A Conversation With OUR LAST ENEMY

After an exceedingly busy 2009, with tour supports including a myriad of international names such as Static X, DOPE and Hanzel Und Gretyl, it would be a great understatement to say that Australian industrial metallers OUR LAST ENEMY are in no way ready to stop! Finishing their long awaited, debut full-length album 'Fallen Empires' the quintet is currently on an extensive national tour to launch the record, before hitting New Zealand and Japan, in a year that is turning out to be bigger than ever before.

Through their hard work, both on record and on the live stage, OUR LAST ENEMY has rightly become one of the leading metal bands in Sydney, and with a brand new line-up, you can expect their shows to be crazier and more theatrical than ever.

When asked if I wanted to catch up with the band, I jumped on the chance to pick the brains of bassist Matt Heywood, vocalist Oli Fogwell and drummer Jeff Ritchie, in what became an in depth interview, that above all highlighted how passionate, down-to-earth and honest these musicians are... and at times, absolutely hilarious!

First things first, how are you and how is everything within the band now that so much is going on?

Matt; We are good; everything within the band is great... the album is ready to go, more dates keep getting added to the tour, and we hope to be doing some more international supports real soon.

Jeff; We're all starting to get back into the groove. It's been like 8 months since we've been on stage so it was a bit weird getting back up there. Also Bizz [guitars] and Craig [keys and samples] are settling in awesomely!

Oli; It’s great to be busy again. We much prefer to be overloaded then doing little bits here and there. We have always done things in extremes!

You’re currently on tour in support of your debut album 'Fallen Empires', how has the reception been so far?

Matt; Well the reception we've noticed thus far is some excitement that we're playing again after having a few months [off] and that we're going to places we've never been before. It’s been a bit nuts, we’ve also had some people almost angry with us because we had gone quiet for a few months, which we understand. And we've had people crying, people bringing their little kids to see us and people saying it was an honour for us to be in their town... Which was weird...

Jeff; It’s going really well! We actually just finished up a show in Canberra on the weekend and had a huge turn out! People were basically attacking our merch desk and leaving their details for us to send them the album. We love Canberra!

Oli; People are just really happy we are playing again, and that the record is finally finished. We are also getting overwhelmingly positive feedback on the new members. People say it’s an even tighter unit and even crazier live show.

What city are you most looking forward to playing?

Matt; Sydney.... it’s our home... But we have really strong fan bases in Canberra and Queensland, so we always like going there as well.

Jeff; I'm gonna go with Adelaide. We've never played there yet and I heard the scene there is pretty good. Can't wait to rock it the fuck out!

Oli; Canberra was a highlight I was looking forward to, it had some great promo behind it and a lot of great bands on the bill… and it didn’t disappoint! Adelaide is somewhere I am looking forward to as well, as we haven’t been there before.

 You’ll be heading over to New Zealand this October before coming back to Melbourne and then hitting Japan, which cities will you be playing and how excited is the band to finally play there?

Matt; In New Zealand we'll be playing Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland. In Japan, we hope to hit Osaka, Tokyo and Okinawa.

Oli; Well I for one am extremely excited to get overseas with this band, it's something we have been aiming to do for a long time. I am looking forward to catching up with some close friends in New Zealand, as well as play with some great bands, and to just be in complete culture shock in Japan. I love a lot of Japanese art and music so will be spending up big when we get some time off. I know Bizz has a soft spot for Asia too…haha…

Jeff; Its always fun for us to unleash hell in new places.

How was the time spent in LA recording your album? Any amusing anecdotes you care to share?

Matt; It was crazy from the beginning... Cheap alcohol, cheap cigarettes... and cheap women!! haha jokes.. they were expensive. [Haha, brilliant - ed.] The time we spent in L.A was a great experience, some days it was hours and hours of work. We spent a lot of our time recording at night, the studio we recorded in was owned by Raymond Herrera [ex- Fear Factory] and B-real [Cypress Hill] so Cypress were recording during the day, they'd finish around 6-7pm, then we would start our sessions.

One night our sessions were held back brutally because X-Zibit was 'bus'in some rhymes' and he ate into like... 5 hours of our studio time, so Jeff started tracking drums on this night at like 1am.

Some amusing anecdotes... We actually brought the Cops back to the studio - that was fucked. The 5 Aussie kids had just brought 2 cops to Cypress Hill's studio... we had like 60 seconds before they came in the front door, everyone was scrambling to hide things, we don’t need to go into what was around the studio, but those guys aren’t lying in their raps.

We got to sit at B-Real's personal table at the Rainbow Bar n' Grill, we were VIP guests at God Forbid's show at the Whiskey A Go Go, and we also got VIP tickets to Motley Crue’s San Diego show... we could do a whole interview on the crazy experiences we had over there and the people we met. [I am holding you to that - ed.]

Jeff; For me it was awesome! I did drums in the first week and then for the next 3 weeks I got to watch everyone else do their part and also you know, have a few too many drinks in the process. You gotta do what you gotta do!

Amusing stories? Where do I start... One of the most memorable things for me was being at the studio late one night when B-Real from Cypress Hill was wrapping things up on his session that day. X-Zibit had come down to lay some raps on one of Cypress Hill's songs and afterwards they ordered a massive bucket of fried chicken. It was funny watching about 10 gangster rappers slamming a box of chicken. Then X-Zibit came up to me and started busting a free style rap right in my face. I was like "yeah dawg uh uh, dat's the bomb right there". hahaha! They were all very cool guys and down to earth.

Another one would have to be sitting in the lounge in Christian’s [Olde Wolbers] house watching TV one night and having this red dot moving across my chest. Turns out Christian had his guns out. He had me scoped out. I still wonder to this day if it was loaded. I needed new underwear after that.

Oli; I picked up a lot of tips from Christian in the studio, from techniques to exercises. He really focuses on vocals as a producer, so it was fun to try new things in the room - laying down whisper tracks or dropping in screams in places I hadn’t thought of. Cooking Buffalo on Australia day was funny… we wanted to cook some Kangaroo but couldn’t find anywhere that sold it.

For me going to the Friday The 13th premiere at Mann's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard was unreal… huge fan. Going to Mikey's [Spreitzer] from DevilDriver birthday party at The Rack in Reseda was cool, playing pool with the LA metal scene. All the free tickets and VIP passes to shows every week was amazing too, I’m pretty sure I drank a lot of band's riders.

 How did you land working with the legendary Christian Olde Wolbers on your debut?

Matt; It all happened from an e-mail. The e-mail basically said who we were, and if we could send him some of our music for him to hear. We didn’t hear anything for months, then one night we received a message from Christian saying he liked our music.

Oli; Yeah, it really was a product of the internet age, a MySpace message (I’m sure now it would be a FaceBook message, but these were simpler times). He heard the EP, liked it, put up an offer. We took time to weigh up the costs involved and decided we could do it. When Riot! jumped on board and signed us it made things a no brainer. Do it. These opportunities don’t come around that often.

So what was it like working with him as well as your engineers Jeremy Blair, Bobby Campbell, Marco Zamrano?

Matt; They brought a lot of experience to the table, between them - they had done everything. Jeremy is great, we hung out with him a lot, he would tell us stories of when he was engineering for Guns n' Roses. He also told us a story of how he went to a Zoo once, drunk, jumped over a barrier onto a fucking rhinos back!!!

Bobby was a very hard worker, Christian's right hand man, he knows what he's doing - he was actually doing some final touches on our album when he got a call to engineer on the new Limp Bizkit record. And Marco had drum tech’ed for the best of the best, Marco actually had to fly out to drum tech for Jay-Z at Obama’s presidential party.

Oli; These guys had as much a hand in everything as anyone else, and the quality of the album is really a testament to them as well. 

Jeremy really pulled a good room sound for the drums, which laid a great foundation for the later tracking. Bobby was there whenever Christian wasn’t and really helped out in the last few weeks when we were up against it time wise. And it was amazing to find out how down-to-earth and easy to get along with they were after they had worked with such big egos before. Jeremy and I went to the rainbow bar one night and drank beer opposite Lemmy from Motorhead, and it was like old friends at the local. Great guys.

Jeff; It was mind blowing, those guys have been around and know what they're doing. Everything was a learning experience. It was great to see how they work and operate. I know it probably sounds like I’m sucking up their arses, but they were honestly the coolest guys to work with. Every one of them was nice as pie. 

Jeremy always had a funny story to tell; particularly the one about him jumping on a rhino's back at a zoo, that was my favourite. Bobby was the coolest; I worked with him on the drum edits and stuff. It was cool just chilling in the studio drinking beers with him, and Marco was my drum tech. He made feel right at home and helped me set up the drums for the recording.

A lot of people want to know why it took so long to finally release 'Fallen Empires'?

Matt; Recording an album the way we have recorded 'Fallen Empires', isn't the normal way to go about recording a debut album, unless of course you're signed to a major, or you have a lot of money... We have neither. There were a few problems initially with getting the album completed.

We had held our breath for a couple of months when we thought a well known front man was going to contribute some things to the album, and it came within a few days of happening, but due to touring plans by said front man, it wasn’t to be. Our producer at that time also had a lot going on right when we were recording the album, and for better or for worse, this affected the time frame of the album. Fear Factory was going through some legal issues and by the time the physical tracks were here with us, our record label wanted to give us the best opportunity to get the album out to as many people as possible, so this also required waiting a little longer as well.

 But we want people who care enough to read up on us, to know that we have lived and breathed this album everyday for a long time now, we have put our lives into the album and into the band, and we hope that this album and tour shows that.

Oli; Well until you’re in this kind of situation it’s hard to understand. It’s not just recording with your mate’s brother down the road and printing up some copies at home on mum’s computer to sell at shows. We went to another country for 3 months and had to deal with a lot things we had never encountered before.

It was a fantastic learning experience though, and has given us a lot of skills and knowledge we will use in the future working in this industry. Our record label is behind the record 100% and we can’t wait to see it in stores and hear it on people’s stereos!

Jeff; Honestly it did take longer than we expected and wanted. But it wasn't like we could drive down to the studio around corner and say "what’s up". We basically had to communicate through e-mails and phones. Along with that, everyone has just got busy schedules. It was unplanned and I could think of another 10 reasons on why it took longer… but who wants to hear that! The main thing is the album is here finally! Crank that shit!

What is the main concept behind the album and how important is this release to Our Last Enemy?

Oli; It was after we had the songs done that I realised that there was an underlying theme running through the album. It must have been a subconscious thing as we never planned a concept album. There is a loose theme of disaster and collapse, both on a large scale and a personal level. In particular, a character who appears in a few songs (Pariah) seems to appear through time at points where major upheaval and chaos occurs… much like the band I guess… It can be interpreted in many ways, whether it is someone you look up to who turns out to be a fraud, or a belief in a system or structure that fails at crucial junctures. The record reflects the journey of the band as well as being a harsh commentary on society, art and a belief in infallible idols.

Jeff; We thought that was pretty cool and started leap frogging off that idea and thinking about events that have happened in the world in recent and ancient times. Before you know it we had our title - 'Fallen Empires'.

Matt; It’s everything to us, we go to work everyday to pay off loans that we got to pay for this album... To us it doesn’t matter what critics or reviewers say about the album. We are glad we did it, and we pulled through all the crap to still be here. We hope the people who support us like the album.

How would you describe this album as compared to your EP '…Is Death'?

Matt; A natural progression. '...Is Death' was what we needed at the time, something to sell at shows and get our music out to people. We made no money on it at all, we sold it pretty close to cost price, but it didn’t matter. Actually, Vas [Kallas] from Hanzel Und Gretyl has the last copy of '...Is Death' that we had left.

'Fallen Empires' is much more to us, it's a piece of art, it has a focus point, we have controlled every aspect of it; from song writing, composition, mixing, song placement, and worked really close with our album designer Sherri and we feel it has a much broader range of music and ideas, but still keeps true to what we started with '...Is Death'.

Oli; This is the basic ideas we had on the EP taken to its full realisation. We are very proud of it. The quality is obviously on a completely different level sonically and conceptually.

Jeff; If you liked the E.P you will shit your pants when you hear the album. The album has captured what we've been doing since the E.P. You'll probably notice some songs from the E.P on the album, but they were just too kick ass to drop. We wanted to re-record them and re-vamp them a bit.

What has been the initial reaction to 'Fallen Empires'?

Matt; Well, a lot of people still haven’t heard the album yet as it's not in stores until next month... But the initial reaction of those who have heard it, has been the love of the depth of the record... the sound, the song structures, and the songs themselves. But we really like how people are telling us their favourite song, and how it's a different song to the last person we had the same conversation with.

You’ve recently announced two new additions to the band; guitarist Bizz [Genitortures and The Undead (ex-Misfits)] and Craig Byrnes on keys and samples. How has this change influenced the band?

Matt; Yeah, those 2 guys have really brought a lot to the band. Bizz, our new guitarist, brings a lot of experience to the table... for people who don’t know, Bizz is from Genitorturers, so having him in Our Last Enemy is fantastic, we couldn’t have hoped for a better guitarist! He learned the guitar parts really quickly and within 2 weeks was already throwing his own flavour on them and more.

Craig, our new keyboardist/samples, had been dabbling with keys and samples a long time before he joined the band. He brings an enthusiasm to his role which is great to watch, he's always writing new ideas down, and can go off into his own world just manipulating sounds for what would seem hours. So having the 2 of them in the band is a great experience, they've been a great stabilising presence for the Our Last Enemy camp, and the 5 of us can't wait to show the new songs we've been writing.

Oli; It is immediately obvious when you see us live. The level of professionalism and performance is 10 fold. Wait till you see it! The new members have fitted in so quickly and we feel it really has taken the band to another level.

Jeff; It's a really good thing. Its a huge breath of fresh air for us. Bizz has made us step up our game, he knows his shit and is an awesome guitarist. Craig is the same; he's a great keyboardist and fits the band nicely. They are both really nice guys to get along with!

What were the reasons behind the departure from former guitarist Jake and keyboardist John?

Matt; Long story short, it was life taking them in different directions to where Our Last Enemy as a whole was going. Sometimes being in a band that is at a level like our's, meaning - trying to do big things like record an album overseas, constant touring, and spending a lot of money on the band, but not having the support system that is often needed in those situations that so many bigger bands have, can be taxing on the individual band members.

But they are doing what they want in life, and we're doing what we want in life, which is Our Last Enemy - and that’s the most important thing, and that is a thought that the band as a whole holds close - that is, do what you want/need to do in life, because you never know when it will stop, people can look at that as a positive or negative statement... It’s all in the eye of the beholder... And that’s art ...right?

Jeff; I wish I had some cool story for you, but honestly that old familiar term 'musical differences' is what it came down to. They just weren't happy anymore. It was strange for them to leave before the album came out, but that was their choice. We still talk and are friends. I wish them both the very best.

 You’ve created a mass following through your live shows which are always full of energy and craze, has this been stepped up with Bizz and Craig in the ranks?

Matt; We'd like to think so... both Bizz and Craig knew what they were getting into when they joined. Craig was a fan of the band for a long time, and Bizz had seen us when we played with Hanzel Und Gretyl and Dope. Have you seen a Genitorturers' show?? They were full of crazy... We're not saying we're gonna start fucking chicks with vibrators onstage... (But hey if there are any women who want to do it, hit us up!) But they both know that an Our Last Enemy show can be pretty physical and you might get a cut or spat on a couple of times.

Oli; Everything is turned up to 11! We cannot wait for people to come down and experience the live show.

What can an audience that has yet to see you perform expect from Our Last Enemy?

Matt; We would hope they would see a band that is meaning what they're playing... We hate seeing bands that play brutal music, and just stand there. It's boring, they look like sheep in wolves clothing - we've always said we're the wolves in wolves clothing, not saying that we're some sort of hard assed band, but we play with emotion and someone’s gotta throw up or be bleeding at the end.. and we like to think we put on a show.

At the end of the day, people are taking time out of their day and paying their hard earned money to see us play our music... For some people the music is enough, but we like to give more than enough. And hope that people got a kick out of watching us for 45 minutess to an hour.

Oli; We put 110% into our live shows, whether it is to 10 people or 1000. It is so important for a band to give it their all every performance. Whether you like the music or not, you will get a kick out of the show, hell it might be our foot in your head.

Jeff; Something they haven't seen before.

Any last words?

Oli; Thanks for sticking with us, the best it yet to come!

Matt; Yeah, thank you to everyone who stuck by us and gave us their support! We hope those who buy 'Fallen Empires' get a kick out of it.. 

OUR LAST ENEMY’s Sydney 'Fallen Empires' Album Launch will happen on the 2nd of October [Saturday] at SFX, and this will be a show that you do not want to miss! For further information on the event, click here!

The band commented further;

"We've had a lot of people asking us to play in their home town or state, and we're going to try and get to as many places that time and money will permit for us, so keep checking our MySpace www.myspace.com/ourlastenemy for more tour dates." - Our Last Enemy

[Above image: Photographer - Matt Hofmann, Art Direction - Rebecca Cobbing, Make Up - David Bowling]