Job For A Cowboy Bassist Nick Schendzielos on ‘Moon Healer,’ Their Hiatus, and Life Choices

If you were a death metal fan during the MySpace era, then Arizona tech/deathcore crew Job For A Cowboy would have been a familiar name. However, what made the US tech/death band stand out at the time was how their brand of progressive, experimental brutality sat well outside the circle of some of the more fashion-led acts of that period.

A group that continued to push the boundaries of extreme metal even when we all moved onto new, ahem, better social media platforms, 2014 saw the release of their boundary-smashing Sun Eater album then… nothing. No tours. No real news. Just no Job For A Cowboy. Until now.

Having been teasing fans with new music for a couple of years now, the band finally made their return in earnest with the release of “The Agony Seeping Storm” back in August 2023. Unsurprisingly, the extreme metal scene began a frenzy at the thought of a new album. That recording eventually came last month when the guys dropped their trippy, techy, progressive fifth album, Moon Healer.

So, what the hell has been going on with Job For A Cowboy? To find out and learn all about Moon Healer, V13 chatted with bassist Nick Schendzielos.

I was around when you guys first kind of came onto the scene, so it’s great to have you guys back. Plenty to talk about. Firstly, when the new music dropped, there was a lot of excitement from fans. Did that surprise you?

“Yeah, there’s a part of you that thinks did we wait too long? Sun Eater we got a really good response from it. People were stoked about it overall and we were. It’s one of my favourite records to listen to, and I don’t like listening to my music. It’s kind of weird, you know? But that one I’ve always loved. I always come back to it. I’m like, “Man, this is such a cool piece of art that we made.”

So we always had in the back of our mind, we knew that we had teased around 2018 even, though it’s been a long time since we’ve written anything and, we knew the Necrophagist memes and the skeleton passed out at the keyboard. So, the hype was real then, we could tell people were like, “Oh fuck, they’re gonna fucking put something out.”

It just kept taking us forever and forever and forever. Did we miss the nostalgia hype? I think, so far, from the response, it seems to be doing pretty good and hopefully people dig the whole thing.”

“It’s been a long time since we’ve written anything and, we knew the Necrophagist memes and the skeleton passed out at the keyboard…”

Now you’ve seen the reaction from fans, what can fans expect from the rest of the record?

“I think what I loved about the singles that we chose to do, and dropping them in that order too, you might think that you have a good idea of where the whole rest of the record will go, but there’s a lot of other twists and turns left. I’ve talked to a couple of people just doing press this last couple of weeks that were like, I specifically didn’t listen to any of the singles because I want to hear the album as a whole and I thought that was cool, but that’s a dying breed of full album listeners. People are into singles. and don’t have the attention span for full records, but this one’s kind of meant to be done as a full album.”

Is that how you want people to listen to it?

“I think so. We picked the song order pretty meticulously to have a particular flow of the journey that this character goes on. It’s designed kinda like a rollercoaster ride, there are lots of twists and turns that we worked on very, very, very hard over a very long period of time to make sure that it makes sense. It’s not like you’ll be like, “What the fuck, this part doesn’t fucking make sense.” It all flows, which takes forever, but it’s all leading you to a place.

It leads you to the last song. It leads you to the forever route. The destination of the record is that last song. So, in that aspect, I think you’ll get more out of it if you do the full record. It’s only like 38 minutes. It’s not a big old 72 minute Reload.”

That’s the next record right…?

“Yeah, we’re going to completely cover the entire Load and Reload together. There’s a couple of good songs on Load…”

There’s a couple but let’s not have that conversation though.

“That was my first Metallica record that came out after becoming a fan, so it was still cool to me because it’s new Metallica. I’ll always have that connection to it, despite it being stylistically a further turn away from one through four.”

Metallica is a band that pushes boundaries, can you appreciate that?

“Yeah. A guy I was just talking to earlier today said, stylistically, “You’re a completely different band from the Doom EP to this, but I see that bands want to grow and want to change, that’s part of growing as a musician.” Sometimes you luck out and fans love the direction and grow with you to that new direction and then sometimes you know, they don’t and that’s okay.

There are Doom fans that are just Doom fans and they’ve not been a fan of anything since, because we put out this EP in 2006 and then everything afterwards is not deathcore so they didn’t want anything to do with it but we still get called a deathcore band, you know? I think for people that are willing to be open to it, even Doom fans, or even if you’re more of like Ruination, Demonocracy, the hyper-tech stuff, even those people, if you open yourself up to it, all those elements are in there but we’re weaving them into a different kind of a story.”

Before we dig into the album, I want it to go back. It’s probably something you’ve covered a million and one times over the last few weeks and that is that whole period after the last album came out. I was around when Job For A Cowboy emerged in that MySpace deathcore generation…

“Did you have the haircut?”

Not quite, and not now…

“You had to wear your sister’s jeans too…”

Job For A Cowboy ‘Moon Healer’ Album Artwork

Well, that was never going to happen especially not these days but that’s another conversation anyway. Somebody made a comment along the lines of things things that were there then the next day weren’t. I think the example was one day you’re on AOL Chat and then the next day you come home from college and you just weren’t and didn’t use it again. That kind of resonated a bit as it felt like that with you guys. One day everybody was hyped up about Job for a Cowboy and the music and the albums, and then the next day you guys just weren’t there. Did it feel like that for you, or was it a gradual thing?

“I know what you mean. So, when I joined in 2011, I came right into recording Gloom. That was the very first thing I did. We’d rehearse for one day, I don’t even remember whose house that was, someplace in Boston, then immediately drove and started recording with Jason Suecoff. For me, it was go-go-go right from the very beginning with the band. We were touring a lot, cranking out records.

We immediately did Demonocracy in 2012 and then in 2013 we started writing Sun Eater. It was very go, go, go. It was hard because once Sun Eater dropped and loved the record the way that I did and I think that all of us did, it was tough when we realised we were not going to tour anymore. We’re not going to go out for this. It was just a life thing. People had to do what they wanted to do.

I think Jonny wanted to get married and have kids… I don’t know. Growing up the way he did or just in general seeing other bands that have kids and stuff, you’re missing key moments of the kid’s life. I think that he wanted to be a great father and I think that he made that choice to not miss the first step or the first word.

Going out and touring was a double-edged sword because, on one hand, it’s like you put out what I thought was the greatest record of our career… band-defining, it felt like that was our first record for me. It’s such a stylistic change, but we nailed what we wanted to write. We made something we wanted, and it resonated. To then go to no touring, no nothing for it and then then fucking disappear. Our van went up in fucking flames. Al, he’s like a contractor so he had all these tools in the van, and I think a battery from a fuckin’ drill made the whole thing catch fire. It was just gnarly, there’s this gnarly picture of it on our Instagram, of the van, it looks like a movie, just totally in flames, I guess it lent itself then that we knew.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Job For A Cowboy (@jfacofficial)

Then, we did the one-show World Tour in Vancouver in 2016 and Tony just started sending stuff. He’s always playing guitar. He’s playing guitar when he’s not being a doctor, which is what he does now. He went to Med School in Ireland and now he’s a Doctor. He’s always sending tracks. It was around 2017/18 we realised there was a record here. There’s a record there so we just started this refinement process which was a very slow process. It was almost like, for the speed with which stuff was written, we could have been sending CDs to each other across the pond.”

I remember that era well…

“The Mayflower carrying the new record over and you gotta do your part and send it back. So in 2019, we got serious about being like, “We think these are done…”, so then it took forever to get it nailed down. Drums took till the Summer of 2020, and then because of the lockdowns and everything, it made it tough to get Tony over to the States because he was in Med School, so he could only take time off when he had allotted time. So if we rush guitars and do two weeks, that’s tough because there are a lot of tracks. He would have two weeks off but he would be flying over for two weeks of recording then when he goes back to Ireland, they had to do 10 days of quarantine so Tony just had to record himself.

Which he did. He did a fucking great job. Then we send it to Suecoff to put it together. Two years later I do bass in July of ’22, and we’re thinking Jonny’s coming in right after that, right? New Year’s Eve 2022 into 2023 is when Jonny gets down to Suecoff’s and finally gets the vocals done.

Then we started the mixing process, and then the mastering was a whole thing too. It was just this massive undertaking but I’m just grateful that it’s here. It’s real. I’m holding it in my hands. All that fucking eight years of work, it finally is coming out.”

“There’s a record there so we just started this refinement process which was a very slow process. It was almost like, for the speed with which stuff was written, we could have been sending CDs to each other across the pond.”

It almost feels like you’d have done the record a disservice by bashing it out in two weeks because you’re the kind of band that needs it to be perfect.

“Yeah, especially after that long and that’s the thing, that pressure builds up. We didn’t have time pressure, which was great, but then this other pressure built up.

So there was a lot of comparing and contrasting. We’d go back and listen to Sun Eater even more than I already did because we’re wondering if this is as fucking good as Sun Eater? Are we nailing that vibe? We had to consistently use it as a reference point to see if we were stepping it up. Are we trying to make it something better if we can?”

There’s been talk of new music since 2018. Sun Eater came out in 2014 but it feels like you went away, there was never a definitive end…

“ I think we knew, even when we put Sun Eater out, we knew from the get-go that it was gonna be a sequel. It was gonna be like a sister record. They were like the Sun and Moon. I tossed around the name… my buddy gave it to me. So I tossed it to Jonny said he wouldn’t want to use the word eater twice. So he just dug and dug conceptually into all this crazy esoteric, Gnostic, psychedelic research and then he came up with Healer.

So, for the amount of time we put into it, like, there was no real break up. We’ve been working on shit the entire time but, when you take 10 years, people kind of assume that the band isn’t doing anything anymore.”

You said that you felt it was gonna be a sister record. Thematically then, how are the two connected? Given the time difference, was there material left over from the last album to lead into this record?

“I don’t think anything was left over but Tony’s just a machine writing stuff and he is always getting better and better and he got into a lot of like really sick guitarists who you wouldn’t expect metal shredder guitarists to get into. A lot of country players, and blues-type stuff with like a lot of hybrid picking. So you’re using your pick and using the other fingers on top and then he was melding this stuff in. He advanced his playing quite a bit. I think there was a little bit of that playing on the guitar playing on Sun Eater.

Then, I think just by nature of us putting the bass in the mix where it got a lot of attention so I think, either consciously or subconsciously, it’s this undeniable, insane fucking guitar work on this record. I think that we knew that we wanted to step things up in that direction.”

Is the theme/series going to or could you see it continue?

“I know stylistically / musically it’s gonna be a progression and it’s gonna be in the same vein and maybe even get weirder. These two records are tied together… who are we, where did we come from, where are we going, and what happens when we die? It’s all about this one character who goes on this insane journey in his life specifically through chemical usage, trying to find the theory of everything, trying to find the answer to those perennial questions…

Moon Healer is way further down the rabbit hole of those same concepts that were sort of talked about on Sun Eater. What if that guy kept going off the deep end and made his chemicals and started mixing compounds and we got into watching like Altered States and rereading a lot of the books that I got into? I was sharing a lot of them with Jonny, guys likeRick Strassman, The Spirit Molecule and this author, Daniel Pinchbeck that I spent some time down in Costa Rica with, he’s got some crazy cool stuff.

A lot ofPhilip K. Dick, a lot of that type of stuff too. We’re representing this character’s journey into the other realms, whether he was hallucinating all this if he’s schizophrenic or if he did die. We kept it open for interpretation, but it’s the same person throughout both records.”

“It’s all about this one character who goes on this insane journey in his life and specifically through chemical usage, trying to find the theory of everything, trying to find the answer to those perennial questions…”

Going back to what we said at the beginning about listening to the record as a whole, do you think it’s important that it will be easier for people to interpret if they listen to it as a whole rather than picking their favourite tracks out or?

“I think so, and I would probably start with Sun Eater. Sun Eater front to back all the way through and then Moon Healer because Sun Eater ends where Moon Healer picks up. I was going to do that one thing where we even use a piece of the last riff of Sun Eater and just blend it in. We ended up not doing that, but what if at the beginning of Moon Healer it accomplished the same kind of thing blasting off from where that one left off…”

There’s been a 10-year gap, do you think Moon Healer would have been the same record if you had to record it after the usual touring cycle and then gone straight into writing the record?

“Great question, and I think it would not be what it is because Tony had to grow a lot as a player which is saying a lot because he was so fucking good already in the Sun Eater time frame in 2013/2014. The stuff that he’s playing, he had to go on his journey, just putting in all this work and growing as a person too.

He fucking went to all levels of college, including fucking getting his medical degree, you know? He’s moved to a new country with his wife. The middle of fucking Ireland somewhere, just totally changed. He’s not the same person so I think that it would be different. Might’ve been a cool record still, but it wouldn’t be this. That’s how our lives are, right? Every little choice that we make branches us off to a slightly different future, and I think that we wouldn’t be the people we are today if we hadn’t made all those same choices.

Not saying that you would be better or not if you made different choices, just different. It’s just who we are.”

Do you have any regrets about the journey or do you have any, anything you’d have done differently in life or the record?

“Bought a bunch more Bitcoin then sold it when it was at 70. Al got us all into buying Bitcoin and then was trading the Bitcoin back in 2013 when Doge was like 0.00007, whatever it was. Finally, once Doge started making its way into the news around two, or three years ago, it was getting towards like 60, 70 cents or whatever. I looked at the amount and I had like 200 fucking grand but when I checked I hadn’t taken the money out and put it in my wallet. The guy took all the money and left the country. So he fucking kept 200 grand in his pocket.

Record-wise I would love to have done this earlier, even had this come out in maybe 2020. We were shooting for that, honestly. It would be like I think it’s gonna be this year then this happened, this happened, then it’s gonna be 2021, okay… then it’s gonna be 2022. and then ’23. Finally, we mixed it, it’s done, it’s January, right? We turned it into Metal Blade and they’re like… 2024.

Maybe it would be different. Maybe everything would be a little different. I would imagine it’s like having kids or something. You love the kids so I wouldn’t change anything, you know?”

“Every little choice that we make branches us off to a slightly different future, and I think that we wouldn’t be the people who we are today if we hadn’t made all those same choices. Not saying that you would be better or not if you made different choices, just different.”

Jonny talked in a recent interview about how this is very much a passion project for him now. What does Job For A Cowboy mean for you?

“For me, it’s probably my most, as far as my name, not being a ghostwriter, which is something else I do where I get to play anything I want, in the metal world, my tech death or whatever you want to call the genre, my extreme metal world, it’s really like the most free place for me to express myself. It’s a passion for me. I would love to be able to turn it up to a higher degree. If we could make 200 grand a year and go back and do touring again and bring our family because we’ll have the money to do it who knows? I think that everyone is just content in their lives and that’s cool so I accept what I can get out of that for doing live stuff.

I think that as we continue to do more live things, who knows? We played Blue Ridge, and everybody felt like we were on cloud nine after that show. Even Tony, who seemed a little apprehensive just because it’s such a for him to fucking get over here from Ireland, to get the time off to prep for the tours. We got to rehearse because you don’t tour all the time we need four or five days of getting in a room together and working all these parts out. It’s a lot of work for him.

I could tell that as we were going through that process we said thank you for for doing this man. We know he has got this whole crazy other life but, after the show, he even sent an email saying he’d been watching video and we gotta do more. I think that the way that the band’s gonna go. It’s got nothing to do with the money side of it.

You work your whole life to get to that point as a musician, where you could do this amount of touring and make what you used to make in like years. It’s also kind of cool that they don’t care. They do not care about that money they just wonder if is it going to be fun. Our friends are going to be there. Festivals sound enticing because we want to go and hang out with all the friends we met over 20 years of touring. That side of it, the passion, it’s fun to play this stuff and express this stuff to people live as well.”

The other side to that, the respect thing as well that you know what your boundaries are, what other people’s lives are…

“Yeah, I definitely would say that… The thing is you know that you’re in this business together but it’s more than a business it’s a five-way relationship when you’re in a band. When somebody says they want to make a massive change in my life you have to have enough respect for each other to be okay with that and reassure them that we’re not gonna replace you because it’s about that connection that we have so we’ll just wait and we’ll do it when we can do it.”

You talked about Blue Ridge and getting on stage again. What was that like when it all clicked? Did it feel like it did when Sun Eater came out?

“It was immediately like meeting up and being in the van or being in the rehearsal space with each other. We didn’t skip a beat. It was great. Even all the old inside jokes that I hadn’t even thought of for 10 years were just. It was like that part of your brain just clicked on and we were right back to being on Mayhem Tour in 2013. Chemically on stage as well it was just great. It was so cool. I love Tony’s parts in everything, he plays some of my favourite solos. It’s so cool to go over next to him on stage thinking “Here’s this solo I’ve heard a thousand times, and I’m getting to watch my buddy play it.”

Smiling, and having fun, and it was very magical, and I think the fans could feel it too.
Bringing Will out on stage from Lorna ShoreL>, which was super cool because it was kind of like a baton pass. That technological evolution allowed this virility to kind of happen for the band. First, it was Myspace and Job For A Cowboy and then it was TikTok and Lorna Shore. Jonny gives Will this little tap on his chest and there it is, he’s passing the Deathcore baton. Or that one deathcore song we still play…”

Going back to a comment you made earlier about an idea of using the last riff from Sun Eater starting Moon Healer, do you see a world where you played both albums together?

“I’d love that. I love the concept of that. I love it when bands do that. I think it’s a statement too as, stylistically, Sun Eater and Moon Healer were the birth of a new band. I look at Moon Healer almost like our second record to me, it feels like that. To get both of them played together, I think it would be a cool statement.

I think it would be a great way to like especially multi-cam film it, get the multi-track, so that way we can have documentation that people can get to experience it live because it’s not going to be six months of touring, man. If you see us on a bill, and it’s anywhere close to you, and you want to see it, you should go. There’s not going to be giant, long tours at least in the foreseeable future. I mean, that could change. My goal is to always… I was pushing for that, even for Blue Ridge, I said “Why don’t we just play Sun Eater in its entirety, and then “The Agony Seeping Storm”?” I kind of lose that argument to “What about all the people that love Ruination, or Demonocracy…?”

“I love Tony’s parts on everything, he plays some of my favourite solos. It’s so cool to go over next to him on stage thinking here’s this solo I’ve heard a thousand times, and I’m getting to watch my buddy play it.”

Yeah, your back catalogue was genre-defining…

“What do you think when you go see a band and they’re playing one record in its entirety?”

It depends on the record and the band. I’ve seen Slayer do Reign In Blood which was amazing on the other hand, I’m a huge Cannibal Corpse fan, but I dunno whether I’d like to see them do an album in full…

“Right. I guess it is dependent upon the album. That’s why it would make sense to me because it was such a shift and that stuff has never really gotten to be played live. The other songs have gotten their due so I’m going to I’m going to bring it up again. The next time we talk about getting our set list together, I’m going to tell them that I’ve had four different dudes say we need Sun Eater and Moon Healer in its entirety.

It wouldn’t be that bad either. That would be maybe an hour and a half wouldn’t it? 80 minutes?”

In terms of that show, looking at the psychedelic trippy artwork of the album, that would work visually for a live show as well…

“Yeah, that’s another element I’m trying to incorporate. I pushed hard for that. Everybody was down on Blue Ridge, we needed an LD which we hadn’t travelled with before since I joined the band back during the the heyday. I want to do a video. I want to enhance the production element side of it, especially with all this trippy content it just would make sense.

I always love guys like Amon Tobin. Dude, there was one show I watched from him, 10 years ago, where he was doing all this projection and you didn’t know where he was on stage. Is he inside the little tube doing his thing? Or where was he? Then you realise, that’s not a cube, that’s a that’s a sphere. It just changed your perception. This is so fucking cool. I would love to do something special. I think a show is 50% watching it and in today’s day and age you have to try to make it an experience.”

To pick up your copy of Moon Healer, head over to the Metal Blade store here.