by Joseph Czikk
Almost one year ago, Attack in Black released their third full length album and arguably the best indie release of 2009. The disc was called Years (by One Thousand Fingertips) and it brought forth yet another fantastic avenue of their continually changing sound. In the midst of finishing up their next release and with talks of putting together a live DVD, Attack in Black will be at the eBar in Guelph this Wednesday. The Ontarion caught up with guitarist Spencer Burton who shed some light on Years as well as some of the recent developments for the guys from Welland.
The Ontarion: Years took an obvious change of direction, departing from your harder, more punk-oriented sound on previous records. Although this alienated fans resistant to a change of direction, it was a fantastic record that brought along many new supporters with it. How did this change come about?
Spencer Burton: Basically, we were going to record a pre-album-album. We had all these songs, but we also had all these other songs. So we wanted to record an album to put out before we put out the album, literally put it out a week before. We recorded it in our basement over a few weeks. One day we’d record three songs, one day half of one. One night I recorded a song at like four in the morning and we had all had a half bottle of whiskey each. It was just crazy recording, but we finished and we were like ‘this is cool, we like this. Lets just take this [material] out of the real album and save those other songs.’ So, we ended up just putting out these songs which would become Years.
O: I know with past albums like Marriage, band members Daniel Romano and Ian Kehoe were responsible for the song writing. What was different about Years?
SB: We each came to the table with our own songs. With [ EP The Curve of the Earth] we each wrote three songs and with Years it was like that. A lot of them were collaborations of the entire band, all together. We all wrote the lyrics and songs and everything came together. No song was really written without everyone else’s input. But Kehoe is always really good with words; He’s got input on everybody’s lyrics. We’ll go to him and say, “hey man, you got any ideas?.”
O: With the upcoming eBar date in mind, how do you guys like playing Guelph?
SB: Guelph itself is a really cool city. The people who come out to the shows are always very cool people, and through the people I’ve met its just a nice community. I’m really excited, I actually really miss playing there.
O: What’s the news with the upcoming release as well as the speculation about a live DVD release?
SB: We’ve done the demos already (its 10 songs) and were just gonna wait for the label to give us the go ahead. The demos are done and probably at the end of this tour we’re gonna go back into the studio and do some proper recording. It’ll probably take a few weeks, but I’d like to release it in September or maybe early August so we can tour right after. As for the live DVD we’re just playing with the idea. For the first half of this tour, our friend Dan Weston came out and recorded all the shows and Ian has been recording every show so far. We just want to keep doing it until we get that perfect show and from there we’ll see where we’re at.
Attack In Black will be playing the eBar in downtown Guelph on Feb. 10 with One Hundred Dollars.