When Texas based rockers …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead recently visited York I hooked up with singer/guitarist/drummer Jason Reece after soundcheck for a beer and a chat to mainly get a Midnite Mixtape Massacre and have a chat about the band’s new album ‘Lost Songs’. So after putting Jason on the spot and searching his mind for his ultimate 13 tracks, the chat continues on the subject of the music that influenced him growing up.

 

So Jason, were you inspired by English bands at all growing up?

 

Yeah sure, I think as a kid growing up the first bands I got into were The Sex Pistols and The Clash. One of my friend’s older brothers was a surfer/punk rocker, and he gave me this cassette tape. I think on it was ‘London Calling’ and on the other side was ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’. So Punk was the first thing for me, then the Metal came later when I was in High School, Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer, Iron Maiden of course and AC/DC. I wasn’t really into the Glam scene but I did like Guns N’ Roses. I was more into the hardcore thrashy stuff because it reminded me of how Punk is, you know hard-edged. In those days the Metal kids and the Punks would do shows together and I liked that crossover. Like Motorhead also another band that blew my mind, y’know ‘Ace Of Spades’, ‘Overkill’, that stuff was so fast. Prog Rock was Conrad’s deal, but y’know he turned me on to some good stuff later on.

 

Growing up my Dad listened to Bob Dylan a lot and Motown, and my Mom was into The Beatles, so that is where I was coming from originally. I also remember getting into Public Enemy as well round about ’89, and N.W.A., ‘Fuck Tha Police’ and ‘Straight Outta Compton’. That shit was like so Punk Rock, the same sort of attitude. I got into a lot of ’90s Hip-Hop, The Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest, all those bands were kind of original to me because they were actually saying something.

 

I’m turned off by the Hip-hop of today, y’know we have Puff Daddy to blame for that (laughs). Jay Z is a really great rapper but at the same time I really get sick of that materialistic vibe.

 

I find there is nothing to the modern R&B today, it’s all so watered down, they have nothing to say.

 

Yeah, it’s so shitty, that’s why I mentioned D’Angelo because he is R&B but his album is comparable to ‘What’s Going On’ by Marvin Gaye, it’s like this real dark kinda twisted world that he is writing about.

 

Okay, so let’s move on and talk about the new album ‘Lost Songs’ – it has a rawer feel than your previous few albums, is that a conscious thing to return to the early sound you had?

 

We weren’t thinking that way, no; we went to Hannover, Germany to make a Kraut Rock record like Kraftwork, we wanted to go more electronic. We went to Germany thinking we would get influenced by the German music scene of the ’70s or whatever, instead we made a punk rock record that was more influenced by the ’90s which is kinda back where we started from.

 

So it’s not a sprawling epic like the last album then?

 

Well, it still is, it’s just a different kind of epic. The last album definitely has that prog feel and everything on it is connected. With ‘Lost Songs’ these are more like urgent 3 minute songs trying to get out as much energy as possible.

 

The Deluxe Edition comes with a second disc, a segued version of the album, is it the same track list then is there much difference?

 

Yeah, it’s just a little more linked up with a few segues so you can listen to the album as one piece of music.

 

Is this how you originally wanted the album to be released then?

 

I think we just wanted people to have a choice, to either listen to it as a continuous piece of music or you can just listen to a couple of songs. Because right now we are in a day and age of choice, everyone has everything separated on their iTunes and it’s all about listening to single tracks sometimes. But I like it on vinyl where you get that whole piece of music vibe and that’s why we did that.

 

I like how your albums are like one piece of music from start to finish, with the iTunes generation the album format is lost, there is so much choice and it’s difficult to get into a whole album from start to finish don’t you think?

 

Yeah, I was thinking of some bands I listen to and sometimes I just listen to single tracks, but I like the new Death Grips record ‘The Money Store’ I listen to that whole record, they really thought about the sequencing.

 

I also think because you guys spend so much time on the packaging, it makes it like a complete product, you lose all that with digital downloading. The artwork has become increasingly important with you guys, even including Conrad’s short story that started with your last album ‘Tao Of The Dead’, is this something that continues on ‘Lost Songs’?

 

Yeah, he wrote this story, it’s like a 180 page version of it on here, it’s kinda like a sci-fi Dune-esque, weird, crazy thing he’s been working on since he was a kid.

 

Does that run separately to the lyrics on this album then?

 

Well some of the lyrics tie in, that’s the funny thing about our band, we can write about literary influences and then there is a song on this album that I wrote about the TV show Game Of Thrones (laughs).

 

So you wouldn’t call it a concept album?

 

Well a loose concept, the concept is tyranny and struggle, the struggle to find the truth, that’s the vibe. With Game Of Thrones there is always this power struggle, it’s interesting, I was really obsessed with Game Of Thrones for a while, and then we thought about the Syrian War, the Civil War that is going on, then Conrad’s book is pretty much talking about the constant struggle too, so that’s the theme really.

 

You recorded ‘Tao Of The Dead’ in 10 days, was the recording process for ‘Lost Songs’ as quick?

 

It took a little bit longer, but not that much longer. Basically we hung out for a few months writing , just jamming in a room that was owned by the bass player from Ministry, so that was kinda cool. He kinda let us have our own little world and we took it from there. We then went to Germany and recorded it in 3 weeks. I mean we really work fast when we have a deadline. We used to have our own studio and we would take like 9 months on a fucking record, that’s ridiculous, y’know because we had no deadline we got lazy.

 

Do you record separately or as a band?

 

We record live as a band and then do overdubs, we didn’t really do a lot of overdubs on this record. We really wanted to strip down the drum sound, we just used a few mics on them trying to make them sound like nothing that is going on right now, almost to make it sound like an old record, that was the goal, I don’t know if that happened (laughs).

 

At this point our time ran out and we had to wrap things up quicker than I hoped, Jason was summoned for other duties and we headed off for pre-show drinks.

 

 

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