Ryan & Shannon - Black Dahlia Murder

June 21 2009 (Hellfest - Clisson)

Hell of a name, don't you think? Although the murder case (still officially unresolved, even if the real culprit seemed identified) is very famous, the American metal band is not very well known in Europe. I duly received two heavily tattooed members of BLACK DAHLIA MURDER to have a little chat with them about their new album to come in September called "Deflorate", the recent release of their first ever DVD, their opinion about festivals and more.

Fab: Could you introduce yourself for those who don't know BLACK DAHLIA MURDER yet?
Shannon Lucas (Drums): I'm Shannon Lucas, I play drums for BLACK DAHLIA MURDER.
Ryan Knight (Guitar): I'm Ryan Knight, I play guitar for BLACK DAHLIA MURDER.

Fab: Are you happy to be here at the HELLFEST 2009?
Shannon Lucas: We haven't been out in France a lot, and this is like one of those well-known festivals, especially for our genre of music. So, always an honour to be down there.

Fab: Are you gonna come back to France after this one?
Shannon Lucas: We will be back in Europe again probably in January. We were just here in January and February and we came down to play in Paris, which was a blast.

Fab :Have you planned something special for your upcoming show?
Shannon Lucas: For tonight? Nothing out of the ordinary.
Ryan Knight: We will play one new song.
Shannon Lucas: Yeah, we will play a new song from our record that's not coming out until September, to give a little taste of something to come in the future.

Fab: Could you tell us something about this new record?
Shannon Lucas: The record's done. It's just, it's BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, it takes another step further with what we do, you know, to the people who liked what we did with "Nocturnal" (2007), it's another step in that direction and furthering our writing. Making a statement about who we are and what type of band we are. The record's called "Deflorate" and it should be out by September. And it's our first record with Ryan Knight, so.
Ryan Knight: Yeah, euh, I'm new (laughter). The leads are definitely different. I mean, they had different lead guitarists and now I'm doing it, so.
Shannon Lucas: We want to develop, we wanted to step it up in that department, you know. Just having better solos, little more shreds to it, so, we're lucky to have this guy. Bringing the big guns, right?

Fab: So you're happy with the results.
Shannon Lucas: Oh yeah, absolutely (laughter).
Ryan Knight: I hope so.
Shannon Lucas: We're very excited.

Fab: Concerning your band's name, what did you think of the recent movie about this murder?
Shannon Lucas: I didn't really watch that (laughter). A lot of people told me they weren't really fond of it, this kind of whatever. Definitely too much Hollywood, if it had been done like fifteen years ago, I think it would have been pretty good. The actual murder itself is pretty intriguing, so, to turn that into a Hollywood movie…it is what it is.

Fab: A word about "Majesty", your first DVD? Was it hard compiling?
Shannon Lucas: No, euh, the band has its own camera that we've been taking on tour just for filming really dumb stuff, for like over a year at least. We've had really funny footage piled up. It got stolen at some point, like it all was going towards a dvd, we've ended up hiring a guy, a very close friend of the band, to come up with us on tour a bunch and just be there to film a documentary thing. And we're gonna give him what footage we had too, to add to it, and that got stolen in his house. Little bit of a bummer. I think, it happened when it did, like, putting out a DVD because the band, you know, they were without a drummer for a while, at the end of 2006, and it was like starting fresh. It was the perfect time for us to film what we did. We were really excited when it came together.

Fab : There's two dvds, right?
Shannon Lucas: Yes. The first disc is all like a tour documentary, it's about one hour and a half, with tour antics or whatever. The second disc is the live show, with eleven or twelve songs, and there's all the videos the band has pulled out, and some outtakes. So, let's put it up that way. We were really impressed by CANNIBAL CORPSE's most recent DVD, it was just amazing and we were like "wouah". We know that we don't the history they have, but we wanted to something in common with that.

Fab: Nice cover by the way. Who is the artist?
Shannon Lucas: I don't know the guy's name, that's all Trevor's (Strnad - Vocals) department. He's sort of the mastermind behind the artwork and the whole themes and stuff like that. The guy painted it for us, did an amazing job…(laughter) Sorry, I'm the worst person to ask about these kind of things. I was happy when I saw it because I had no idea of what to even expect.

Fab: Back to today, did you hear about the HELLFEST a long time ago? Or it is really new for you?
Shannon Lucas: I've heard about it, it's a popular festival. We've heard about it before. The band was on years and years ago before I was in the band
Ryan Knight: There's an HELLFEST in America too.
Shannon Lucas: Yeah, there was an HELLFEST in America for a while.
Ryan Knight: They don't do that anymore though, it was a disaster. I wasn't in the band but I think the band played there in 2003 maybe.

Fab: And for you, what are the main differences between festivals in Europe and in the U.S.?
Shannon Lucas: I think there are more of them in Europe. More extreme. The market for extreme Metal over here is huge compared to United States. The fans in the States are very fickle, what they like changes so quickly. I don't they're appreciative of certain types of music like here. When we came over here, we can tell the Metal is very appreciated. They just love it. The festivals are huge, there's nothing like that in the States. And usually what you've got in the States, it's a like touring festival, and those tend to be very like…you know, there will be extreme bands, but there's stuff that are more mainstream. And it's usually a smaller scale type of thing. Coming over here, in the summer festivals, are a must for metal bands in the States, it's super important.
Ryan Knight: You can play to more people. There's more people from all over Europe.
Shannon Lucas: Yeah. A lot of people are travelling to come to festivals here. We played for example WACKEN, and there's people coming from all over Europe. Which is good for us because we're getting to play in front of, you know, people from everywhere. It's a big deal.

Fab: And do you prefer playing in festivals, or in small club shows?
Shannon Lucas: For me, I play drums, so I kind of like the acoustics of playing in a venue (if they) are nice for me, because I can hear my stuff. So, for that, I kind of like being indoors. But the outside crowds are huge, and it seems they are ready to party, you know?
And the main idea in Festivals, is that you're playing in front of an audience that never heard from you before, and we kind of have to prove ourselves to a lot of people, otherwise, they're gonna see something else. So it's a good chance for us to come out here and prove ourselves to a lot of the metalheads up here.

Fab: Do you have a special ritual before going on stage?
Ryan Knight: I know that me, and a couple of other guys like to have some beers and Jägermeister. It usually makes us more fired up and ready to go (laughter). We don't drink too much though, because we couldn't play, but just enough to get there.
Shannon Lucas: Me, I don't know. I just warm up, 10 or 15 minutes just to keep the blood flowing.
Ryan Knight: Yeah, I like to warm up too (general laughter). I take my guitar like twenty or thirty minutes before the show. I usually do that.
Shannon Lucas: We're definitely a silly band, everybody who had watched the DVD knows it. We're pretty goofy, but, when it comes to playing, we become very serious and we take it very seriously. We wanna go there and perform really really well. We know that if we don't perform well, we're not just letting down ourselves but also the people that came to see us. It's a pretty big deal for us.

Fab: What are your favourite bands right now?
Ryan Knight: There's this band from Michigan called THE SWELLERS, they're pretty cool. They're not really new, their cd was out in 2004 (laughter)
Shannon Lucas: I'm listening to this band called MARUTA, a grind band in the States, they're really young kids and I like them a lot. I'm still listening to all the bands I kind of grew up with like CANNIBAL CORPSE or AT THE GATES. Nothing's changed, I mean (laughter). When you play extreme music, about times in your life you wanna listen to something mellow and just relax, and there's times I wanna listen to the bands who influenced me, to get connected (laughter)

Fab: A last word for the readers of BSPIX?
Shannon Lucas: Look out for "Deflorate" in September!