The Sword - Interview

John "J. D." Cronise – vocals, guitar
Kyle Shutt – guitar
Bryan Richie – bass
Trivett Wingo – drums, percussion

A while ago I finally relented and got an XBox 360, with Guitar Hero World Tour and Guitar Hero II with it, and one of the songs on there had me hooked. Freya, by The Sword. It sounded retro, reminiscent of Black Sabbath and all the early legendary founders of rock and metal, and I loved the no nonsense playing, the craft of telling a story, and ultra tight rhythm blasting along. And despite the viking saga stories and accompanying videos, that's as far as it goes, and thankfully The Sword is about the music and art as opposed to the posturing on stage with fancy outfits. So when we were offered the chance to speak to The Sword's drummer Trivett Wingo, how could we refuse!?

You were here in the UK a couple of weeks ago, and now a new tour here again in November / December, plus Warp Riders took around a year to produce, that’s quite a punishing schedule! How are you enjoying it all so far, and what have been the highlights?

Punishing is not the word. I live an easy life for which I am grateful. Our show at the Barfly last month was the most fun I've had with my clothes on in a while. What a blast.

Earlier in The Sword, J D wrote a lot of the material, has that changed with the third album? We’re also wondering what sort of process JD goes through when writing his songs. And as an addition has the process been different writing a concept album because of the complexities in creating the story behind the music first?

Here's how we write songs now. First, we fast for about a month, rising at 4AM every morning, meditating and steeping ourselves in fervent prayer. We do not speak at all during this time, nor do we read anything or watch television. At night we sleep on beds that are hard and low to the floor. We do this for 28 days and then we just walk into the rehearsal space and start playing new songs.

With it being such an involved story behind this concept album, and a first for The Sword, have you ever thought about it being done in additional formats such as a graphic novel to accompany the album(as you are very precise in picking the correct artwork for your albums)?

We are trying to find an artist to do a graphic novel to accompany the album, but it's not easy and it's way more expensive than we imagined.

We’ve always wondered if the likes of iTunes, with fans just downloading single songs, might herald the death of albums. Especially concept albums, because it could be considered to be easier to just release a single here and there, as opposed to producing an epic such as Warp Riders. What’s your take on that?

Rock and roll started out as singles. There have always been singles. When I was a kid, we would buy "cassingles". Then it was the CD single with the bonus live track or whatever. Now it's an iTunes single. It's not any different really. I tunes is awesome.

You teamed up with Matt Bayles on Warp Riders, did he throw down challenges to the band, and did his input give J D more of a free hand to work on the music?

Bayles simply required us to work harder, spend more time, and render better performances. He took a lot of pressure off of JD and everyone else in the band as far as critiquing our performances went. We were free to play without being too self critical. That was a great luxury.

Lars Ulrich said he was a big fan of yours, did that surprise you at all?

Lars is a man of refined taste. He drinks the finest wines, drives the finest cars, and naturally listens to the best bands so it's no surprise at all.

Your work has appeared in a wide variety of formats be it Freya on Guitar Hero, or Celestial Crown in the Film Jennifers Body. Do you think this will become more common for rock/metal bands to do as they look to reach new audiences in lieu of not getting playtime on mainstream radio stations etc?

For sure and it's great for bands. With record sales collapsing everywhere and everyone getting greedier and greedier, it's really important for bands to branch out and find new ways to get stuff out there without having to sign onto a major record label to get your stuff on the radio. The Sword hasn't really had any success with radio because you pretty much have to sign to a major to get serious radioplay. It's no secret. But things like Guitar Hero have been great for us as well as the movies we've been in which we're pretty proud of. That Jonas Ackerlund movie the Horsemen is actually really good. I recommend it. We were in this other movie called "I Know Who Killed Me" where Lindsey Lohan does a strip tease to "Freya". It was voted worst movie of the year, but I thought it was awesome. It was like if David Lynch made a B movie.

You’ve been likened to Black Sabbath, citing your musical influences such as James Hetfield, Dimebag Darrell, Tony Iommi and Billy Gibbons, but who was the first person/band that made you really sit up and pay attention and think “That’s what I want to do”?

I think for me it was John Bonham, but I got really excited about playing in a band, when I went to my first punk rock show. I was about 12 or maybe 13 and it was in this dark dingy place filled with cigarette smoke and I didn't know anyone there and this hardcore punk band went on and it was evil as all hell and terrifyingly loud and actually kind of made me nervous. I had never seen people play music so violently and it was really intense. I'll never forget that feeling.

What new bands / music, if any, have you been listening to recently that have genuinely ticked all the boxes for you? Or are we being swamped with produced “Pop Idol” contestants to the point it’s getting difficult to hear new Rock/Metal music?

Lately I've been listening to this band called OM. I was a Sleep fan and didn't get into OM for a while, but recently something clicked in my head and I can't stop listening to this album called "Variations on a Theme". It's probably not for everyone, but I love it.

Finally, being avid petrol heads ourselves, does Trivett have his '70 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454 yet?

Not yet, but if everyone could help me out by buying more than one copy of Warp Riders, that would be great!