Rising the Ranks

Shadows Fall, like most of the bands involved in the metal scene these days, have not had the benefit of things like massive publicity campaigns or the use of mainstream media peddling their songs over television and the radio airwaves on a regular basis. How then, did The War Within, Shadows Fall’s latest batch of melodically pummeling metal, manage to debut at #20 on Billboard’s Top 200, selling nearly 40,000 copies in its first week? The answer: With a combination of good old-fashioned word-of-mouth attention and a dedication to touring, the result of which has landed them a headlining spot at this year’s incarnation of Ozzfest. Synthesis discussed this newfound noteriety with vocalist Brian Fair.

The guitar opening on The War Within is classic Metallica. In fact, it seems like the whole album gives off a vintage metal vibe. Was there a conscious effort going into creating the record to incorporate more of an old-school feeling than usual?
We were listening to a lot of Metallica, Testament and the early Bay Area thrash stuff. The more melodic influences on The War Within have always been there with us, it just took us awhile to get the confidence to not care anymore and do what we wanted. And by starting to mature and get away from the death metal a little, our newer stuff definitely gives off more of that classic vibe.

Congratulations on making it to the main stage at Ozzfest this year. Would you agree that without the kind of radio exposure that some other genres rely on, it seems like touring is the single most effective way to reach new fans in the metal scene today?
Touring in general is definitely the biggest way to spread the word on this type of music, and for a while, it was the only way. I also think that this kind of music is best experienced in a live setting anyway, since the energy comes across a lot more. These days there’s been a little more interest from commercial radio and stations like MTV and Fuse, but if you rely just on that, I don’t think you’ll get too far, because the real way to do it is just to get out there on the road, try to kick ass and have the kids spread the word on their own.

Plus, you’re probably going to develop a more loyal following by having people check out a show rather than a new single.
Definitely. All the bands we’ve tried to base our career on, bands like Iron Maiden and some of the old thrash bands did it that way. You know, they never had the hit singles. Instead, they just stayed out on the road, put out quality records, maintained the fan base they always had and slowly tried to build on that… It really creates a unifying aspect to the scene because metal was always such an underground thing in the past, that I think people still kind of have that mentality. I think it creates a much more supportive scene than some other genres have.

It seems like the average age of metal’s core audience has been steadily decreasing over the years. What do you think has changed, if anything, that would be consistently drawing in the younger crowds these days?
I think it’s just the accessibility of music in general, whether it’s the Internet, digital cable or satellite radio that has opened up these bands to the kids. I mean, before, if you were young, to find out about a good hardcore band, you pretty much had to have a cool friend or neighbor who would play you some random 7-inch or something. But now, kids have such a huge choice of what they can listen to, from indie labels all the way up, and then these festivals, like Warped Tour and Ozzfest allow them to come check them out in a live setting.

Yeah, to some extent, it seems like Ozzfest is doing for metal what Warped Tour has been doing for punk in terms of making it accessible to a much larger audience. How’s the tour going so far this year?
It’s going really well. The age range of the audience this year is unreal. We’ve got the kids coming out to see a lot of the second stage bands. And then there’s the old-school guys coming to see Iron Maiden and Sabbath. There’s also a much larger number of families coming out, which is awesome because we’re getting to see so many different generations of metal heads.

Bookmark:

Comments down for maintenance.