Riding the waves of their phenomenal latest album “The Sea Of Tragic Beasts”, Sarah caught up with Fit For An Autopsy guitarist Pat Sheridan ahead of their set in Manchester. She met Pat as he was manning the merchandise stall (side note – FFAA have absolutely amazing T-shirts – go and buy one)…

“Hi Pat, thank you for taking the time to speak to us. I can see you are busy busy busy! How was Antwerp last night?”

Antwerp was wild! Really really really good. By far the best show we’ve ever played in that area. Great show, lots of kids, everybody buying merch and hanging out.

“The merch sales are really important for bands as well, aren’t they?”

It’s how we feed our families, you know? The money that comes in from the merch funds how we travel, how we get places, how we survive. So anybody that buys this stuff is very much supporting the bands in a way that they don’t understand. We appreciate every penny, trust me!

“How much is that ‘The Sea of Tragic Beasts’ T-shirt?”

I’m just working that out right now. Probably be £20 to £25. Those long sleeves (gestures to more amazing tops) are probably £30, hoodies £35 to £40.

“Do you get good merch sales at the gigs, or is it online where you make the majority of that money?”

A little from column A, a little from column B.

“The Sea of Tragic Beasts is such an incredible album. What were you trying to achieve when you made this album?”

We’re always on the forward movement. We don’t believe in recreating the same thing. It doesn’t mean we don’t want it to sound like us and it doesn’t mean we don’t want to sound like we do. It just means there’s no point in creating the same thing twice if you have a platform to not do that. Every time we write a record, Will is the main writer and he comes up with a lot of the ideas, but we all do a lot of talking about what direction we want to go in. Do we go back and go really heavy, do we go forward and go more melodic and change things. It ends up being more of an individual song discussion rather than anything, you talk about the same thing over and over, and that’s how it happens. It’s an interesting process , but with this record, I would say we were just trying to push our sound as forward as we could get it and create something that was maybe a little bit more accessible but was still what we do, in the way that we do it. I don’t know. We just wanted to make a cool fucking record. I didn’t want to make the same record, not that I didn’t like ‘Great Collapse’ or ‘Absolute Hope’ , but I don’t want to do the same record twice.

“With there being 6 of you in the band, do you not find your ideas clash sometimes?”

Clashing is good. If you are clashing you are discussing and if you are discussing then you’re coming up with new ideas. You’re not stagnant. If everybody has the same idea then nothing ever changes. You’re going to make the same record 40 times. That conflict that comes with the ‘I don’t want to do this’ and the ‘Why don’t we do this’… it’s never a wall and it’s always a ladder. Get over the wall with the ladder. It makes sense then and you can move on to the next thing.

Conflict and failure are the mother of creation. Because of that, you are constantly pushing and pushing and pushing.

“For me, my favourite songs on the album would have to be the titular track, and ‘Mirrors’. I love how it lures you into a melodically false sense of security”

Ha! Yes we drop the bread with that one, but you followed it, and then you got nailed.

“What is your favourite on the album?”

‘Warfare’ is my favourite to play live. We just released a video for that song.

It’s actually one of the more straight forward tracks playing wise, and it’s not as difficult riff wise. There’s a couple of bangers in there but nothing crazy. But there’s just something about its delivery in the set, and the groove of it and the way it moves, and the air it creates. It’s this big open riff, it’s just a few notes but it sounds so driving. That’s what I like about it.

“What is your favourite in the set?”

Again, it’s ‘Warfare’. And ‘Black Mammoth’. ‘Black Mammoth’ is just a big fun song to play live.

“What has the fan reaction been to the new album?”

It’s been so wild. People have been stoked on the record, supporting it more than ever. I would say out of all of our releases it seems like people are more interested in talking about the album as a whole rather individual tracks. It’s a really cool culmination of the last 15 years, bringing out a record and having people really grasp the whole thing.

“So what’s the plan… are we going to hear it one day performed in its entirety?”

Well we have a lot of touring set up. We do this (tour), then we go home and do a US tour, and immediately go to Australia after that. We come back here and we’re doing festivals. We’re headlining TechFest which is really cool. We love it there. It’s cool to go back and headline.  So we do a bunch of festivals and when we go home we are doing a support tour for Norma Jean…

So there is already a bunch of stuff going on but we’re going to come back to Europe on a tour I can’t discuss, but it is MASSIVE. The biggest tour we will ever do in our career probably.

But then! We’re doing a headliner in the states and we’re talking about playing this record front to back.

“Pat, what started your musical journey?”

When I was a kid, my brother had a friend who was a guitar player. I had started playing the slide trombone… that fucking goofy clown shoe instrument. I spent some time doing that and then somebody left a bass guitar at the house, so I started plucking around on that. Then my brother friend Chris was a guitar player and he left his guitar in the house. I taught myself a couple of Van Halen riffs and my brother was like “Wow this is crazy, he’s 9 years old and already tied into playing the guitar” and my cousins were guitar players too. So I kind of naturally progressed from there, I started playing in punk and hardcore bands, so I never really grew as a player until about 10 years ago when I really started wanting to get better at the guitar. Not that punk and hardcore musicians aren’t great, but this a very different element . A different skill set for sure.

I started focusing on playing and the band started writing more and more crazy songs and it just kind of evolved.

“What is the metal scene like back home?”

Very much like here. There seems to be a younger crowd. We draw some of the long term metal heads too, but there is a very young strong dedicated scene back home. I do think Europe is more dedicated though. I think sometimes the states can be a little A.D.D ridden where it’s constantly moving and looking for the next new band, whereas here when you establish a fan base, it’s your fan base forever. I like that about the UK and about Europe as a whole. When we come back we see the same faces, the same people.

“What bands are you listening to at the moment?”

I’m a huge Gojira fan.

“Who isn’t these days?”

I know, right? You can hear their influence in our music, I love that band. I listen to a lot of Steely Dan, a lot of Dad rock. And reaching back to some classic stuff. With losing Neil Peart recently I’ve gone back to some Rush stuff, I listened to “Moving Pictures” a couple of times on this tour already. I have a really eclectic thing, I like John Mayer a lot, “Continuum” is one of my favourite records. I can vary, I can go from Morbid Angel and Obituary to John Mayer and Steely Dan. I don’t have any boundaries. If it’s good, I like it. That’s kind of my thing. Oh… and Architects too. Sam is a banger of a singer. We toured with them here a couple of times. Great guys.

“Pat thank you so much for your time tonight, have an amazing show!”

Interview by Sarah Cummings
Photography by Gregg Howarth