September 2nd, 2013 
Adrian Garza 
Earlier this summer, we had the opportunity of interviewing Derek Archambault as he pulled double duty on The Vans Warped Tour where he performed for both Defeater as the band’s vocalist and his solo project, Alcoa. During that time, Archambault told us a lot about his future plans for Alcoa, some of the trademark aspects of Defeater’s releases, and Defeater’s latest album, Letters Home, which was released on July 16 through Bridge Nine Records.
Defeater will be playing a record release show on September 27 at The Sinclair in Cambridge, MA with Pianos Become The Teeth, Make Do And Mend, Aviator, and Raindance. Afterwards, they will hit the road once more for a North American tour with August Burns Red, Blessthefall, and Beartooth starting this November. Dates for that can be found after the interview below the jump.
Before I get into Defeater-related questions, I figured I’d ask you about your side project, Alcoa. From what I understand, this is your first time hitting the road under that moniker, how has that been?
Warped Tour is the first official tour under the name Alcoa. I’ve done regional shows around New England, but never taken it on the road really. It’s been really nice, everyone on the tour is great, from the bands to the sound people to the production staff. The responses have been great as well, the fact that anyone comes to watch me play is flattering and amazing to me.
For those who haven’t seen you perform, what is your stage setup for Warped like? Is it just you? Do you have any sort of a backing band?
My fiancée and our lead guitarist joined me at the Boston date, but otherwise I have just been playing by myself every day. It’s different from how I wrote and recorded the record, but I like having the chance to vary the songs and shape them differently every day.
How far exactly do you plan to take things with that project? I know it’s something that you’ve been doing for some time now, but do you plan to do any follow-up releases to Bone & Marrow in the immediate future?
As a band we want to keep Alcoa going as much as possible, it’s just really difficult with Defeater touring, me holding a regular job back home and the rest of the band owning their own businesses. I will always be writing songs for the project just as I have done for years.
Moving onto Defeater, you’ve been developing and extending this really awesome and compelling story over 5 years and 4 releases, including your latest album, Letters Home. What made you want to do something like that? Do you see an end to that concept series any time soon?
From the start of the band, Jay and I discussed the over-arching concept and we have always intended to keep that going through the life of the band. I have said it many times, the band is the story and the story is the band. The concept and lyrics are meant to be relatable to the everyman, it’s not meant to alienate anyone. There are little pieces of me in every song I have written for Defeater, and there are little bits of the rest of the band scattered throughout the story as well. It’s fiction loosely based on fact.
Which song of yours holds the deepest significance to you?
It’s hard to pick the one song from our catalogue that holds the most significance to me. “No Savior” from our new record is most definitely one of them. It is as close to the truth as it gets for me and the Defeater storyline.
Your vocals sound even more raw and strained than they did before on Letters Home, and it honestly adds to the whole feel of the record. Was this just a stylistic change, or is this a product of all of the wear and tear of touring and being in a full time band? Continuing off of that, you guys haven’t disguised the fact that Letters Home is your heaviest effort to date, and unlike Empty Days & Sleepless Nights, the album has no purely softer or acoustic tracks. Do you plan to include any in the future or do you plan to share those efforts through your other outlet, Alcoa, now that Bridge Nine is backing that project?
I quit smoking a month or so before we started recording this record and I think that had a lot to do with me actually being able to use my voice again like I want to. I wasn’t smoking while recording Lost Ground either, and on both records my voice was much easier to break in. We had an acoustic song on our first record, Travels, as well, doing songs like that is nothing new for us, it’s all for the storyline. We put the last four songs on EDSN to tell parts of the story from Travels and EDSN in a different tense by the same character, but I’m not sure what we will do in the future.
Is there a specific reason why you guys have chosen to record most of your albums with Jason?
We have recorded every record with Jay — having an amazing engineer in the band helps us out a ton and gives us quite the advantage, in my opinion. We drive ourselves a bit crazy being a band full of revisionists, but being able to record at your own pace with one of your best friends helps a lot.
What can we look forward to from either Alcoa or Defeater in the last quarter of 2013?
We will be on tour with August Burns Red for a six-week full US tour starting November 1 and that will take us up to the very end of 2013.
DATES:
09/27 Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair
11/01 Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
11/02 Pittsburgh, PA – Altar Bar
11/03 Louisville, KY – Expo Five
11/04 Nashville, TN – Rocktown
11/05 Sauget, IL – Pop’s
11/06 Lawrence, KS – Granada Theatre
11/07 Oklahoma City, OK – Diamond Ballroom
11/08 Dallas, TX – House Of Blues
11/09 Houston, TX – House Of Blues
11/12 Tempe, AZ – Marquee Theatre
11/14 Santa Ana, CA – The Observatory
11/15 Los Angeles, CA – Club Nokia
11/16 San Francisco, CA – Regency Ballroom
11/18 Murray, UT – Murray Theater
11/20 Des Moines, IA – Wooly’s
11/21 Minneapolis, MN – Mill City Nights
11/22 Chicago, IL – House Of Blues (with DVD viewing)
11/23 Chicago, IL – House Of Blues (with DVD viewing)
11/24 Cincinnati, OH – Bogarts
11/26 Cleveland, OH – House Of Blues
11/27 Pontiac, MI – The Crofoot Ballroom
11/28 Toronto, ON – Sound Academy
11/29 Montreal, QC – Metropolis
11/30 Worcester, MA – The Palladium
12/01 New York, NY – Best Buy Theatre
12/03 Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel
12/04 Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade
12/05 Jacksonville, FL – Roc Bar
12/06 Orlando, FL – The Plaza Live
12/07 Ybor City, FL – The Ritz
12/08 Fort Lauderdale, FL – Revolution
12/10 Knoxville, TN – NV
12/11 Charlotte, NC – Amos’ Southend
12/12 Richmond, VA – The National
12/13 Baltimore, MD – Sound Stage
12/14 Sayreville, NJ – Starland Ballroom
Written & conducted by: Adrian Garza
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