Das Interview mit Car Bomb auf Euroblast Festival (English Version)

Es ist Sonntag, der dritte Tag des Festivals, für mich zuzüglich der Ignite Night der vierte Tag mit Konzerten. Die Stimmung auf dem Gelände ist ausgelassen, auch wenn man einen Hauch von Erschöpfung erahnen kann. Car Bomb (insta @carbombofficial, facebook.com/carbomb) spielen zum zweiten Mal auf dem Euroblast Festival. Dieses Mal als Headliner des dritten Festival-Tages. Am 27.09.2019 erschien ihr neues Album Mordial, erhältlich auf https://carbomb.bandcamp.com, oder für Europa/UK über Holy Roar Records. Ich treffe den Gitarristen Greg Kubacki und Bassisten Jon Modell im Press Area des Euroblast Festivals. Die beiden wirken locker und gut gelaunt. Optimale Voraussetzungen für ein Interview!

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

Congratulations on releasing your new album, Mordial! I saw that the recording took from fall 2018 till summer 2019, why did it take so long?

Car Bomb / Greg:

Hey! Thanks a lot! Recording took so long because we all work and we don’t do everything in one shot, so it took a little time. Plus for the vocal part we really wanted to take a lot of time. We were playing with a lot of things and a couple of tunes did not flourish as much as we wanted to in the beginning so we took our time trying to nail it.

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

What are your professions?

Car Bomb / Jon:

I do IT consulting, where I do a little bit of everything. Master of none, Jack of all digital trades.

Car Bomb / Greg:

Same thing! Uhm, graphic design – I do all the graphic design for Car Bomb as well – and any type of web-work, mobile app work, but more on the front-end side. Everybody in the band is sort of technically influenced. Mike actually has a master’s in physics. Smart man! It helps. Most of us work independent. That enables us to take time to hit the road. We took a lot of time this year. Almost two months!

Car Bomb / Jon:

We love math!

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

Was the album finished when you released the video for the first single Dissect Yourself?

Car Bomb / Jon:

No. I was still doing bass parts and I think Greg was still doing edits on the guitars and we were still recording vocals at the time. Ultimately we were heading out for the Animals As Leaders Tour and we wanted to have a song out there. Since the song was done and it seemed good. Everyone loves the „pew pew pew pew“ now. (laughs) It’s crazy. It’s a thing now.

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

Your music reminds me of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Everytime I listen to it I discover new things.

Car Bomb / Jon:

We love that with other bands, also. It has always been a thing to as, just diving into something and be challenged by it, finding new things. I still listen to Disco Volante by Mr. Bungle and still hear new things.

Car Bomb / Greg:

Do you know the song Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz? It is this crazy song, that sounds like a cartoon from the 50s and there is at least 80 different tracks in it. It is all mono! There is no stereo. We have been listening to it for 20 years and we just found out that everything is mono and we were like „Holy Shh..“ (laughs)

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

Was it a coincidence that the album released on the Euroblast dates?

Car Bomb / Jon:

Yes! For the most part. During the Animals As Leaders Tour we picked a cut off date and said „this is when we are going to release it“. Some time during that tour the Euroblast offer came in. So I think it was coincidental, but maybe it wasn’t.

Car Bomb / Greg:

We were like: This is perfect! We played here two years ago and we absolutely loved it. It was kind of a turning point for the band. It was the first show where we felt like it was OUR night and that we found our audience, so we were more than happy to come back.

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

I remember when you played and everyone in the audience picked up that „WHOU“ from „Finish It“ and I even heard someone do it yesterday.

(everyone laughs)

Car Bomb / Jon:

Yea, that’s a Mike Dafferner (singer of Car Bomb) thing, where he gets a couple of those in some of our songs. We love it.

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

What else do you remember about Euroblast 13, two years ago?

Car Bomb / Jon:

Wow. Like, what I remember is totally coming back as soon as I stepped on to the grounds yesterday. The scene, the feeling, the vibe here, how people treat you. How happy the fans are to be here. I feel like it is a well run festival with great staff and great people in general around.

Car Bomb / Greg:

No dicks, too. Zero. (laughs)

Car Bomb / Jon:

Jon Just a fun festival to be at!

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

I see that there are not many shows left this year?

Car Bomb / Greg:

Yeah. So we almost burned out our schedule while recording and touring in summer, so we are going to go back home and work a little bit and in the next year we will come back and do some stuff.

There might be some things coming in December in the states, because we have been neglecting the States a little bit, but we will see. Definitely next year we will be back in Europe doing our thing, which will be cool.

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

I look forward to it! This evening will be my third time seeing you live. I saw you with Meshuggah a few years ago.

Car Bomb / Greg:

That was in Dortmund, right? That was awesome!

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

I saw that you DIY’ed your Waveforms album, then got Jon Duplantier (Gojira) to help on Meta and Nolly Getgood mixed Mordial. How much did it help to have more people involved?

Car Bomb / Jon:

Absolutely. We did the W-kick-W, („Waveforms“) record mostly ourselves and we were very against having other people help us. On Meta we let people in that started to help us. The direction of the band took a turn for the better. We saw the value of bringing other people in. We are so protective of the music, the band and all that. We were worried about other people’s influences on the band, when not understanding what we were trying to do. I think it’s the same thing that a lot of bands do when they start out. But then we had Josh Wilbur mixing „Meta“ and he made us sound incredible. You know, we can play and we can record, but that guy – he knows how to mix.

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

Your new record sounds really really phat.

CB, Jon Yeah! Nolly also was like a happy accident. We were going to go with Josh again and he was booked. So we had to find somebody else to do it and Nolly was available. He did an amazing job.

Car Bomb / Greg:

Elliot actually recommended him when we were thinking of substitutions for Josh. We reached out to him and he happens to be a huge fan. He has listened to us since „Centralia“ (debut album) and we were like: This is insane! You know we want it heavy and push the envelope with it, so we are really happy with the way it sounds.

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

I play in a band as well – more like a hobby – but what I come to experience is that it is difficult to find someone that gets the sound the way you like it.

Car Bomb / Jon:

(laughs) For us its a hobby, too! Sometimes you find someone that understands mixing, but does not necessarily understand heavy music the way you think they understand heavy music, but you still give them the opportunity to do something

Car Bomb / Greg:

You have to find someone, that is willing to take feedback, too. It was a lot of back and forth with Nolly. Not with the overall sound, but just bumping things in certain spots to help the flow of the song. I think it’s important for bands to know that stuff beforehand, so they can envision how their music is going to translate on to a pair of speakers, or stereo.

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

I saw that the video for Dissect Yourself was done by Ben Levin. His Youtube-Channel is full of educational stuff, did you watch any of it?

Car Bomb / Greg:

He actually inspired a lot of music, too. His educational videos show a lot of simple tricks. He has this thing he calls Superman-Chords, where you take a chord and you move it to a random spot and it sounds like a Superman theme song or something (laughs). It works! It is really cool.

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

How theoretic is your music?

Car Bomb / Greg:

It depends. Everything we do is very by intuition and we always try to do stuff where we don’t think of it as player, but how it sounds. Because Meshuggah for example is really good at playing simple things and they change it just enough so it sounds like this amazing complicated thing. But we use theory and tricks when we get lost. When you have this amazing sound in your head and you kind of know where you want to go, but you don’t really know the chord, then you start going through theory and all that stuff. We usually don’t start there. We usually start off of an idea or something like that. If you find yourself in that spot, just google it. We don’t know all that stuff either. There is so much information online! When we get lost, we look it up!

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

Are you trying to push music to the limit?

Car Bomb / Jon:

I think we are just doing our thing. It’s cool that it’s pushing, people think that, but I don’t think any of us are trying to push it.

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

How much of it is fun and how much of it is serious?

Car Bomb / Jon and Greg: unisono It’s all fun! (they laugh)

Car Bomb / Greg:

The serious part is putting your gear in a plane, the logistics of playing a show, practicing and getting stuff done. But as far as music goes and the artwork, is just because we like certain things and certain bands. We are just paying hommage to all the stuff we listen to and appreciate it. Mr. Bungle for example.

Car Bomb / Jon:

I think if it becomes more serious than fun you need to reevaluate that a little bit. Again, we don’t do this for a living, this is something we do as a passion and if it’s not bringing us the satisfaction and fun.. You know, when you play in a band and it’s just this elation of ‚wow this is amazing to get together with guys and make music‘, if you lose sight of that, maybe you should reevaluate.

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

One of the first things I heard about you was your rehearsal room getting flooded? What was the aftermath of that?

Car Bomb / Greg:

(laughs) Yeah! That was a bummer, man. That was during a big hurricane, Sandy. Jon actually bought a whole brand new mesa bass rig. It was massive. The week after he got it, it got trashed. We had our first lighting rig, big LED-towers that got trashed and a bunch of other cabinets.

Car Bomb / Jon:

We had no insurance but there was MusiCares, like a relief foundation. If you apply they give you money towards new gear. The place we were never reopened.

Car Bomb / Greg:

Yea, there was like radioactive stuff there (laughs). You know what I’m talking about. There was sewage and waste. It was radioactive in my books.

Car Bomb / Jon:

Funny thing is, that the next room we went into was actually on the second floor of a building. Just in case. (both laugh)

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

If you could run a festival, no limits on money or artists being dead, who would be in your lineup?

Car Bomb / Jon:

Wow. Uhm. Hendrix. Zappa. Meshuggah. Mr Bungle. Metallica.. With Cliff Burton though. No offense (they laugh). Deftones. Portishead. Aphex Twin. Get The Dillinger Escape Plan back together (laughs again). Björk for sure. Beastie Boys with MCA. How much time do we have? We could go on like this for a while. (everybody laughs)

Car Bomb / Jon:

I said Zeppelin, right? Make sure to get that one in!

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

What is your favourite piece of equipment? Or what do you think is the most underrated gadget?

Car Bomb / Jon:

*censored*

(everybody laughs)

Car Bomb / Greg:

My wireless system. Jon do you use one? No? So I use this Shure GLX, it’s like a pedal and it comes with these packs. They are built like tanks and weigh like a ton. I have never had issues with them. That’s completely underrated. I never see anybody use them, but I’ve had mine for five years now and it works just great.

Car Bomb / Jon:

Your favourite gear is the AXE-FX though, is it?

Car Bomb / Greg:

Yes, as far as favourite goes it sure has to be the AXE-FX and the BOSS PS-3. Nothing sounds like the AXE-FX. It sounds so cheesy, but it really is like the iPhone of guitar-rigs. You don’t need all the stuff, you just need that. We don’t need to use cabinets, but I just like the air behind me. As far as programming FX and different tones and more simple things like mono and stereo go. You know I am just one guitar player and usually if you only have one guitar player it does not sound as good as when you have two. The AXE-FX has that stereo enhancer and if you know the tricks how to use it right, you just sound like two guitar players. It’s amazing.

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

Periphery made the AXE-FX really popular, but since Euroblast has had Kemper as sponsors for a few years now I have the feeling that they are more popular around here.

Car Bomb / Greg:

We actually did a shootout with Joe Duplantier. He wanted to do a shootout between Kemper, AXE-FX and a live-amp. So we did it. We flew in the guitartech from Gojira. He cloned his sound from the EVH’s he uses and I dialed in the sound I liked. All of them sounded great. The Kemper had a better amp-like quality to it, felt more natural, but that is not really what we do. This natural thing. We do more machiny like of thing. You can even use cheap equipment, if it is the sound you are going for. Also the portability of both of them! The AXE-FX just has more flexibility with rig modulators, pitch shifters. It’s more like an FX-processor, than the Kemper is. But I am always looking at it. They are stepping up their stuff.. Competition is good!

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

I bought your first album used on Amazon and it was signed, will you sign your new CD later?

Car Bomb / Greg:

Someone sold our signed CD? Goddamit! (everybody laughs) I hope you didn’t pay too much!

Time For Metal / Wolfgang F:

I payed the normal price and it was signed! Anyways. Thanks for your time. Have fun on stage later!

Car Bomb:

Yeah man! We are having a great time already.