Interview with As I Lay Dying guitarist Nick Hipa

As I Lay Dying are a San Diego-based band whose name, when discussing their reputation, is totally contradictory. Unlike their name might have you thinking, this group is very much alive. In fact, they are currently one of the hottest bands in their entire genre. Having just come of a huge six-band tour in Europe, the guys have wasted no time in continuing their momentum as they almost immediately joined up with Unearth and Slipknot for a month long North American tour. Fortunately for me, one of their stops was Toronto, Canada and I was abele to catch up guitarist Nick Hipa and discuss in brief touring, their latest album, and what it’s like sharing the stage with Slipknot.

You guys literally just got back from Europe where you took part in the Hell on Earth tour. How long was the tour and how would you rate it against the other European tours you’ve been a part of?
Nick: The tour lasted about four weeks and it’s been our… my fondest tour that we’ve done over there, mostly because of… the other two times that we went over there have been so brief, we’re there for a week, we play festivals and stuff, we don’t get to actually get in the swing of the things over there, so it was a really good experience. There were six bands on the bill so it was a big bill and everybody in every band was awesome so it was a fun time.

What other bands did the Hell on Earth tour feature and of them, was their one in particular who you were psyched to play with and why?
Nick: Well the bands consisted of us, Heaven Shall Burn, Evergreen Terrace, Agents of Man, End of Days, and Neaera. Going into the tour we were really excited to play with Evergreen Terrace, just because we had known those guys before and they were like the only ones we knew, and we knew that they were fun dudes, so we were just looking forward to hanging out with those guys, you know. As the tour progressed we were glad that all the bands were on the package. It was a cool experience.

So this past tour finishes, you fly back to the States and almost immediately you hit the road for a month-long North American tour with Slipknot and Unearth. Was it hard to get back home and hit the road again so soon?
Nick: Actually it wasn’t that hard, ‘cause we’re used to like constantly putting our bodies in different time zones. So we didn’t really have any gnarly jetlag and stuff, plus we had a day off. I think the most difficult thing was going from a headlining club tour in Europe, playing venues that are like 400/500 capacity, playing really small stages to playing arenas and theatres like this, where the stages are sometimes bigger than the venues we played in Europe. Just getting used to performing in that type of environment, ‘cause we hadn’t done it in a while.

You guys seem to tour relentlessly, in fact it seems like you’re never not on the road. How the heck do you maintain the energy necessary to play so many shows?
Nick: I don’t know man. We ask ourselves that question a lot. In fact I asked myself that question today, “how long am I gonna be able to keep up the energy?” I don’t know, I think a lot of it has to do with… we really love what we’re doing. I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. Granted there’s a lot of things about this that are really crappy, like long drives and lack of sleep and stuff, but in perspective it’s the only thing I’d want to do, so I think that’s what keeps us up there.

Speaking of this Slipknot tour, how exactly did you guys come to be added to the bill?
Nick: You know I don’t really know. One day someone was like “hey we’re doing a tour with Slipknot” and I was like, “Alright!” I think they just came to us and Unearth. I guess they haven’t really toured with a lot bands in our genre. I mean they toured with Lamb of God and Shadows Fall and stuff, but Unearth and As I Lay Dying are kind of in a different area and I think maybe for them they thought… this is all speculation… but maybe they saw it as a good thing for both bands. For us to play for their crowd that only comes out to see Slipknot and for us to kinda pull the kids… with both bands pulling kids that would normally not go to a Slipknot show. Yeah, so I think that might be a lot of it.

Both As I Lay Dying and Unearth are on the same record label. Have you guys ever played or toured together before and either way, what is it like playing with them?
Nick: That was actually another thing we talked about. It’s been a really long time coming because both of our bands respectively, we’ve toured with pretty much all the bands in this scene, but never each other. We have a similar style, were on the same label, we know each other, like we’re friends… things just never worked out. So now that we are on the tour with them, it’s been great ‘cause they’re really great dudes, like fun guys and… shit… we’re having fun with them. They’re a good band to watch every night, they’re really good.

When you get the chance to share the stage with big-name acts such as Slipknot, do you normally learn a lot from the experience?
Nick: Yeah. I learn a lot from all of our tours. But just watching Slipknot… I guess their level of professionalism right down to their crew, it’s been very educational, I guess. When you start playing music you wanna play just to play, but when you start being in a band you have to focus on the way being in a band works, like touring and stuff and they’ve got it down to a tee; they’re a flawless unit in my opinion. And they’re also a very professional live band. I don’t know how to describe that but it’s just they come across very intense live and it’s very professional I think. Yah, they’re a good band… a great band.

You guys recently signed a new contract, hit up Big Fish Studios in California, and this past Spring emerged with your latest disc “Shadows Are Security.” Have all of your recent tours been bent on showcasing this new album?
Nick: Yeah. Ideally you know you’d like to record an album and then play off of that and so that’s what we’re doing. You know with “Frail worlds collapse, we put the album out and then we just toured as many times as we could to promote the album and when that cycle was over we recorded this album and now were just touring to promote it and play new songs live; you know it’s what it’s all about. For us at least, just playing and recording and keeping that cycle going.

When compared to your previous releases, how do you feel about “Shadows are Security?”
Nick: I think it’s uh… I don’t want to say something like, “it’s our best record yet,” but it’s the record that I’m most proud of. You can see a progression through our records and this record I think is a little bit better in terms of song writing and musicianship and stuff. I’m happy with the way it came out, but at the same time I’m definitely eager to write a new one already. We know the way things were and as soon as it was done there were a million things we were unhappy with and I think we have a way better one in us. We’re happy with the way it came out but, we really look forward to doing another one.

How find this most recent release works in a live setting and how has the crowd been responding?
Nick: It’s actually been pretty… we’ve been getting a pretty good response with it. It’s hard for us to grasp this idea, but a lot of the kids who are seeing us now and the kids who’ve seen us on Ozzfest, they know us more from this album than they do the old one. Because I think this album has sold kinda the same amount, but when we started getting a little bit more attention from tours we did like Ozzfest and stuff, it was during the promotion of this album. So when people first hear As I Lay Dying, this new album is the album that they hear, and if they’re into it enough then they go back. And so it’s interesting to see ‘cause earlier in the year we’d play old song and kids would freak out and now it’s kinda like you have half and half, you play a new song that you’d expect not too many kids to know and then they’re like singing along and going crazy. So it’s pretty cool and it’s working great in a live setting I think it’ll continue to do even better as we keep on playing off this cycle.

What do you guys have lined-up after you finish this extensive North American tour?
Nick: After this tour with Slipknot, it’s mostly like North East and kinda more Midwest, we have ten days off, and then we do a headlining tour with Norma Jean, Madball, and A Life Once Lost, almost till Christmas pretty much. So… more touring [laughs].  [ END ]