Rockezine.com interview with Hatebreed on Nov 13, 2006

with Sean Martin on Nov 13, 2006

Last week Hatebreed played a show in Eindhoven (the Netherlands). The shows from their tours are almost sold out every night. Time for your rockezine.com reporter to have a chat with guitar player Sean about his life.
		How is the tour going? Great, we played in Germany and Denmark. The reactions were very cool.
		What happened with Beattie? (Beattie isn`t on this tour) He broke his arm.
		What happened exactly? I don`t know I wasn`t there, I was sleeping.
		How did you find the replacement so fast? We were lucky. Carl from First Blood was visiting Berlin and he came to our show. We asked him: "hey what are you doing the next two weeks", and he said: "I`m on vacation". So we asked: "you want to play bass?" He was like: "yeah". It was crazy we didn`t know what we were going to do. At the first show our guitar technician Wayne played bass and then we really didn`t know what we were going to do, but Carl was there and he took the job for two weeks. He is a genius, he knew all the songs anyway.
		Do you like touring? Yeah.
		What`s the best part of it? I don`t know.
		What do you miss the most when you are on tour? My bed. Not too much, you`ve got to keep your live streamlined when you tour all the time otherwise you become a crybaby.
		What`s the worst part of touring? Smelling everyone`s ass on the bus.
		Isn`t it boring to play all the same songs every night? Normally we don`t use a play list but now with Carl we use one. So normally we play every night different songs. It also depends on the crowd`s reaction.
		What do you do all day while you`re on tour? Hang out, do interviews, calling, smoking pot, playing video games on my PSP, f*cking whatever.
		What games do you play on the PSP? Grand Theft Auto, I use cheat codes and go kill people. Hahaha.
		Which country do you get the most reactions? It`s all the same.
It`s like asking who your favourite kid is		Which country is the best country to play? It`s like asking who your favourite kid is. Every country is great, everywhere we come the kids react great and we`re very thankful for that, it`s all awesome.
		You signed a deal with Roadrunner Records, why Roadrunner? We were on Universal before and before that we were on Victory. We were with the release from "Rise Of Brutality" on Roadrunner in Europe and Universal in the States. We just moved to a label that can promote us better and understands our music better.
		Before the start the recording of the new album, Jamey was thinking about quitting the music scene. Were this only his thoughts? I don`t know nothing about Jamey`s thoughts and I never thought about quitting Hatebreed.
		Why did you decide to get a second guitar player again? We just wanted to sound exactly like the records, like 100%. I was doing it alone for 5 years and we came to the point that it sounded live better when we had another guitar player. So we discussed it and I suggested Frank Novinec. Franck said yes and we were lucky to get him.
		Why Frank Novinec? Great friend for a long time, he has been around for a long time. He played in bands that influenced us a lot. It was just the only other guy I want to jam with; no one else was even considered or did audition. He didn`t even audition, he came and hang out. We jammed and he was in.
		Jamey works for MTV and he`s a lot in the news. Is he bringing Hatebreed to a higher level with his work? I think with al of his hard work he is. His job at MTV is his job, and he does a really good job. His show is awesome, I`m really proud of him for doing what he`s doing. He didn`t take the job for a selfish reason or a personal reason; I think all his hard work in general is beneficial to the band. Jamey works and lives and breaths 24 hours a day. He works his ass off and I think if that combination of him having the ability to push other bands, hardcore and metal as a whole helps us it helps everybody. He`s is a workaholic, everything he does helps the band. It`s not like: "whow he works on TV", it`s not like that at all. I think him doing it for the whole movement of heavy music helps us and every band.
		Is Hatebreed your job? We do this full time, we don`t go home. We tour the whole year.
		When did you decide to tour all year? I say around 2000 or 2001. Right before we recorded "Perseverance". We decided not to come home that often and started touring non-stop. There always a place to play, even in America.
		Before that you had a job? Yeah I was a roofer and before that I was an automatic dismantler in a junk yard.
		You always dreamt about this? It was always something I wanted to do, but I never thought it was going to happen.
		So Hatebreed was a dream come true? Hatebreed and Franky "Three Gun" (Novinec) saved my life.
		If Hatebreed would not exist, what would you do then these days? I don`t know. Still a roofer, might be in jail, might be dead. I wouldn`t be having fun that`s for sure.
		Jamey writes the lyrics. But the whole process for a song, how is that going? Jamey is the head of the snake. He comes up with a lot of the material; he`s the mad scientist from the band. He comes up with the majority of the riffs, the song structure and we can all transfer his ideas into Hatebreed, it`s not like a some kind monarchy were we`re not allowed to change or add something, he`s open and he comes up with tones of riffs and stuff. He`s not a guitar player he`s just a great song writer, so he comes up with ideas I never come up with. Jamey comes up with the bulk and we put some elements on top. He shows us something and we transfer it into Hatebreed.
		Which bands is Hatebreed influenced by? Definitely Entombed, Sheer Terror, Slayer, Cro Mags, Agnostic Front, Ringworm, Madball and a lot of stuff. But I know for a fact that our sound is just a mix from thrash and New York hardcore. The songs are short and there are now guitar solos and the riffs are crushing.
		My final question. Can you buy a Hummer from this job? Hell no, maybe next year. I ain`t going to buy a Hummer when I`ve got that kind of money. I`m famous for my shitty cars and I rather buy a house. Hahaha
Pictures taken from www.roadrunnerrecords.nl (Jeroen Habets)