In many ways, us worshippers of metal are in a great position with endless choice and wealth. Many of the all time legends of our genre are still going strong, whilst the newer generations are holding the torch high. The double-edged sword, however, is that financially it is perhaps the most troubling time to be in a band for quite some time, and such huge competition is as much a curse as it is a gift.
One such casualty of the financial burdens of a touring band was Tulsa, Oklahoma’s own The Agony Scene, a band who had made waves in the early 2000’s, particularly with their blistering cult classic The Darkest Red (Roadrunner) which showcased a blend of furious, groove heavy metal and metalcore with more extreme elements in the mix. Quietly announcing a hiatus in 2008, the band’s main core, consisting of guitarists Chris Emmons and Brian Hodges and vocalist Michael Williams would begin motions again, firstly as just a run of reunion shows which then led on writing for a new release. Williams, when talking about the initial breakup and subsequent return, explains the reason for their return, and how the plan for simply reunion shows then escalated:
“I think everyone just got busy with life, like I have two kids and everyone sort of works and whatever; and we get on conversations about the old days and missing touring, missing playing and it just sparked a conversation where we said ‘why don’t we play a show?’ and then, taking that idea more seriously like where would it be, what songs would we play. The it snowballed into rehearsing, booking a date in Tulsa and kind of going from there. So we played the show, it was a hometown crowd and it went really well, it was exciting and in the process of rehearsing we started tossing around riffs and it sort of evolved into starting to write a bit. We just missed it, and everyone is getting a bit grey in the face and we were like well you only live one so let’s see if we have anything in us.”
The initial show saw the lineup, at the time, completed by original drummer Brent Masters and former bassist Chris Rye and, as mentioned, was booked to be a hometown crowd. When asked if whether the original shows were booked as a tester for future continuation Williams maintains that there wasn’t originally any further plans in mind:
“I don’t think we had that in mind specifically, again everyone is just adult and busy so I think we just wanted to do one (show), we did it, in the end we did three in total over the course of a year and a half and from that point we thought lets write.”
Of course the band were previously obstructed by the hardships of money, and now as Williams has mentioned they are now with families and other commitments of their own. The band have certainly matured however, as William’s frank comments about how the band feel about the financial situation now will attest:
I think now none of us care about that right now honestly. We are also in our mid 30’s so we are more responsible with our finances than we were when we were 24, we manage our money better in a tour situation, not always springing out for Denny’s or something, we can reel in our spending a bit better. Age and time definitely makes the world of difference, and I think if you’re going into metal music to make money you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. There’s a handful of people who get to do that in a real way and make real money and we just want to get to experience that life one more time in our lifetimes and we are kind of willing to live a little bit of the rough tour life again to go see the country, abroad and all that stuff.”
These early stages of eventual writing would begin an approximate two year writing period from what would have been an EP release to what became new full length album Tormentor (Outerloop Records) a staggering return from the ashes which shows an increased growth in their writing and a heightened level of anger with a sound that both feels more in line with their fan favourite The Darkest Red but also feels easily contemporary. Once again there is the air with this reunion of taking things as they come, as Williams suggests when it came to thinking about making a release again:
“We tested the waters with our old management and that kind of stuff about whether there was interest and it turned out there was. I think we spent two years writing it, got to a place where we were happy with what we wrote and were lucky enough that somebody wanted to get us recorded and put something out.”
With this interest confirmed and the writing process underway, the band were still seemingly unsure for certain about what form it would take, with early announcements of an EP eventually becoming the full length of Tormentor: “I think we were just trying to test the waters with what we could get people to do, and EP opposed to a full length is probably more reasonable like ‘hey can you pay for us to do this’ so were testing the waters like, how do they feel about this? Then we had conversations about a whole album. We had enough written that we could justify it.”
Since that first run of reunion shows, the lineup has altered once again with both Rye and Masters no longer involved. As Williams explains, however, the main core of The Agony Scene is still intact and thus marching on: The core since Darkest Red has been me, Chris and Brian, the creative core, the people that have to be there t make it the band, it doesn’t work without the three of us. Like we’ve probably had 5/6 bass players in our career. There are definitely people who I feel have been a great part of it, but no one that has been on a creative end for the sound or anything. Outside the three of us, it’s a lot to ask someone to essentially leave their lives, and we just happen to love it enough to go and do it.”
With ever-changing lineups throughout their lifetime, The Agony Scene has, for the most part, consisted of this holy trinity. Between them, the writing process was a long period of time. Williams explains how the process took place for the most part. “I think we wrote ten plus songs or skeletons of songs. We wrote a couple of songs back to back; ‘Like The Weeds In The Field’ and ‘The Ascent And Decline’ which shaped what the rest of the record would be, like, this is how it would sound. Then we scrapped a lot of stuff and started writing around this, and that became the nine that were on there. There’s one song, ‘Serpent’s Tongue’ which us four years old, that was from the original writing process.”
Over the course of their three previous albums The Agony Scene have mustered, at times, subtle sound changes and styles throughout, particularly noticeable on the transition from The Darkest Red to the much more punk influenced Get Damned (Century Media). As previously mentioned, Tormentor harkens back to more of The Darkest Red but once again sounds unique to itself. Williams explains about how the sound came to be, and whether thinking back to The Darkest Red was an intentional move:
“I know we never sat down and were like, this is the kind of record we want to make. We definitely wanted to make a metal record and that’s the only conversation we have had. A lot of bands are coming back from our era and I definitely wanted to make something that we felt was, like I don’t want you to put it on and think it sounds like 2004. It was definitely organic in writing songs that we like now and are listening to now, I don’t want to make a throwback record. Get Damned was what it was at the time and I still like it, but we maybe wrote some stuff that sounded like it would fit on there and we kind of shied away from those parts, but I don’t think there was a conversation otherwise.”
Lyrically, the subject matter on Tormentor is hard hitting and, not being a conceptual album, does have themes throughout, with ‘Hand Of The Divine’ as an example being in part about the infamous Rupio Murders, and with a video influenced by The Binding Of Isaac story. As lyricist, Williams gives thought on how the themes came to fruition: A lot of it is based on people misinterpreting or misusing…there’s so much different stuff, every song is about different things, the overall theme is God is an angry guy. The Binding of Isaac for example we thought was a good parallel to the Rupio Murders as far as someone feeling God is compelling them to kill their children and that’s really fucked up. I grew up very religious and to hear that story as a kid, you accept it, it is what it is; then you see through and adults and you understand. I have kids and it’s a pretty brutal thing to kill my son to prove faith and worth to a God, that’s a brutal thing to think about that’s glossed over as a story, that’s fucked up. The sort of jump off point was that then what nine things could I think of to talk about that is wrapped up in that sort of thing.”
The aggression on the album and the subject matter, coupled with the now adult and family ties the band possesses in comparison to their former years showcases a battle-hardened and more committed group with a lot to give. What may have seemed like a slow process to the present day has of course seen the band make careful and maybe tentative steps again, but things seem good in The Agony Scene camp with this desire to get back on the road and armed with their strongest album to date. One thing that really comes across from Williams throughout is how happy he is to be back with his band of brothers and doing more than just a run of reunion shows: Its been surreal, its been like eleven years since we last toured and done anything in a real way with the band, so its bizarre in good way that the response has been great and we get to do a substantial tour with hopefully more to follow because we have been out of that world for so long now, its cool we have an opportunity to do more with it than we thought.”
WORDS BY CHRIS TIPPELL