As I am being introduced to Tim Lambesis, the vocalist of As I Lay Dying, I sit before a mild-mannered, soft spoken guy with a very laid-back attitude. Certainly not the monster presence I was about to witness on the stage. We talked about the band’s beginnings, the band’s success, their upcoming DVD and the future of As I Lay Dying.
Planet Loud – How did As I Lay Dying originally come together?
As I Lay Dying – I had written a handful of songs and had this idea for the band. I knew Jordan from another local band and I was thinking of the best musicians I knew in San Diego that I could compile or put together to start As I lay Dying.
Planet Loud – How did you start out musically? Were you always into Metal or did you have other influences?
As I Lay Dying – The local music scene in San Diego was really punk and hardcore heavy. All of the younger bands were generally playing that style and Metal was kinda the outcast back then, but I wanted to start a Metal band but as far as our foundation, our original fan base, I think it came more from the hardcore scene because the metal scene really wasn’t in the area.
Planet Loud – What’s the current music scene like in San Diego?
As I Lay Dying – It’s hard to say what bands are doing, cuz I don’t get a chance to go shows back home as often as I used to. I would say that, like any city, when one style of music becomes popular all of the young bands start doing that and kinda change as the trends change. The metal scene is really growing in San Diego a lot. A lot of people think it’s funny, like “What do you have to be angry about in San Diego” but there are a lot of Metal bands out there now.
Planet Loud – “An Ocean Between Us” came out in back in August of 2007. Is there anything new in the works?
As I Lay Dying – We have a DVD that we’re getting ready to put out in April. We’re putting the finishing touches on it now. We filmed and recorded audio from these tours since the album came out and we’re compiling all that together. That’ll be cool for our fans that just picked us up since ‘Between Us’ came out. It’ll be a chance for them to see our history and where we come from and all of the behind-the-scenes fun stuff and personalities of the band. Also, we’ll have live performances from this album.
Planet Loud – Are you heading back to the studio soon?
As I Lay Dying – As far as actual new song-writing goes, I have plenty of my own individual ideas. I’m sure the other guys do as well, but we haven’t actually gotten together and turned them into songs yet.
Planet Loud – How far into this tour are you and what are your plans for future tours?
As I Lay Dying – We’re getting close to the two week mark, so we’re probably about half way into this tour. When this tour is over we’re going to South America for the first time, then we’ll do one last US tour before we go home and write for the new album.
Planet Loud – If you had to pick one show that stood out from the rest on this tour, or even in your career so far, what would it be and why?
As I Lay Dying – On this tour, one of the shows that stood out to me was the first show of the tour in Chico, California which is a real small city in California. We just didn’t expect………ya know, our expectations were that this was one of the smaller cities we were playing at on this tour and it’s gonna be the first show of the tour which is always a little stressful and it turned out to be a delightful surprise.Looking back, in general, the biggest show we’ve ever played is this festival in Germany call Wacken Open Air Festival. It’s the biggest crowd we’ve ever played for. We probably played in front of 50,000 people. The day we played sold out at 60,000. Even if only half the crowd watched you, you still played in front of 30,000 people.
Planet Loud – When did you come to realize that you’ve made it?
As I Lay Dying – I don’t know. It depends on what some ones definition of ‘made it’ is, ya know? If you’re making a living doing what you love, then you’ve made it. Since that’s the way I look at it, I guess we technically made it about 4 years ago when I was able to quit my job back home and do this full time. I wouldn’t exactly say that in the rest of the world’s eyes that we’ve made it back then because we could hardly pay our bills and we definitely weren’t raking in lots of money or anything like that, but we were definitely pursuing what we love.
Planet Loud – How did you actually get your break?
As I Lay Dying – A lot of bands have one single defining moment where they get their big break, or a record deal, or a big tour. With As I Lay Dying it was a steady progression. We originally did our first album where I actually paid for it myself. We booked our own tours and kinda got the wheels rolling that way. Very DIY. Eventually a small label took interest and put out our first record. After doing two records on a smaller label, then Metal Blade took interest and put out our following albums and the tours just got a little bigger where I didn’t have to book our own tours anymore. Eventually we got other people to take care of that for us. So it was just a constant progression.
Planet Loud – Is there anything else you’d like to say to your fans?
As I Lay Dying – With us there’s a good balance of the passion we put into As I Lay Dying and us just having fun as people. A lot of people, they’ll read our lyrics and they’re very heart-felt. I would say there’s a lot more depth than the typical metal band, but then when fans get to meet us in person they assume we’ll be very serious and uptight since the music is very serious. We’re definitely just normal guys. Hopefully when people get a chance to see our DVD they’ll realize there’s a balance to life. From messing around to doing something meaningful.
Interview by Jeff Gerew
