A lot of people have a lot to say about the interviews on this site. I guess it's about time I tried to clear things up. When I first started this site, I intended for it to be a very professional site as far as interviews go. I wanted to go out, interview band members one on one in person, include live footage, and really make it something worth watching. This all started with my Darkest Hour interview, which started off rocky due to miscommunications between the label and the band, but the band's manager saved the day and the interview, and I am (to this day) very grateful. I consider it one of the best interviews I've had the fortune of doing, especially for this site.
However, as time went on, due to my job always making it hard for me to get the time off I request (even with vacation time available) to go to shows, the eventual degrading of my health to the point where I have a lot of trouble getting around and am embarassed to be seen in public ninety percent of the time due to it, as well as not wanting to be in the worst sections of Philadelphia like this especially after a few friends were mugged in those areas which seem to be the only venues Metal bands come to anymore, it became absolutely impossible to continue this idea. Of course, I started doing phone interviews, and I had the idea to just throw them up on the internet unedited. However, I started getting torn apart on many websites for how "unprofessional" I am in those interviews.
The thing not many know is that many of these phoner interviews are done as early in the morning as possible. Typically, I'm the first, even second person to do the interview. Another reason why I would post these unedited, as it would be the first interview available on-line from that day, and almost all the time I really want the fans of the bands to get the interview and hear what they have to say without waiting to add a cut here and there to make it sound pretty. On top of that, I work a regular forty hour a week job, and it's at night, so I typically don't get home until one, maybe two hours before the earliest interview. At this time I'm dead tired. Why not take a later interview? There typically are no later interviews, I'll sleep through all of them if that's the case, so I have to pass on any without early times, and if I don't, I'm exhausted going into it, but do my best to be fully alert. However, this was not the case with the recent Amon Amarth interview.
This interview went to hell really fast. I had interviewed the group's vocalist years ago for a previous webzine I ran nine years ago and it went well. Sadly it went a lot better then the most recent interview. I also got to interview him again back when I was involved with WSFX FM. However, this time around it was not the vocalist, and due to confusions between work and the day I had to go and get my latest infusion of medicine for my medical problems, the interview was pushed back to the earliest available spot. I honestly thought I could make it, but by the time the interview rolled around, I was about to pass out, largely from the medication making me tired, and the general fatigue from the illness. I thought it went as best as it could, and was still happy with the outcome, but a lot of people tore it apart and, sadly, I caught a lot of flack from readers about it in my e-mail.
So, where does this leave the states of interviews here then? Well, since that day, my equipment has actually broken, which you can clearly tell in that Amon Amarth interview was already going. Due to a lack of funds from the ad service on this site holding out on payments, and nobody really clicking banners, there's no actual income to this site for me that I can get required things like that, and with the economy leaving me having to skip one bill each month to scrape by, it's basically impossible for me to grab what I need to continue doing regular phone interviews. On top of that, the backlash has actually dampened my spirits greatly on doing them in the first place, so I am sticking primarily to composing questions during or after I review a CD, then shipping them off with the review link to all parties involved with that specific release to forward over to the band to complete the questions. This way, everything works well for all parties, and the interviews can remain as professional as they can be.
But this doesn't mean that every band gets back to me. About four out of every five reviews I do have questions issued, and I'm lucky if I get one back. I know some bands/artists only answer "x" amount of questions, but I send a good deal of them over just in case they don't want to answer a certain question for personal reasons or are tired of answering it, don't mind doing them all, things like that. Basically pick which ones you want to answer is the approach I take and I typically make it clear. There's a number of interview questions I've shipped out since the beginning of the year that have never been answered. Bands like Deadlock, Mercenary, Abysmal Dawn, even Blackguard, and not having Blackguard respond actually really shocks me (though, no offense to their label, given the many miscommunications we have had between their new metal releases and my not getting a digital review copy, ages to get a response, being told to say "please" to get the material and getting it weeks later, or flat out not notifying the band manager i.e. Darkest Hour problem prior to interview). Of course there are bands I really don't expect answers from, such as Amorphis, though it would be nice to get some answers back from someone there.
Of course, sometimes bands surprise me. A lot of times, I don't expect big name bands on big name labels (or even just well known or well established labels) to get back to me with answers. My Dying Bride was one of them, and to me that was a huge honor. I've been a fan of the band despite not physically owning any of their material, which is something I definitely should correct. It was also an honor to hear from Scar Symmetry, as I've enjoyed the band for a while, though the two new albums did not necessarily live up to their first three in my opinion, but I still greatly respect each member for what they've accomplished with the band up to this point in their career. Sinister was also another one that shocked me when I got the ok for the e-mail interview. It took a while, but that was because the band went through a huge transformation I was unaware of. I have also been offered and interview with the band Supreme Pain, which features ex-Sinister members, and I intend to send questions over when I finish the review of their CD. I also have just sent out questions recently to Katana to accompany the review and recent audio stream, Panzerchrist to accompany the review of their new effort and the upcoming audio stream, as well as just shipped some over to Jake Dreyers, composing them immediately after finishing my review of his debut EP, which just went live shortly before this editorial was started.
As you can see from reading this, I'm actually not slacking on interviews. The problem is that many bands don't want to respond. Why this is, I'll honestly never know. I can understand some bands are out on tour and don't have the time to do it right away due to promoting the album, but at the same time a few answers would be nice to get back in return. A contact had informed me many bands won't do e-mail interviews at all. This is sad since this is the only way I can really retain a strong professional manner to me interviews for this site, but for the bigger name bands I do kind of understand, though newer bands, or the more underground acts, I would honestly expect to see some answers back at some point, mostly because it's nice to get to know these bands that aren't in the spotlight and have their story slapped all the place the way it is.
Well, there you have it. Many wanted to know where the interviews went and why they are in limited supply, and now you know. I'm not upset with any of the bands I sent questions to and never heard back from, it's just that some of them I would imagine they'd take some time to ship some answers over to get some more exposure. It's sad, especially since some of the bands I'm a really big fan of, and though I honestly don't see it as disrespect, more being very busy and just not having the time to get back to me in one way or another (trust me, I understand the hassles of real life and how it can eat away at every second of every day), it's just something that boggles my mind. As for doing phoner interviews again, at this moment I have no intention, but if I can get the equipment going again, I wouldn't mind taking another shot, and due to the amount of feedback I've received, I learned my lesson of putting unedited interviews on-line, so obviously that would be an important element to work on if and when it gets back to that. Until then, I hope all of you understand these limitations, and now see why there are less interviews on this site then expected as of late.
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