TM - This is Amelia and Elizabeth from Twinmusix. We are here with Fred from Carnifex, thank you for having this interview with us today we appreciate it.
FD - Thank you for having me.
TM - Your new album Necromanteum comes out in October, what can fans expect?
FD - Our fans can expect the stuff they are familiar with, the black metal and deathcore stuff we were doing before this. We have an ambience with the keys and the strings in the background, so there are more symphonic elements from Song to song. This album will be more epic than what they are used to.
TM - What was your writing and recording process for your new Album?
FD - We track out ideas at home and put them in a riff file. Then Scott and Shawn go over the ideas, they put on their producer hats and see what they like and what they think is best for the music. Since we got Neal into the band, he has fit right into the process and started putting his ideas in our riff file. He came up with ideas on what he could incorporate into our sound. Then Scott and Shawn would go through those ideas and come up with structures for the songs and add the Carnifex sound into those songs. Then we all get them back and work on them collectively. After that, we track our parts discuss our ideas and eventually jam them out together.
TM - How do you think Neal is fitting into the band?
FD - Pretty great, he's a cool guy. His work ethic is very productive. He is pretty effortless with his ideas. He is a great person for rehearsals and is super laid back. There was no transitional period, it wasn't like we needed to vet the guy. We did a tour with this guy and he filled in for us before the pandemic. We were familiar with him before because he was from San Diego and we are from LA. He fits right into the band and there was no jarring period. He had these incredible ideas that makes jamming more fun.
TM - The cover for Necromanteum is amazing and packed with a lot of literal and hidden meaning, what was it like working with EM Gist?
FD - Scott has these ideas in his head, but he is not going to go and sketch them out. He described what he wanted and was able to invoke that feeling. The colours make it cool, it's a creepy mansion but there is an ambience going on with the weird green smoke and the Batts. Everything looks like it is moving on its own, creeping into the foreground and the background. EM was able to invoke those things on that little canvas.
TM - If you could have any band play one of your songs, what band would it be, what song would it be and would it be in your style or their style?
FD - I would like to hear Enterprise Earth cover our songs. Those guys are shredders and I like the way they play. I would like to see how Gabe and Brandon approached the riffing.
TM - Would you cover one of their songs?
FD - I would love to cover one of their songs from the latest outing.
TM - What's your favourite memory of watching someone else perform live, can you tell us a story?
FD - we played at a big festival in Europe where I was stoked because I finally got to see Immortal live. It's funny because normally there are issues that happen on stage and normally you just roll with the punches and deal with it later. He stopped and he was like I'm not having a good time up here, he stopped the band and pointed at the Crew and monitor and crossed his arms, and sat on the drum riser until they plugged the monitor back in. They started again without missing a beat they picked up where they left off. It was cool to see that they wanted to be at a certain level or they would not perform. It did not seem like it was a dick move, it was all pretentious it was just funny though.
TM - As a kid, what was the first band or artist you saw live, can you tell us a story?
FD - My buddy and I junior used to be in a band together. He asked me if I wanted to go to a concert and I asked who it was. He told me it was Rob Zombie and I was like f*** yeah, I will go and see Rob Zombie. There were two bands opening that night, one was called Sinister and the other was called The Dammed is Direct. It was the first concert we went to by ourselves. it was like, oh cool our parents aren't taking us. It was cool to see a band playing and a band with a slightly bigger production playing. Rob Zombie had the full show and had video screens in the background. They also had the big Frankenstein monster walking across the stage. It sounded just like the record, with all this stuff going on live, it was so sick.
TM - Your last project 'Grave Side Confessions' was made during covid, obviously recording this new project had a lot less restrictions and was more freeing to make this, is there any part of the recording process you miss from that time?
FD - during that part of the project we are tracked from home and sent our parts in. I think the biggest takeaway was, how was it with real drums versus program drums, because Shawn wrote his drum parts and that was it, we just sampled them.
On the new album, he had time to track them live. Then that snowballed and we all tracked together.
The cool thing was when it was graveside it was just the four of us. It was like we were just going to write these songs and it was the pre-production mentality. We just wanted to get our parts trapped we were just like here's the song here's the parts, then we would just finalise it.
In the studio, it's like I have some funky ideas I just want to play around with some sections. I can play it but I just want to play around with some sections. Having Jason as the producer, he's like hey check this out I did some messing around. He is also very honest when he does and doesn't like something and he will come up with something cool. I miss it when he is not there because I miss the other ear that's not in the band and he gives me ideas.
TM - Last question, is there anything else you would like to say to your fans?
FD - thank you so much for still sticking with us and supporting us even through the pandemic. We did a Patreon thing where we still spoke to our fans. We curated movie nights game nights and hang-out nights and we performed special sets for them. We did full album play-throughs for them. Then we came back and did rockfest and other shows and there is appreciation, is tenfold and we are trying to give it back to them.
TM - Thank you for this interview today, we appreciate it.
FD - Thank you for having me.