Good day, Guillotine A.D.! How are you guys doing these days?
Great! We have a big summer planned with the release of “BORN TO FALL” and lots of shows planned in support of that. We’ve been working towards this for a long time and it feels incredible to finally have our efforts come to fruition.
First of all, please introduce your band and band members to our readers.
We are Guillotine A.D., Southern death metal from Athens, Georgia. I, Adam Miller, play bass and do vocals. My big brother Lance plays guitar, and our brother-in-metal Evan Posey bangs the drums.
I’d like to know about the formation of the band. How did you guys meet and all. Also, is there any special story behind the band title?
Lance and I are brothers, so we have known one another a long time haha. The band was originally formed by the two of us in 2003 as Guillotine. We played a few local shows and recorded a demo in that early incarnation, but then college and life took us in different directions. We started getting the band back together in 2015. I was just playing bass at the time. Our singer quit the night before our first show in 2016, so I stayed up all night learning how to play and sing at the same time, and I’ve been the frontman ever since.
We found Evan when he responded to our Craigslist ad looking for a drummer. You never know what kind of weirdo you’re going to meet through the internet, but Evan was our type of weird. His thrash punk band needed a bassist, so we had a quid pro quo arrangement for a couple of years. You hear crazy stories all the time about things going awry when you meet people from online listings like that, but this one worked out!
As for the name, we had the name Guillotine back in 2003. We were in the Stone Age of the internet and didn’t realize how many other bands there were with that name, including the Swedish thrash band. As we started picking up steam in recent years we knew we had to make a change, but we were attached to the name. We added ”A.D.” to improve searchability and set ourselves apart while also honoring our past.
I expect a long reply for this one. Can you please tell us about the concept and lyrical themes of all your previous releases?
Our first album from 2017, self-titled “Guillotine”, was a concept album about an ancient alien who planted the seeds of humanity with the intent to return millions of years later to harvest souls to fuel his interstellar travel (“Gravety”). He returned to find a demonic vampire spaceworm corrupting and feasting on his creation (“Black Emperor”). The story culminated in a final battle where the two eventually decided we weren’t worth fighting over and agreed to wipe the earth clean and go their separate ways (“Not Worth Saving”). It was a metaphor for the frightening idea that there is an omnipotent and omniscient Creator, but you suck and don’t deserve his love and protection. There were some other interesting lyrical themes on there too. “Prepare The Drill” was literally about being kidnapped and having a hole drilled in your head, but with years of hindsight it seems like a prescient metaphor for being “canceled” over something you think or say. “Kraken” was a cool conspiracy theory song about the elites using the HAARP installation to control the weather, but accidentally triggering a tsunami that destroys a nuclear reactor and creates Godzilla, who gets his revenge of course.
Our new album, “BORN TO FALL”, is not a concept album, but there are some recurring themes throughout. I’m not going to explain everything because I want to leave some things open for the listener’s interpretation, but the album deals with lust, addiction, guilt, punishment, and damnation. The title track is a musical presentation of “Paradise Lost” by John Milton, dealing with Man’s fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. But we also have songs that aren’t so serious, like “I Want To Believe”, which is about being murdered by Sasquatch.
Is there any special reason for choosing your music conception?
We just try to make cool riffs and lyrics that can match them. Sonically, we are just trying to make the kind of music we like to listen to. Lyrically, we are trying to make the words appropriate for the riffs. We don’t pretend to be too clever. We want to tell stories and make the listener think, but ultimately this art is music, not poetry. It’s about how it sounds more than what the words mean.
How do you guys manage to create music at all? What challenges do you face while writing and recording an album?
This album was definitely more of a challenge for us to write, with childbirths, natural disasters, and global pandemics impeding our progress. After we released “Guillotine”, I moved away from the other guys to another part of the state. My wife had our first child, which obviously impacted our musical endeavors, then shortly after that, Hurricane Michael devastated the area I live in. Clean up and recovery from that kept me from working on music for months, but eventually I got back on track. Then COVID happened right as we were finishing up writing the new album, which delayed us getting into the studio and finally releasing the album.
On our first album, every single riff was a collaborative effort between me and Lance. We lived pretty close back then and had the luxury of jamming face-to-face, which definitely influenced the writing process. Now I live far from Lance and Evan, so I will make demos and send them to the other guys and we would work from there. I arranged all of the songs, but everybody contributed to the writing process. It was probably not very different from how most bands wrote music during these past two years.
Born To Fall will be released this month (June). How was the experience working on the studio? Any funny or even sad happenings during the studio work?
We recorded “BORN TO FALL” at Ledbelly Sound Studio with Matt Washburn, just like we did with the first album. A trip to Matt’s studio is relaxing and invigorating. His studio is in a dedicated basement of his house. The studio is nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians in an idyllic setting, with his horses grazing on the rolling hills, but it's also equipped with the most cutting edge equipment to capture the most brutal sounds. We always have a blast working with Matt, even though he can put the pressure on to get the best performance out of you. We stay at a nearby resort where we always stand out from the typical clientele, so we have tons of stories of awkward and hilarious run-ins with other guests.
You guys are still underground/underrated, although the critics have appreciated your music. What, according to you, is the reason behind it?
I think that we are on a good trajectory to break into a wider consciousness. We had great momentum going into 2020. We were set to open for Possessed and Pestilence in Atlanta in April 2020, and the plan was to ride that high into the studio and release the album on the back of that momentum. Of course that didn’t happen for obvious reasons, but I would say that the events of the last 2 years had a huge impact on our progress.
Can you throw some light on your past as musicians?
Lance got his first guitar at age 10, and I got my first bass a few years later when I was 12. We grew up listening to our dad’s music, so ZZ Top, AC/DC, Ted Nugent, and Van Halen were the soundtrack to our childhood. Our progression into heavy metal started with Pantera and Metallica, then Lance saw Shadows Fall open for Mushroomhead in 2002 and that really got us going. Shadows Fall led us to all the other bands of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal, and from that point we educated ourselves on the more extreme subgenres of metal. In school we were both in marching band, so most of our formal musical education is from that background. Lance was a drum major in high school, and even marched with the University of Georgia Redcoat Marching Band. Evan has a thrash background. He got hooked on Slayer and Sepultura in high school and has been a lifer ever since.
Tell us about your favorite bands, from whom you gain inspiration. Are you having any favorite artist/band that has emerged from metal/rock soil?
As a band we draw from old school death metal, black metal, and New Orleans sludge for inspiration. Satyricon is one of my favorite bands. I also love Obituary, Six Feet Under, Bloodbath, Enslaved, and Goatwhore. Some newer bands I’m really into are Frozen Soul, Sanguisugabogg, and Undeath.
How is the Death metal scene going in USA? Just your personal feelings.
I think it’s really strong right now. There are a lot of popular death metal bands that have become very successful in the last few years, including Frozen Soul, Sanguisugabogg, Creeping Death, and Gatecreeper. Also the legendary bands like Cannibal Corpse and Obituary are still going strong as well.
Tell us, if you have played abroad.
We have not played outside the United States yet, but we plan on doing that in the not too distant future.
Are you working on any music videos, might it be videoclip or lyric video?
We have lyric videos out for “Hammer” and “Exile”, and we are releasing a music video sometime in June for the title track of the album.
Rapid fire section. Just for fun. So just chill, and just type the first thought that comes to your mind when you hear:
* Ruin – Lamb Of God
* Leak – Snowden
* Smoke – Down “Bury Me In Smoke”
* Prison – David Allan Coe
* Tower – Lord Of The Rings, The Two Towers
Thanks a lot for your time! It’s really nice to know more about you. Would you like to say anything to your fans and our readers?
We hope you check out “BORN TO FALL” and that it becomes part of your listening rotation. We put a lot of work into creating an album that’s meant to be listened to as a whole, so we recommend that you play the whole thing front to back, then get ready because we’re coming to see you at a live show soon!