Lisa: What or who made you guys want to play solos instead of following the music trends that are omitting solos lately? 

Brian Fair: John’s just an amazing guitar player and it’s something that we always associated with metal, and we listen to more of the kinda old school thrash metal, the TESTAMENT and METALLICA, things like that. It’s just always been part of our sound and something that will probably always be there as well. It’s slowly making a comeback. LAMB OF GOD slipped a few in there on their last record, and GOD FORBID's been playing solo stuff, so slowly it’s coming back. 

L: What artists and musicians influence your playing and songwriting? 

BF: The traditional metal bands, like IRON MAIDEN, JUDAS PRIEST, are bands that we all grew up listening to, but we also grew up playing in hardcore bands so that’s kinda where a lot of the aggressiveness and speed comes from as well. As well as a lot of classic rock stuff, we’re all huge fans of 70’s era AEROSMITH and KISS. BOSTON was a huge influence on us too. All that stuff kinda slips in, but we definitely tend to gravitate to bands that wrote songs as opposed to just tons of riffs and overly technical. I can appreciate that stuff, but we’d rather write songs that are more memorable. 

L: What drives you? Is it the performing in front of people, the creative part of writing…? 

BF: It’s just what we’ve always done. I’m 28 years old now and I’ve been playing in bands since I was 13, it’s kinda all I’ve ever wanted to do, kinda all I know how to do at this point too. ::laughs:: We’re one-trick ponies, this is it, we put all our eggs in one basket so at this point, we just love touring, playing live, all that comes with that, meeting new people, getting to see places, travel the world. We’ve been so lucky, we’ve been to Japan, all around Europe, every major city in the States, and had such cool opportunities to meet cool people, and just getting on stage every night and seeing kids sing your songs, diving off the stage and stuff just totally keeps inspiring you all the time. It’s just a lot of fun. 

L: A lot of bands will complain about touring, saying that they find it very difficult and exhausting. Do you like touring, in general? 

BF: We love touring! These last two tours that we did, we were out for pretty much 18, 19 months straight, and it was time to come home! ::laughs:: Because that’s the thing, you don’t wanna ruin it. We were playing some huge shows in there. When 2,000 kids screaming at you don’t get you psyched, it’s time to come home. Because it is a rough lifestyle, you don’t get to sleep very much, you’re constantly traveling, and even when you do sleep, you’re going 75MPH down the highway, and eating crap and all that. Definitely it’s tough, but we love it, we’re a touring band, and we also feel we’re at our best live, and that’s what we wanna show people. Get out there and just kick ass. When people can’t handle it, you can tell, and they won’t make it. Even some of the bands we’ve toured with, they’ve had to get new members because some of them just couldn’t handle it, and if you can’t handle it, it’s gonna chew you up, cuz it ain’t easy. 

L: When can fans expect a new album? 

BF: We’re actually gonna start writing and recording while we’re home. This is our first extended break in the last 2 years so we’re gonna be working on that. I can’t say when it’s gonna come out, it all depends on how things go, the writing process. We plan on being in the studio by early spring, like April or March. From there you’d probably expect, hopefully maybe, late summer, early fall, but that’ll all depend on the record label and all that, how long it takes them to get everything together. ::laughs:: And then we’ll be back on the road. We’ll be back on the road probably right when we finish recording. We probably won’t even wait for the new record to come out. We were literally out on the road 2 days after we finished recording the last record. 

L: You play new stuff? 

BF: Yea, which is kinda cool. The kids get to hear some new stuff, and it’s exciting for us to kinda break it up. We were even playing some of the songs live before we even recorded them to kinda see how they felt, because you can’t really tell. You can listen to demos and you can jam on it, but until you get on stage and see how it flows, you don’t really know if you’ve nailed it yet. So we like to go out. Even while we’re writing this new record, we’ll probably play a few shows in the Massachusetts area, just to test our stuff out. 

L: What’s your favorite thing to do whenever you have free time while your touring on the road? 

BF: If the weather’s nice, I’ll be out skateboarding or trying to find a local basketball court. ::laughs:: Just to try and get out there and get a little bit of physical exercise and just to kinda break up the monotony because usually there isn’t much free time, you know? It’s wake up, load in, soundcheck, start drinking, play, continue drinking, pass out, wake up, repeat. ::laughs:: So when there’s a few free hours, you try and find something to break up that monotony. For me, it’s either I’ll try and workout or go skateboarding, just something to get moving again. 

L: Tell us about how Shadows Fall started out----your first few gigs, how people reacted to your music, how hard it was to get a steady fan base? 

BF: Well, we were lucky because a lot of us came from bands from the area that were already somewhat established. That’s kinda how we all met as well. We all played in different bands in the local Massachusetts scene, so when we all got together, people were already pretty psyched to see what we had to do. The reaction was pretty cool. We also bridged a lot of gaps between the hardcore kids and the metal kids, and we had a real wide variety of kids coming out to our shows so that was always something that was cool for us, which I also think makes us stand apart, and it gave us a chance to kinda break away from some of the scene. Because with a lot of bands, if you’re just doing the same old thing, kinda preaching the converted all the time, you can’t really grow. We had the opportunity to bridge a lot of those scenes and now it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. So we were lucky; our first few shows were all amazing. We also knew a lot of people so we got to open for big bands right away, so we cheated, you know? ::laughs:: 

L: Do you guys have any side projects, or are you planning on developing any? 

BF: Oh totally. I actually play drums for a band that’s about as different from Shadows Fall as you can get. In Shadows Fall, I spend my time screaming and singing and it’s all metal, and this stuff is more like space rock, almost like RADIOHEAD or SPIRITUALIZED, things like that. Plus I get to play drums, so I get to step back from the spotlight and hide out behind the drums and chill out. And that keeps you sane. We all have little projects like that, just to break the cycle when you get home, and it makes you excited to play metal again when we do get back together. I would probably never play for another metal or hardcore side project because, I mean, what’s the point? ::laughs:: I don’t think I’m gonna do any better than Shadows Fall, so I try and find other ways to express myself musically with side projects. 

L: How far do you want to go with those side projects? 

BF: Right now, it’s just for fun. The guys that I jam with all have full-time jobs and are more settled down, and we’re not gonna plan on touring or anything like that. But we play some shows here and there and it’s more just for the fun of it. It’s an excuse for us to get together, smoke some herb, and play some spacy, trippy music. Shadows Fall is such aggressive music that there is kind of an age limit. I don’t think that I could be 40 years old and still doing flips off the monitors at Irving Plaza! ::laughs::  Whereas, this is music that I can see myself playing for a long, long time, so we’ll see. If Shadows Fall ever ran outta steam, it’d be cool to fall back on, but right now, it’s just for fun. 

L: What’s the best thing about being in a band like Shadows Fall? 

BF: The thing that I love is we get the audience reaction that I can’t even believe sometimes. Just that total craziness from kids. It’s gotta be cool to be in a rock band when people are standing there cheering, but to see kids literally beating the shit out of each other and going crazy is just so much fun and so much more exciting. And there’s such a connection. I’ll dive in the crowd and let kids sing along, hand out the mic to those kids. It’s just cool to have really no separation between band and audience. Whereas when you’re just either a metal band or a big arena rock band, they’re 40 yards away. It’s cool to just have that energy thrown right back at ya.

L: Any messages to our readers? 

BF: We’re gonna be laying low for a little while but it doesn’t mean we’re disappearing. We’re just gonna be working on new music, taking our time, because we’re gonna try and write a record that buries our last one. That’s always our goal, just to step it up even another level. And as soon as that’s done, we’re gonna be hitting the road probably non-stop once again so we’ll be out there, so don’t think we disappeared on you, we’re just coming back with something even better.