Interview with The Acacia Strain drummer Kevin Boutot and bassist Jack Strong

On February 23rd the “Welcome to Hell” tour hit the Opera House in Toronto, Ontario. The tour was headlined by Whitechapel with support coming from The Acacia Strain, Veil of Maya, Chelsea Grin and I Declare War. We had the chance to sit down with The Acacia Strain drummer Kevin Boutot and bass player Jack Strong to talk about the tour, the creative process and how they would imagine the world coming to an end. Here’s how it went.

So guys, how’s the tour going so far? I heard the Chelsea Grin couldn’t get into the country?
Kevin: Yea they had some fiasco with their passports.

Jake: Actually it’s not that, they actually hate Canadians. So they said fuck them we’re not going, we hate Canadians. They just had the worst stuff to say about Canada. Actually they thought it would be a good idea to put their passports into a Taco Bell bag for safe keeping, but someone decided to clean the van and through out everything. So that’s what happened.

Kevin: Other then that, the tour has been great. Every show there has been a good turn out, lotsa’ kids having fun. Moshing and head banging all night.

So your latest release Wormwood hit number 67 on the Billboard Top 200. How do you feel about that?
Jake: Upset that it didn’t hit 66, but other then that it was awesome.

Kevin: It’s kind of weird to hear your band on the top 200 anything really, so it’s really cool.

Why do you think this album has connected more then any of the others?
Jake: Well this is the longest we have ever played for, so our sound and everything is just more mature and more of what we want it to sound like. This is the album we’ve actually wanted to make for a while now and we went down to F tuning and used 8 strings, it was time to make a heavier record.

What is the writing process like in The Acacia Strain camp?
Kevin: Well for previous albums we used to just all sit around and jam stuff out and try to come up with the heaviest stuff possible, but for this album we did it differently. For the writing of this album we were on tour for the most part and our guitar player DL was at home taking care of his family and he would write a lot of riffs and then email them to us. We would send him little notes once we got them on things we wanted to change or any ideas we had with what he sent us. We never really had time to all be together and jam it out, but it seemed to have worked really well for us.

You guys are known to be quite the controversial band, what are your thoughts on that?
Jake: Well we don’t do it to be controversial, we are just who we are. All the stuff Vincent (singer) says on stage might be negative and controversial, but it’s just stuff we all firmly believe.

Being the negative and controversial band you are, I was wondering what you are positive about?
Jake: I’m pretty positive I just broke this lazer pointer… fuck!

Kevin: I’d have to say playing drums and being in this band. I love playing the music every night.

So if you were to go to jail for something, what do you think it wold be for?
Kevin: It would be for the amount of weed we have on us. [laughs]

If you had to pick a way for the world to end, what way would it be?
Kevin: Just everything stops. No bombs, no weird disease, but everything just ends.

Jake: Well that’s hardly interesting. it would be fire or ice… a little Robert Frost joke for you. Aliens though would be the most fucked up, would be so sick. Like some sort of Independence kinda shit going off.

What are your guys’ guilty pleasures?
Jake: Oh dude, all we do is listen to Dubstep in the van it’s literally insane. It’s the worst, funniest and best thing ever. I didn’t know what it sounded like until this tour. We even came up with our own dance move for it called “acid moshing” because Dupstep sounds like acid but it doesn’t last 12 hours long… and that’s way better.

So what do you guys have planned after this tour?
Jake: We go to Europe for a few weeks with Whitechapel and Impeding Doom for a few weeks and then we go on Warped Tour. They are starting to do more heavier stuff for Warped Tour along the side of what is normally played.  [ END ]