Erra have just finished a UK tour with Northlane, and Adam had a chat with Jesse and J.T before their show in Leeds.
So how you guys doing?
Really good thanks
Enjoying the UK so far?
J.T: We’ve done about four or five shows so far and it’s been good, the crowd took a little longer to wake up last night, but we had an encore chant which by the end which was good. It’s been fun.
Any personal highlights of the tour?
J.T: London for sure. Was a larger venue than most of our shows and was a pretty full room which was great. The crowd loved it.
Yeah, London’s always good. How’s the album cycle been so far?
Jesse: Yeah it’s been solid.
J.T: Started off with a couple of good tours then had a bit of a break, then we did the overseas runs and now this tour. Got some new music written so now just ready for the next step!
Sounds good. With this being your first album with the band J.T, was it an easy transition to make?
J.T: Yeah it was. The last band I was in was metalcore, and this band is pretty metalcore too but it’s nice having Jesse on stage as it gives me a break and breaks up the monotony of being by yourself all the time. It’s nice to tag team it, you know?
So you felt like you could contribute to the writing?
J.T: It was kinda difficult because I came right in the middle of the recording cycle.
Jesse: With this album, it was more 60/40, but with the new one it’s definitely 60/40 the other way.
So what influences would you say that you brought to the band J.T?
J.T: Well I’m definitely more of a classic core fan, heavy breakdowns, and brutal screams that sort of thing. I have a very percussive mid-range voice and I like fast patterns and complicated things in that aspect, and the rest of the bands bring the melodic and prettier aspects to it
With Drift being such a progressive and technical album, do you ever feel limited by the metalcore label?
Jesse: No, because with Drift we incorporated more opposing genres and melody with slower tempos, so not entirely. We definitely know there are things that we need to keep doing, like we can’t stop being a metal band altogether, but we’re not limited to what we can do with that.
J.T: It’s up to the artist I think whether they want to stay in a box or genre that they’ve created themselves or that fans have put them in. We don’t want metalcore to define what we create, and our next record coming out will push that even further.
Jesse: I think before Drift we did feel limited to what we could do, but since we took a chance on that record I feel like there’s no limits to what we can do, I feel comfortable to do whatever we want.
J.T: Ended up being an enjoyable process too.
Heard a lot of different influences on the last album with bands like Deftones
Jesse: Even more of that to come.
Brilliant. What do you guys think about the state of metal in 2017, and do you think its in a good place?
Jesse: I think you guys think about that kinda stuff than I do.
J.T: It’s weird. I think now more than ever it’s saturated, and it’s very hard to do something different within our genre and stand out. There are some bands out that just seem to put the same album out over and over, and while it may work for them, it doesn’t work for us.
Jesse: I’m at this really comfortable stage in the band, and I don’t want to speak for everyone on this, and I haven’t really been analysing too much about the state or where things our in terms of our genre, and all of our focus has been on writing what we think sounds cool and good, and I know bands like Northlane have been doing the exact same thing. It’s motivating for us that there’s this movement within metalcore with bands like us and Northlane that are trying out new things and moving forward.
J.T: I feel like we try and not put ourselves up to too much scrutiny with what everyone else is doing, we are obviously aware of what other bands are moving forward and progressing with. If it’s too forced or unnatural though then it’s not going to be fun whether it’s musically related or not.
Thats great guys, thank you for your time!
You can check out our review of the Leeds date here