Neuraxis - Rob Milley
Posted on July 21, 2008 at 2:31 am by admin
We love Canadian bands, and for those musical regions in Canada, out of Vancouver, Winnipeg, the Maritimes and Ontario, Montreal bands rank as 1 of our favourites. Now Neuraxis has been around for sometime, and they’re currently growing quickly, and their newest album, “The Thin Line Between” comes out July 22nd through Prosthetic Records, so give a read to what guitarist Rob Milley had to say about his band and heavy music in general.
Way Too Loud!: Every extreme band from Quebec always love to talk about Death, so can you mtell me how Chuck Schuldiner has had an effect on you personally and musically?
Rob Milley: Yes! I’m a huge fan of Chuck Shuldiner and Death! They’re the first band I heard other than the standard heavy metal, like Metallica and Megadeth. That was the next thing I got into that was the most extreme thing at the time. The mixture of his guitar playing and vocal style back when they put out “Individual Thought Patterns”, or maybe it was the “Lack of Comprehension” video I saw from the album “Human”. Right away, I thought “Wow! That was awesome!” Since then, they’ve always been a band that’s inspired me. It was pretty tragic when he passed. I guess he’s become more of a legend now than when he was alive. He was a huge influence on my guitar playing, and everyone else in the band is a huge fan of Death as well.
WTL: Who else inspires you to play?
Rob: I’d have to go back to the kind of stuff that got me into this kind of music, which would be bands like Megadeth, Dave Mustaine and Marty Friendman when he was playing with them. Testament, Carcass, Suffocation. That’s the kind of stuff that still inspires me. I try to listen to newer bands, but I always go back to those guys! I have a soft spot for those bands!
WTL: Speaking of Testament, what did you think of “The Formation of Damnation”?
Rob: Oh, I love it! I didn’t know what to expect, but it’s more than what I expected, having Alex Skolnick back playing those solos, having Paul Bostaph on drums, and Eric Petersons guitar playing. His riffs are amazing! It’s definitely an awesome album.
WTL: Is there any chance that you’ll be able to catch that Carcass reunion tour with Suffocation, Necrophagist, 1349 and Aborted?
Rob: It’s coming to Montreal September 7th, so I’m going to get my ticket soon, before it sells out.
WTL: What other things other than music make their way into Neuraxis?
Rob: I guess because the band takes up so much of my time, I have almost little time now for a social life, because I also take care of the management. On the personal side I have my girlfriend, I always been a big fan of movies, so I try and watch as many movies as I can, and I guess it’s cliche to say, but I’m a big horror fan! I’ve been getting kind of lazy these days, so I wouldn’t mind getting back into some sports. I used to do martial arts, and it introduced some discipline into my life. I guess I’m pretty disciplined doing Neuraxis, because it’s taking so much of my time.
WTL: The martial arts subject reminds me of a band called Dim Mak, because they take all of their lyrical inspiration from martial arts.
Rob: Yeah! They did “Knives of ice”!
WTL: I had a chance to talk a little bit to Shaune Kelley when I saw Hate Eternal, and I told my friends all about his bands, Dim Mak and Ripping Corpse.
How did the writing process work this time for “The Thin Line Between”?
Rob: Usually it starts with a guitar riff that I’ll come up with, or our other guitar playing, William Seghers, he wrote some songs on the new album. For the beginning of the album, we wanted to take it slow and not rush into anything to see what we could do. We wanted to work on experimenting. Usually we’ll write a guitar riff, add drums to it, then slap another riff onto it. This time we wanted to try an idea on the same part and see if we could get some more dynamics from it. In the beginning we took our time, then when we signed to contract with the new label, we had a deadline of 3 months to write the other half of the album, so that’s when everyone came in Tommy (drums) and Alex (vocals), we all worked together really well as a team. We jammed 4 times a week, which was really intense. So the 2nd half was really more of a group effort.
WTL: Would you say there’s a more immediate energy with writing the 2nd half?
Rob: Yeah! It was more intense, so there was definitely and energy that was taking place when we were doing that, because not only did we have to write, but we had to book the studio, and get the artwork done, so we didn’t have much time to 2nd guess what we were doing. Basically we were doing what we felt was right. We were just focussing on whether the song was good, and not worry about how technical, or how brutal. The idea of the album was to make sure that the songs were good in the jam room. We tried them out on tour, and they worked well, so that’s what was most important to us.
WTL: Did you have to deal with any writers block, or was that simply not a problem?
Rob: I try not to get too saturated. I’ll practice the guitar a couple hours a day. I won’t force it if it doesn’t come out. Sometimes I’ll take a break for a few days and pick up the guitar again.
WTL: What made you choose “The Thin Line Between” as the title song?
Rob: Alex (vocals) came up with the title. He’s thoughts behind that were that the song itself deals the theme of duality, which can be looked at in a lot of different ways. The duality between 2 opposing things. It can be anything. You can also think of it as the duality of the old style of Neuraxis mixed with the new style.
I had maybe wanted another title for the album, I was brainstorming, and Alex had that title already at the very beginning, he knew he wanted to call it that. Eventually we didn’t have any other ideas, and the title was stuck in my head, “The Thin Line Between”, so we though, lets go for it!
WTL: Does Alex like to explain the lyrics, or let people interpret them on their own?
Rob: He leans more towards having people interpret them on their own. They’re nothing strictly confined to 1 idea. I wish I could tell you more about the lyrics, since he’s the guy to talk to more about the lyrics.
As far as the specifics about it, I was more impressed with the way he wrote his lyrics. I’ve always been a fan of Chuck Shuldiner and the way that he wrote his lyrics. They’re very meaningful, but you can interpret them in many ways. When you read them, there are some phrases that just stick, like when you listen to the album “Symbolic”, some of the lyrics on that album are amazing! When we were talking about lyrics, I told Alex if he could incorporate that into his lyrics, because our previous vocalist based his lyrics more about a text, where the lyrics weren’t more like lyrics, they were more in a text kind of form, which was cool in some ways, but they weren’t the most memorable, so Alex brought a more traditional vibe back in with the lyrics. That’s what I was most impressed with about his lyrics. Actually, our drummer Tommy wrote some lyrics too, and he dealt with the more philosophical side of things, a little more of a deep thinker, so we had a mixture of those 2 styles of lyrics on the album, so I was pretty happy with it.
There’s not a definite theme to the album, but the idea of duality was something Alex wanted to explore.
WTL: How did you get hooked up with Prosthetic Records?
Rob: When our contract was finished with Willowtip Records and Galy Records, we wanted to shop around and see what we could get. We had the idea that we wanted to take ourselves to a higher level. Those were good labels, but they were limited to what they could give us as far as promotion and financial support and touring opportunities. We got in touch with a couple of labels and talked to them over a year or so, then we recorded a demo and sent them out, and prosthetic were 1 of the labels, and they were really interested in us. It just came down to them being the most interested and having the most belief in us, so we went out and signed with them!
WTL: How does it feel to be on that label? They have a lot of bands that many consider to have artistic credibility.
Rob: It’s definitely cool! I don’t know where we it in to their kind of lineup. They don’t really have any other kind of band like us. They have a mixture from metalcore to death metal bands. They also don’t sign every band either, so we thought that was cool. We felt they’d put more priority on us. We’re not like the small band on a huge label. That’s 1 of the main reasons why we did sign with that label, because we felt that they’d push us more, rather than on a big label where’ we’d have to work our way up, which could take awhile.
WTL: What would you attribute your success to? Things seemed to go over really well with “Trilateral Progression”, and now a lot more people are noticing you with this album coming up.
Rob: Definitely the help of the labels, with Willowtip in the US, and Earache in Europe. They did the best they could, and they did a good job, and I think most of all we toured for that album, which made us decide whether we’re going to be serious, or just do it for fun and stay a local band. That’s when we decided we have to tour to get our name out there. I think we did 10 tours for that album. That really helped, and playing in the US, Canada, Europe and Japan. It was the most we’ve ever done! That really helped out with getting the name exposed.
WTL: Do you have any idea how much touring you’ll be doing for this next album?
Rob: I think we’ll be doing even more touring, because that’s 1 of the priorities for Prosthetic. They help bands to get bigger, but they expect bands to work on their side too, and the only way we can do that is tour. They got us a tour set up already with Summer Slaughter in Canada, and we’ll tour the US in the fall, and do some more US tours early next year, and then head to Europe. I think we’ll double what we did for the last album. I think we did 150 shows, and I think this time we’ll do around 200 to 250 shows for this album.
WTL: getting up to that much touring is around making a band your day job!
Rob: We’re at that level where this band is going to be our job for the next couple of years. Everything else kind of gets put off to the side because we’re going to be focussing on touring a lot. That will be the next step for us! It’s exciting! I’m not nervous, but we will be away a lot.
WTL: You’ve usually taken some time between albums, but now that you’re making music your day job, do you think you’ll get on the 2 year touring/album cycle?
Rob: It’s likely that it’ll end up that way now because that’s the way the business is. If you take too long, it’s unfortunate, but then your name isn’t in the spotlight and fans will forget and they’ll move on to the next thing. Luckily we didn’t sign a contract for the next 10 years. It’s a good contract, and we’ve been together for 14 years, so I don’t think we’re going to be at a point where we’ll be like Iron Maiden, being 50 and playing this extreme kind of music, but the next 5 or 6 years are probably going to be the time when we’re working the hardest and do the most tours.
WTL: Do you think that the public today is starting to view death metal and other forms of extreme music as acceptable forms of art and expression?
Rob: Yes! You can attribute some of it to the internet, because you can see now that there’s so many bands doing this, and so many young kids getting into it now, which is cool! Sometimes there’s positive sides to it, and sometimes there’s negative sides to it. The uniqueness and originality sometimes gets left behind when there’s so many bands out there. Then we’ve got films like “Global Metal” and “Headbanger’s Journey” where it’s getting more to the masses now. I don’t know to what point that’s good, because you don’t want something like metal to be too mass controlled, but I think it’s cool, and more people can get into our music, which is great!
WTL: It seems like extreme music is loved in Quebec more than any other place in Canada.
Rob: I’m not sure exactly why. I think specifically with Montreal, it’s a city with a lot of culture and the arts, and a lot of openess to different kinds of music. I think that somehow it has an effect on the population. People are just more open to that kind of music. Not just heavy metal, it can be any kind of extreme music. We toured to other places in Canada outside of Quebec, and some places are a little more conservative. I guess people are more liberal in Quebec, not liberal politically, but just more open to different forms of music.
WTL: Beyond metal, there’s also a lot of indie bands from Montreal to, aren’t there?
Rob: yeah! I’m not really a fan of that style of music, but techno and hip-hop are huge here too. There’s a huge culture of that, just like there’s a huge culture of local Quebec mtal bands, there’s also a culture Quebec techno and hip-hop bands. It’s crazy! I don’t know how well they do outside of Quebec, but here it’s just as big as metal.
WTL: There seems to be some strong connection between the older generation of bands like Kataklysm Cryptospy, Gorguts and Voivod, and newer bands like Despised Icon, Ion Dissonance, Beneath The Massacre and The Plasmarifle in Quebec than any other scene.
Rob: Th new generation of bands were inspired by the older generation of bands. The scene is pretty big here. I won’t say that everybody knows everybody, although in some ways, all those bands you mentioned all know each other, even if there’s a 10 year age difference. There’s no real elitist style mentality, although you’ll have a tiny little bit of that everywhere, but a band like Kataklysm would be happy if a band like Despised Icon were to get big. It’ll help them out as well, to the point where Despised Icon could be just as big as Kataklysm now. It’s good for everybody!
WTL: You sort of fit into a weird position there, because you’re in between the generations of bands I mentioned.
Rob: We’re kind of in the middle. We started after Kataklysm and Cryptopsy started in the early 90’s, we started in ‘95, putting us in the middle, At that time in ‘95 to ‘99, the scene wasn’t doing that well. Metal wasn’t really that kicking, it was more underground, so we kind of struggled a few years, and the kind of music that we’re playing now wasn’t as widespread as it was back then as it is now, because we’re not just doing brutal mixing, we’re mixing it with melodic parts, and thrash parts and progressive parts, and at that point people didn’t understand what we were doing, and at a certain point the band started to evolve, and that’s when we started getting a little more recognition around 2001-2002 and on from there. We’re kind of in the middle. I don’t feel like we’re told timers or the young generation. I understand both sides of the fence.
WTL: Have you been noticing fans outside of Canada saying they love specifically Canadian bands?
Rob: When we were touring in the US, I’d hear that, and Europe as well. It’s cool that we’re getting the spotlight on us and the recognition. I’d say it takes twice as much effort to get out there when you’re a Canadian band than an American or European band because that’s where all the media is. Now it’s coming, so it’s cool! It feels rewarding!
WTL: Where in the world would you like to play?
Rob: I loved playing in Europe! We went there twice, and we’d like to go there again. I really want to play in Australia, and it would be great if we could visit South America. That’s 1 of our goals. If we don’t do it on this album, we’ll try and do it on the next album. It’s not easy to go down there because of the contacts, and the expenses.
WTL: Now I already know what your band name means, and I know bands get asked about it all the time. Have you ever lied about what it means, because I’m sure people must ask you about it all the time.
Rob: Actually, we put our name in our biography. We found the name in a medical dictionary, and at that time, around ‘94-‘95, we were heavily influenced by Carcass who were at that time finding their song titles in medical dictionaries, so that was an inspiration. At that time, most bands had names like Suffocation, immolation, or Incantation.
WTL: Ah yes, all those bands around New York ending in -tion!
Rob: (Laughs) Yeah! Or something that’s evil, or something gory, so at that point I wanted to try something new and fresh and that would continue on without sounding dated, and the word Neuraxis was found. In the beginning, people would just make fun of the name because there was Neurosis at the time, and people were wondering if that was a Neurosis rip-off. It’s the cell in your neck that controls the brainwaves to the body, which is basically the explanation of the word
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