Yes, we have. Back in I think it was probably 2004, our original drummer Andy who is back in the band now, decided he couldn’t do it anymore. The touring lifestyle and all the traveling, he decided it wasn’t his cup of tea and that he needed to get out. Without even trying anybody out we picked up this guy Ricky Evensend from Sweden and realized that wasn’t going to work out. Just bringing a European into an American band right off the bat, all the cultural differences, and personality wise he just didn’t work out. He was a great drummer though.

There’s that much difference with Swedish people?

Well, I think he had delusions of grandeur. He wanted to come over here and he thought that the streets were going to be paved with gold. That he’s going to be buying houses and Escalades right off the bat but there‘s no money in metal. All the money we make goes to being able to live comfortably or as close to home as possible.

Our country does give people these strange impressions outside.

Yeah, I guess so. That didn’t work out so we needed somebody new and we got a guy named Kevin Talley who was a recommendation from Kerry King in Slayer. Again we didn’t try him out and just had him join the band. I’m stressing this because now we know that if there is ever going to be a member change again, we need to try guys out. And there, he just came in. Another great drummer. Great on stage. It’s just hard and this goes along with the Ricky thing too. When there are five other guys in the band that have been playing together for five or six years, seven years or whatever, we know every innuendo about everybody. We know everybody’s personality. What they like, what they don’t like. Then you bring somebody new in and a lot of personalities clash. That again didn’t work out but it worked out perfectly because simultaneously just when things were breaking down with him, Mark our singer got in touch with Andy and Andy told him that he wanted to come back to the band. He realized that maybe taking some time off was good for him to realize what he had been missing and he knew he should be playing drums. Now he’s back with a whole new sense of enthusiasm and he’s just stoked to be playing again. We’re all happy to have him. The family is back together and things are better than ever.

Being in a band is like being married or being in a family.

In a sense you’ve got to treat it like that. Everybody needs their space and you have to respect one another and be conscientious. It’s tough.

A lot of people I don’t think understand that until they spend the first year on the tour bus together.

Sure or even crammed in a van before that. Nobody’s getting any sleep. Sitting in between two guys for thousands of miles. That’s what really tears you apart.

Yeah, I guess Andy probably got a little burned out from that. You guys released a new record called Resurrection. Can you tell me a little about it?

We called it that just because of what had been going on in the band for the past year and a half or so. Right around that time when Kevin Talley had left the band and Andy was coming back to the band, before we even found out that Andy was coming back, things were at an all time low for us. We needed to get off of Roadrunner Records so we were trying to do that. Basically to them we were more of a bottom of the totem pole type of band because if you’re not paying the bills like Nickleback and Slipknot, then they just didn’t care about you. There were some great people over there that cared about us but that wasn’t good enough for us so we needed to get off the label and do something different. After months of negotiation we were finally released and that was a gigantic weight off our shoulders and then Andy coming back to the band and then signing a new deal with Ferret Records which Resurrection came out on last week. All that together just was a resurrection for us. All the spirits were back up super high. Everybody was feeling good. We had no pressures. We had a lot of motivation from the label. They signed us without even hearing a single demo. They were ready for whatever album Chimaira was going to present to them. Everything felt good and we thought this was a little bit like a second chance for us and so we got together. I’m not going to describe Resurrection. Anybody that’s interested in what I’m saying right now will listen to it on their own and figure it out. That’s how it all came together and I recommend that people check it out. Anybody that’s a fan of metal, love it or hate it.

Everybody knows who Chimaira is so I guess that’s why Ferret figured they didn’t have to listen to any demos.

That’s what I can hope.

When you guys were thinking about changing labels, was Ferret the first one that you thought about?

Yeah, we had been friends with the guys for a while. A lot of them were ex- Roadrunner people that wanted to do a different label based on the things that they knew Roadrunner was doing wrong.

Roadrunner got bought up by somebody.

That didn’t matter. That didn’t change anything for Chimaira.

I’m thinking that by them getting bought up by somebody, that makes it even worse for a band that isn’t like Slipknot.

Not necessarily. It’s a band by band type thing. Everything is situational and also that big merger happened after we had left the label as well so it didn’t affect us either way. A lot of our peer bands that are signed to Ferret were saying that we should come with these guys. They’re totally awesome. So we just started a relationship with them and we’re completely happy with our decision.

I saw the CD cover. That’s pretty wild. How did you decide on that design?

I guess it just looked cool and we wanted it to symbolize some sort of a metamorphosis kind of like what I just described. We went through a change and things are different now so that’s what that symbolizes.

What three songs on the record describe where Chimaira is at right now?

I really can’t answer that. The album describes where we’re at right now. I love every song equally. If I didn’t, they wouldn’t be on there. We try to present the album as a whole. As a vision in a sense and to make it fit the time period of the band with everything that’s going on right now. I think it will just be apparent to people what we’re trying to portray right now if you were listening. Like I said, if you don’t see it and you don’t like it, so be it. We’re not aiming for that or anything to be like that but every song on there is about what’s going on with us right now and what we’re trying to do.

Are there any particular songs that you’re playing live?

We do “Resurrection” every night and we’ve been switching around every night with “Pleasure And Pain”, “No Reason To Live”, “Worthless”, and “Empire”. We’re playing about half the record but we only do two songs a night on this tour. We do “Resurrection” every night and then we just choose one of those other ones. Whatever we feel like doing that night.

Whatever fits into the setting or mood of that night.

Yeah, sure or whatever we didn’t play last night. We’ll just pick another one.

Are you guys doing any videos?

We did a video for the title track “Resurrection” and I believe it’s airing right now.

The record was released last week. How’s it doing so far?

Great. We and the label are real happy with the first week’s numbers and it’s been our best to date yet. Number 42 on the Billboard charts. For an extreme metal band that’s definitely awesome.

Especially being on Billboard.

Yeah, so we’re all happy about it and we didn’t expect to come right out with anything giant right away because we know we want this to be more of a building record for us again. We want to do some support tours again and just build the name back up and get the hype back up. Let the album speak for itself and then just see what happens from there and make our decisions of what we’re going to do in the future based on that.

I’ve seen you guys play before and thought you were an awesome live band so I definitely look forward to tonight’s performance.

Thank you.

How has the tour been going with Killswitch Engage?

It’s been awesome. Every night we’ve sold out. It’s a young, enthusiastic, open-minded crowd that claps for every band. They buy the t-shirts and they’re just into everybody. Like when we open for bands like Slayer, we call that a tough crowd because they don’t want to see any openers. They just want to see Slayer. They just want to get right to it whereas these guys, everybody is there early and they’re interested in seeing all the bands. So it’s a great tour.

The Lamb Of God tour was like that too. By the time I got here the place was already packed. That was amazing. Everyone was really enthusiastic about every band. I like that. There’s a lot of energy out there.

Good.

How much longer do you have on this tour?

I think there’s about three weeks left. It’s going by pretty quick which is good. We’ll be home April 9th. So however long that is.

What do you guys have planned after the tour is done?

We take a couple of weeks off. At the end of April we’re going to Mexico City and Monterrey and then down to South America for one show. We’re taking the whole month of May off. I’m getting married in May so we don’t have any plans there. All of June we’ll be in Europe for the summer festivals and then after that is up in the air. We’ll just wait and see.

Congratulations on the marriage.

Thank you. I’m real excited about it.

That’s cool. Very awesome. Any other thoughts or comments?