Rockezine.com interview with Spirit Web on Sep 09, 2002

with Paul Speredes on Sep 09, 2002

The American Spirit Web is a band formed around four old school musicians from the Chicago area, who have played in bands like Syris, Winterkill and Slauter Xtroyes. Mausoleum Records recently re-released the band’s debut album with two new tracks and Spirit Web seems ready to conquer Europe with their diverse and technical metal.
		Can you tell us a bit about the musical background of the members of Spirit Web? Well, everyone in the band has been playing hard rock and metal for over 20 years. My first metal band was a band called Stygian. We played a power thrash metal style. The band played several live shows at the local Chicago club scene. Later when the singer quit, I also left the band. The remaining members reformed and eventually released some tapes and a full length CD that were distributed in Europe. I think they were called Lines In The Sand And Planetary Destruction. Some of the other bands I played in were called The Victims Of Illusion, Dark Ages, and Syris. In between these times I had jammed with many different musicians but these were the main bands. I first met singer Scott Huffman when we played together in Dark Ages. Later he joined a band called Stonehenge and then a band called The Lords Of Meat. Both of these bands have released some original music on cassette. In the mid nineties Scott Huffman ran into drummer Sean Brown (one of the founding members of the band Syris) just by chance as he was driving his truck. Scott noticed that Sean had real fucking long hair and he asked Sean if he was in a metal band. Sean said that he was in a metal band called Syris and that he had a record deal but needed a singer and guitarist to write an album. Well, one thing led to another and eventually myself on guitar, Rob Such on bass, and Scott Huffman on vocals and we wrote the Syris’ Unseen Forces record. I wrote 9 out of the 11 tunes and Scott wrote all of the lyrics. Brent Sullivan the bass player in Spirit Web gained fame when he played in a Chicago metal band called Slauter Xtroyes. They were very well known in the mid-eighties and got a lot of local and national radio airplay. They recorded 2 LPs, which were called Winterkill and Free The Beast. Today, these releases are on CD and distributed by Monster Records from Texas. After Slauter Xtroyes split up, Brent formed another band called Winterkill. This is where he met drummer Tony Rios. Tony was previously in a band called Habitual Ritual.
		At what point in time did you decide to form Spirit Web? Well after the Syris Unseen Forces CD was released and we played some live shows, it was time to write the second Syris album (it was a two record deal). This was around August of 1998. I wanted to take the music to a higher level and do a little more intense and technical music than what we had done previously. At practice I would come up with some powerful and technical riffs which Sean had a real problem playing the drums to. On top of that, the bass player Rob Such was always telling me that I should shorten my leads in each song. Since I live to shred, this was not what I wanted to hear! I needed to find a rhythm section that was more "up to speed" with what I wanted to do and like-minded as far as how the music was going to be. Well, I knew Brent Sullivan from way back and eventually I hooked up with him and Tony Rios to form the Spirit Web rhythm section. We all agreed to record the Spirit Web Debut CD along with Scott Huffman on vocals. The result was a very honest metal CD. We played the music to please ourselves without having to worry about a record company`s opinions.
		The album was originally released on your own label Stentorian Records. Was there really no one who wanted to release this splendid album, or was it your own choice? First of all thanks for the kind words about the record! Well, we did shop the CD around a little bit at first. We had some labels interested in releasing our CD but the money amounts that they were offering were not acceptable to us. In addition the labels that wanted to sign us, did not seem to have the distribution capabilities that we wanted for the record. There was some interest at Metal Blade in Germany but they never came through with an offer. We decided to promote and release the CD on our own label Stentorian Records (the dictionary definition is extremely loud noise) The best thing that happened to us was when we sent our CD to the Rock Hard magazine in Germany. We had the great honor of having one of our tunes on the Rock Hard “Unerhort Best Unsigned Band Sampler CD”. After this CD came out and many people heard our song we started getting contacted by a lot of labels from several different countries. Eventually Mario Mortier of Music Avenue/Mausoleum Records from Belgium contacted us. We agreed to license the Spirit Web CD with 2 new bonus tracks and give a 2 record option to Mausoleum Records.
		When did Mausoleum Records become interested to release the album? When Mario Mortier contacted us, he told us about the many great reviews that the Spirit Web album was receiving in Europe. He said that his boss Alfie Falckenbach wanted to sign the band. This happened in early 2001. After we recorded the bonus tracks in September 2001, the terrorists attacks hit the U.S. and all mail leaving the country was delayed for nearly a month, so we didn`t get the master tapes to Belgium at the expected time. This caused Mausoleum to delay the release until mid 2002.
		The album now features two new songs, "Dream Never Ending" and "Blind Faith", but the album hasn`t been re-mixed nor re-mastered, right? The original 11 songs were not re-mastered but one song was shortened by a few seconds to make room for everything on one CD (nearly 80 minutes of music). They are the same mix and mastering as the original though. The 2 bonus tracks were recorded in a digital studio, which we thought gave a better production than the original analog studio production.
		Is there any favorite song on the album? I like all of the songs on the album but one song that stands out for me would be "Once Beyond". I feel that this song is a heavy metal journey that takes you through heaven and hell and beyond and back again. I guess I kind of like the mystical feeling about the song.
Tony lost his driving privileges so he couldn`t make it to band practice anymore.		In the meantime you also had to replace drummer Tony Rios and Chuck White has stood up to the challenge. Why did he decide to leave the band and how did you hook up with Chuck White? Well as hard as it was we had to let Tony Rios go because of his severe drinking problem. Tony is a virtual GOD on the drums, but unfortunately being in a band requires having transportation to band practice. Tony lost his driving privileges so he couldn`t make it to band practice anymore. We had no choice but to look for another drummer. Chuck White was the drummer for a well-known guitarist named Michael Angelo and his band called C4 (previously called Nitro). So Chuck had a lot of experience playing technical power metal. We thought that he would be a great choice for the Spirit Web drummer and so far things have really clicked well with all of us.
		The music on the album reminds me of bands like old Queensrÿche, Fates Warning, Helstar and other bands from that time period but I think you guys have succeeded in creating your own sound and image. What would you say are your biggest influences? Well, when you play an instrument for over 20 years you tend to absorb a little bit of everything that you have ever heard. Originally I was influenced by hard rock like Deep Purple, Rainbow and UFO/Michael Schenker. Then later I got into metal very seriously. I listened to Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Dio, Merciful Fate, Yngwie Malmsteen, Helloween and many many others. The funny thing is that we are very often compared to the band Helstar and to tell you the truth, I`ve never even heard any of their music! So any similarity is coincidental.
		Spirit Web is being promoted as power metal, something that really annoys me. I associate power metal with simple straightforward double bass drum driven songs. Your music is however extremely complex and diverse.
		Doesn`t it bother you that people call your music power metal and how would you describe Spirit Web`s music yourself? I would describe Spirit Web as power metal with both technical and melodic influences. There are some power metal bands that play really straightforward basic music that to me is kind of boring. I know what you’re talking about. I guess that I`ve always considered us to be a "power metal” band because we try to have a very up-tempo drumbeat in the music. When metal has a very basic slow drumbeat then I think that genre would be just called heavy metal. So maybe we could be called a power/speed metal band with melodic, aggressive, technical, and hard rock influences. It`s riff-oriented music rather than chord oriented music. Anyway, sometimes it`s hard to put music and bands into categories! We just try to play what comes naturally to us!
		The metal scene is lately being flooded with German and Italian power and heavy metal bands. How difficult is it for a technical band like Spirit Web to make some sort of an impact in the midst of all these simple bands? Well, we try to appeal to the metal fan that likes a little bit more food for thought. We play metal that stimulates your mind as well as your basic instincts. I think Spirit Web plays music that is catchy but not overly technical; we are slightly technical. You don`t have to be a nuclear scientist to understand our music! We don`t try to be complicated just for the sake of being complicated like some bands do. The music has a good groove. If you get too complicated then you lose the groove. We just try to be ourselves and play music that we enjoy without selling out. I think that when you play music that you actually like then the music is much more authentic and people can sense this when they listen.
		Are there already any plans for a new album and if so, could you tell us what we can expect? We have close to 7 brand new Spirit Web songs completed. The next Spirit Web record will be a little more song-oriented with a little less emphasis on the shredding guitar. The tunes have our style, which is both melodic and aggressive, but with a lot of freaked out GODLY riffs also. We play riff-oriented power metal.
		Are there any plans for a tour or is Mausoleum Records more interested in releasing a new album first? Well there has been some discussion of a Spirit Web European tour but this is all in the early preliminary stages right now. We would love to tour in Europe since we have no audience here in the U.S.
		If you could go on tour, what bands would you like to tour with? I think of course that we should tour with bands of a similar style to us. If I could pick some major label bands to tour with they would be Dio, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Merciful Fate, Queensrÿche or Yngwie Malmsteen. Bands with a style like this.
		Have you heard any good albums lately and if so what are your favorites? The music that I listen to is mostly old metal and hard rock. Bands from the past. I really don`t like that much new music or "Nu Metal". My favorite recent live concert that I saw would have to be Ronnie James Dio with Yngwie Malmsteen, when they played last year in Chicago. The last new metal CD that I bought was from a Neo Classical Metal band called Symphony X. I mostly get my rocks off by writing and playing my own stuff. This may seem selfish but some of the best musicians in the world are self absorbed, obsessed, and possessed by their own music. You have to be in order to become great at your instrument. Remember Beethoven for example. I think he was so in to his music that he went deaf while trying to compose his stuff.
		Thank you very much for this interview and I`m looking forward to a new Spirit Web album! Any final words? Thank you for taking the time to interview Spirit Web!! Especially, thanks a lot for the great interview questions!! Thanks to all the fans in Europe who have supported us!! For those of you who haven`t heard us check us out for free on the web at http://www.mp3.com/SpiritWeb and read the band info at http://spiritwebtheband.com. Hope to see you at our shows when we tour Benelux someday!!
(Frank van de Voorde)