Easily one of our favorite people to interview, Frankie Palmeri is no stranger to UTG. Not only was he the first “heavy” artist to be featured on UTG TV, but three of his band’s four albums have been reviewed on UTG and garnered amazing scores (the fourth was released before we existed). This time around, Frankie chats with James about the new album, plans for a summer headlining tour, and early details about an upcoming mixtape he’s currently working on. Emmure’s latest album, Speaker Of The Dead, is available now.

UTG: Hey Frankie, how’s it going today?

Frankie: Going good man, What’s up with you?

UTG: Not much, not much. Where are you at today?

Frankie: I’m in Iowa City. It’s raining, but Iowa’s pretty cool. Definitely not the worst place.

UTG: Well let’s start simple, how’s this tour going?

Frankie: Oh man, this tour has been sick. We’ve been pulling our weight and the fans have poured out in support. It has been awesome.

UTG: How have the fans been on this tour? Are you seeing a lot of younger kids or more seasoned Emmure fans?

Frankie: I think there are definitely younger kids coming out who haven’t been exposed to us before. Whether it’s because we never played their area before, or maybe they weren’t old enough to get in before, or maybe, you know, they’re just getting into the scene. We’re definitely seeing our fans as well, but it’s good to see new faces.

UTG: Well it has been about two months since Speaker Of The Dead hit stores, how has the live reaction been?

Frankie: We’re playing about four new songs on this tour and people have been awesome. The songs sound great live and they’re really fun to play. I think it’s just a breath of fresh air for our live show since we’ve been touring on these other albums for years. It brings new life to the Emmure vibe and the results have been very cool.

UTG: Would you say this album has maybe silenced some of the haters who thought Felony was too much of a departure for you?

Frankie: Even though I don’t prefer to think back to that record, not because I don’t like it or that I feel like it was a bad move, its just that we took a step back in production value on the last record which wasn’t anyones fault per say, we took a chance that might not have been our strongest but I think the music overall was definitely unique and good. I think that curveball we threw definitely set us up for the fucking strikeout we threw on this record.

UTG: When we’ve talked before, you’ve noted your lack of concern for others’ opinions is what makes your music unique, but what motivated this album?

Frankie: It was a lot of the same. We just get together and put out whatever sounds good to us. We’re more interested in us enjoying music. We want to like our record. We want to put it on and think “Yes, i love this riff.” That’s what it’s about to us man. We don’t question ourselves or our tastes. That’s what makes an Emmure record, we aren’t concerned with the status quo or how a certain group of people want to hear you sound. I think that if you’re genuinely into an artist then you want to watch them flow and create in their natural element. This record is definitely super organic both musically and lyrically and I think we’re always growing. We want our next record to top this record.

UTG: You’ve mentioned on Twitter that you’re working on a mixtape, could you give us some details about that? Are the lyrics you often tweet found on that release?

Frankie: The stuff I post on Twitter is mainly to amuse myself. I get bored and think of rhymes, so I figured I’d put them out there and entertain people. It’s pretty awesome to see people retweet it or think it’s funny, but I’m really just trying to entertain myself and if you take something away from that, that’s cool too.

The mixtape I don’t want to give too much away about, but it will be an online release out…Sometime. There will be a hip hop element, but there will also be a lot of other genres and soundscapes on it as well. It’ll be an interesting listen that gives a lot more details about the story people have followed throughout our band. I don’t want to give too much away yet though.

UTG: We definitely look forward to hearing that whenever it gets released. Now we’re running short on time, but I have to ask when we’ll have an Emmure headlining tour in the US?

Frankie: We’re actually going to do a headlining tour this Summer. It should be a big tour with festival stops and such, should be really cool. I can’t give away names yet because I don’t know them all myself, but it’ll be cool.

UTG: Okay, we’re out of time, but tomorrow we will be posting your entire SXSW performance. Could you summarize your SXSW experience for us?

Frankie: SXSW was fucking awesome. It was easily one of the most fun stops of the tour and the fans were completely insane. Just getting to see all our friends and industry people was really cool, plus the show was incredible. I’m excited to see the footage.

Click here to view UTG TV: Emmure – Full live set!

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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