Jarrod from Spine Extraction recently joined the Loucifer Speaks forum and pointed us all in the direction of his band. One listen to the tracks on Spine Extraction’s MySpace will tell you that these guys mean business!
Lou: Thanks for agreeing to answer my questions. Please can you introduce yourselves, let us know who is in the band and what you do?
Tripp King: Vocals
Craig Newkirk: Bass
Josh Bowen: Drums
Jarrod Bryant: Guitar
Lou: How long have you each been playing your respective instruments?
Tripp: I been doing vocals about 12 years (only about 6 years seriously).
Jarrod: I have been playing guitar for about 13 years and on Seven String Guitar for about 7 years.
Josh: I’ve been playing drums about four years
Craig: Bass … 5 years now
Lou: How long has the band been together? Were you all in other bands before Spine Extraction got together?
Jarrod: All of us have worked in previous projects….
Josh: We’ve been together for about six months.
Lou: How would you describe your music?
Tripp: Groovy Blackened Death Metal.
Craig: Death metal
Jarrod: Dark Industrial Blackened Death Metal. You can see that we really are a mixed metal band and most just call us METAL!
Josh: Our music is somewhat fast paced, heavy breakdowns and pure heavy vocals.
Lou: Which bands/musicians have been the biggest influence on your sound?
Tripp: For me its too many to describe but I will name a few..Phil Anselmo (Pantera), Jim Morrison (The Doors), early Metallica, BloodBath and Whitechapel lately.
Craig: For me a lot of different bands but mostly old Metallica. Jason Newsted is one of my influences as a bass player.
Jarrod: When I was 18 I decided not to learn anymore music from my influences in hopes to guide my sound away from my favorite bands. So this is more of a “What bands do you like?” type question for me. The bands I like are constantly changing because I’m forever searching new music. At the moment my favorite bands are Tool, Slayer, Behemoth, Whitechapel, Devildriver, All Shall Perish, Lamb of God, Chimaira, The Acacia Strain, White Zombie and Combiechrist .
Josh: Possibly Lamb of God, maybe some Slayer influence as well.
Lou: Which bands first got you into metal and what was the first album you ever bought?
Tripp: That’s tough Metallica, Korn, Rage Against The Machine, Pantera. The first Metal album I bought was Metallica “Ride The Lightning”
Craig: Iron Maiden
Jarrod: Tool, Korn, Metallica, Slipknot, SOAD, Cannibal Corpse and Pantera first got me into metal. I think my first album was Tool’s “Aenima” Album.
Josh: I would say older stuff like Tool, Deftones, Chimaira, Hed Pe, Cannibal Corpse
Lou:…and what was the last album you bought / downloaded?
Tripp: Meshuggah – “Obzen”
Craig: “Peace of Mind” by Iron Maiden
Jarrod: Whitechapel’s new CD
Josh: Whitechapel – “The Darkest Day of Man”
Lou: Do you prefer CDs or MP3s? Or vinyl? In which format would you like to release Spine Extraction stuff in the future?
Tripp: I prefer CDs I have a huge collection… I believe in supporting the bands I like and BUYING their CDs.
Craig: MP3 but maybe CDs.
Jarrod: I prefer MP3s and CDs… It’s a digital age, so we plan to get our first release on iTunes, Amazon and other Digital Distributions ASAP.
Josh: Mp3.
Lou: Big thanks to Jarrod for joining the Loucifer Speaks forum! You mentioned on there that you guys have already received interest from an indie label. Are you able to tell us any more about that at this point?
Jarrod: We met with this label and decided not to sign with them. We feel we want to try to promote ourselves for some time. We do not want to just jump on the first offer that included some serious life long binding stipulations.
Josh: They want to own the license to sell our first album for fifty years, kinda blows out of the water other potential labels using our music without having to buy out our media license if a better offer came along…
Lou: Do you have any demos, EPs or albums available for us to buy/download?
Jarrod: We have only been a band for 6 months, so at the moment no.
We are currently lined up to record our first album with Jamie King. One of the areas best sound engineers. This EP should be out and on iTunes / Amazon and other digital distribution by the end of the year.
Josh: We have our 3 song demo uploaded to our MySpace page (myspace.com/spineextraction). It’s just a teaser for the upcoming EP.
Lou: Out of the tracks on your MySpace page, “Abomination” is my current favourite. What is your personal favourite Spine Extraction track and why?
Tripp: We have a new song “Suppressing the Rage” and it’s gonna blow people’s minds!
Jarrod: I like “Blackened Soul”… it’s just fun to play. I also wrote the lyrics so it’s sorta special to me.
Craig: My personal favourite is “Fleshless” because I think it has a lot of changes in tempo and makes it sound like 3 songs in one.
Josh: I would have to say “Fleshless” or “Blackened Soul” because of the constant double bass, but “Abomination” is right there with those two. My favorite song to play live is “Blackened Soul”.
Lou: What is the song writing process like for you guys? How do you come up with your ideas?
Tripp: For me I write lyrics about real life situations… I’m not big on politics or religion.
Jarrod: I usually come up with guitar parts first then pitch the ideas to the rest of the band.
Josh: Jarrod and I write most of the material, followed by bass. Then our vocalist comes in with the vocals after the raw finish. We just aim for heavy riffs. We try to make the songs we play have their own characteristics / personality, without all sounding the same or falling into a particular genre of music.
Lou: Have you got any gigs coming up? Where are you playing?
Jarrod: We are playing the “SCREAM BLOODY GORE FEST” on August 28th at AMOS SOUTHEND in CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA and “CLUB NIRVANA” September 25th GREENSBORO, NORTH CARLOLINA
Lou: What is the live music scene like in your area? I’ve found a number of great metal bands from NC in the last few years and I’d like to imagine that there’s a really strong metal scene there. Is that correct?
Tripp: It’s alright there are some really talented bands but hopefully we will not be just local soon.
Jarrod: There are a lot of metal bands here. I think there could be a good metal scene here if the bands worked more closely together.
MUSIC IS NOT A COMPETITION! If you are local and want to play with us, let’s do it!
Josh: There is a lot of southern metal around this area, but there are a lot of heavy bands as well.
Lou: How would you describe a Spine Extraction show?
Jarrod: We always get a good crowd response, more so than any other project I have been in.
Craig: Just full on metal at it’s hardest!
Tripp: FUCKING MADNESS
Josh: PITS!!!!!!!!!!
Lou: If you could tour with any band in the world, who would it be?
Jarrod: Lamb of God. I like their humble personalities.
Craig: I think Dimmu Borgir.
Tripp: Slayer
Josh: Definitely Whitechapel.
Lou: What’s on the horizon for you guys? What do the next few months have in store for you?
Jarrod: We plan to record our professional quality EP, get music and Merch online for our fans to buy, and film an Official video.
Craig: Playing more shows and maybe a tour.
Josh: Just getting prepared for this show at Amos. Practicing twice a week.
Lou: The final words are yours! Is there anything that you’d like to say to the readers of Loucifer Speaks?
Tripp: Everybody in SE is focused, hard working and driven. We have all had our ups and downs with other musicians, relationships and life in general but we all have one thing in common – We will make a name for ourselves or fucking die trying! Thanks a lot!
Craig: If you like music stick to it.
Josh: Love music because it changes the world, something in which people can relate, and support local musicians and their respective bands because were in this all for the love of playing heavy metal. Thank you.
Jarrod: I would like to say… Who gives a fuck what style of metal you play or listen to… Respect all METAL!
Also… I HATE PROMOTERS/VENUES THAT ROB MUSICIANS… BE FAIR WITH THE MONEY BITCHES!
6 Responses to Spine Extraction Interview
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I’ve seen that happen to some of my friends. Promoters are blood-sucking the joy out of playing live for lots of bands, and ultimately it’s just about the money and not really about showcasing interesting and good sounding music.
“follow the formula” is the motto for promoters, at least here in Toronto. Anything that falls out of the styles that are widely popular (in the 80s it was Thrash, 90s grunge, and now it’s the “core” family… emocore, metalcore, so on), is left behind to open or close shows, with no audience and shitty audio set up.
I wasn’t able to listen to SE properly because their player on MySpace was not working, but the videos they had showed real promise with the right production guidance.
My best wishes to you guys, and keep the flame alive!
Hi Marcos,
Thanks for the comment! I’ll let the band know that their MySpace player isn’t working… I can’t even get on MySpace at the moment as the computer I’m using is ridiculously ancient!
Unfortunately it is true that there are a lot of promoters out there (from all parts of the globe) that are just wanting to make some fast cash. However, I would like to point out that not all promoters are like that.
Hopefully SE can get the music player issue resolved soon so that you can have a good listen to their stuff. I also think it shows great promise, so it’ll be worth the wait!
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That player should be working… Just checked it out and test played a track and all seems to be good now…
Thanks – Jarrod
btw Lou the interview looks really awesome with the added pictures! Thanks again!
Thanks Jarrod!