Author: Andrew Risch

Hell Night’s album, “Unlimited Destruction,” is part of April’s subscription bundle. This is a brutal and killer record that we are excited to share with you. Lead singer Brian Fair, whom you may also recoconze from Shadows Fall, took a few moments out of his busy schedule to chat with us about Hell Night, Shadow Fall’s reunion shows and raising the next generation of Metalheads. 

Trve Kvlt Coffee: I understand you’ve been pretty busy lately, you were saying that you were moving offices?

Brian Fair: Yeah. We’ve been home for 2 years. It started because of the pandemic and then we had a giant flood from a water main, they just kept pushing it, pushing it and pushing it to the point I was like, “Man, I set some roots at home. I’m not ready to move. “(laughs) It was getting pretty comfortable working from home but we start full time Monday. 

TKC: I don’t think my wife ever wants to go back to the office. She’s been working at home since the pandemic. 

BF: I’m with her. I don’t wanna go back. I can get snacks out of my own refrigerator, and little things like running the laundry while I’m working. Where am I gonna find the time now?

TKC: Do you find yourself working longer when you work from home then you would at the office?

BF: I’ll pop in if I have to take care of something real quick, it’s great to have that access. Say something comes in after hours but I just wanna get it done, I would do that where there is no option at the office. Yeah I go in a little earlier, make some coffee and start working. 

TKC: You’ve been a part of several bands throughout the years and in our subscriptions this month we are featuring Hell Night. How did you land that gig? 

BF: It was kind of funny. When I first moved to St. Louis, where my wife is originally from, was right when Shadows Fall was still touring for the first couple of years I lived here but we were definitely winding down. I wasn’t really looking to do anything musically for at least a little while , ya know? Just after 20 years on the road with those guys. But then one of the first bands I saw was Hell Night with their original singer, Mike Craft who was a good friend of my wife. So I went and saw them and they were this mix of like Black Flag down tuned crazy sludginess with Melvins mixed and all of this shit happening. It’s not what I was expecting, I was blown away. These guys are amazing! Mike was talking to me, “I don’t have the time to commit to a band these days,” He just decided not to do it anymore. I was skateboarding with our guitar player Andy and he was like, “You wanna come down and jam?” I was like, “Dude I already know the first EP and a few other tunes, I’m in.” So we jammed and honestly started writing music right away. And that’s what really solidified it. It’s totally different from what I’ve been doing for a long time and we were already making material together that just felt right. 

TKC: Speaking of writing music, is your approach to writing music for Hell Night similar to Shadows Fall or something entirely different?

BF: Totally different. In Shadows Fall there was a lot of technicalities to the song writing as well as the riffs. Those guys would have a pretty solid riff map when they were putting songs together. They would tweak overtime with myself bringing in some vocal lines may change a thing here or there. There was a very long process of getting it all super tight, getting everything together. Hell Night we come up with some ideas in th practice space and we try to map out a song. I’m usually writing while we are jamming on it. It may take a practice or 2 to nail it down and then we try to record it super early. We do things the exact opposite where before the original inspiration is gone we get in the studio and just lay it down. We weren’t able to do as much pandemic wise but we were writing a crazy clip before that in almost every other practice we had a new tune. We are also at the point we play that live the new stuff is always going to be a part of the set list. That’s probably what excites us the most is getting together and writing new tunes, coming up with new ideas.

TKC: “Unlimited Destruction,” is a killer album, it hits just right. How has the response been so far?

BF:It’s been good. It’s a fairly limited release , we did it with a local label here. We weren’t really able to tour on it but locally the shows have always been killer whenever we play, real good support from the local music scene. Anyone who has gotten their hands on it or checked it out has been digging it. Sonically it not only falls in between a lot of genres and has a lot of angles that people get into, it doesn’t sound production wise like what happens in heavy music right now. I think it’s got kinda of a different sound. A lot of it is due to Andy’s guitar tone and Doom/Sludge thing that sounds more like a keyboard that is being attacked by a shark than a guitar. I think that really adds this weird element to it. We had a bunch of different EPs and songs here and to get them together on vinyl, I’m stoked to have that together in one spot finally. 

TKC: That’s awesome to hear. Personally, I love the cover to the album. Godzilla is my son’s hero. We’ve watched several Godzilla movies several times. Where did the album cover come from? 

BF: My son is currently obsessed with Godzilla and we have been on such a Godzilla kick over here. Really titans in general, he’s a big King Ghidorra fan, with some of the toys and we’ve been watching a lot of the movies. Artwork wise, we wanted something that captured that unrelenting force of destruction and there’s not many things better than Godzilla. So it’s a mix of a car crash, Godzilla and some other flaming things. The artist who did it created an original piece from scratch, which was important to us. It can be easy to photoshop a bunch of different images together but to have an original illustration made it a little cooler.

TKC: I feel with the title, “Unlimited Destruction,” you have to have Godzilla! Now that Covid restrictions have loosened, any Hell Night shows planned in the future?

BF: We are just getting back to practicing regularly again, once we get our sea legs back, we’ll book some shows around here. We haven’t been able to travel much, we really only play the St.Louis area but we’d love to go down the road do the long weekend stuff and hit maybe Chicago and places around here. Probably won’t be touring anytime soon unfortunately but hopefully we get some shows soon. For us, everyone has full time jobs, kids and stuff. It’s a little hectic to really travel. Honestly, I’ve done that for a couple decades between Overcast and Shadows Fall. I love being on the road but the longer you’ve been away, the harder it is to imagine doing it full time again, you know? The idea of getting into a bus or van for 8 weeks….I don’t know if I’m ready. (laughs) 

TKC: Researching for this interview I stumbled upon your recent cover of Pantera’s “By Demons, Be Driven,” which was fucking awesome! How were you approached to be a part of that?

BF: Thank you man, that was a blast! Frank, who does Metal Injection, who also played drums on the track, hit me up. It was pretty quick too. “Hey man, I’m sorry this is so last minute, I think you’d be perfect,” I was like, “When do you need it,” This was on a Friday, he goes, “Sunday.” I had to dust off the home studio, it had totally been broken down and make sure all my software still worked. So it took a day to get set up and I tracked it on Saturday and did the video kind of through the next day. For the strobe lights part of the video, I literally took all of my kid’s bike safety lights and went into my weird tiled in shower that’s in my basement and just did the strobe lights with a bunch of kids safety lights. (laughs) Total DIY production! It came together super fast which was also good. I didn’t want to obsess over the vocals and try to get crazy with it. It came out sick. I was pretty stoked.

TK: If there is one good thing that came out of the pandemic, it would be the zoom concerts. Especially in the days where it seemed there was no end in sight. Especially seeing people jam together, who you may have never seen perform together before.

BF: Or bringing guys who would always talk about on the road, “Hey we should jam together!” But you never get the chance to. To actually do it virtually and to have some cool weird combos you wouldn’t expect, that was super entertaining. Like you said, it at least brought in some fresh music and things like that. If you couldn’t go see it, you’d at least see something you’d never get a chance to have. Hell Night was part of one of the Metal Injection streaming things when they did a full day festival and that was really cool. It gave a lot of bands a chance to at least show what they are up to and connect in a different way and feel like you are doing something. You’re getting some music and there and you’re connecting in some way. I think a lot of other people got to hunker down in the studio, there are probably so many newer original ideas and music coming out because people are like, “Well, I have nothing else to do but fire up the Pro Tools and see what happens.” At least a little silver lining there.

TK: Yeah that’s one thing to look forward to; the music that may be coming out now that bands are able to tour again. I know a lot of bands have been sitting on things, where they don’t want to release it if they can’t support it.

BF: Totally. That stuff gets planned out so far ahead that if you were dropping a record that March or April, aww man I can’t even imagine. You’ve been building up to this whole thing then all of a sudden it’s like you are not going to be able to tour for almost 2 years. That’s such a momentum killer. For a lot of bands the only real revenue source you have now is touring and merchandise while you’re touring. It’s not like record sales are what they used to be although it did force people to get creative  with Twitch and covers and finding ways to generate revenue and connect in ways to keep the fires burning. I think that we bring out more ideas that will stick around.

TK: I also saw that you were part of the Headbanger’s Con a few years ago, what was that like?

BF: It was cool. Chris 51 who is a tattoo artist and a crazy Metalhead, he had done one of the early tattoo reality shows too, had the idea after doing all these tattoo conventions and was like, “There is no Heavy Metal one, there is a convention for everything else.” So he set it up similar to that. It was a blast man. Fans coming in getting to hang out, there was also some Q and A stuff and there were some shows that were played. The one thing I think if they would have been able to expand it, I think there would have been more jams, sort of all star bands. We just didn’t get a chance to pull that stuff off. Hopefully they can keep that going now that people can get back together in large groups again. 

TK: I hope something like that show happens again and seems like a very unique experience for both the fan and the artist.

BF: Exactly. It was cool to see someone thinking outside the box and a bunch of companies and labels supporting it too, finding new ways for people to get together and celebrate Metal. I really hope it is something that Chris can keep rolling. 

TK: At the end of last year you had your very successful Shadows Fall reunion show. How did that night go for you guys?

BF: It couldn’t have gone better. That venue (The Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts) is our home away from home. The crew that put it on our people that have been in our circle for decades and decades, everyone has their families there, it was just a blast. The lineup was killer from top to bottom. It really couldn’t have gone any better. Now we have a couple festivals planned for September. That will probably be the way we do things, a couple festivals here and there each year if we can or maybe a long weekend type of thing. It’s just been a blast to just jam with those guys. There are even some ideas floating around maybe if we got some riffs. we’ll try and see if new music can happen naturally. It was just good to jam again. The fact that it all happened was crazy. We started the ball rolling before the pandemic and had to shelve everything and then when we finally got it together for December, all of a sudden Omicron was coming and things were getting shut down right before that. We didn’t think we were gonna make it to the finish line. Luckily we did. There was a little bit of Covid soup in there, I’m not gonna lie! Even at the time we were like, “Ehhhhh…..I don’t know if this is the best idea.” Luckily none of the band got sick, we didn’t hear anyone from the crowd of anything crazy happening, numbers spreading or anything like that. It was a nervous part there where we thought we were so in the clear for December at that point. The fact that it happened was the best part. I think it has been 6 years since we played.

TK: Glad to hear that all worked out. It is so easy to have a show canceled just like that. One crew member gets sick and that’s all it takes.

BF: Exactly and we were seeing that happen. By the end of December I had some tickets to some shows in New York City that I was going to fly in for around New Year’s and it all got shut down right before. Our show was the 18th, so it was barely right before it. It seems like touring is not totally getting back to normal but you’re seeing a lot less last minute cancellations at least. There have been a lot of shows coming to St.Louis lately and it;s been fun getting out and about. It does feel strange on the social aspect of it. I feel like Ricky Bobby. “What do I do with my hands?”

TK: I will tell you the fans are hungry for it. A lot of Metal shows in my area are selling out.

BF: It’s the same here. There was a 3 day run with Cannibal Corpse, The Circle Jerks and Dragonforce and this one venue and 2 shows sold out and one almost did and that was a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It goes to show you we are ready to party; let’s do this.

TK: You were saying you are doing a few festivals with Shadows Fall in September?

BF: Blueridge Music Fest in Virginia, it 4 days and 6 stages. Every single band in the world is playing. It’s huge. The lineup is a never ending scroll of awesome bands. The next one after that is Furnace Fest in Birmingham, Alabama. So happy to play shows. When you only have 2 it makes it special, each one you can focus and let it all rip.

TK: Going back to the Shadows Fall show, were your kids able to attend?

BF: Totally. They were there. They are super into music, they’ve seen the Youtube videos and all of that but it’s not the same. I’m really glad they got to see a big headlining show and be like, “See? I told you dad was cool!” They were right on the side of the stage and came up for a second. It was a blast. They had a great time.

TK: What do they think of having a “Metal Dad” and see dad perform and do his thing?

BF: They love it man! But they think it’s pretty normal though. It’s more weird when they kinda realize I guess everyone’s dad’s hair isn’t 5 feet long or when Slayer comes to town doesn’t go backstage. We took some friends of theirs to Dragonforce and they were like, “This is different!” I’m just psyched because they have been jamming on their own tunes and they are only like 5 and 8. We’ve been writing tunes and jamming a little bit ourselves. We’ll see. Keep the next generation rolling.

TK: I think that’s all I had for you today. Anything else that you would like to add?

BF: We are stoked to be part of the subscription for Hell Night. We appreciate spreading the word. Keep an eye out for Hell Night tunes. You can always follow us on all the social media stuff. Shadows Fall is playing a few shows here and there, I’m sure there will be more.