Band Interview: Hail the Villian while on the UPROAR Tour 2010

Edited and Interviewed by Chelsey Goraczkowski and Morris Goodwin of STILLCODA

We had the opportunity to speak with Bryan the frontman of Hail the Villian for a minutes and talk about the tour and the creation of all that is the band.

STILLCODA: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU TO BE A PART OF THE UPROAR TOUR?

B: First of all it’s a huge honor. We got asked to do this and it is a huge huge big deal. And to have this on our first record is unbelievable. We are really stoked and ready to go.

STILLCODA: AWESOME. SO YOU GUYS STARTED BACK IN 2003. SO WHAT WAS IT LIKE FORMING THE BAND IN THE BEGINNING AND HOW HAS IT CHANGED OVER THE YEARS?

B: When we first formed I was doing all the writing, because I had a solo record. Basically, it was a pop/punk band that Joe brought a much more dark metal sound to. I maintained that dirty rock voice, but he brought in a whole new riff oriented thing. I couldn’t play guitar anymore. I had to drop it just cause of wanting to be more of a frontman.

STILLCODA: BEING THAT YOU ARE FROM CANADA, HAS IT BEEN A CHALLENGE TO REACH OUT THE U.S. OR A SIMPLE TRANSITION?

B: It’s been a better transition, because this style of music is played down here. It’s a darker heavy sound and in Canada they like the more poppy kind of sound. I’ve actually enjoyed the shows a lot more here than the shows in Canada.

STILLCODA: SPEAKING OF SHOWS, WHERE’S YOUR FAVORITE PLACE TO GO AND PERFORM?

B: So far our top place is St. Louis. We’ve done really well there and Utah Salt Lake City is beautiful. I was blown away at how cool the city was. Stopping here in Minneapolis, unbelievable….Unbelievably crazy fans, its really cool. (AND ITS COOLER HERE THIS WEEK, SO NO 90 DEGREE WEATHER FOR YOU YET!) as well.

STILLCODA: TELL US ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM SO FAR. WHAT DO YOU FIND SURPRISING WHEN PEOPLE TALK ABOUT IT?

B: Yeah, the new album. It’s not exactly new to us, I mean we recorded it about four years ago and it’s a raw very natural sounding record. We trimmed a lot of fat, so it didn’t come off as we were showing off how great we were. We wanted to really focus on songs and lyrically it’s a very dark and moving record. I think song wise, it’s a very straight forward, heavy riffs and it just feels good start to finish.

STILLCODA: HAVING BEEN ON YOUR WEBSITE, HOW DID YOU DECIDE TO MOVE INTO the creative OTHER MEDIA ART? I MEAN YOU HAVE ANIMATED SHORTS AND A WHOLE INTERACTIVE WEB. AND COMIC BOOKS!

B: The comic books are done, and are ready to come out, which is awesome. The short films are being made by Avato (Studios). We were just over in Singapore and they were talking about doing the full movie in 3D and talked to a movie director and wrote an entire movie. We talked about a matter of having both song and visual be part of the business. It’s all art and we really wanted to partake in every aspect of it and that’s what we are shooting for.

STILLCODA: VERY COOL. YOU ARE DEFINITELY AT THE FOREFRONT OF THE PACK.

B: I think a lot of band will kind of follow suit and start to say, ‘we can make money,’ but for us it was more like bullshit we got this great ideas, we love bringing together all the pieces and the record company was lucky. We were lucky enough that they were willing to do it and jumped on board and got it rolling. They were more of a bank for us. (laughs)

STILLCODA: SOME THING THE FANS ALWAYS LIKE TO KNOW ARE, WHO ARE YOUR BIGGEST INFLUENCES IN THE ROCK WORLD?

B: I’m definitely down with a lot of the frontmen. You know, I’m down with those such as Axel Rose, Steven Tyler, Vince Neal, those guys that really know how to throw a show and captivate the audiences. For the band it so varies. For me as a musician I like punk rock. Joe is more Megadeath and Van Halen, so we get those influences and that’s what really our music comes from.

STILLCODA: AND FINALLY, WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO TALK AWAY FROM THE TOUR?

B: I hope that with every tour we do we sit and watch every band and we learn. We got to watch Sevendust and holy shit man. My God…..You know what though. They were really cool and they really liked us. They would watch all our shows from backstage and asked us to come back on another tour with them. We hope it’s possible, so we learn from these bands. These bands have been around. They done it. We always learn from them. I hope to learn to put on a bigger show, a better show, tighter show and I hope to say to myself, when I’m done that, holy crap that was the best experience of my life. That’s what I hope to take away.

Make sure you check out HTV while they're on the 2010 UPROAR Tour!! To get the latest info on the band and upcoming shows, check out:

WEBSITE:
www.hailthevillain.com

MYSPACE:
www.myspace.com/hailthevillain

FACEBOOK:
www.facebook.com/hailthevillain