Interview with I Am Abomination lead vocalist Phil Druyor

I Am Abomination lead vocalist Phil Druyor recently answered some questions for PureGrainAudio. The band is currently enjoying a bit of downtime after having toured incessantly for the last two years. The rest does not last long though; they are already working on ideas for a follow-up to their critically acclaimed CD, To Our Forefathers. Here’s how the conversation with Druyor went.

Where are you guys at right now, home in Detriot?
Phil: Yeah we are. We are home for a bit actually.

Just kind of chilling out?
Phil: Just kind of chilling at home enjoying some time off and getting some work done on the new album.

You are working on a new album already?
Phil: Yeah actually we are writing right now.

Now that you have had a chance to live with and sit on your CD, To Our Forefathers, are you still satisfied with the disc?
Phil: I don’t think I would be a very good artist if I was ever satisfied with my work, but I am proud of it. I was pleased with the reaction to it and I guess the goal on the next album is just to go a little crazier and see how wild we can get it.

What has been the reaction to it so far? From what I have read it has been pretty good correct?
Phil: Yeah it has been awesome. The album came out right before left for a tour and we kind of saw an immediate reaction between shows. Once the album came out the reaction got better every night.

Do you have a track on the disc that is a personal favorite or that has a good story behind it?
Phil: I think “Rock and Roll Soul” for a couple of reasons. I think it kind of expresses our views a little better in terms of image being such a heavily marketed thing inside the industry that we are a part of. That is obviously something that we feel really strongly about. One of my best friends I have made through touring guest vocals on the disc and we have never really heard an I Am Abomination song with screaming in it so that was really cool too.

I know you said you are working on new stuff. When can we expect to see it? Any kind of dates lines up yet?
Phil: It is kind of a toss up right now. We are not really sure. We are not even sure when we are going to start recording it. We just know for sure that there will be a sophomore album and it is going to be a lot crazier than our last album.

When you say crazier does that mean you are headed in a heavier direction?
Phil: You know we don’t know yet. We wrote some stuff that might come in little bit lighter and we have also written stuff that is a lot heavier. The main thing that we are geared towards right now is that natural progression that a band makes between albums. Between Jaw Dropper, the EP we put out ourselves in ’08 and To Our Forefathers we felt that there was a pretty significant progression and we are trying to make the next step between To Our Forefathers and the next album, you know with our song composition, vocal melodies, using more notes in a scale; making it more technical and heavier, but still having the parts that calms it all down.

Is there any pressure to release a follow-up to To Our Forefathers?
Phil: Right now, in terms of writing I think it is the least stress we have had. I think that is why it is coming out so well.

Lets go back to, To Our Forefathers for a moment. Is there a meaning behind that title?
Phil: Yeah actually the first track on the CD is called, “Since 1776,” and the first lyric to that is, “To our forefathers with love/ Thanks for tearing the world apart.” That is kind of just geared toward government corruption and cover up a misguided sense of what the people in this country really need. How much stuff is really pulled over our eyes when it comes to government and the general population?

So are you guys politically active then?
Phil: The weird thing is that I think enough of us know so much about the political aspect of the country that we just choose to not be active in it. I can tell you one thing, as much as the government makes it out to be a good thing, I probably will never vote. I know that Brandon and Nick won’t either. It is not like we hate our government or anything like that it is just a play in a lot of the old politicians that run our country.

Can we stay with the political thing for a second?
Phil: Yeah.

How much faith do you have in politics and do you still have some respect for politicians and their ideas?
Phil: You know the funny thing is as angsty as I am towards our government. I think our government is designed amazingly. I think the general idea is awesome and I love living in America; it is the best country in the entire world. But we are in disagreement with the majority of stuff that has been kept away from the public. Mainly stuff dealing with conspiracy theories, not the ones that are a long shot, but the conspiracy theories that hold water.

How do you think you guys have matured as a band since you first started recording together?
Phil: Oh my gosh. Well when we first started Nick was in high school I was just freshly out of high school and had only been out of high school for a year. When we first started writing we knew that it was a job and we treated it like one immediately. The seriousness has kind of come into play over the years, not out of force because it has not been forced upon us, but because it really is something that we love to do some much. We have a respect for it and we kind of were forced to grow up a little but. When we first started writing music in a basement in hope that we would make it somewhere in the scene one day and it sort of evolved into dedicating a certain amount of time in our day reaching out to our fans and ordering merch. Nobody really though about that back in the day, it was all just about writing music.

Do you have any other touring plans?
Phil: We do but I can’t say what they are. We are kind of just enjoying a break. In the past two years we have been on the road continuously for over a year combined, So we are kind of just taking a break and Nick and I really want to see what happens when we are writing an album with no pressure. The group of songs that we have demoed out have had such an amazing outcome that we just want to keep going with this process a little bit.

Any closing words at all?
Phil: Rock and Roll… save your soul!  [ END ]