Kent and Chris from Like A Storm Discuss Catacombs, Touring and More
We welcome back New Zealand rockers ‘Like A Storm’ to LRI. The band just had a short leg of December headlining dates in the USA. Touring in support of their latest album “Catacombs’, the bands 3rd night of this leg was at the world famous Machine Shop located in Flint, MI. I had the chance to sit with Kent and Chris before the show about what they have been up to. They they discuss their latest album, and upcoming tour with Royal Tusk and Afterlife, and more! Enjoy!
Legendary Rock Interviews (Christina D): I’m sitting here with Chris and Kent from Like a Storm at world famous Machine Shop in Flint, MI. They are currently touring in support of their latest album “Catacombs”. This album came out about 6 month’s ago, right?
Kent Brooks: Yeah!
LRI: And it’s the third night of the tour, right? How’s it been going?
Kent: Awesome.
Chris Brooks: yeah…Amazing!! We’re doing a bunch of new production on this tour that we’ve never done before, and we are playing a bunch of new songs.
LRI: Awesome! You’ve played here before. Do you have a favorite memory of playing here?
Kent: So many. I think the first time we played here was with Drowning Pool, and I think when we first moved to Vancouver there was a guy who a drum tech there and he had a Machine Shop shirt on, and he had two or three. We were like “what’s that?”, and he said “oh, there’s this really cool venue in Michigan.” And this is before we were touring, so we’re thinking, “aw, man, it’d be so cool to one day get to tour the US.” So the first time we came we were pretty stoked because we’d already heard about it, and we’ve played here with Hell Yeah, Sevendust, Sick Puppies, too many to name. Zack from Shinedown, just years and years …
Chris: The first time was Helmet, we had to split right after to play Rock on the Range the next day, so we didn’t really get to hang out that much. The second time was with Drowning Pool, and Kevin was like, “oh, you guys want some food and have some drinks?” That night we really made the most of the Machine Shop hospitality.
Kent: We actually ended up in another bar in Flint that I have no idea where it was, what it’s called. It was one of those real drunken moments. We got off Drowning Pool’s bus and went out with the Machine Shop guys to some other place.I think it was closed but they’d opened it up, you know what I mean? We’ve had a lot of good times here.
LRI: I wish I knew the area, or else I’d probably be able to tell you (Laughs)…. So with the release of the latest album, Catacombs, this past summer, are you guys finding it hard to find your set lists? I did see your post about asking fans about setlists for the tour.
Kent: Well, once you get three albums in, then you’ve got more. When you do your first album, then that’s all you’ve got to play, and you even go the other way and you need to find covers and stuff like that to make up a set. Second album you’re kind of playing your favorites from both and then third album, yeah, you start going … for ourselves we want to play a lot of the new stuff, because it was all written to play live. There’s a lot of riffs, a lot of cool drum parts, stuff like that. But then you want to be mindful of the ones people want to come and hear, and we’ve also got on this tour, some stuff from the first album that we haven’t played in a few years. We kind of threw it out there, too, to people just to see what people said, because now we’ve got the three albums and it’s interesting to see what comes back as fan favorites. Sometimes a radio single might be one you were known for, but amongst your fans they love this other one. So it’s good. It’s the longest set we’ve ever done and it covers all three albums and it’s been awesome. We’ve cleared show end, so, yeah.
LRI: First time I ever played you guys on my radio show (Rock Rage Radio), I played “Pure Evil”. That’s my favorite one!
Kent: Oohh thank you. We wrote that song for a European tour we were doing with Alter Bridge and Volbeat and Gojira, and we’d been chipping away at this one for years, because it’s just six minutes long, so it was always this work in progress. The label over there said we should put out a new track to go around this tour, so we were like “Yeah, we’ve got just the thing we’ve been working on”.
LRI: In all the albums, what made you guys go heavier on this one?
Chris: I think it’s part going heavier, but it’s also …
LRI: It sounded like you guys went heavier with this one.
Chris: I mean, yeah. That’s definitely where we ended up. I think a lot of it, too, is we produced the last record. I think on that one we were just figuring out how to produce, how to capture the sound we wanted. On this album having done it before we really knew how to capture all the moments that we wanted, so we just wanted to take that live energy that we come up with through touring and through playing all over the world and capture that energy onto an album. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision to go heavier as it was to more closely capture how we felt playing our show.
Kent: When you first start out you’re not a touring band. And even though you don’t think of yourself as not being a live band, you’re really not a live band till you start touring. Your first album is written in a bedroom, so it’s you sitting there, or written in your jam space or whatever, but it’s not until you go out and tour that you start to get a feel for what you like playing live and what you’re seeing. The song “Love the Way You Hate Me”, I came up with the riff because in my mind I could see that throwing down at a festival. We were driving away from a festival we were playing in Portland and just thinking about what kind of music would get a crowd going in rhythm, so you get a lot of that kind of thing that you don’t have insight to when you first start.
LRI: Nice. You recently toured with Shinedown and Godsmack, which I totally was stuck in traffic and missed you guys this summer. I was so mad, I wanted to see you guys so bad.
Kent: A lot of these venues there’s only one road in and there’s 20,000 people on one road. That’s a bummer!
LRI: Well, I’m here now.
Kent: Exactly.
LRI: And I’m gonna see you guys again in February.
Chris: Oh, cool.
Kent: Nice.
LRI: Yeah, the Octane tour. It’s Gonna be February 18th in Detroit, right?
Kent: Yeah!
LRI: The Sirius XM Octane Accelerator, that’s it, right? I don’t know much about Royal Tusk or Afterlife but I’ll definitely check them out with you guys in February. So, since touring with Shinedown and Godsmack, what if anything did you learn about touring with bands with a bigger production?
Chris: Well, firstly, they’re just awesome bands, even if you took away all the production they’re such amazing musicians, all of them. All such great people. We had so much fun on that tour, didn’t we? Every single day hanging out with them, watching them set up. Both those bands are just so good at making the show entertaining, making it an event, so we definitely got really inspired by the different things they were doing to make it so special for the crowd. We got a few things going on tonight, haven’t we?
Kent: We’ve always been the band that, when we’re on tour with another band, we’re side stage watching them, drinking it in. We’ve been out with Ozzy, Alter Bridge, Sevendust, Three Days Grace, we’re just such fans of rock shows first, which is why when we first went to them, that’s what got us hooked on the idea of doing it. I’ve seen bands go out on tour with bigger bands, and once their show’s over then it’s all about partying and going out there so people notice them. We’ve always been there, side of stage, watching these masters and trying to learn as much as we can, because it’s a craft. You spend your whole lifetime trying to perfect that and chase your idea of what doing a perfect show or writing a perfect song is, so we’re lucky to be in that situation.
LRI: It was a good show, I’m bummed I missed you. I can’t wait for tonight.
Kent: We’ll make up for it tonight.
LRI: I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve never seen you before, so I’m really excited about tonight’s show.
Kent: Oh, nice.
LRI: Is there any new music you’re listening to now?
Kent: I love Parkway Drive, and I love Architects, and I love, it’s not new, but the Sempiternal record by Bring Me the Horizon. I just love when the guitars and the drums lock in on the heavy riffs, like you’re out listening to Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Sepultura, and then, it wasn’t heavy, but even bands like Soundgarden could still do it, you know? It’s really rhythmic and percussive and so it was kind of a dip in that for a while, and rock music seemed to be all about a four-chord song, and that’s good, it has its place. But it seemed like it had been sort of done to death and now all these bands, ourselves included, who grew up listening to riffs, are putting more riffs in the music. I just love guitar riffs.
LRI: Nice. I’m learning guitar myself right now. My brother got me my first guitar for Christmas. I’m excited about that. It’s going to take some time.
Kent: What kind of guitar is it?
LRI: It’s an acoustic guitar, I forget the brand, but it was a surprise.
Kent: It’s fun when you first learn those first four or five chords and it unlocks the door and then you realize how many songs you can play.
LRI: That’s what I keep hearing from my friend, he told me once you get those down you can play so many songs, too.
Kent: Yeah, exactly.
LRI: Last time we did interview you, you guys talked about growing up in New Zealand. After the last album and tour and stuff, did you get some down time at home?
Chris: Not yet. We haven’t been back to New Zealand yet, have we?
LRI: You haven’t? Awwww.
Chris: We’re trying to figure out when. It’s always tough to fit in, you know? So we’re trying to see if we can either go back between this tour and the Octane one, or else later in the year.
LRI: You get homesick.
Chris: You just want to see your … My granddad, all three of our granddad.
Kent: That’s family and friends, really, because the rest of … I love the country, but we’re living the life that we set out to live when we moved up here from there, and we’re just so lucky we get to do it. Most bands don’t get to. To be so busy touring, I think we’re going to 24 different countries before the end of March.
LRI: It’s a lot. I hope you guys can get home to family soon.
Kent: It’s not the kind of place you can go to for a night.
LRI: No, right, you’re a little far from home. By the way, my favorite wine is from New Zealand. Sauvignon blanc, I like the Marlboro, New Zealand wines. My favorite, so I’d love to go there too. Maybe I can make it there at one point.
LRI: I’m looking forward to tonight. Very excited. Thank you for your time, too!
Kent: Thank you guys for supporting us, you’ve been supporting us from the beginning, and when you’re in a band youm don’t forget that, you know? So we appreciate it a lot.
LRI: I love it. I love music!
Kent: We appreciate it, thank you.
LRI: Yeah, thank you.
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Thanks to Like A Storm for taking the time to talk to us again!
Visit LIKE A STORM on the net for tour dates and the latest news
http://www.likeastorm.com
Category: Interviews
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