GOD FORBID

Unpredictability is interesting

I have never been a big fan of GOD FORBID but their fifth, long awaited CD really caught my attention. Compared to all of their previous works that bored me to death, the newest album of New Jersey metallers entitled "Earthsblood" is a very decent piece of shit. A week after its official release I had a pleasure of speaking with guitarist Doc Coyle. We discussed great success the band achieved in the music industry, the Internet and of course „Earthsblood”- GOD FORBID's brand new CD.

-Your previous studio album „IV: Constitution of Treason” was released in 2005. It means that you forced your fans to wait for the next piece of GOD FORBID's music for almost four painful years. Do you feel guilty? Any excuse?
I feel a little guilty, but I think it’s actually worse for the band. When you’re not Tool or Metallica and wait a few years to put out a record, the buzz on the band tends to die down and you have to kind of work your way back. There are several reasons for the gap in albums. We toured quite a bit, took a 5 month break from the band in summer/fall 06, and continued touring while we were writing in 2007. That stretched the writing process out. We also had several setbacks in the studio including running out of time during the sessions at Trax East and having to schedule to vocal sessions in LA with Christian Olde Wolbers. That took a month, and than our mixer pulled out at the last minute. All of the recording issues set everything back around 6 months. With all of that said, I think we put the album out in a great musical climate.

-Your fifth full length album „Earthsblood” will be released in mid February. Would you like to describe the album? What mainly differs your new effort from your previous recordings?
I’d say it’s even more epic and progressive than anything we’ve done, but we still focused on writing catchy songs. I think our last album served as a transitional period that allowed us to not have limitations in the song writing that forced the songs into a particular direction. We thought about things that would set us apart further from our peers. I was personally influenced a lot by Dimmu Borgir, Opeth, and Gojira which I guess is more progressive and composed material. Earthsblood is a bit more energetic and gets back to some of our more extreme roots as well. Vocally, there was a lot of growth. We spent a long time on the vocals, and paid a lot of attention to detail and delivery. There were conversations about making the melodic and aggressive vocals segue more smoothly, and adding some grit to melodic vocals to attain a more metallic sound.

-As far as I know the album title was inspired by famous, Oscar nominated movie „There Will Be Blood” (another great role of Daniel Day Lewis, by the way!). Unfortunately, I don't have the lyrics from the album so would you like to tell us a few words concerning the lyrical concept of „Earthsblood”?
There is no direct correlation between the title and the lyrics. I came up with the title, but wrote only a handful of lyrics. There are some organic themes in some of the songs like Gaia and The Rain, but there is also a song about the life of a soldier, a song about lost love, and some songs that deal with more divine, abstract ideas. Since I didn’t write most of the lyrics, I find it too presumptuous to attempt to go into too much detail. I can say that the title was inspired by what I saw as a connection between the exchange of human resources for the earth’s resources. Both are precious and finite, but there seems to be some type of imbalance that I haven’t fully quantified yet. The title is still an unresolved thesis.

-In my opinion „Earthsblood” is without any doubt the best work you have done so far. Honestly speaking, I'm not the biggest fan of your previous recordings but when it comes to your new work, there are at least a few good reasons to describe „Earthsblood” album as interesting, intriguing and worth listening. First of all- the production. It's fucking great! For god's sake, how did you achieve such a fat and powerful sound?
I really have to give most of the credit to the producers and engineers who worked on the album. Eric Rachel, who tracked all of the music, has worked on pretty much all of our albums, and he once again did an incredible job on the core tones. We worked really hard on the guitar tone, and he even bought a brand new Bogren half stack for the album. Jens Bogren who mixed and mastered the album had a big hand in the overall final sound. He is very meticulous and really took his time with the mixdown. Because the album was so dynamic, I think his style contributed to the bigness of the end product. There is a great balance of the modern metal production and a more organic tone which worked great for us.

-The songs collected on this CD are also great. I remember the first time when I listened to the opening track „The Rain”. Holy hell, it almost cut my balls off! It's a perfect blend of heaviness and epic melodies, my cup of tea definitely! The same goes for „War of Attrition” and „Bat The Angels”. Those are the heaviest songs on that album in my opinion. People should love „Empire of the Gun” and „Walk Alone” also, especially for their enormous vital energy. What is the golden rule to write such good songs?
Well, thank you. I don’t think there is one particular golden rule to writing songs. The guy from Offspring once said that the only band that ever mastered songwriting was the Beatles, and I’d say he has a pretty good case. Writing songs for many years just fine tunes your ability. Every album, I feel like I personally become a better song writer. Part of it is having a more focused concept on what I want to get out of a song. For example, on the song Shallow, I was aiming towards writing a song like Metallica’s Leper Messiah. I wanted something that had a midtempo groove that really was a headbanger and straightforward. In past we would just play whatever came out, and that can coalesce into some wonderful creative outbursts. Now, it’s a combination of preordainded composition meshed with spontaneous jamming and collaboration, which I find is a great way to work. I know a lot of bands write on computers these days, but I find playing together in a room is much more organic and real. Also, we’re a band that has always put a focus on writing hooks; riffs, melodies, and lyrics that will stick with the listener. Combining that more tangible, pop tendency with the adventurous, technical, more unpredictable elements make for a great song writing process. There is also something to be said about taking your time with the songs so that you can analyze the songs for that intangible quality that makes a listener gravitate to a song in a special way. You have to be able to go back and listen to your tracks as if you were a normal person, and not a biased musician.

-One of the most outstanding and surprising tracks on „Earthsblood” are definitely „The New Clear” and the title one „Earthsblood” which are much more progressive and atmospheric, compared to the others. In both tracks can be heard some strong OPETH's influences. How do you respond to that?
That’s pretty accurate, and I view it as a compliment. It wasn’t 100% conscious. Things seep into your sound without realizing it, and than you notice it in hindsight. Collectively, we look up to Opeth musically because like us they are very diverse. Unlike many other bands, Opeth are able to make the duality seemless and do both the extreme and melodic rock side of things equally well. With that said, we still sound like God Forbid, but have no problem absorbing influences from anywhere that’s good and inspirational.

-So far you have been considered mostly as metal core band. Listening to this new album and comparing it to some of your previous recordings I would say that your sound has changed a bit and now you are moving towards more progressive sound. What do you think what kind of music will GOD FORBID be playing in let's say next five years?
If anything, Earthsblood gives more freedom to spread our wings and take even more chances musically. Hopefully our fans will learn to expect the unexpected while maintaining our identity. I don’t know what we will sound like in 5 years or if we’ll still be doing God Forbid in 5 years, but the unpredictability of it all is what keeps it interesting. I’ve always said that I will keep doing the band as long I feel I have something say musically that only God Forbid can get across. There were times in the last couple years where I thought about pursuing other things, but in my heart I felt I wasn’t done with my work with the band, so I committed to another album. That’s really as far as I can take it. One album at a time.

-Some recent years have been terrible for most of the music industry. The illegal downloading has ruined the music scene completely. What do you think is the major fact that should make people buy your records in music stores instead of downloading them? Is GOD FORBID offering anything out of the ordinary except for some very competent metal? Isn't downloading a part of the landscape where many people can discover music now?
It’s true that the current downloading culture has severely damaged the music industry, but I believe that metal is not necessarily affected in the same way. In the past, you could have a a pop artist with only 1 or 2 hit songs on an album and sell 5 million copies. Those artists who rely on hit singles to sell albums are getting hit the hardests. Metal fans care about their favorite bands, and usually buy an album for the whole thing. They are often musicians themselves so they empathize with the bands and want to support them. Plus, a lot of kids are broke, and would buy the album if they could. I think it’s better to have them exposed to the album, so they can buy a ticket to the show or a T-shirt. Unless true regulation is installed to limit the downloading capabilities of computers, than we have to accept the way things are changing. You can’t give people keys to the car with a full tank of gas, and tell them to not go for a spin. It’s bittersweet, but music won’t die, just evolve.