An Interview with Scott Lewis of Carnifex
Ahead of their support slot with Thy Art Is Murder this evening, Carnifex met with Sarah to discuss line-up changes, crossing the boarders and why a seemingly risky tour may have just worked out very well for them…
“Hi Scott, thank you for meeting us today. Did you have a good gig last night?”
Oh yeah, there were no first day gremlins or nothing. Sometimes there are at these things you know with us flying in and everything being on the plane. You never know. But it was perfect
“And British Customs were good taking all the gear through?” (That was Gregg by the way!)
They were pretty cool actually. Got us through very quickly. It’s been so easy so far.
“I wonder if it will be that easy once Brexit has happened…?”
This kind of shit is changing everywhere now. For us, it’s getting into Canada that’s become quite hard right now too. Over the summer Canada just became really strict with American bands. We have to have so much new paper work now.
“When Lord Of The Lost tried to get into America though, they weren’t allowed in there at the last minute before their tour. It seems so strict right now”
It can be really hard for other bands to come to America. But then for us in America, it’s now really hard for us to go to Canada.
“My rescue dog is from Cyprus and come Brexit, he’ll have more travel options than I will” (another Greggism)
“Was last night Neals (Tiemann – lead guitarist) first show with you?”
It was! It was perfect. He rehearsed everything a lot on his own and then we had more rehearsals prior to the tour so we had prepared for sure! He nailed it though, perfect.
“Did you sort of know that the situation with Jordan was occurring?”
There was absolutely no drama with that. Jordan was really up front with us the whole time. He’s going on to have a family and everything, so there was nothing weird or anything like that. It’s just being a touring musician you can only do so many things because you tour 8 months out of the 12. If you want a family it can be hard and I guess sometimes you just have to make that choice. There was no drama with Jordan, it’s all good.
“You’ve coped really well then with the changes”
We had months to do it. We knew well ahead of time.
“What is the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome as band?”
Surviving for 15 years. Just navigating the different trends and navigating the bands that are hot and are just not. Sometimes it’s just trying to get opportunities. We have to just fight and prove ourselves for those chances. The music business is very ‘what have you done for me lately’, so it doesn’t really matter what you did 4 or 5 years ago. All that matters is ‘how good was your last tour’ or ‘how many tickets did you sell’ or ‘how many streams did you get on your most recent release?’. That’s the kind of thing you get judged on so you’re always having to regroup yourself and push forward. It’s trying to find that way to survive, that way to be a unique original band.
“Whats the fan reaction been like toward World War X?”
It’s been great. It’s only just really come out still and this is our first European tour on the back of the album, but our streams doubled last year! Double is better then less haha.
“What was the creative process behind making the album?”
It was a lot of cumulative work. We probably spent 2 years putting it together. There was no rush, it was all done at nice pace, just assembling songs. It was putting in that consistent work and trying to make sure that every song was at a certain level.
“Scott, when did your own musical journey begin?”
Oh… way back… I probably was in my first band when I was 13, so you know it was back then. I was in another band that was actually doing ok, it was a band called Incinerate and we thought we were going to get signed and we were doing local tours and things like that. We ended up breaking up and I thought that that was it for me and music. I went and got a job and just thought ‘that’s that I guess’. And then I met Shawn. And we started Carnifex. I don’t know that I ever had it in my mind that I was going to be a touring musician. It was never like that, it was more that I really loved music and I dropped out of school so it wasn’t like I was going to go to University or some career. I just really focused on music and I guess when you are younger you don’t really think about the big picture. I didn’t think about a job. I just wanted to tour and I just wanted to be an artist. Here we are! I think if you keep the mentality of wanting to be an artist and not wanting to be a rock star or popular, if you’re intention is just to be able to create then it really takes you places.
“You have 7 albums and 2 E.Ps of work. How do you devise your setlist when you have an extensive back catalogue?”
We do accommodate what the fans want to hear and what we enjoy playing live, the songs that we have fun with. It’s a combination of that. For us, we are playing those songs every night but there’s people here tonight who haven’t seen us play for years. They will want to hear a hit from an old record because you know they haven’t seen us. Even though we’ve playing it every night and it’s old to us, we know it’s not that way for audience. So for that reason we want to try and keep the hits in the set list.
“Which songs do you find they want?”
Tends to be the music video tracks. They are ones that have the most reach and the most popularity.
“Going forward with the band do you have anything that you would like to achieve?”
Yeah… we can always look up and look at the bands ahead of you and say ‘I wish’. It’d be great to tour with Slipknot, or any of the great legacy acts. But I think if you just look at your career arc about what you haven’t done, you get bummed out pretty quickly. Even though we’ve done a lot there is a lot we haven’t done too. I think it’s less about trying to have that ultimate goal, like the arena tour or the gold record, and more about just wanting to be able to express ourselves artistically and freely, and hopefully people will latch onto that That’s what we have done and I hope really that we are just able to continue growing and being able to be free artists, doing what we really love doing, and having the fans continue to respond to it.
“What is the most memorable point in your career?”
This is a tricky question! We’re the frog in the pot. The water is getting hotter but we don’t know it. Have you heard that analogy? The band is growing incrementally but because we are in it pushing here every day and sweating backstage, it’s a very different experience for us. For that reason it takes time to realise where you are and how you’re being perceived when you don’t actually have that point of view about yourself. As far as what we still want to express is to continue to just be as original and creative as we can.
“That’s a good way of keeping your feet on the floor” (Gregg again)
I think that’s the only way, otherwise you can become lost and then you think are you writing your record to chase a trend or to fit in to a sound, or do you know exactly this is the type of music we want our band to sound like. Luckily we’ve found a group of people who respond to that.
“You’re next tour after this America with 3Teeth. 3Teeth are such a different band to yourselves and it seems like such a weird pairing. How did this come about?”
We put that tour together! The whole point is not to tour with deathcore bands. There is not one deathcore band on that tour with us. We wanted to be original. In the deathcore scene the game is put together all the most brutal bands that you can think of and that is the ultimate tour. We’ve done that tour for a decade. We’ve done them all. There is no more combination of brutal bands. We said why does it have to be this little genre. Let’s branch out! Everyone in the band loves industrial stuff, I love goth stuff, and that 3Teeth record is fucking amazing. It’s awesome. It’s heavy. It’s Marilyn Manson break downs. Done! They live in LA and they are buds with us, so we just hit them up and said let’s do a tour together.
Our agents freaked out. “OH MY GOD, ARRGH, THIS WILL NEVER WORK!!! NOBODY WILL WANT TO GO TO THIS! YOU CAN’T HAVE INDUSTRIAL AND METAL TOGETHER, NOBODY WANTS THAT”.
“Scott I’m telling you now… I want that. I am THE industrial champion!”
We put the tickets on sale… they are selling better than any tour we have ever done. Change a little… people don’t want the same thing. Agents and managers have that old mentality where if its not ‘just’ metal it’s not going to do well. They live in some office. They don’t come to the shows. They don’t see the fans. They don’t know the beat of what’s happening in the scene. They just see a number and go “oh ok, that’s 400 tickets” or whatever they have to go on.
I’m so glad you love it though, we love it too.
“I love it so much that, no word of a lie, 3Teeth are my next gig after tonight!”
I tried to bring them here, we couldn’t get it done!
“That’s so disappointing, they are here with us next week though!”
Again the attitudes were like “It’ll never work, it’ll never work”. Of course it will work. You guys are living in fear. Get over.
“What are your plans after that tour?”
Summer tour in the US, doing a lot of the festivals with 5FDP, Disturbed, all those kind of big acts.
“There’s some amazing festivals in the US”
Come on, there’s some good ones over this way too. We played Bloodstock before. There was another smaller one but I can’t remember if that was Leeds or Manchester.
But yeah, I’m really excited for all the stuff that is coming up. I like doing stuff that is different and that is what Carnifex is all about. Even when we started in 2005. What deathcore bands were there…? There weren’t any. This is what we’ve always done. We do different shit.
“You were definitely one of the pioneers of the genre then?”
Yes. Just because we’re so old.
Thank you for your time!
Interview by Sarah Cummings
Photography by Gregg Howarth