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What bands were you guys previously involved in?

Tim: With Dead Hands Rising....I filled in for Too Pure To Die. Figure that one out. It was pretty tight though because they just gave me their drink tickets every night. Those are my two.

Logan: I was in a band called Nehemiah, and then I played in a band called Coma Eternal. You know who else I was involved in, though? TJ, who played in a band called Death By Daily Ritual with me, he plays for Reggie and the Full Effect. I saw him yesterday. Steve from Nehemiah was in it, too. We only wrote like, two songs and they sucked. It was supposed to be like, Botch or Cave In or something, but it was before I was even in Nehemiah. It was five or six years ago, so we weren't very good at writing music.

So that was yesterday that you saw TJ?

Logan: Yeah, but I didn't actually talk to him. He was in a Dr. Satan outfit and covered in blood. They play the "Dwarf Invasion" song last at Warped Tour and they cover themselves in blood. So I didn't really get the chance to talk to him because I figured he was cleaning himself up.

Wait, the "Dwarf Invasion" song?

Logan: Yeah, do you know that song?

[singing] This is the dwarf invasion!

Logan: Yeah! And they had like, 20 people on stage covered in blood.

Tim: I think it was dudes from The Bled because they were telling them they had to get on stage to perform soon, two songs before.

How did both of you guys end up in Dead To Fall, and do you consider yourselves permanent members?

Logan: The deal with me is, I was in Coma Eternal and that band kind of fell to shit or whatever. So I was planning on moving home to Minnesota with some of the guys around here anyway, some of the dudes I'm currently in the band with or whatever. Dead To Fall called me up and asked me if I wanted to do a tour or two and I said I did, because it's like, a good experience or whatever. Fuckin...I don't know. I don't really know what kind of happened after that. I guess I just joined the band accidentally.

Tim: Uh...well.

Logan: We had problems with our drummer before, so I started talking to Tim and seeing what his availability was. Trying to figure out what he was doing in Minneapolis and in With Dead Hands Rising, just kind of seeing what was going on. So he expressed an interest.

Tim: I was working with With Dead Hands Rising. Their new EP just had come out. Logan was calling and saying he was probably coming home and wanted to start something for fun. So I found out he was going out with Dead To Fall and not going to do it anymore. I was mad for a minute, but I got over it. But then they asked me to go out on a tour and I said, "I don't know, I'm kind of stuck with the With Dead Hands Rising thing." I tried it and liked it, and then I did one last tour with With Dead Hands Rising and just ended up staying with Dead To Fall. It's so much better for me, personally. But I had known Logan through high school and stuff, like, the last couple of years.

Logan: We grew up in Minnesota together.

Do you guys ever feel odd playing a whole bunch of songs that you didn't have a hand in writing?

Logan: Yeah.

Tim: Yes, very much so.

Logan: They feel more natural now. They kind of grow on you, you get them engrained in your brain and you can sort of headbang funny and stuff. It gets you through it. But what you really want to be playing is your own stuff, obviously.

Tim: I mean, once you get used to the songs you kind of start playing them in a way that you're more comfortable and entertained. The songs start to sound a little bit differently and tailored to yourself. I enjoy playing them a lot more now than eight to ten months ago when I started.

Logan: Yeah, it's the same with me. Especially with a different drummer. The songs are more interesting, granted, a lot of it is even five or six years old.

Tim: Kids are still stoked on it. So it's entertaining live anyway.

Logan: It's cool.

Still speaking on writing, who is writing on the new album?

Logan: I think it's a mix of a lot of people. I started writing originally with my own songs, and now it's kind of everyone.

Tim: Pretty much everybody has their hands in it, I'd say. Jon's been coming up to Minneapolis to check things out and get some ideas and stuff like that. It's all pretty much on everybody's part.

So it's not like, more you and Logan, or more like Matt and Jon...

Logan: Sometimes me and Tim will sit and do all the slave work and stuff and get all the parts typed together, but we really like to have the opinions of other people. Kind of an outside perspective from someone who's not playing the songs to see what it sounds like and how it flows and shit.

How do you guys all work together to write something?

Logan: A lot of the person who's writing it, it's a lot of their input, and then asking for other people's input to see what they think. And if they want to try a certain part, they can try that part a couple times or whatever. Especially if you don't think it's a good idea or something. Throw that shit out.

Tim: I guess it's just taking risks and playing them as many different ways as you think you can and picking out which ones sound best. Certain drumbeats sound good with certain riffs and certain ones don't. So picking out which ones go and then writing a song around it.

So do you have anything in mind for how you want the new album to sound? Is there anything you're looking to incorporate into the music that the old stuff didn't touch on?

Logan: Yeah, it's a lot of darker stuff. It's going to sound distinctly darker. I guess that's all I can say. A lot of the same stuff, only darker and heavier. Still melodic metal. Some of the same aspects but we're going to explore a little more. The kind of stuff that we're going to put on this album is going to be a lot of heavy parts and a lot of groove that Dead To Fall goes into, but the drumming's going to be turned up because Tim's really good. We want to do a lot of thrashy parts than we've been known for and kind of pick up the pace a little bit more. But then we're also going to keep some songs real slow and driving. We're just going to do a lot that we haven't done before but keep the same vibe to it. More variations within a song and more cohesive.

Tim: We're going to write for a little bigger audience. The old stuff was more for hardcore just because of the mosh parts. There's still plenty of mosh to it, I guess it's just aimed towards a bigger audience so the parts are a little more clever or tasteful. It's more metal.

How many songs do you have done right now?

Logan: We've got one song that we can play, another song that's still being written, one song that's kind of a minute long and kind of a joke at this point that will be turned into a real song, and one song we worked on today that's about half done. We have a lot of ideas and things we've started. It's just a matter of finishing it up.

Are you considering anybody for recording or have you not gotten that far?

Logan: We think we're going with Eric Rachel.

Tim: The last record was recorded with him. Things went pretty smoothly I guess, and with the little bit of hold up they had, I think with having more time to work with Eric Rachel...

Logan: Yeah, we'll have a pretty good sounding album. Because we have musicians that can go in there and burn shit out now. Dead To Fall had a problem with that before. We're going to have plenty of time to put out a good record.

Tim: Eric's actually put a lot more stuff than I knew about. A couple months ago we toured through the studio and there's plaques everywhere. Records that have gone gold that I've never even heard about.

Like who?

Logan: The only thing I do remember is the last couple of God Forbid albums.

Tim: Yeah, he mixed the last A Life Once Lost record too.

Logan: Yeah, he does a lot of mixing too.

Tim: He mixed the last With Dead Hands Rising EP, actually.

So you guys are going to record and mix with him?

Logan: Yeah. In November or December, I think.

Tim: Right around Thanksgiving, actually. We just found out today. So there's going to be a random week off, so we might have to play a couple of shows there.

Does Chris Nolan from Endthisday and Coma Eternal still play bass for you guys?

[laughing]

Logan: Wow...what a weird question.

Tim: Um...

Logan: I don't know. Maybe? Probably not, I guess.

Tim: Since we got home from this tour, we basically took a month off where we weren't in a band to sort of clean things up. This last tour was pretty long and stressful and shit hit the fan quite a bit. And I mean, whatever, shit happens, but everybody just kind of disappeared. The thing with Chris is, I'm the only one who's still talking to him and like, he doesn't really express any interest in staying in the band. It's never a "yes" or "no" thing. He wants to do stuff. We're still friends and everything. He told me he still wanted to write with us and do stuff, but I guess just the environment doesn't work for him or maybe he had a change in mind. I'm not sure, things are uncertain, I guess.

So you're not directly writing with him?

Tim: No, he's been in Milwaukee the whole time. And the thing too, is like, it's kind of hard when nobody's talking and then you do some shows and when things are the way they are, when you do come out there, things are going to be awkward. I don't know, we're going to have to figure out some things within the next couple of days because we have shows coming up.

If you can't get Chris, who will you have playing those shows?

Logan: We're going to have Chad from Nehemiah filling in for bass. He's been hooking up and practicing with us.

So I guess that coincides with the question I was going to ask about all the rumors of the band losing members or breaking up.

Logan: Dead To Fall? Yeah, there's been a lot of talk on this last tour. There were points where everyone was pretty much done with the band, I think, but like, we kind of talked and decided it'd be best to keep going as Dead To Fall and to keep doing what we're doing.

Tim: I think kind of the cool thing about this band that I've figured out since touring with them is that, I guess Dead To Fall has this cliche of member losing thing, but honestly, Dead To Fall fans are pretty damn sweet because kids still come out and have a good time. I really think Dead To Fall has name recognition over member recognition. Honestly, I don't think people know how many people have been in Dead To Fall and how many fill-in members they've had, and I'm not going to say it, but it doesn't matter. This band has still been growing, even since I've joined. It's only been eight to ten months and I'm overwhelmed with all the tour offers we're getting. Things are picking up and it's getting fun. Nobody really knows how many member changes we've had. So I guess with all the member changing rumors, it's kind of irrelevant at this point.

Is there a reason Dead To Fall's always has had a revolving line-up like that?

Logan: There could be a lot of reasons. It's mostly because people move on in their lives. It's not because of one person or one thing, it's because people move on. Sometimes people in the band move on and sometimes someone in the band isn't a cool dude and turns out to be shitty, or someone in the band isn't really the same as everyone else. Whatever. It's why people end up quitting bands.

Tim: It's just that much harder because it's such a stressful life.

Logan: And I think because the precedent is there that in Dead To Fall, members come and go, it's not a big deal. People don't get so worked up about it. Maybe in other bands if somebody was thinking about quitting, they have a lot of fears about the fate of the band. But in Dead To Fall, it's different.

Are you guys still in touch with some of the older members in the band?

Logan: We haven't gone through too many since I've been in the band. I still talk to Chris. I haven't really talked to Matt recently, but I never really talked to him anyway. I stay in contact with everyone who's been in the band except for that one drummer.

Wait, Matt quit?

Logan: Yeah, he quit after the last tour. He's doing the last three shows with us and then he's done.

I didn't know he actually quit. Who are you getting to take his place?

Logan: Right now it's going to be Aaron from Nehemiah. He's the one who replaced me after I quit that band. We haven't actually done anything together though.

Was that kind of why Nehemiah broke up?

Logan: Kind of. But I guess the way we were talking about it, we were just going to have him fill in on the Obituary tour because we wanted to concentrate on writing as opposed to training another person, all the parts. He had already filled in on bass, so we figured that it'd be pretty easy to get him to play. He filled in on bass for us before earlier this year. He learned the parts in a night so we just figured that we'd be able to do the Obituary tour if we just had him on guitar and stuff.

Tim: He sort of came to us.

Logan: Yeah, since we asked him he asked if he could try out for Dead To Fall permanently. So we said it was up to him and that we didn't want to fuck Nehemiah over, but he just sort of made it seem like they were kind of unstable anyway. Two of the members wanted to get back to school and stuff. So it probably played a role in them breaking up, but it was Aaron's decision. It wasn't like we tried to steal him or whatever. He just wanted to do something different.

If Jon ever does decide to leave, is the band going to break up or will you guys just seek a replacement?

Logan: That was the case that we were kind of trying to deal with on this last tour. I guess I don't really know what would happen. We tried to brainstorm a lot of options, like, a whole bunch of different stuff. Crazy shit that we'd never think of. We were kind of at the point where we wanted to go on and we were seeking a replacement, but we didn't know what would happen. It's a matter of how we're going to stay a band after all these members and adapt to all these changes. He runs a lot of the business part of Dead To Fall, so it's just a matter of whether or not we could survive after that.

So what was the incident that occurred with Fight Paris?

[laughing]

Tim: Uh...

Logan: I was around so I'll tell the story. We were hanging out and drinking some Jagermeister with our friend and one of the members of Fight Paris wanted to drink the alcohol, which she let them do. I don't really remember what happened after that.

Tim: He made some comment to her and she pushed him, and then he pushed her into the chair and dumped the alcohol on her.

Logan: We didn't agree with how they treated a girl. Not even them in general, but just one of their members. So there was that incident. Most of the people in the band we're fine with now. It kind of got smoothed over. Nobody really cares anymore. I never have really dwelled on it too much. It just seemed like they were doing something shitty, but it was basically a misunderstanding.

Are there other bands that you don't necessarily get along with?

Logan: No, we're really pretty good with most bands I guess. We like to hang out with the dudes from Losa.

Tim: Yeah, Losa's probably one of the coolest bands we've toured with. Everybody's cool but for some reason we really try to keep in contact with those guys.

I read this older interview with Jon and one of the other members and the interviewer asked, "what are Atreyu like," and Jon said, "Uh..." and the other guy just said, "they're a bunch of fucking faggots, man."

[laughing]

Logan: I think they're alright. We hung out with them when we did a House of Blues show.

Tim: I thought they were pretty cool actually.

How did you get sponsored by ESP?

Logan: I just called the dude and harrassed him. I don't think he really cared who I was or what my band was, it was just the fact that we had a record label and they've worked with a lot of people on Victory before. So based on that and the fact that I kept calling them and I wasn't going to stuff sort of did it. Allen's been working with us a lot lately and kind of figuring out who we are as a band because I've just been telling him where we're at and stuff. He's helped me out a lot, personally. I've gotten two guitars from him, I'm pretty psyched about that.

Are there any tours that you guys have in the works or is now just sort of off-time for writing the album?

Logan: We had a tour offer to us before we took the time off and had the member changes. We're going out with Napalm Death and Obituary in September, I think. That's really the only tour confirmed that we have. We have more tours in the works, like, a pretty big metal tour that we might be on but we can't really announce it yet. The tours we've been getting offered are metal tours.

Are there bands you'd want to tour with but haven't gotten the chance to tour with yet?

Logan: Fuck, Soilwork. I want to tour with Soilwork.

Tim: Yeah, Soilwork.

Logan: We want to tour with fucking Darkane. If they came to America, we'd tour with them in a second. That's the band. I was pretty excited to tour with The Haunted just because they're sort of a metal legacy. All the tours that are coming up for us now are pretty much based on some of the work we did with those guys. They're pretty influencial. I'm not gay or anything, but yeah.

What?

Logan: No, I mean. I'm not gay or anything. I just wanted to quash a few rumors that have been floating around. Because I like Darkane and Soilwork so much.

What?

Logan: Shut up.

So what do you guys do now that you're not on tour?

Logan: We practice everyday. We come in here and practice in the afternoon and after that we kind of hang out and drive around. I don't know what we do.

Tim: Hang out with friends.

Logan: Yeah, we hang out with Bob.

What, hang out with dogs?

No, Bob.

Dob?

Bob. Hang out with Bob.

Who's Bob?

[indecipherible mumbling]

Are you guys fucking with me?

[laughing]

Logan: No.

You hang out with Bob Rock?

Logan: Bob Rock.

Okay. Do you guys still get a good turn out, even when it's the third or so show that you've played in a certain city or do you notice that less people come out?

Logan: Usually when you come to a place you get people who are pretty stoked on your show. Every time I've gone back to places, usually it's been more people as opposed to less. It's not diminishing at all. I'm not gay or anything, but when I joined the band a year ago, we toured with A Life Once Lost and we were getting like, 40 to 50 people a night. Now we can go out by ourselves and at least get 100-150 people. We get pretty good shows. It's getting better. Keep touring, that's what we want to do. It's a good way to help the band.

What's one thing you'd like to see changed in the music scene that you're in right now?

Logan: Hmm, that's a good question.

Tim: Uh...

Logan: Less bad bands getting big. More bands that put work into their music and that have talent. There's too many bands that are full of shit. I don't know. People who really deserve it. But then again, I don't know, who really deserves anything? More bands that know how to play fucking music.

Tim: More Rush cover bands. But I'm not gay or anything.

Logan: Whatever man, I just want to tour with Soilwork and Darkane.

So what have you guys been listening to lately?

Logan: I've been listening to a lot of the new Darkane and Meshuggah.

Tim: I really like that Mors Principium Est band.

Have you guys listened to that Biomechanical yet?

Logan: Yeah, I like that.

Tim: Yeah. It's good. I heard a couple tracks off that new In-Quest. I want to get that real bad.

Logan: A lot of Pantera, still.

Well, is there anything else you'd like to say in closing?

[laughing]

Logan: Have we started recording yet?

No.

[now laughing hysterically]

Logan: Thanks for doing the interview and thanks for your patience.

This is the worst interview ever.