23/3 – 2013
Craig Mabbitt, singer of the band Escape The Fate, was kind enough to give me a few minutes of his time for an interview over the phone. We covered a wide range of topics such as the band’s new album, Ungrateful, some tragic events that just happened in the states and their new record label.
Access: Rock’s words are in bold.
Your 4th studio album, Ungrateful, is to be released on May 14th. What can we expect from that album?
It’s definitely an evolution for the band, it’s a step in the right direction for us. Where we wanna go, where we wanna be as we progress as musicians and artists. You know, the band we wanna be the next couple of years.
So it still has the diversity that usually all our albums have, you know, we have the heavy songs and more melodic songs and the soft ballads. This record definitely has all that diversity except it’s involved in something that we can make it flow and coincide as one record.
So it’s almost like this is us after puberty.
You’ve already released the first track and video for Ungrateful, how has the fan reactions been so far?
The fan reaction has been really positive because the song is about a real issue that people deal with and it’s a real issue for a lot of, not only our fans, but a lot of kids who goes to shows in general. They go to these shows and they go to the concerts trying to forget what might be going on in their life. They just come and try to have a good time at the show and I just wanted to do something with the video that kind of get back to our fans that goes trough that stuff. I just wanted to do something that explains you’re not alone, we all know what goes on, we all know what happens. I came up with the concept for the video and it’s a little based on my life. So, just to say, ”Hi, I’ve been there, a lot of us has been there. I know you feel bad and sad right now but it’s gonna get better” and I wanted to show the video. Obviously it doesn’t have a happy ending, neither did those kids so I think seeing that, maybe it can be a little more positive for the people who are still here, who are still going trough it. There is nothing that is gonna bring those kids back but hopefully showing you the real brutality of what it does and how it affects people can really make you sit back and think. We are all human beings, we all need to feel loved.
I understand, too bad Bullying is a common problem all over the world.
Yeah, I read a news story yesterday that just fucking made me feel sick. It just happened in the states. It was these two younger kids running up to a mum with a baby in a stroller, they had a gun and said, ”Give me all your money” and the mum answered, ”I don’t have any money.” They told her again to give them all her money and she said, ”Please, I don’t have any money”, they asked her why and she said, ”It costs a lot of money to take care of a baby and I don’t have any money on me. Please”, they said, ”You wan’t us to kill your fucking baby?” and she goes, ”No, don’t kill my baby.” They shot the gun to the ground, they shot the gun up at the mums head and then they shot the mum in the knee and walked around the stroller and shot the baby in the head and ran away
That’s just fucked up!
They were just kids man! It’s such a fucked up world, how did these kids know to be so fucking violent? Kids need to realise that movies are movies and videogames are videogames, you live in the real fucking world and you can’t run around and do shit like that. You’re gonna ruin your life and other’s in the process.
Ok, let’s get back to something more joyful before I start to cry my eyes out.
I understand you left Interscope, your last label, and signed to Eleven Seven Music instead?
You know, the story with that was that we didn’t leave Interscope, they just fired the Rock department. I guess Interscope was done with that type of rock that they were working with, everybody who worked within the Rock department had to go and all the rock bands got dropped. One of them that also got dropped was Papa Roach and they are on Eleven Seven with us now. So Eleven Seven really believes in rock n‘ roll so I feel like we are part of a great family now. You got us, Papa Roach, Buckcherry, Hell Yeah and Mötley Crüe, you know, a lot of fucking great artists.
So what has changed since you signed with Eleven Seven? Are you feeling more creative? Do you have more inspiration?
You know, we’ll see when the album finally drops cause that’s when you start seeing how well you’re working with the label, if you’re in or out of the cycle when you’re working with your album, so we’ll see.
When did you start with your recordings for Ungrateful, wasn’t that like in 2011?
Yeah, the story with that why it took so long is that we finished an entire album with our producer John Feldman who also did This War Is Ours album and we were just not happy with how half of it came back. We had to revalidate ourselves, we met with other producers and after getting their opinions we were like, ”Why are we gonna pay people for their opinion on our music? You know what, we are going in the studio ourselves, hire an engineer and a mixer and we’re just gonna do the songs we want on our own.” So we finished our album and here are all the songs that didn’t exist when we had it done in 2011: Ungrateful, Until We Died, You’re Insane, Chemical Love, Fired It Up and Desire. The majority of the record didn’t exist so it’s almost like we’ve written two albums since 2011, combine what we thought was the best then get rid of the rest.
So you’re not gonna release those other tracks?
No, some of the other tracks that we didn’t know if we liked and if they fit with the overall feel of the album so they all coincide. We are gonna release some of those songs as b-side tracks, so one of those songs from that era is I Alone as one of the bonus tracks on Ungrateful. That one is a little more old school Escape The Fate, the kind of poppy side when it comes to tracks such as Ashley and I know some of our fans really like those songs but we didn’t feel that it fit on our record but it’s easy to go ahead and give a song to our fans as a b-side so it doesn’t mess up the whole record.
You are going on a tour with Papa Roach in like 20 days, do you see this as a new beginning after a three year hiatus?
Yeah, we are really excited to go on the road with Papa Roach and do all these festivals. This is kind of a like a reintroduction and we are working on headlining Swedish dates. More dates will be announced in the coming months but what I’m mostly excited for is to be back on the road and people finally remember who Escape The Fate is and what we are and we head out on that headlining World Tour, that’s what I can’t wait for.
And there we were out of time, I thanked Craig for taking his time and wished Escape The Fate luck on their upcoming tour with Papa Roach.
http://www.escapethefate.com
Facebook/EscapeTheFate
http://elevensevenmusic.com/
Writer: Jonas ”Madman” Persson