Interview with Escape The Fate; A Conversation About the “Wrong Side of Heaven” Tour and Irony of New Album ‘Ungrateful’

The atmosphere was just buzzing with energy; you couldn’t tell that this was the last stop on the “Wrong Side of Heaven” tour. Before the show in Regina, Saskatchewan I met up with Escape the Fate at the Brandt Centre for an interview. The band was hanging out in the rink part of the building, four of the members were together with Robert off to the side on Skype. They were checking out funny videos on Vine… they take their music seriously, but not themselves. We talked about the irony of their new album Ungrateful, tour challenges, and new beginnings. Check it out!

Let’s talk about the new record.
Craig: We’re very proud of this record and the next one’s going to be even better.

I have your album… I was looking through the cover and I noticed that in the thank-you’s you write a lot about your families. How do you keep in touch with them and deal with life on the road?
Craig: It gets tough but the grass is always greener. Every time you’re home you wanna be on the road and when you’re on the road you wanna be home. But this tour we’ve got such a tight knight road family it’s a lot easier to deal with things like that.

Including the other bands or just you guys?
Craig: Our group.

TJ: We cleaned out all the bad on this tour and we’re all just happy every day and that’s so foreign to us because we were never happy on previous tours. Everyone would do their own thing, Robert wouldn’t talk to anyone (looks at Robert who is on his phone) we’re all [laughter]… and we have Max, the original bass player back. For the most part it’s cool though.

Max: I’m back so everyone’s a lot fuckin’ happier now. [everyone laughs]

Check out the song “You’re Insane”

So there is no drama on this tour… it’s good?
Craig: Ya, no drama.

So all of you guys are from LA?
Craig: Kevin’s from LA, Max is from Vegas, TJ’s from Scranton, I’m from Phoenix. But the band is based out of Las Vegas.

The band must have played at a lot of different venues and done a lot of tours?
Craig: Well, we used to tour with each other in a lot of different bands over the years so that’s kind of cool.

Ya I was wondering how guys met each other.
Craig: We all met each other by touring with each other and now we’re all in the same band…. And now the band name actually means something.

How did you pick the title for your album?
Max: Well, ironically enough, I had a completely different title for the album that I wanted to use. It got shut down because our lead guitar player said that he wanted to name the album Ungrateful because he knew that he had be ungrateful in the past: by cancelling tours, not showing up for interviews, not showing up for signings, not being a team player – almost drove this band to breaking up. We finished this record. And he’s like I wanna name this record Ungrateful, and we’re like, “Good for you; nice to see that you’re on the same page with us now.” This is our first big tour off that album and he bailed on us again. So he cancelled right before the tour.

Craig: So this is the new crusty crew from now on.

Max: Ya this is the new crusty crew. So this is it from now on and it will be a fun album cycle to play off that album title because apparently dude’s still is ungrateful.

That’s crazy. Wow!
Craig: Ya we almost didn’t make this tour. He quit three days before.

TJ: Let’s talk about the beginning of this tour how we toured in a fuckin’ mini van and our manager drove us around.

So your lead guitar player quits and you get to tour in a mini van so it didn’t star off very well.
TJ: No it didn’t. It was a fucking mess.

Craig: It was a nightmare.

And, now?
Craig: The show must go on.

TJ: And now we have everyone back who wants to be here.

Craig: And it’s literally been the smoothest running tour I think this band has ever done.

TJ: Just get rid of all the negative.

Craig: And that poison’s gone. It’s like trying to pee with kidney stones. Hurts. You get rid of the kidney stones you’re pissing with ease. That’s what we did; we got rid of the stones. [laughter]

Craig: Green Mile was on the other day, okay, leave me alone.

Check out the song “Ungrateful”

What’s your favourite drink to wind down with after a show?
Craig: My usual poison is whiskey.

TJ: Good old bottle of red wine and some cheese.

Thrasher: Usually whatever Craig is serving up at the bar.

Whiskey usually?
Thrasher: Whiskey, fire balls, jagerbombs…

Max: A nice chateaux marmeau fuckin’ 78. [laughter] No… I don’t really know. I haven’t really thought about that. Whatever’s in the fridge when no one’s around looking that I can just take and drink really quick. Like the other night I had someone’s Mountain Dew. It was tasty.

Thrasher: Dude, I saw that Mountain Dew for four days straight and I kept thinking about taking it.

Max: Ya, that’s the one. [everyone laughs]

Craig: If your name’s not on it then it’s fair game.

You snooze you lose?
Craig: Exactly.