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| Glass Casket |
| with Ian on Feb 15, 2005 |
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At the end of 2004 a piece of absolute brutality found its way to my doorstep. It was Glass Casket. The first time I listened to it, I didn`t know what to think about the sheer destruction called `We Are Gathered Here Today`, but soon I began to absolutely love the album. In fact, it is close to being a masterpiece. Now... An interview with Ian, guitarist for the angry ensemble called Glass Casket. | |||
| Hi guys, for any idiot out there who doesn’t know you yet, can you please introduce yourselves as a band and personally? My name is Ian, I play guitar. We are also Blake on drums, Dustie on guitar, Adam on vocals, and Sid on bass. The simplest way to explain us is we`re just 5 guys from North Carolina that like to shred and play metal. | |||
| How long have you guys been playing? Adam, Dustie and myself were playing together in a different band about four years ago now, roughly. Glass Casket has been together about two years now. | |||
| What is life like in Winston-Salem, North Carolina? It`s rather boring, but I guess anybody could say that about their home city. There are the small quiet parts of town, such as where my family lives, and there is the industrial part of town where there are shows and stuff. I suppose there are fun things to do if you`re new to the city. | |||
| What are your inspirations/ What bands do you normally listen to? Personally, I listen to a lot of power metal and neoclassical metal like Yngwie Malmsteen and Blind Guardian, but for all of us the inspirations vary in anything from Cannibal Corpse to Decapitated to Converge, etc. | |||
| I have read some reviews of your CD ‘We Are Gathered Here Today’ and of course I’ve written one myself, and they all seem to be quite positive, was the CD as well received as it seems? First, thanks for the kind words! We`re really happy how well it has been received. And, not only does it make us feel really great and like we`re doing something really worthwhile, it also gives us feedback on what direction to go in for the next album. | |||
| How did you come up with the name Glass Casket and does it have a specific meaning? It`s a metaphor really for how our music is. The name represents both the extremely dark (the casket) and the extremely beautiful (the glass), which is something we think our music touches on. Our music, sure, it`s very heavy, but there`s a musical soundness to it and it`s at the same time very beautiful. | |||
| I thought ‘We Are Gathered Here Today’ was one of the most awesome records of 2004, how did it come to be? It came to be over about two weeks in the studio with the most fun-loving guy imaginable, Jamie King. We recorded it pretty much live, with some guitar re-tracking. After that, it was sent to Alan Douchess at West West Side to be mastered, and the rest is history. | |||
| How is your deal with Bastardized Recordings going? Really well. I haven`t talked to Stefan (and I apologize if I misspelled that) yet, but from what I hear the album (which was just released two days ago) has been very well received, and Bastardized has gotten our video on German airways. I`m really happy. | |||
| What inspires the songs, lyrically and instrumentally? Both ways it`s mostly just emotion. The lyrics are obviously very emotional for him, and the music is very much the same. Whenever we feel angry at something, it`s a lot easier to go write a riff on the guitar than to go fight somebody or argue or whatever haha. | |||
| In the libretto there’s this line: “All lyrics express the ideas and truths of the lyricist and are in no way representative of the collective beliefs of Glass Casket.” Did you have to put that in, to prevent lawsuits and what not? No, not really. That line was mostly put in because of course not everybody helped write the lyrics, and if it were up to anyone else other than Adam, the lyrics would of course be totally different. Personally I think they`re phenomenal. | |||
| How do you feel about the music of today, I mean, a lot of people are bitching that there is no more original music coming out and all that. I personally believe that is bullshit, you just have to apply a better filter. What’s your thoughts on that? Yeah, it`s true that if you just take a census of all the music being put out nowadays, you`ll find a lot of bad artists. On the other hand, if you have a more descerning eye, and the time to listen to a lot of music, you can see that there are a LOT of good albums coming out. I can name 5 wonderful original albums that have come out in the last month. | |||
| Do you feel Glass Casket serves a particular purpose, like providing a counterweight for all terrible pop-music, something like that? Haha, I don`t know about that. Like I said in the first question, we`re just 5 guys from Winston-Salem, North Carolina that like to play metal. It`s what we love. There`s no message we`re trying to convey, we`re just here to shred. | |||
| What is a practice session with Glass Casket like? Well, it`s very unorganized. It`s pretty much a jam session, and when we hear a riff that makes us go "wow", we jam on it for a while and go from there. | |||
"I don`t know if you`ve heard of a band called the Beatles, but people say they were about as big as we are" | How big are you guys right now in the States? Well, I don`t know if you`ve heard of a band called the Beatles, but people are saying they were about as big as we are. No no, really we`re not that big in the scope of things. People like us, people don`t. I`m pretty happy with where we are, but it could always be better. | ||
| Are you all full-time musicians, or do you have a job or education on the side? Right now, most of us are in school, and two of us have jobs. We`re probably going to be full-time soon, since most of us are almost done with school. | |||
| Is there a new tour coming up? I myself think a trek alongside Lamb Of God would be awesome. We`re planning a tour this summer... I can`t say anything about it since nothing`s finalized, but it should be really good. Also, we plan to tour Europe sometime in the (hopefully) not too distant future. | |||
| What do you see for yourself in the future and what is next in the coming couple of months and are you going to be millionaires soon? Wow, I don`t know. First we`re going to take over Europe, then maybe after that, Asia... THEN we`ll be millionaires, I guess. | |||
| What’s your favorite movie? Right now it`s a Norwegian film called "Hawaii, Oslo". It`s really good and I love all the colors used and stuff. Other than that, I guess Ace Venture or Super Troopers or something. | |||
| Name a famous guy from Luxemburg. All I know of is the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
http://www.glasscasket.com/ | |||
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(Frank M. Horsthuis) |
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