CHIMAIRA is a band and a bunch of guys that I have known and seen for many years now. Like most fans of certain genres you attach yourself to the bands that stand out in the pack and leave a mark with every album. Although I have seen the guys from the start of their career, I respected the band but was never a full blown fan…that is until I got my hands on the new disc THE INFECTION. To me there is a new light that has ignited in this band, it seems like it is an album that came natural and was something they weren’t doing to prove a point, they were doing it to just release the best creative ideas they had…and it works brilliantly from the great tracks like IMPENDING DOOM, FROZEN IN TIME and DESTROY AND DOMINATE.
The band is seeing new success levels being set for the start of 2009 and one of those is being on this years Music As A Weapon tour hosted by Disturbed. I had a chance to chat with Rob Arnold (guitarist) before his meet n greet in Lowell, MA. As I met up with him I had to thank him for pushing my interview earlier so I didn’t miss Spineshank’s set since they have been gone for over 5 years now!! “I don’t know if you know this” Rob says ” but when we were an unsigned band in Cleveland, Spineshank came through and we happen to play the show with them and we made friends with them that night and we asked them to take us on the rest of the tour with them. They said ok and we got into two cars and they took us on our first tour, they hooked us up with their management and we got signed because of that, so Spineshank is a big reason we are here.”

So with a little trip down memory lane we get into the present with THE INFECTION and the writing process for the album, the biggest change about CHIMAIRA and what makes a B side.

DID YOU GUYS RETURN TO THAT SORT OF “JAMMING” ASPECT TO WRITE THE INFECTION?
I wouldn’t say it happen that way maybe a little bit but each record we write we do differently like just how it comes together as in what is happening at the time. For instance like three records back our self titled album, we always write, record, tour so when a tour cycle is ending we know ok it is time to write a record again. So when self titled came about no one was really in writing mode except for me so I just started writing a bunch of tunes and that is how that came together. Then RESURRECTION, the last record we got off the touring cycle and everyone was excited to write for that record so we all got together and wrote that together. For THE INFECTION we were ending the touring cycle and knew we had to start writing for that but with technology on our side we just set up a studio in the back of the bus, so that is what we did Mark and I just came back here at the end of last touring cycle and through that we wrote the first seven tunes, then we went back to the practice space and got everyone together and took it from there. But those first seven tunes set the vibe for everything.

SO A JAMMING ASPECT WAS NOT REALLY INCORPORATED?
No not really, maybe the album has that vibe to it and that is cool but that didn’t really have an effect on the way we wrote it.

PLUS IT IS SO MUCH SLOWER FOR YOU GUYS! TO ME IT SEEMED LIKE OTHER ALBUMS, IT WAS LIKE YOU WERE TRYING TO PROVE SOMETHING TO EVERYONE!
Perhaps but without knowing that, we didn’t say ok we have to have to this or that. With this new album it was just a different vibe. We took out time and made sure everything jammed and you can bop your head to everything and we realized by slowing it down there is a lot more space for the instruments to breathe. If you take say like Metallica for example on the Black album, it had slower songs and real big, like all the snare drums and kicks had their own spots, guitars had room to breathe and opened up more space for the vocals to breathe. Not that we said we have to do a record like that but we learned by doing that and not playing a million notes per bar, which is cool too, we are all fans of Death metal and stuff like that but by doing that and letting the instruments speak much more the recording sounds bigger and it just made for a cool vibe for this record

DO YOU FEEL IT GAVE YOU MORE AREA TO EXPERIMENT MORE?
Naturally maybe, I think it just came together like that.

MARK DID A LOT OF FREESTYLING WHEN WRITING LYRICS WHICH IS ANOTHER NEW THING YOU GUYS WORKED WITH, HOW DID THAT WORK OUT?
The mindset for that was when I talked about the initial 7 tunes we wrote, when you are really writing a song lets say with the band, say you have a riff in mind and you just say to the drummer ok this is the feel behind this riff so play this, the other guitar player this is what you play here and the bass player is suppose to play this and everyone has to do that to even hear it and figure out if we like it or want to change it but at the same time everyone has to play that but with the computer you can be like ok lets do it with the drums at this feel or lets take the guitar part and move it over to a different area, so there is a million ways to change a song on the computer so that is how we wrote a lot of the music for it. So when it came down to lyrics Mark was like I want to do the same thing, I don’t want to come in with all my vocals written over parts. I want to get in there and just see how the music makes me feel so that is how we went with that. He would go in and be jamming to a part and just start spitting some stuff then from there we would take it and say ok this line is cool and that is cool but lets try to fill in this line with the arrangement of what you said there has to be a little bit different and filling in gaps of patterns in some instances so it pretty much came together in like a freestyle sort of session.

DO YOU HAVE A SAY OF WHAT HE WRITES OR IS THAT ALL HIM?
Primarily he writes all the lyrics sometimes there might be parts where I say lets sing that differently or something like that, it is just little things because mostly he has always written lyrics.

THE INSTRUMENTAL I LOVE. IT HAS A LOT OF DIFFERENT LOWS AND HIGH POINTS AND DIVERSITY THROUGHOUT. DID YOU USE MORE OF A TECHINAL NATURE TO GET THE FINISH PRODUCE OR IS THAT SOMETHING THAT JUST CAME OUT DUE TO EMOTION?
We are defiantly more emotion driven to what feels good we keep. I had written that whole clean intro thing months prior to writing for THE INFECTION. I didn’t even know if that would be a CHIMAIRA song and one day I played it for Mark and he was like well we had been toying with writing a instrumental so he was like lets have that open it up. So we just built it from that clean part but the thing with writing a instrumental is you need to make the instrument speak loudly enough to make up for the fact there is no vocals. When you’re writing a regular song you know ok there has to be verses and choruses but with this we have to make sure the listener isn’t missing that there is no vocals, the riffs have to speak loudly enough and there is harmonies and solos. They are fun to write but the technicality just comes with it as your writing it

AFTER STARTING TO WORK WITH BEN ON THE INFECTION DO YOU FEEL THERE WAS ANYTHING MISSING FROM RESURRECTION SINCE YOU DIDN’T WORK WITH HIM ON THAT?
Maybe just being at home, he is from Cleveland so that is home for us where with RESSURECTION we were in hotels for six weeks in Florida which was an experience too and it was cool and I don’t regret it at all and we had a lot of great times, but just being at home felt great so if that was what was missing then, oh well

DO YOU THINK IF BEN WORKED ON RESSURECTION IT WOULD HAVE COME OUT DIFFERENT?
There certainly would have been differences I imagine, but for the most part we come in with our artillery of thoughts and we are pretty hands on when it comes to studio stuff. If a producer wants to change a part it takes a lot of argument because we have explanations for everything we do. It would have been different but not too much difference because we come in prepared.

FANS HAD A QUESTION FOR YOU ABOUT CHRIS. SOME PEOPLE FEEL HE HAS BEEN SHADOWED IN THE PAST. HOW DO YOU FEEL HEARING THAT?
I don’t say I feel that same way, we are a drum and guitar oriented band so the keys just happen to be the layer and atmosphere, he is the icing on the cake. He writes his parts after all the music is written so for people to say that I just have to say if he was more pronounced then we would be a keyboard oriented band and that is not what we are about. He does his parts perfectly in the right spots to bring the songs to the level they need to be. So sorry to those fans that feel that he is shadowed

I THINK THEY WERE LOOKING MORE FROM THE DEBUT ALBUM THAT CAME OUT WITH THE SAMPLES AND EVERYTHING HE WAS DOING ON THAT!
On that particular album he had a guy working with him that was helping him program and he was new to the sampling, programming and keyboards

SO HE JUST WENT OVERBOARD
Yea and we regret that now…well not regret, we just look back at that and see that there was maybe a lot of stuff that was too loud, so basically we all live and learn.

SO ALONG WITH THE ALBUM I GOT THREE OF THE B SIDES YOU GUYS DID. I KNOW ONE OF THEM REVENGE IS GOING ON YOUR BOX SET. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH WARPATH AND CONVICTIONS?
Every album we usually write a few more songs for movie soundtracks or European releases or a special edition or something like that. So during the recording process you decide ok maybe this one isn’t turning out as good as we thought it was going to be for the album so it will be a B side. With CONVICTIONS it was a cover song and we knew right from the beginning it was going to be a B side. So for REVENGE and WARPATH those songs weren’t as strong as the others we had, so we decided to record them but they are the B sides.

CONVICTIONS, WHO IS THE GUEST APPREANCE SINGING CAUSE I KNOW THAT VOICE DIDN’T COME OUT OF ANY OF YOU GUYS!!
This guy Jason sings the middle part. It’s an old Cleveland song from a local band that he was the signer in and we all grew up listening to and we loved the song so we just covered it. So he came in and sang the middle part. Well, you have good ears to know we didn’t sing that ourselves!!

THANKS, BIGGEST THING THAT HAS CHANGED WITH CHIMAIRA?
Personally everything, we have all grown into this lifestyle. In the beginning we never knew what would become or what the career entailed. We were just a band jamming so we had no idea and we still don’t. Just coming onto the music for a Weapon tour with all the semi trucks we are not even into that world yet, we want to be but once you get into that world its all about hiring more guys having more riggers just so much stuff and we aren’t even in that world yet. So back then we didn’t know what touring clubs would be or what this was all about. This has made us who we are today, it has shaped our lives. Musically because this is our lives, it has made us practice more and play together constantly, so I guarantee, I and all the other guys are way better musicians then we were in the start because we have been forced in the sense to be that way.

IF YOU COULD DEFINE WHAT BEING AN ARTIST MEANS TO YOU HOW WOULD YOU?
Maybe creating or being part of a creation that has no set guidelines, no standards and no rule book. There is no way to paint a picture but people do it. There is no way to create a song but people just come up with it. Just doing something outside the box, that a million people can’t do if given instruction.

BESIDES BAND GOALS YOU HAVE, DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING PERSONALLY YOU WANT TO TRY TO REACH BEFORE THE END OF 2009?
No, I don’t really look into that cause I get my hopes up too high and then being disappointed.

SO I GUESS YOU DON’T MAKE NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS EITHER?
Na, I don’t have the will power. I mean I have goals but just not for the end of the year

LAST COMMENTS?
Thanks to all the fans for the love and support and patience. THE INFECTION April 21^st. Tell your friends about it and tell them to tell there friends and then tell them to tell their friends to tell their friends to tell their friends about it!!

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source: The Daily Rock