Interview : Ben of Fallujah

I got the opprotunity at this year's Summer Slaughter Tour to catch you with Ben of Fallujah and here is what he had to say.

Wil - So How is the tour going so far ? 

Ben - Non stop fun. The touring experience is undeniable. Drive ten hours , load in at ten a.m. and lay for twenty minutes kinda suck. But playing short sets forces you to hone in on our momentum and end big.

Wil - I can see with Summer Slaughter there are some progressive bands like the FAceless , you have some common ground with , so how is that working for you?

Ben-  It's been  more about who we already have relationships with Origin, Goatwhore, Dying Fetus ,Decrepit Birth.

Wil - What was the songwriting process like on "When Flesh Prevails" ? 

Ben- Long, Laborious , lots of coffee.. listening to lots of parts on loops, as we don't really jam we write everything on computer. Prefect writing takes lots of time.

Wil- What was your greatest influence during this album's conception? 

Ben- Pete's Coffee. Soundtracks Blade Runner and the Lord of the Rings , which was constantly playing in the background. Tried to infuse a lot more  atmospheric element and elctronic elements, reprising certain moments of a song,rather than writing parts for the sake of parts. The question that gets thrown around a lot when we are writing is how does this part make you feel. If you put these four chord in one order it can make you feel differently than if you ake these four chords and put them in a different order. Your album is likea hammer and sickle , you are trying to mine emotions from people. Death metal is not known for a range of emotion.

Wil - Its often one dimensional and just aggressive.

Ben- Yeah it's like trying to eat a giant plate of hamburger patties, it's not bad , it sucks after it's just after nine songs of hamburger patties you need something

Wil - You need condiments, So what's next in terms of touring?

Ben - We go to Europe this winter for six weeks.

Wil - Who are you going out with ?

Ben- Dying Fetus, Goatwhore, hitting tons of new territory. We are going to Spain, Bulgaria, Portugul, Finland, Sweden, the U.k. Last time we went to Finland I had never felt so ugly in my entire life. They speak better English than we do to.

Wil- They drink a lot of there.

Ben- Yeah, they have the liquorise charcoal shots of whatever. I'll take my German beer and Jager. I had some shots of nasty stuff last time I was in Finland. Some girl was just buying me shots, trying to lower my inhibitions. They were three shots of flavor profile, I did not know existed. Liquified charcoal, with a terrible finish of cheap well whiskey.

Wil- With this album you set the bar pretty high for yourselves, so how do think this will change or even not change your direction going forward.

Ben - The album is ony as good as our mentality when we are writing it is, so I can't say what kind of headspace we are going to be in two years from now. Years on the road can really change people, I know it has changed me. We were twenty one twenty two writing "When Flesh Prevails" so who knows what I'll be like two years from now after travelling a shit ton. I think there has been a lot of incessantly good press for when flesh prevails , which is cool, but our fan base is going to change and they aren't going to wnat another when flesh prevails and we aren't going to give it to them.

Wil- How do you see the road has changed you from the 18 to 20 days?

Ben- Changes prespective, your view and priorites. It makes you less emotional and more realistic. You are less dreamy about the whole idea of touring and making a living playing music. All of us have jobs at home and we can make more working prt time doing that. You really begin to under stand what you want to do. I remeber the idea of going on tour use to be so cool and now it's like it will be cool if I can pay rent when I get home. Even if you weren't touring you would naturally change a lot during that time. it's gotten my head down to earth . I am a much more blunt person now. I did alot of travelling as a kid but nothing the scale of what you can acheive touring with a band, my whole world view changed from touring. Being in Europe and having to communicate something differently every where you go from city to city, changes your prespective and makes you more cultured.

Wil- American's world view can seem  mioptic

Ben- There just as many ho bunk idiots here as there are there, after the last tour I stayed in Europe and i had this idea about what Europeans though about Americans, what there world view was. Germany for example go to berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, those people have a pretty level headed view of what Americans are about, you go to some smaller german towns and they are more close minded. Same thing in almost every country, I travelled as Canadian every where I went because that is what is on my passport. I realize Europeans have a more realistic view of Americans, than Americans do of Europeans. They tend not to hate Americans that much. They tend to hate the English more than Americans. I was not anticipating that.  The advantage Europeans have in their world view is they have a system that allows for more travelling. So there are a lot more Europeans that prioritze travel, while America is more like the wild west, with people just trying to get by. But even there thats a vast gerneralzation.

Wil - How do you see the Eurpean attitude toward metal vs Americans

Ben - Its harder for them to tour.They are blunt. If a guitar player fucks up on stage. Franz will come up to you and be like perhaps your rythmn player will be better next time. I'll come see you next time and hopefully you will be better. They don't like to buy thsirts that don't have tour dates, we learned a lot of hard cold facts about merch over their. Eurpoeans tend to not come out as early, it's way easier for Americans to go over there than Europeans to come over here. America is a low expectation place when it comes to place on tour.