Articles

Interview avec Matt Ingram 2009-08-28

After being approached by Matt Ingram from Thrash Metal band Joe Thrasher, I accepted to do a short interview with him to talk about the band, their history and what are their plan for the near future. So here it is, enjoy!

MMIC: Matt, can you talk to me about Joe Thrasher? Give me a brief history of your band bio?

Matt: Here's a bit of background on the band. Jim (drums) and I (Matt, guitar) formed Joe Thrasher in 2003 along with former members – Jose and Gumby. We had the single goal of just having fun jamming some tunes. We started with some classic metal covers we loved and then began writing our own tunes. After a couple years, Scott joined the band on vocals replacing Jose. We always felt that we had something really cool going on, but were missing some killer vocals, which Scott definitely brings to the band. About a year ago our former bass player decided to leave the band and Scott quickly jump into the role of Singer/Bass Player. Scott naturally picked up all the songs with the attitude on bass that we had been missing, leaving us with a solid 3 piece line up.

Right now, we want to get "METAL FORCES" out to people! We feel strongly about the music we’re putting out and people need to hear it! REAL Metal is starting to come back in a big way and we are a part of that, with the right people and the right attitude fueling our music. We're playing shows around our area to help promote "Metal Forces" and are branching out to other nearby markets (Toronto, Montreal, etc)

What's in the future for Joe Thrasher? We have 10 killer songs written, waiting to be recorded for our follow-up to "Metal Forces". We hope to start getting these recorded and mixed over the winter for a spring/summer release in 2010. You will probably find that "Metal Forces" is fairly diverse from song to song while maintaining a unique sound and feel. We’ve managed to keep that with the newer material – and we are extremely excited about how the next release is shaping up. Songs for the 3rd album are in the early stages as well. After 6 years, we've really found our style and are very confident in our songs, which are getting stronger and stronger with every new one coming in!

Like I said before, we started this band with the single goal of having fun, which is still our primary focus today. With the tunes we’re writing and the feedback we are receiving from fans, we've now become interested in seeing where Joe Thrasher is going. This is just the beginning…

MMIC: How would you define your style – MySpace page says Thrash Metal Rock...?

Matt: That says it all right there! Thrash.. Metal.. and Rock.. mix it together. We started off as a thrash band. When Scott joined the band he definitely brought many more influences into the band that have given us a more Heavy Metal/Speed Metal sound I think.. definitely still lots of thrash but a lot more diverse then when we started out.

MMIC: Could you tell me more about Metal Forces? Where did you record it? Did you produce it by yourselves? How long did did take?

Matt: We produced Metal Forces by ourselves. We recorded the drums where we jam. Then I recorded the guitars at my place and Scott recorded his vocals and bass at his place. Slapped it all together, then had a good friend of ours, Scott Cameron, come in a do the mixing. And he did an awesome job. Before he came in to help us, the sound wasn't close to what we wanted... Noisy and messy sounding mix. Scott C, had all the know how to get what we wanted and made it sound awesome. All in all, it took just over a year from recording the drums to finishing the masters. I think we really captured our live sound on this album - to me that's the ultimate goal with the sound of an album.

MMIC: You mentioned that you have 10 new songs ready for your next album, can you describe how it will sound? Do you have a title yet? What can fans of Joe Thrasher expect from this album?

Matt: Yeah... there's about 10 songs currently written. We're in the process of tightening them all up and getting them ready for recording. We haven't started talking about album titles yet... Metal til you puke???? The next album is going to have a similar sound. We've got a pretty solid style down, and as you can hear on Metal Forces the songs are diverse from one to another - we've managed to maintain that with the next batch of songs, without repeating ourselves too much.

MMIC: What Canadian bands are you guys into in the moment?

Matt: From the Ottawa area - Aggressor, Bastardator, Drillpoint are all solid heavy bands that we love playing shows with... especially the Aggressor boys. A newer band starting up is Axiom - they're doing some cool shit... Branching out a bit more... There’s tons of great Canadian Metal.. Anvil, Exciter, Annihilator, Piledriver, Sacrifice, DBC, Reanimator, Razor, Voivod, Cauldron, Metalian, Maniac, Infernal Majesty... the list goes on.

MMIC: Do you have dates for upcoming shows?

Matt: We just finished up the annual Perth Metal Meltdown Fest last month - which was kick ass... Second year in a row with a sell out!

Coming Up:
Aug 29 - Perth, Ont @ The Shark & Bull
Sept 25 - Carleton Place, Ont @ CP Youth Centre

We're working on getting some other dates going before we take a little break to start recording.

MMIC: Well, I'm done here. Is there anything you would like to add as a conclusion?

Matt: We'd like to thank our friends and families and everyone who helps with shows and getting the Joe Thrasher word out to people. To the Joe Thrasher fans, we greatly appreciate all the support. "Metal Forces" should soon be available in Europe through Hellion Records and we're working on getting it to all the digital sites. Hopefully get it into other countries soon as well. You can also contact us directly through the myspace page to order the CD world wide. Also check out the myspace page (www.myspace.com/joethrasher) for all our other merch, news, shows, new tunes/videos as they come out. Thanks again to everyone who supports us and thanks to Nicolas @ metalmadeincanada.ca for giving this opportunity to spread the word. CHEERS!

MMIC: A big Thanks to Matt Ingram and Joe Thrasher for taking the time to do this interview! I appreciate it a lot.

Note: You can also find information on Joe Thrasher on their Facebook's group