Interview with This Or The Apocalypse lead vocalist Ricky Armellino

Ricky Armellino, lead vocalist for the death metal group This Or The Apocalypse took some time out of his busy touring schedule to speak with me about the band’s newest release, Haunt What’s Left. This is the bands second release and one that is a bit of a departure for them as it features cleaner, more melodic vocals mixed in with the band’s trademark brutality. I also feel Haunt What’s Left is a bit tighter and more mature release and fans both past and new will absolutely dig this disc. It is a fast, heavy, full on balls to the wall collection of killer tunes. Here is what Armellino had to say.

Hey Ricky how are you doing? It’s Bruce Moore From PureGrainAudio.
Ricky: Hey I am doing alright. I am just sitting at IHOP with one of the other bands we are on tour with.

You guys are in Minnesota today right? How is the tour going so far?
Ricky: It is phenomenal. Right now we have three bands with us and we are touring with all of our friends so it is great. Yesterday I think is the only day we had to complain about. We had a promoter who loaded 13 local bands onto the show before us so the show started three and a half hours late.

You had 13 bands playing before you?
Ricky: Yeah it started at 5:00 and by 11:00 the promoter had dipped out and there were still bands to play. The show had to be over by 11:20 or something like that so the 3 touring bands had to share drums and equipment and I think we played 7 songs collectively.

Oh man, so the crowd kind of got ripped off on that one I guess.
Ricky: Oh yeah. Well actually most of the kids hung around for us but they were pretty upset. I mean what do you do, just piss of all the local bands and have them Tweet about what a dickhead your are or what do you do?

Now that you new CD, Haunt What’s Left has been released, how do you feel about it and are you satisfied with the outcome?
Ricky: Yeah I am good with it. I am really excited about how we are moving forward and I think that is all anybody wanted to do. I don’t think anybody had any ambitions of being a household name immediately, we just wanted to move forward and make music we like.

What was the writing process like for the disc? Did you guys all write together?
Ricky: We have kind of a weird writing process. All five of us play guitar and we all have a pretty good understanding of recording equipment. So we pretty much locked ourselves in my house for the month before the recording. I moved into my grandmother’s house because unfortunately we had to move her to a care facility. So we had an empty house and my parents were supportive enough to let us stay there and bang out a CD. We had more than 20 ideas for songs kicking around. That month we just all sat behind the computer and wrote with one another in the basement. Everybody had a say in it.

How long did it take to record the CD?
Ricky: Long enough that I actually had gone grey. We started demoing songs in 2008.

Are there any tracks on Haunt What’s Left that are personal favorites or that have good stories behind them?
Ricky: Yeah I mean I guess the song, “Backlit.” This was a concept that I was going to base all of the lyrics on but I kind of gave up on the idea. It is so hard to keep writing a story around something and still feel like it is personally fulfilling to me. Originally the concept of the lyrics were going to be a sort of post WWII family in sort of a Cold War gone wrong. It was going to be the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. The whole concept behind it is they all play a game where everyday they have to relive the nuclear explosion. That was originally going to be the concept of the whole album. I think the track that all of us are most proud of is “Subverse,” that song just sort of sums up what we wanted to do.

Is there any special meaning behind the title of the record?
Ricky: That is kind of about us. It is just about us and staying resilient you know? We have had a lot thrown at us that could have really damaged our band. We have had member changes, we totaled our van, we’ve been robbed. We have been kicked off of tours that we quit work to do and then another band got swapped on in place of us. So you know just about everything that could be thrown at a band has been thrown at us. We just kind of wanted to make a statement that regardless of what gets thrown at us we are still here and to remind ourselves that whatever state the music business is in we are still in it. I guess the imagery was when there is noting left to haunt what do you do.

How do you think you guys have matured as a band since you started recording together?
Ricky: Man I have been in this band for 5 years I was a child when we started this and I don’t think of myself that way anymore. I think that is the way everybody in the band feels as well.

How do prepare for the physical demands of a tour?
Ricky: We all exercise and we eat pretty good. I call promoters before the shows and tell them not to get us pizza. We prefer buyouts because then we can grocery shop and get fruit and granola. I am a vegetarian and we have a dude in the band with a gluten allergy so we really try to be healthy. We work out on a regular basis, we brings bikes with us on tour and bike ride. We are kind of boring to tour with I guess, but we are not exactly the sex, drugs and rock and roll dudes.

That is pretty cool though, because taking bikes on tour you can explore the cities you are in then.
Ricky: Absolutely. It is great.

What is the song you get the best audience response to?
Ricky: We have been getting the best reaction to the singing stuff. The kids are singing along with us and that is kind of new to us because singing vocals are a new addition to This Or The Apocalypse.

Any closing words Ricky?
Ricky: Stage dive more, punch imaginary ninjas less. Thank you very much I appreciate the interview.  [ END ]