Amiril MuhaiminThe UrbanWire caught up with lead singer Bryan Crouch of Canadian metal band Hail The Villain over the phone and talked about the prospect of playing in front of a new crowd, the album and the band’s background.
Is this the first time that the band is touring Asia? If so, are you guys excited about playing in front of a new crowd?
BC: Yes, you don’t even know how excited we are. Being Canadians, we’re very cultured in other cultures around the world. We’ve great things about Asia, especially Japan and Singapore so we’re really stoked about playing shows over there.
As far as the crowd goes, I don’t know too much on what to expect from them but I do know that the Asian culture is appreciative of all forms of music and I think that I can expect the crowd to be lively and excited about the show that we’re going to bring.
What will you guys do to win over the Asian audience?
BC:We will just be ourselves and we’ll never try to change a show. We never pre-plan things as we always come out and feed off the energy of the crowd. I think the people over there are going not see a band coming can sit in both a metal or a rock type of venue but a band can perform either laid back rock or heavy metal type of shows. I think that is something that our music hasn’t hit around the world yet so we are really excited about bringing it.
In an interview that the band did with Heavy, Joseph brought in the metal influence. Was it easy for the band to move from punk to metal?
BC: I would say that it was a natural thing, as I’m a very punk rocked orientated individual coming from a lot of punk rock bands such as Circle Jerks and Bad Religion while my guitar player Joe is into Iron Maiden and Megadeth.
So in a way, it’s a natural progression for us to mould together and become the band that we were as soon as we got to know one another.
Drew the drummer is into punk rock as well while Chad is a rock dude. He also loves Canadian bands.
Why did the band name change from Fahrenheit to Hail The Villain?
BC: The name was too generic and it had a sound that we didn’t really like and the music has become a lot darker and evil. We also knew that we were going to make a comic book and a movie. As we started writing for that, we knew that a new name was in the works and Hail The Villain just fits everything what we wanted to become and what we were becoming at that time.
Are there any relations with the band Protest The Hero since you both originate from Ontario, Canada and the meaning of the band names are almost identical?
BC: You know it’s absolutely hilarious as we grew up at the same street, like literally across the street from each other. When we came out with the name Hail The Villain, we didn’t even put it together that Protest The Hero were not only from the same country but actually our next-door neighbours.
Since then, we still know them and everything is still cool between us so I don’t think that there are any bad blood between the 2 bands about having a similar name.
Are you guys planning to go on a tour with them anytime soon?
BC: We don’t have any plans to tour with them right now as we are gearing ourselves to the Rock crowd although we love playing the metal shows. We love the energy that the Rock crowd gives us every night.
How would you describe Population: Declining’s musical content?
BC: I think it’s a very raw record as the energy coming out from that is unlike many things that are out now nowadays. We went with natural sounds and natural energy, animosity and grit as we explored the darker rounds of our life to come out with a heavy but melodic sound and we definitely went all out with the lyrical content to make sure that each song was unique about something totally different and we made it from the bottom of our hearts.
What’s the status of the music scene back in Canada?
BC: The music scene in Canada is different from the scene in America. The US scene is really into grassroots type of rock stuff or Metal while Canadians prefer the Indie Rock scene a there is no Metal radio station. The bands that come out of Canada sound like “Ding-ding-ding” while we wanted to go “Bam-bam-bam”, so in a way we fitted more towards the US culture rather than the Canadian scene.
How does Canada feel about Hail The Villain?
BC: It’s actually been pretty fantastic since we first came out. I think when we first started, there were a lot of apprehension to what we were doing and the band that we wanted to become. We didn’t really fit in and there weren’t a lot of bands for us to open for or play with.
Our songs have hit the radio and started to be on TV. We’ve seen a lot of people take notice and get interested and excited about the band and want to become villains themselves. So Canada is starting to embrace us, in a way that we thought they never would.
Do you look forward to the response of the Singaporean crowd when you play SINGfest 2010?
BC: I think that the crowd will look at us with a bit of shock when they watch our show.
When they hear the band on the radio, I’m not sure whether our music will translate right away but I do know that once you see us in person and see the effort that we put in for the shows, nothing but smiles will be on the faces of the crowd.
Why was there a re-release for Population: Declining?
BC: We never released the record as we just wrote it and started playing it. It was not long after that Warner picked us up after we played it. We knew we had these huge aspirations of making these movie, and the crazy website and that stuff took a lot more time than actually making the record. So what we did was we took all the time and created the ”Hail The Villain” Universe and it wasn’t quite ready until 2009 and that’s when Roadrunner came and pick us up.
Everything took some time to make it happen but we’re super excited to release the record in 2010.
Tell us more about the movie.
BC: We actually we did so that each song was an episode of that movie. “Take Back the Fear” was the first episode and it’s our first single so it got released as a video. We just finished shooting the video for “Runaway” which will be another segment of the movie.
The movie is a dark and twisted tale that we can’t wait for the world to actually get into. We feel that it’s something that everyone can relate to and it’s also deals with heroes and villains and it’s just a very cool story.
What’s your favourite band to tour with?
BC: The tour we did with Sevendust was fantastic as they are an incredible and we had a fantastic time, same with the other shows we did with Papa Roach, who are just an unbelievably tight and incredible live band.
In the future, I think I’ll be very excited to get one night to open for Metallica just to say that we did just because they are so incredible.
What’s your best tour memory?
BC: I think one of the coolest moments was when we were playing a show at Orlando, Florida and we had just finished the show with Papa Roach. The singer of Papa Roach called us “Snake Venom” as he said we were like “Venom” and he loved our set as a guy of his stature enjoyed our band.
If you could be a super villain, who would you be?
BC: I look like the Joker, I sound like the Joker and I try to embrace those qualities of being a guy that you love to hate and hate to love in one shot. The Joker is always someone that I wanted to be.
What about a Superhero then?
BC: I’m really into Spawn and I think that it ties in a lot of the movies we’ve written and I like the anti-hero where he’s not exactly a good person but he has a good sense of judgment and moral code.
When it comes to recording, does the band pre-plan them in advance or prefer to be spontaneous and hit random notes in the studio?
BC: For us, recording this album was a last-ditch effort and we weren’t really sure what the future was going to hold. So when we came into this record, we had no expectations but we knew that we had a couple of riffs that we really enjoyed and we wanted to see it through.
We found a producer that had the same ambition as us and went to record the album with all our passion and emotion.
We just didn’t care whether the songs will be aired on the radio or TV or whether we will sign to a major label deal, what we wanted to do was just to make the best record that we could.
What are the plans for the band now?
BC: The only plan that we have right now is to tour like crazy and that’s what we are starting to do. We just finished our first large scale tour and now we’re doing another one before heading to Singapore and Japan before. And then we come home to play alongside Avenged Sevenfold and Disturbed and we’ll play a very heavy rock set when we come home to North America.
Hail The Villain will be playing in SINGfest 2010 on the 3rd day of the festival, Aug 5th. They will be sharing the stage with rock quartet Smashing Pumpkins, 30 Seconds To Mars and Ian Brown.