After years of DIY touring and lots of word of mouth, 2014 is a breakout year for Fallujah with a spot on Summer Slaughter and a well-recieved new CD. Guitarist Scott Carstairs hops on Skype to talk about writing, touring, and the band’s success after the jump.
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, Fallujah has always been one of our most prominent up and coming bands and I’ve had the honor of knowing them for several years. I asked lead guitarist Scott Carstairs to join me on Skype to talk about the craziness that has been 2014 for the band.
For those of you who would rather read than watch (sorry about the scratchy audio), here are some excerpts from our conversation
On the band’s success:
“The Summer Slaughter Tour was a lot of fun. We were able to sell a lot of CD’s on that and there was a lot of promotion. It was perfectly planned. It was cool.”
On the layering of The Flesh Prevails:
“You can dive into the layers and choose which one of the foreground and which one is the background. If you’re a Death Metal guy you’re probably listening to the riffs, if you want to listen to some good melodies listen to melodies. It’s just a kind of layer thing that you can choose which one. That’s the idea but it’s all supposed to work together because you listen to it all at once.”
On touring with Archspire:
“They’re awesome guys, they’re hilarious. They have a pretty similar sense of humor as us.”
On how Europe is different from the U.S.”
“When you’re in Europe, you’re in all these different countries and they all have their own ways of viewing things and they all have their own magazines and their own little web shows so it’s definitely divided. So you have to keep going out there and showing your dedication and you have to put out a lot of albums so you gain their trust.
On the years of DIY touring paying off:
“It’s more memorable to me to see guys that I saw when I was 18 or 19 still coming out and ‘hey dude, what’s up?’ It’s a totally different situation but it’s cool. It’s really fun. So after touring America so many times we have friends all over the place and they’re super cool and super down to come out and spend money. It’s awesome.”
On the Fallujah writing style:
“Just have to put those key elements in there and the rest is just free form, I guess. We’re just doing what we want. We don’t focus too hard on being a certain way. There are things we like and we keep putting them in there. We do think about some things, we have to have some elements in there to make sure it all sounds cohesive. I think I’m really into trying to refine it, to not make it too overcomplicated but simple.”
Here are the dates for the upcoming Fallujah tours:
With Archspire:
Oct 09 Eugene, OR
Oct 11 Seattle, WA
Oct 12 Victoria, Canada
Oct 13 Nanaimo, Canada
Oct 14 Vancouver, Canada
Oct 16 Portland, OR
Oct 17 Arcata, CA
Oct 18 Walnut Creek, CA w/ The Zenith Passage
Oct 19 Santa Cruz, CA
With Dying Fetus, Goatwhore, and Malevolence:
11/08 Liege, BEL
11/09 Essen, GER
11/10 Frankfurt, GER
11/11 Dessau, GER
11/12 Prague, CZE
11/13 Ludwigsburg, GER
11/14 Berlin, GER
11/15 Eindhoven, NET
11/16 Trier, GER
11/17 Brighton, UK
11/18 Cardiff, UK
11/19 Glasgow, UK
11/20 Dublin, IRE
11/21 Manchester, UK
11/22 Wolverhampton, UK
11/23 London, UK
11/24 Paris, FRA
11/25 Toulouse, FRA
11/26 Santander, SPA
11/27 Porto, POR
11/28 Madrid, SPA
11/29 Badalona, SPA
11/30 Nimes, FRA
12/01 Clermont-Ferrand, FRA
12/02 Aarau, SWI
12/03 Brescia, ITA
12/04 Munchen, GER
12/05 Budapest, HUN
12/06 Ljubljana, SLO
12/07 Cluj-Napoca, ROM
12/08 Sofia, BUL
12/09 Brasov, ROM
12/10 Kosice, SLO
12/11 Wien, AUT
12/12 Nurnberg, GER
12/13 Aarhus, DEN
12/14 Oslo, NOR
12/16 Helsinki, FIN
12/18 Stockholm SWE
12/19 Hamburg, GER
12/20 Leer, GER
-BS