What do Anthrax, Every Time I Die and Fall Out Boy have in common? To be completely honest, not a whole lot apart from the fact that ‘rock’ is incorporated somewhere in all of their genre descriptions. Meet ‘The Damned Things’
What do Anthrax, Every Time I Die and Fall Out Boy have in common? To be completely honest, not a whole lot apart from the fact that ‘rock’ is incorporated somewhere in all of their genre descriptions. But apparently that minor link is enough for Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano (Anthrax), Keith Buckley (Every Time I Die), and Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley (Fall Out Boy) to join forces and create a new ‘supergroup’ – The Damned Things. And as Trohan assures, this union is not as bizarre as it first sounds.
“It’s not as strange as bringing together a guy from a metal band, a guy from a smooth jazz band and a guy from a weird goth band and saying ‘everyone contribute equal amounts of ideas and let’s see what happens’,” he muses. “It is different, but we all essentially play rock music.”
Distant rock connection or not, it is hard to see what initially brought these five diverse musicians together. A melding of pop/rock, thrash metal and metalcore – it’s something that you don’t see everyday.
“Basically a mutual friend of Scott and myself introduced us in Los Angeles, we hit it off and later that night discussed doing a band,” Trohan offers as an explanation. “We started jamming several days later in my hotel room and from there, it was me and him jamming for a little bit. I got Andy involved pretty fast after that; being together in a band before, he was the first guy I went to.
“Once Scott, Andy and I had jammed together, Scott and I talked about getting Keith involved,” he continues. “We were listening to Every Time I Die, listening especially to the singing he does on the Every Time I Die records, and we were like ‘OK, this is the guy we should try to get to sing for the band’. We contacted Keith, he seemed interested, we sent him some demos, he seemed more interested, then we got him to come out and do some stuff in the studio and that solidified the idea of the band for us. After that, we got Rob involved kind of out of a drunken hang out.
“And that’s how we unintentionally made ourselves a three-guitar-player band,” he surmises with a smile.
Three guitar players, a whole lot of different experiences and a wide range of areas of expertise – The Damned Things were always going to be a bit different. And, one would assume that their backgrounds and other projects would place certain expectations, or stigmas, on their new collaboration.
“Fall Out Boy, Anthrax and Every Time I Die are all subject to expectation,” he says, matter-of-factly. “That being said, I have not, or we have not, tried to meet anyone’s expectations outside of the band. I think we have very high expectations for what we are doing and we made the record we wanted to make.
“I know some people are going to hate the band based on certain members, they may hate us regardless of the music and there’s nothing we can do to change that. But we sure as hell aren’t trying to meet anyone’s expectations,” he contends. “People’s expectations for this band have been all over the place; everyone expects something and wants something different. The only thing I want to do, just for everyone who wants to listen to this, I want to give them something that I can at least stand behind and that I can enjoy listening to.”
So, what has this melding of pop/rock, thrash metal and metalcore created? Well, Trohan succinctly describes it as a heavy/classic-rock, blues-orientated sound. But he refuses to provide any further in-depth details.
“It was always going to be different from my last band,” he tells. “I mean, everybody musically has their input, and then obviously Keith brings what Keith brings to the table too: the lyrics and the inherent sound of his voice.
“But, I don’t really like trying to describe the music on the record. I don’t want to describe it to people, because no matter how I describe it, it’s going to do the record an injustice. You kind of just have to hear it. If you really want to know about it, you have to listen to it.”
He doesn’t leave the name of their undescribed debut effort Ironiclast go unexplained though. “It’s obviously a combination of iconoclast and ironic,” he states. “I think it somewhat represents the band as far as I think everybody in the band may be considered to some, if not to many, iconoclast of their own genres or scenes of music that they come from. Also, due to the fact that on paper this band looks really strange, it is kind of ironic that we would be playing together. So it sort of represents that to a degree.”
Ironic and completely different to his Fall Out Boy past, this is a big jump for the once ‘top-of-the-charts’ pop/rocker. But according to Trohan, it has been a very positive move.
“It’s good for me to be doing this because I needed to expel a bunch of song ideas and music that I’ve had but I’ve bottled up and haven’t expressed. I needed to expose myself more and this allows me to put myself out there personally. I think everyone else in the band is doing the same thing, putting themselves on the line. It’s a good thing to do. I think it’s a really good thing to do.”
THE DAMNED THINGS’ debut effort Ironiclast is out now courtesy of Universal.
