Interview: And Hell Followed With

Just yesterday our own Hurricane Haines talked with And Hell Followed With‘s guitarist Kyle McIlmurray from everything from their recent vocalists departure, touring updates/stories and their recent 28 Days Tour. Also, we get a feel for the new album, entitled Proprioception, dropping in exactly 41 days. Be sure to check out these Michigan natives for the most brutal live show you’ve ever seen!

Q: Let’s start easy, how is it going?

A: Pretty good, we got a new vocalist. Our old vocalist Nick left us, we are actually practicing today before we leave tomorrow morning. Things have been great; we are really excited on how he is sounding. We are really excited to get this tour started. We’ve been pretty much dealing with problem after problem; our vocalist left, we had some money issues, and then we find out our van needs worked on the day before our tour. You know when it rains it pours but it’s nothing out of the ordinary with us.

Q: I’m from Michigan also, is it your favorite place to play or does another state hold your heart?

A: Michigan is home state and the kids always treat us well, we love playing here. It is number one in our top three places to play especially in the Detroit area and the Lansing area. There are other states that we really love playing like Florida and California; the kids always treat us well out there. Pretty much anywhere on the West Coast also.

Q: How have you guys grown together as a band?

A: We pretty much just started out as five dudes playing in a basement while playing shows on the weekend doing it part time. Then Earache came along with a solid agency behind us, we started doing tours and it really put us together as a band friendship wise, music wise; like we all work together a lot better as musicians now. We can practice together now and pick up on what we are all talking about. That’s something that a lot of bands can’t do because of communication issues. Our band is really close knit so it makes the writing process and playing shows a lot better for us.

Q: Has signing to Earache Records been the best experience as a band?

A: It’s the best experience professional wise. Having a huge label saying that they want to work with us left us star struck. It was like when somebody meets their favorite pop singer, it left us like that. When a label like that comes and compliments along and asks you to join their family it goes beyond that. In our professional career that is probably one of the better experiences is meeting the entire Earache crew and putting out the album here. We are really lucky to have a solid bunch of people behind us.

Q: Did the band leave with Nick on good terms and is there anything you want to say about it?

A: Everything is on good terms; Nick and I have been best friends since pretty much 8th grade. We have been in the band together since sophomore year and it broke my heart when he decided to leave. I support his decision; he wants to pursue his passion in writing and going back to school. Nobody has left on bad terms regardless of any blog spot or website says. Nick will be doing the CD release show and we all wish Nick the best of luck with what he is doing.

Q: What influences drove the intensity of Proprioception?

A: We can go all the way around the world with that. We can start with Billy and his drum patterns that are jazzy that brings a different feel to it. Then we have our region in death metal with really aggressive vocals and aggressive guitar riffing. You bring that all together and then we bring in our parts that are hardcore influenced. This brings a whole new tone of “Death Gore” or whatever you want to call it. We took it as writing the album by ourselves by working off each other and the different styles we use.

Q: How is Proprioception going to be different from Domain?

A: I guess you can say Domain is the bastard child of our career. There are a lot of people who love it but then there are a lot of people who have a lot of shitty things to say about it. I think the biggest difference is the attitude and the whole atmosphere as a band. We got out of the whole basic thrashy, blast beats going on, just the lame metal core and we ventured into a region of uncharted waters that we haven’t touched before. We basically created something that sounded like Domain and then put it on steroids going around beating up all the other little albums from bands.

Q: You guys are about to embark on the 28 Days Tour, how does it feel to play a tour with the legendary Knights Of The Abyss?

A: Knights of the Abyss are some of our best friends. We did a two-week tour when we first started out with Earache. We instantly hit it off, incredible live, and super good music. Then you have other bands like Those Who Lie Beneath and Burning The Masses just kind of really bring out a really aggressive tour to people who don’t know what’s coming to them. I think at the same time it’s going to be a lot of good music going on and at the same time a lot of good times going on too.

Q: How much energy to you guys bring to each show and then feed off from the crowd?

A: Basically our philosophy is no matter what we are going to perform for the crowd. We feel it’s best that when the crowd outperforms us. In retrospect it’s all about the kids and all the people out there watching you. It’s all about the people giving you 20 minutes of their time, and that’s why we travel thousands of miles and do what we do. We perform for them and we hope they perform back for us. I think one of the bands biggest things we have in our arsenal is how we feed off the crowd. It’s the bread and butter pretty much, playing for a crowd with crossed arms you kinda feel harped about performing for them, but if you have 30-40 kids on stage and then 60 kids in the pit doing their thing; you get really into it a lot quicker. It’s like an invisible bond between the crowd and the band performance wise.

Q: What is the one band you guys would do anything to tour with?

A: We use it as a tongue and cheek joke but we are all pretty serious about it; Slipknot. They are a band that everyone listens to since our middle school years, they are just an incredible band live. That would be stardom right there, touring with one of the bands that we all started listening too early on.

Q: Are there any funny tour stories that would guys would like to share?

A: We won’t give you the venue or the state for reasons that we don’t want to get anybody in trouble, but we were sitting outside early on. Nick had to take a shit really bad, Nick is the kind of guy that prefers to take a shit outside than inside, he ran off so me and Billy were like, “We should probably go and film this.” So we followed him with a little camcorder and we came up to this abandoned construction tractor, we come around the corner and there’s Nick with his ass out and taking a dump right there in the tractor (laughs).

Thanks again Kyle for taking some time out to talk with [UTG]. It is appreciated.


http://www.myspace.com/andhellfollowedwith

Interview by Hurricane Haines

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