As I Lay Dying - Jordan Mancino
Posted on June 07, 2008 at 8:00 pm by admin
Jordan Mancino: It’s been impossible for me to fall asleep anytime before 8:00am. I think it’s because we’ve been doing so much international touring the last couple months. We’ve just been flying and flying, and flying…
Way Too Loud: Getting jet lag?
Jordan: Yeah, I haven’t been able to catch up. I’ve been trying to hard, but it’s just not working! I think I’ll wait until I get home, and then try to get on a normal schedule, because it’s not really working right now!
WTL: Well, since the first new thing I’m noticing is the handle bar mustache, you’ve got to explain that. It’s huge! You look like a Hell’s Angel!
Jordan: (Laughs) I was growing a beard in December, and then we had a photo shoot for DW ( the drum company), and I didn’t want a beard for that, so I shaved it into a moustache just for fun, and it just kind of grew on me for a couple of days. They were digging it, so I was like “Sweet!” Then they said they wanted me to do a commercial too! It’s been cool because it’s getting me work!
WTL: The video for “Nothing Left” debuted recently. What’s it like shooting a video, especially from the position of the drummer? And does Tim scream or lip-sync?
Jordan: Sometimes he screams, sometimes he doesn’t. We’ve got to run through the song so many times that he’ll blow out his voice if he screams the whole time. Usually you just play along with the track, nothing is miked, and no sound is coming out. As far as I’m concerned, I could not shoot another video, ever! If I could do that, I’d be happy! I just don’t like shooting videos, I like the end result product, because it looks really cool. I have to play the song so many times, and I get so exhausted after the 15th run-through. Being the drummer, I’m always in the background, even if they’re doing a close-up of the guitar player or the singer, I’m always in the background while everyone else gets to take a break, because even if no one else is in the shot, I’m always in the background. Those are my cranky days. I’m usually in pretty good spirits most days. I might not like it, but I’m not going to complain about it too much!
WTL: Do you do anything on the side when you’re at home, like drum lessons?
Jordan: Yeah, I do drum lessons when I have time. We’ve been touring so much that when I get home, I usually have one or two weeks off, it’s not really enough time to get back into lessons, but once we’ve got a bigger chunk of time off, I’ll get back into it. It’s been about a year since I’ve given lesson to more than one student a day. I do have plans to get back into that, because I really enjoy it, and it’s something fun to do, and I can give back a little bit.
I’ve also got a lot of side projects on the back burner, some that will probably amount to nothing, because they’re just random ideas that we had when I was hanging out with my friends that might turn into something more serious. It’s just a matter of having the time to do it.
WTL: Is there anything that you think might see the light of day?
Jordan: It’s too soon to tell right, but there is a project that I’m working on right now that we’re looking to record some time in the next year or so, but the problem is that all the other members are in bands who are touring as much as we are, so we try to figure out what Tims when we’re home, or when we’re not home so we can jam. It’s really difficult.
WTL: You’ve talked a little bit about the old days, like booking shows on your own. What else would you do on your own back in the day?
Jordan: Pretty much everything. Anything a band that size would need to do, which of course isn’t as much as we need to do now, like selling merch, or whatever you need to do, like using our own money for whatever we needed to do, like tour, to pay for gas, hotels, to get a van, get a trailer, just whatever we needed to do to get things rolling.
WTL: You’ve said before that you don’t want your music to become stagnant, and you’ve never made the same album twice, so do you think that some kids now are missing the point when they try to copy and album, or band, or something that’s hot looking for a record label to come up with a limo to give away money and rock stardom?
Jordan: I think those days are long gone. The music industry is changing. It’s changed a lot just in the last two years, because 3 or 4 years ago, there used to be a lot of mid-level bands that were growing, not necessarily playing crappy shows all the time, but would get in a couple of hundred kids a night, and it seems like there’s a bigger separation between bigger bands that’s out there touring versus a local band that’s just jamming in the garage to draw enough people to make enough money. The mid-level bands have either gone back down or come up. The bands who can tour and make promoters money, the promoters want to bring them back and keep doing shows with them instead of bands who aren’t able to draw as many people . It’s not like any fault of their own, maybe some of them made some poor business decisions, or made bad records, it’s just the way the music industry is.
There’s so many bands, it’s so over-saturated, and it’s so easy to get your music out there, so unless you’ve got a great record, and a smart, safe way of doing things, it’s hard to make it. There’s no record label dude showing up to shows in limos, it’s a skinny dude who might say “I’ll give you $1500 to record an album, and we’ll see how it does”, and if it does well, they’ll go to the next level. It’s very hard, but if you write a good record, it’ll be ok.
WTL: You’ve toured with Satanic bands before, more specially Behemoth twice, and I’ve heard you’ve had a good time hanging out with them, and they even put you on the thank you list in the back of one of their albums (more specifically in “Demigod”). Do you think you’re sending a different kind of message, a good message, by touring with bands who have such different religious views?
Jordan: Yeah! I think we’re sending the right message, whether or not it’s different from what other bands have said, I don’t know. I think there’s a portion of the Christian community that’s very un-accepting to that kind of stuff. They’ll say don’t touch it, don’t get near it, don’t be involve with it, don’t affiliate yourself with it , but as a band and as Christians, it doesn’t matter to us. They’re a band, whether they’re a Christian band or a Satanic band, it doesn’t matter to us. We want to play with those bands, we want to become friends with those bands. If we happen to create a friendship, that’s awesome!
Me personally, I’ve had several very good conversations about Christianity, and what they believe, an anti-Christian viewpoint from Nergal. We’ve talked a lot, and as far as philosophies of religion and life go, I don’t think there was much progress on either of our ends, but we were able to understand each other, and where we were coming from. I understand his viewpoint a lot more, and I understand where he comes from, and at the end of the conversation, we still had a mutual respect for one another. We come from opposite ends of the spectrum, but we still have respect for each other, and we still want to play music with each other.
You don’t necessarily have to agree with someone to be their friend and accept them. As a Christian as well, what good does it do to preach to the choir? And the same thing with them. If they were to go around and play for instance, only in Satanic churches every day, what good would their message be? They’re passionate about what they do, so they want to go play to a different audience, where they can express what they believe to that audience. It’s up to the audience to whether or not they look into what their beliefs are, and the same thing with us. They’re looking for opportunities to look out for what they believe in and share what they believe in, and they’re passionate about it, the same way we are.
That’s kind of a long answer!
WTL: I’ve heard that when you’re at the party, you’ll have 2 drinks, then you’re done drinking, but you’ll still be at the party. How do you work that out? Some people would think that if you’re at the party, you have to party.
Jordan: Not at all! It’s up to the individual, you know what I mean? I think some people have a problem with a glass of wine at dinner, or having a beer with a pizza, watching the football game. Some people have different struggles in their lives, and I understand that. I have enough self-control to have two beers and a slice of pizza. I can still hang out. I don’t have to go over-the-top like everyone else. I’m actually not a “party” party dude, I’ve actually been keeping it really mellow. I think it’s just up to the person. I think if it becomes a struggle, like with what they’re doing, and who they’re hanging out with, but with me, it never gets out of control, and I can hang out with my friends whether it’s a party setting or not, I can always hang out with my friends and chill and hang out.
WTL: How has the scene changed since you’ve been playing? I remember you went on tour with Six Feet Under, Behemoth and Skinless, and the more “metal” crowd was a bit more accepting back then.
Jordan: Even that was a different time. That was the first support tour we ever did that wasn’t DIY booking and stuff like that, and we definitely got a lot of blank stares on that tour, because it was a whole different style of metal at the time, a small underground scene slowing starting to break out into the actual metal scene. It was a good tour. We got a lot of stares and “Who the heck are these guys?” but I thought it was a good tour.
Now it’s really different. There’s not necessarily imagery that people need to be a part, it’s just that some people want something to grab on to. It’s hard to explain I guess. There’s so many bands that write good songs, but people want something to grab on to, or something to relate, like get a sense that it’s special to them, like Every Time I Die. They’re a very witty, fun band. They’re still heavy and still rock ‘n roll, but they have something that’s different from everybody else, something besides their music that people can relate to that’s tangible. It’s fun and entertaining. I don’t think that’s the answer your looking for, but as far as the image goes, it’s become something that’s become a little more important than it used to be because I think the scene is becoming more competitive, because it’s harder for bands to make it and survive.
WTL: I remember in the old days, I saw you in 2003 with Chimaira and Soilwork, and the rest of your guys had to stand around while you loaded everything in the trailer, so what’s it like now? Does your road crew need special directions?
Jordan: (Laughs) They can handle it pretty well themselves. I’m very involved with my drums still, setting them up, like where they’re spaced and how it looks. As far as loading gear, the crew does a pretty good job of handling that. We’re definitely not beyond setting up our own gear, because we still do it. We still lug it around, we don’t think we’re above that. On headlining tours where there’s long sets, there’s a lot of other things going on, so it’ very nice to have those dudes there, just in case something goes wrong in a show and I don’t want to mess up, like trying to take a mic out.
As far as loading the trailer by myself, that was most nights because that trailer was a lot smaller than the one we have now. We had so much stuff, and every square inch was full, and everything had to be packed in a certain way, and if it didn’t go in the right way, they had to bring the stuff to the end of the trailer, and I’d put it in myself. It was easier that way. Sometimes it’s just easier to get things done by yourself.
WTL: when “Frail Words Collapse”, I saw he line “a hardcore take on death metal” repeated a lot. Was that on a promo sheet or something?
Jordan: People find quotes like those and overuse them. Some people are unoriginal! “That sounds cool, I’ll use that!”
WTL: How do you view the death metal label now? I remember you fought pretty hard back then not to get labeled death metal, but now you’re fighting a different label. How do you feel about that now?
Jordan: I don’t know. We know who we are. I know a lot of people call us a “metalcore” band, or metal, or a death metal band, for the people that care about genres, cool, go ahead and give them a genre about what we are.
WTL: But you personally as a band don’t have to worry about that.
Jordan: We love metal, we love hardcore, we love punk, we love thrash, we love death metal, we love black metal. We love so many different types of metal, heavy music, hardcore, fast stuff and slow stuff. We just want to write heavy music that we like in general. We’ve changed sounds a little bit, some stuff is a little thrashier, a little more melodic. But the bottom line is that we’re a heavy band, a metal band, we’re a metalcore band, we’re hardcore band, we’re whatever people want to call us. We just want to write heavy music, and whatever people call us, we’ll always be a heavy band, whether or not the genre style changes over the records? Whatever.
WTL: What bands got you guys up and playing?
Jordan: The first record I ever owned was Bad Religion “Stranger Than Fiction”, and I always loved heavy music, and I always wanted to find the heaviest thing out there. I honestly grew up in the middle of the boonies. There was no record store. The nearest town was 40 minutes away, and I just didn’t have access to all this music. There was no internet. I had 3 channels on my TV. I didn’t have access to all that stuff, so it was just stuff that I heard from friends and the people I knew.
I was always looking for the heaviest thing though. After Bad Religion, the first albums that I got was Pantera, “The Great Southern Trendkill”. I had one of those BMG things where you buy one and you gt 10 for free, and I had to pay shipping, and when I got some of those, it was like “this record is heavy, and this record is heavy”. I got a Black Sabbath CD, I got a Megadeth CD, a Marilyn Manson CD, then Pantera and Megadeth were my bands. I never really got too much into Metallica, I always like them, but I liked the Pantera and Megadeth record so much that I didn’t have time to listen to anything else. As I got older, I got more hardcore stuff like different punk bands, and Madball, Hatebreed, Strife, bands like that, and it kind of opened my eyes to this scene with hardcore and metal, and then I found out more bands from there.
WTL: Who would you like to tour with who’s both feasible, but not obvious?
Jordan: Out of all the bands that are touring right now, I’d really like to tour with Megadeth because I’m a huge fan of them. I that’ something that’s feasible in the right time, the right setting it would make sense. With actually played a lot of festivals with them over in Europe, which has been cool, but to actually be on tour with them. That’s a band who I’d like to tour with who we haven’t already toured with, there’s a lot of bands we’ve toured with who we’d like to tour with again because they’re friends, or they’re awesome bands. Maybe Anthrax. Testament, that’d be sweet! That new Testament record is great! I was pretty stoked about that, because a lot of bands get back together after several years, and their music insn’t that aggressive, or as passionate as it was before, but this one.. Andy Sneap did a great job mixing it , and Paul Bostaph is an incredible drummer. I think it’s just a really good record. Hopefully we’ll tour with them one of these days.
WTL: Are there too many bands with “die” in the name?
Jordan: Uh… yeah! But what are you going to do? It is what it is!
WTL: I know some people confuse you with Every Time I Die and It Dies Today.
Jordan: Maybe. If you like Every Time I Die, and you confuse the name and buy one of our records, then that’s cool! (Laughs) And vice versa, they’ll buy their record, so it’s supporting the bands either way, so keep the confusion going!
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June 9th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
[...] Christian frontman, Jordan Mancino, of As I Lay Dying tells a Web Site he feels comfortable touring with Satanic bands (like Behemoth, for [...]