ALL THAT REMAINS FRONTMAN PHIL LABONTE DISCUSSES THE BAND’S MAINSTEAM SUCCESS IN METALSUCKS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Sitting down with All That Remains frontman / Affliction-wearer Phil Labonte was a tad bit uncomfortable, for all the not-so-nice things (but not terribly offensive, either, comparatively speaking) we’ve said about his band. I’m actually not even sure that Phil knew with whom he was conducting an interview — the on-site press coordinator at the Rockstar Mayhem Festival simply introduced me by my birth-given first name, Phil said, “Hi, I’m Phil,” we sat down at a table and that was that. It’s probably a good thing too, since Phil is really into his iPhone, Twitter (which I asked him about) and claims to “read a lot of stuff on the Internet.”

So, whether he knew who I was or not, Phil and I chatted mostly about the band’s newfound mainstream success. What’s it been like? Has he seen a change in the audience at shows? Will it change the band’s approach on the next record? Has it alienated the core fans? Despite my best attempts to get some kind of averse reaction out of Labonte, he held his ground quite well and insisted that for the most part nothing about the band has really changed all that much. Phil was a nice chap and certainly seemed earnest about his answers.

Our chat, after the jump.

So how is the tour going so far? Generic first interview question.

It’s awesome. It’s probably a generic first interview question answer. Things are going great for the band. We’re in a really good place in our career, and we’ve had a lot of growth. The new record has been really successful, far more successful than we had expected. We were hoping that it would do well. We felt good about it, but when it came out, it sold plus 30,000 the first week. It was top 20 in Billboard. We’re almost a year into it, and it has sold over 200,000 copies. It’s great.

Are you seeing [the results] of that out on the road?

Yeah, and it reflects in our stage show. In the audience, people come out and are singing along — they know the lyrics.

Do you see a slightly different audience maybe than you did on prior records?

I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s a different audience. I think that there is a far greater exposure. If you look at a band like Killswitch, it’s essentially the same audience that we have, but they are going to draw twice/three times the people because they have a couple of gold records. They’re huge, and it’s the same kind of thing with Slipknot. There are Slipknot fans, and they sell millions of records. It’s not so much different, it’s just that we’re getting to more people because more people are finding out about the band.

That’s awesome. Obviously you guys have a ginormous radio smash. Was that something that caught you guys by surprise?

Oh yeah. I knew that it was a good song. When we were writing it, and I was talking to the people in the band about how things were coming and the ideas that we had. Everything was kind of roughed out and rough sketched when we were in the studio, and I was like, “that is going to be a big song.” We didn’t even have a name for it at the time. We had a couple of ideas for a melody and vocal lines, and we always have funny working titles. I’m pretty sure that it was called “Pulled Pork Surprise” which later became “Two Weeks.” I was like “yeah, Pulled Pork, that’s going to be the biggest song on the record. That’s going to be the best one.” People were like “oh blah blah blah and this and that,” and I’m like “nope, I’m telling you now.”

Not only is it the biggest song on the record, but it’s the biggest song that we’ve ever done and it made it to #6 on rock radio. It came out of nowhere. It’s not like we had some song that we had other previous radio exposure with. For most of radio, we were a brand new band that had done nothing, even though our fans knew we had 3 records out. They knew that we had history and a solid fan base and stuff. Radio was like “who are these guys?” They got behind it, and I can’t complain at all. It’s the best thing that has ever happened to the band – just people hearing that song and wanting to check out the record. It’s had a huge impact on us.

Do you think that that is going to affect what you guys do with this record moving forward as far as touring goes?

Yeah, a little bit.

Are you going to end up out with, for example, Shinedown and Saving Able and those kinds of bands?

I don’t see us going out with those bands, although I won’t rule it out because one thing that we have always tried to do is tour with different style bands because that’s the best way to expand your fan base. Get in front of people who don’t know who you are and have never heard of you. That’s the whole point in going out and supporting. I don’t see us doing stuff with Shinedown or whatever, but I could definitely see us doing a tour with bands that do have more radio history, probably a little heavier than Shinedown.

Yeah, maybe that wasn’t a good example. Maybe more like Disturbed.

We’ve done some support for Disturbed. We’ve done some support for Slipknot. We would love to do some more because Disturbed and Slipknot are all really cool dudes. They’re really very friendly, and their crews take good care of us. Their crews took awesome care of us. The guys in the band are really nice. I didn’t have a lot of time to hang out or talk to them and stuff because when you’re in a band and stuff, you kind of go out and do your thing during the day. That’s just the way it is. The crew we spent a lot of time with, and they really went out of their way to be nice to us. We were in Norway, and they walked us onto the stage, and we got to watch Slipknot from the side of the stage, which is very rare. You don’t go to a lot of Slipknot shows and see people standing on the side of the stage while Slipknot is playing. They keep it pretty closed off, but they were super awesome. At that same show in Norway, Clown came out and watched 3 or 4 songs from our set which was really flattering to be honest.

That’s cool.

Yeah I would love to do more touring with bands like that because they’re huge. I love playing for bigger audiences and saying, “hey check us out”.

With situations like that where Clown is watching from the side of the stage and you feel flattered, people who have been into metal know that you guys have been around for awhile. You have several albums out. You’ve been working hard, touring, putting out records in basically the underground for a long time. Does it feel like “holy shit, finally some kind of vindication”?

Not “finally.” I don’t know. It’s really cool to get kudos. Anytime you get compliments from a band. From a band, if you stand and watch a band, that’s a compliment, from my perspective. If there’s someone taking the time, who is in this industry, who knows what it’s like, who sees a million bands all the time because really for most band members, they’re like “I have to really dig a band to go watch them because I got other stuff to do. I hear a million bands all the time. I’ve seen a million shows, so unless I’m really into the band, I don’t care. I’m not going to go.” So it’s a big compliment if someone goes and checks it out. If someone takes the time to stand there for 20/30 minutes and hang out and watch most of your set or whole set, that’s a big compliment.

Cool. Did I see you guys on a cover of AP [Alternative Press magazine]?

AP did a CD compilation thing that we were on, and there were 4 different bands on the cover. Four different covers went to Wal-Mart. It was a limited edition of like 850,000. We were on the cover of that. It was a really cool picture too. It’s one of my favorite band photos of us ever.

That’s a real different audience for you guys.

Yes, especially seeing that AP hated us at one time.

Really?

Oh yeah. They were not impressed with The Fall of Ideals at all.

Right. Is that bizarre for you guys?

It’s a little weird, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Anything that we can do to get more people to listen to our music and check us out, we’ll do it. That’s just what bands do, anything that you can do to get your music in front of a wider audience is good because it turns into just sheer numbers. If you can get your music in front of 20 million people, you’ll probably have a gold record.

Do you worry about alienating the core? “Oh they’re on the cover of AP, fuck those guys”.

There has been some stuff. I read a lot of stuff on the internet and stuff. There has been some people that say that, but when it really boils down to it, I can’t worry about it because we’ve never put out the same record twice. Every record has progressed, and every record has been different. We’re going to do stuff that is different from record to record, and we’re going to try new stuff. The next record is not going to sound like Overcome, it’s going to be a different record. We’re not going to do The Fall of Ideals again either because The Fall of Ideals is The Fall of Ideals. That’s the thing that I see the most, people that have heard about us through The Fall of Ideals and they’re like, “oh man, you should have put another record out like The Fall of Ideals.” It’s like, “no, we did that record.” I love Metallica, but Master of Puppets and Justice for All are the exact same record – it starts out with the fast one, then it’s got the big complex one, then you got the ballads — “Sanitarium”. They put out the exact same record, and I don’t want to do that.

Last question: you seem to be very into Twitter.

I Twitter, Myspace, Facebook. I’m very into my iPhone.

Ah the iPhone. The life changer. I just got one.

Yes. My mom’s getting one this weekend.

That’s fucking scary. [Laughs]

Kind of.

I don’t think my mom would have any fun with that.

She wants the TomTom application on it.

Twitter specifically, though, is definitely a unique thing. What’s your general opinion on it?

I love it. I think it’s really cool. I have an RSS feed and Google Reader. I’m like a gadget dude. So I got an RSS feed, and that’s sort of what Twitter is, but it’s an RSS feed from people that you’re interested in or bands that you’re interested in or whatever. You go out and see their updates. Most people that use Twitter tweet a couple of times a day, so you find out what’s going on in their life or with this band/comedian or whatever. It’s an RSS feed for life or for people as opposed to websites.

-VN