halloween party that has live metal bands) here are great.

Chris: If we play for a hundred people we go nuts, but if there’s five hundred...

Ben: But at the same time if there’s only five people at the venue we’re not gonna give up and just get up there and go “oh hell”. If there’s five people we’re still going to give it our all.

Jake: Kind of like tonight, there were maybe what, twenty people in there? We still put on a good show.

Paul: Yeah everybody left with smiles on their faces.
Chris: We didn’t have all of our props but we still put on our “A” game.

xFiruath: It’s been a little over 2 years since your last album are you guys planning on doing a new one anytime soon?

Paul: Yeah, hopefully really soon. We need to get an album done with Jake here to pretty much show the metal scene where we’re going.

Chris: We’ve got about the same amount of new songs as were on the first one, so.

Ben: We’re writing right now, we’ve got this guy here and in a just a couple of months he learned everything.

Chris: We’ve got a new song almost ready to come out.
Ben: And we’ve got another one started so the focus is to get a full length album. Even that one we have now isn’t really a full length. It’s like six songs with two sample things.

Jake: Really more of a demo.

Ben: So hopefully by the end of 2008, because we are kind of taking some time off from doing shows right now just to save up money to upgrade the stage show, and it costs a lot of money to go on the road.

Paul: We’re doing enough shows to show people that we’re still alive, we’re still going to Seattle in July for a couple of days. We’re still doing our Billings show and our home shows, but before we actually get out there and be gone for a month at a time we want to make sure we’re set. 2008 is a transitional year for us.

Ben: By the end of 2008 we’ll have merch, we haven’t had merch since we’ve been a band, so by the end of 2008 we should have that. All the merch will be black light sensitive. Panties will be black light sensitive, which might not be a good idea.

Paul: We want to see the crowd glow with us, so that would be epic.

Ben: We’ve already got the production people who are putting the merch out, we’re going through Rocky Mountain Hardcore. They’re fucking awesome. By the end of this year we should have some merch, something to sell when we go out there.

xFiruath: When you aren’t playing music what album do you listen to most often and what brings you back to it?

Jake: Devil Driver.

Ben: Fear Factory, it’s all about Fear Factory and Dillinger Escape Plan.

Chris: I’ve got two.

Ben: He’s old school, he listens to like Judas Priest and stuff.

Chris: Pig Destroyer and Dillinger, fucking insane.

Paul: When I’m not listening to ESPN radio I guess it’s Slayer, but most of the time when I’m in the car I listen to sports radio. I always go back to Slayer, you know I’m the old guy in the band so I stay a little bit more classic. It always changes though, I can’t wait for the new Slipknot album.

Jake: Soulfly and Cavalara Conspiracy, that’s awesome.

Chris: What Paul would really like is for Kiss to reunite.

Paul: I’m a huge Kiss fan, as kid I painted my face like Kiss for Halloween for like six straight years.

Ben: I was there, I was usually like a ninja turtle though.

xFiruath: What do you think is the most silly or bizarre thing that has happened in the history of metal? Anything ridiculous, crazy, over the top?

Ben: Disturbed. Just Disturbed, should not have been.

Jack: I’d say like how some of the hardcore bands, when they first come out they’re all hardcore but then by the third album they’re soft. Like Disturbed, Godsmack, Korn, Mudvayne. When they come out they are all badass and then they trail off. Shadows Fall is another perfect example.

Chris: It’s not necessarily a bad thing, they just kind of lost the edge, like System of a Down. They were heavier and now they’re a little more melodic, but they are still fucking awesome now. Some bands can do it, some bands can’t. Hopefully we can.

Ben: One thing that pisses me off is all the emo that’s bleeding into metal. Emo and metal are not the same fucking thing, not the same thing at all. Emo kids should go to emo shows, and metal kids should go to metal shows.

Jake: Wearing your sisters pants to shows…

Ben: Emo music should stay emo, and metal music should stay metal. Emo is probably the worst thing to happen to metal in the history of metal. Like even fucking Judas Priest was pretty bad, but Emo beats Judas Priest.

Chris: Ah man…

Paul: We’ve got a Priest fan here.

xFiruath: You’re hurting the man’s feelings.

Chris: Come on you guys.

Ben: Rod Halford does not do it dude. The reverting back to 80’s metal is pissing me off too. Everyone putting solos in everything and that shit man, I thought metal progressed more than that, like it got passed that.

Chris: The only band that still does awesome solos is Slayer, you can’t knock their fucking solos period.

xFiruath: So on your dream tour, who would you be with and where would you go?

Jake: Europe.

Ben: Europe, definitely Europe. With someone like Soulfly. Static X would be pretty cool.

Paul: Fear Factory would actually probably be the dream tour. At Home In Hell and Fear Factory would be it.

Ben: But it’d definitely be in Europe.

Paul: If I’m able to tour Europe once then I’m able to become an old man and be happy with my musical career.

Jake: Hit Amsterdam a couple of times.

Ben: Get into all those fucking festivals they have every other week there.

Paul: As a matter of fact probably our biggest fan is a seventeen year old kid from England. He’s constantly writing us and leaving us MySpace comments, treating us like we are somebody big.

Ben: Even Asia too, 80 percent of our record sales online have been from Japan. So maybe I’ll go to Japan too.

Chris: Well they can’t go to war so they’ve got to fucking listen to metal.

Ben: They need something to get that shit out.

xFiruath: That’s all my questions, so any parting remarks for the fans?

Paul: When you see us come through your town, check us out.

Ben: We strive to put on a show, so you won’t be disappointed.

Jake: No matter what type of music like either, we’ve had forty year old moms come up to us and be like “I don’t like this type of music but you guys are awesome.”

Ben: When we played at Buffalo once we had some sixty year old dude come up and say he didn’t like metal but he wanted to buy a CD. We’re the hardest band to mosh too though because you just want to stop and watch the show.

Paul: We had somebody tell us that in Seattle. They don’t know whether to mosh or just stand there and stare. It’s a good feeling and it lets us know it’s well worth it to put on that extra show.