Fellow metalheads, a season is coming to pass before our very eyes. Several of the performers I have interviewed over the last four months have touched on a common topic: The day of reckoning has come for those bands not worthy of their record contracts. And out of the multitude of flash in the pan acts that are, even now, being dropped from their labels like piles of dung, will rise a select few bands that still care about quality and integrity. Local heroes, Wrathchild America are among those few. As vocalist/bassist Brad Divens put it, "A lot of the bands that got signed over that last couple years are gonna be dropped. In the last two years, record companies just signed everybody they could. They were just throwin' shit against the wall. It turns out that three quarters of it didn't stick, so now they're gonna start droppin' people left and right."
Divens and bandmates Shannon Larkin (drums), Jay Abbene (guitar), and Terry Carter (guitar) don't seem too concerned about the coming decade of judgment, and for good reason. Wrathchild America have established themselves as a colossal force in the industry by delivering a unique breed of thrash, which stretches the very boundaries of the genre. Shannon explains, "When the first album came out, (people) said we had to find direction because we sent all over the place all of the time. But we know our direction. It's not like we don't have direction; that's what we're trying to do. We don't want to be limited to playing speed metal, or heavy metal, or hard rock, or reggae, or funk, or jazz, or whatever. We'll play what we wanna play. It's not a matter of direction."
"I think," Brad expands, "there's gonna be a lot more bands around that are gonna use different influences. They're not gonna be necessarily one type of music. I'm not gonna say 'to be more like us,' but that's the way we do it. We use all our influences so we have this there and this there and this there. Not that they're gonna copy us, but I think that's what's gonna happen."
But diverse influences alone do not make a great band. Simply put, your music has to be good. The songs have to move people. Wrathchild America have proven their songwriting ability on their Atlantic debut album, Climbin' The Walls. They plan on proving it again with their second album, 3-D, due to be released in February. According to the band, they've come into their own this time around. "We worked together really well this time," Shannon offers, "with all four of us writing the music. I think we've found what we're lookin for musically. We locked in with each other this time, and I think we've found our future. We'll always branch out and get more creative, of course, but I think we've found the vein we want to be in."
Brad explains that the album's strength may have come out of the care they took to record it, "We wrote all through April, May, June and July, and we went into the studio the last week of July, like around the 23rd. From the 23rd until September 6th, we recorded the record. Then we took a few weeks off to live with what we had done. We wanted to take our time and make sure it was exactly how we wanted it."
The band did go into more detail about the songs on 3-D and some other things on their minds, but I think I'll save that for a future issue. Meanwhile, watch the bells begin to toll for the riff raff in the industry as Wrathchild America bring forth a new product wrought with the strength of real musicianship. Come February, check it out.