Arkaea Interview
By Rei Nishimoto
For two decades, Fear Factory became one of the most influential heavy metal bands on the heavy music scene. The LA based band released seven full length releases (including two full length releases without original guitarist Dino Cazares), in which fans recognized them for their powerful blend of hard driving guitar riffs, lightning speed drumming, and a vocal style that switched between a raw, shouted style and a clean, melodic style throughout their songs.
After the release of their 2005 release Transgression, drummer Raymond Herrrera and guitarist Christian Olde Wolbers began writing songs that were originally intended for a new Fear Factory record. But once band vocalist Burton C. Bell chose to work on his side project Ascensions of the Watchers instead, the two members shifted their energies towards something else. Their new band Arkaea was finally born in 2007.
"This was essentially supposed to be the next Fear Factory record," explained Herrera. "There were some personal differences, I guess you can say, so we decided to take the songs and do something else with them. Obviously we weren't going to do Fear Factory at the time."
So Herrera and Olde Wolbers continued to work on new songs and began shaping their sound around new members in the band. They began by recruiting vocalist Jon Howard (of the Canadian metal band Threat Signal), which they were familiar with from past touring.
"It was Christian's idea to get Jon and Pat (Kavanaugh) involved. Christian had already worked on the Threat Signal record, so he was good friends with Jon and Pat. I hadn't really met Jon before. I may have spoken to him once or twice - kinda say hi to the guys. I didn't really know them that well at the time."
"We had sent songs we had written up to that point to Jon. He heard some of the stuff and started doing vocals on it. I thought 'wow, this guy's really good.' He's doing a really good job. So it kind of snowballed from there. We kept sending him stuff and he was sending stuff back. I was starting to get ideas as an answer to what he was doing. It's a collaborative effort, even though he's in Toronto. It built from there. We wrote some of the stuff here (at the studio). We wrote some stuff at Christian's house. We kept writing like a normal record, and before you knew it, we had 12 songs."
"When Christian and I had branched off, we already had eight songs for the next Fear Factory record, which eventually became Arkaea. When Jon got all of these songs, it almost had a whole record done at that point. He had his work cut out for him."
Over the past two years, they slowly worked on their songs until they were satisfied with the results. Their debut album, Years in the Darkness (out July 14 through E1 Music) is the end result, where songs such as 'Locust' and 'Beneath the Shades of Grey' remind longtime fans of the similarities to Fear Factory, as well as new elements added along the way.
Plus with Howard joining the band, he refined their songs to fit his vocal dynamics to the music. "A lot of the better changes are in nuances where I was able to write around his vocals. He has a different rhythmic vocal style with verses, where I had to change my style just a touch to make those parts stand out more. The style of drumming is still the same. It's a different animal. He's very hard working. In a one-week period, he banged out seven songs and it was 80 percent there. It's unheard of for us. It's really good to have a guy who's really hungry and eager. He gets it that it's a good opportunity," said Herrera.
Arkaea is currently working on a summer tour, which will be announced through the band's Myspace page (www.myspace.com/arkaeamusic). There are talks about an Arkaea remix CD, as well as a XBOX video game featuring Arkaea's music to be released in the near future.
