In a new interview with the Inner-Strength Check podcast, frontman and founding member Kelly Shaefer of the pioneering technical metal act ATHEIST was asked about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the follow-up to the band’s “Jupiter” album, which came out in 2010 via Season Of Mist. Kelly said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We’ve got a tremendous amount of ideas individually, but collectively we’ve put together about six or seven songs.”
Shaefer went on to praise the current ATHEIST lineup, which includes Yoav Ruiz-Feingold on bass, Alex Haddad on guitar, Jerry Witunsky on guitar and Dylan Marks on drums.
“I think it’s really important, and I’ve touched on this in a couple of interviews over the last couple of months, that people have to understand that almost no band has all the original members,” Shaefer said. “So people have gotta get over that. On the Internet, everybody just fucking hems and haws about, ‘Ah, it’s not the original guys.’ It’s, like, it’s not with METALLICA, it’s not with [JUDAS] PRIEST, it’s not with [IRON] MAIDEN. No one. You’d be hard pressed to name me one band that has all the original members still the same — not ANTHRAX, not anybody. So you have to trust the main songwriters of the band, and myself and [former ATHEIST drummer] Steve Flynn and [late ATHEIST bassist] Roger Patterson were the real core of ATHEIST. And I, more than anybody, understand their contributions and their philosophies and templates for what constitutes an ATHEIST song. And being a guitar player myself, and being that I’m writing a lot of that guitar stuff, I need people to trust me to pick the right guys to be in the band to make a record with. And I couldn’t have picked a better bunch of guys. I mean, the guys in this band right now, they each have their own individual bands that are tremendous, that have albums out. And they each have these different qualities that I find, as an arranger and a songwriter, it’s almost like somebody giving you all these brand new colors to paint with and different kinds of brushes to paint with. And that’s how I feel, like I have this tremendous palette of talent right at my fingertips. So they can play anything I can think of. Even if I can’t play it, I can explain it to them. And they also have a different level of knowledge than I have. I don’t read music. I learned everything by ear.”
Circling back to the writing sessions for the next ATHEIST album, Kelly said: “I have four hours of just recorded riffs. I record on a nice little studio setup. And so that way I can play both guitar parts that I have in mind for whatever the song is that we’re working on. And even in some instances drums. But a lot of times I’ll record it to a click track, send it to the drummer and then let him react. And then when we get together and we get in a room, then we can really kind of finetune everything.
“I have a huge understanding of the quality level that ATHEIST needs to be at,” he explained. “So with that said, though, all of this new material, much like every single ATHEIST album, is different. So there’s not two ATHEIST records that sound identical at all. They’re quite different, actually. And this one will be the same. But it’ll be subscribing to that same philosophy of catching people off guard. Not tricking their ears, but sort of tickling their ears with different things that you wouldn’t expect. The unexpected is something that I really love, and I love dynamics. I love it for it to be ferocious and then not, and then ferocious again.
“I know what ATHEIST should sound like,” Shaefer added. “And if everybody just allows that to happen… And you’re not gonna get a repeat performance out of us. You’re gonna get something new. And it might take you a couple years to get used to it, but that’s the way it was with ‘Piece Of Time’ and ‘Unquestionable Presence’. It took 15 years for people to go, ‘Ah.’ Fucking finally. Or, ‘Wait a minute. I understand now.’ All those little things. Back then. when it first came out, it was not that well received and people were very confused by it. So it’s really refreshing to go out now in this generation and get the love and appreciation from a lot of young bands. And it’s nice. So sometimes it’s nice to be the old guy. [Laughs]”
This past January, Kelly was asked by Altars Of Metal why it has taken 15 years for ATHEIST to come up with a new album’s worth of material. He replied: “We’ve been having a lot of contractual problems for the last seven years, and that’s why we haven’t made any new music, is because the business of music has held us from doing that. So anybody out there wondering why we haven’t had a new album in a while, it’s because of the business. And we’re working really, really hard to get that sorted out. But while that’s happening, we’re writing music and having a blast. And so I can’t say enough about the guys in my band now; I just love them so much. And they have such attention to detail that I can’t wait to take it around the world this year.”
ATHEIST was formed in 1988 by Shaefer and drummer Steve Flynn. Followed by bands such as DEATH and CYNIC, they would define a sound that is a pillar of complex, progressive, jazz-infused death metal intensity, with supreme musical prowess — the genre celebrated and known today as “progressive technical death metal.” ATHEIST attained that status thanks to its debut, “Piece Of Time” (1989),and second album, “Unquestionable Presence” (1991),both regarded as important benchmarks of the genre.
Last year, ATHEIST re-released its entire discography, comprised of four albums that span the band’s 30-year career, on all streaming services worldwide. The return to digital platforms was the first phase of a comprehensive reissue campaign. The second phase offered their albums in various physical formats with all-new revised layouts via Nuclear Blast.
Source: blabbermouth.net
