Interview w/ AJ Jacobs of Mutiny Within

Headed on I-94 towards a show in Chicago in a van in January is one of the sure tell tale signs of an up and coming band is paying their dues. The New Jersey based band Mutiny Within is proving their worth out on the road right now with Arch Enemy and Exodus prior to the February 23^rd release of their self titled album. With songs like “Oblivion” and “Year of Affliction”, the band is flying the flag for keeping real melody within metal music, and not the so called melody metal pundits want to pass off as that.

Before the show in Chicago, I had a chance to talk with founder and bassist AJ Jacobs about how they landed their lead singer from England of all places, and what we will expect to hear on the debut. Here’s my interview with AJ:

AM: Has the Arch Enemy tour been your biggest tour to date?
AJ: I’d probably say so. We’ve been out on the road a few times since last September. We went out on the road with Soulfly and Prong back in the fall, and learned a lot from those guys. There were some great experiences and its helped us out a lot on this tour now as well. It helped us with the writing and record for the record as well.

AM: For the upcoming record, how was the first time in a major studio to record an album?
AJ: The recording was tough, as expectations were high with being on a label as big as Roadrunner. We originally recorded 50 songs for the record and had to pair it down to 11 songs. With the first time, you gotta get it right- they’ve gotta all be winners. With this record, I think we were trying to find our sound and when you right 50 songs for a record, the types of songs you write are gonna be all over the place, so we paired it down to represent a little bit of everything.

AM: What do you feel are the major themes on this album?
AJ: Well, you write what you feel. I think Chris (lead singer) wrote a lot of the lyrics to be very open ended and left for interpretation. With the amount of songs we wrote for the record, the themes are taken from a little bit of everywhere. But at the same time, we didn’t want to have one underlying theme and leave it open for the listener to develop an opinion on what the lyrics and music mean to them.

AM: The band’s lead singer is from England- how did you guys find out about him and lure him to the US?
AJ: (laughs). You Tube. We were on You Tube, checking out different singers and came across Chris. We knew we wanted a professional sounding lead singer, and we liked what we heard with Chris. We sent him and message and some of the early demos and see what he could do. From there, we started calling each other and worked on a way to get him to the States for this band. The passion of the music was the main drive that brought him here. But there was a lot of the behind the scenes stuff, visa, work, etc, that came along, but it got handled.

AM: New Jersey has quite the metal scene going on- how did the scene treat the band over the years?
AJ: I think it is a great scene. You’ve got places like the Starland Ballroom that every band, metal or not always plays. Plus, you are really close to New York City and there are a ton of places to play there- that’s where you really make it. You can’t tour without touring in New York City.

AM: How important is it for your band to keep melody in metal these days?
AJ: To be honest, I’m not sure. There are so many bands in metal right now, with so many different varying sounds and a lot of them are great. I think it’s a very strong time for metal right now. But for us, we just want to keep a balance between being heavy, but also melodic at the same time. We like to balance out our influences, some are metal, some are not. But for us, the melody and the heaviness is big for us.

Mutiny Within’s debut comes out February 23^rd on Roadrunner Records. The band will next play Detroit on April 10^th with Sonata Arctica at Blondie’s. Check out www.myspace.com/mutinywithin for band info and other future dates.