EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH MUTINY WITHIN’S ANDREW “AJ” JACOBS
If you’re a regular reader of this site by now you should know all about Mutiny Within, Roadrunner’s latest metal young guns. Their debut self-titled album comes out next Tuesday, February 23rd… and we’ll be streaming the whole thing here on Monday. In the meantime you’ll just have to take my word for it that the album is great, the perfect mix of pure American metal and Euro power written by guys with an amazing sense of songwriting for such a young set of dudes.
Mutiny Within just finished up their opening stint on the MetalSucks-sponsored Tyrants of Evil tour with Arch Enemy, Exodus and Arsis. During the tour’s final week I caught up with bassist Andrew “AJ” Jacobs to chat about the tour, the new album, the support Roadrunner has offered and what it’s like being a new band on the road.
So where are you at the moment?
Heh. I don’t know. I’m in Northern California, and we’re heading to San Francisco.
How’s the tour been so far?
It’s been great. The best time of my life, man. The crowds have been huge. Arch Enemy has a really great following, and they’ve been really receptive to what we do. We met a lot of cool people, and I think this is just showing us how successful this album is going to be… you know, how well it’s going to do. We hope for the best, and our sponsors have just been great. It’s been really amazing.
That’s awesome, man. Do you partially feel like a fan in a way, getting to see Arsis, Exodus and Arch Enemy every night?
Yeah, for us it’s special. You feel like you would have bought tickets to the show anyway. After the first few nights, everything really locks in and it becomes your family and home for the next month. We’re all actually working together to put on a great show every night for all these people who want to come out and see a great metal tour. It really pushes you to do your best every single night and to give it your all every time.
Do you feel like you are doing your best every single night or are there things that you think you guys need to work on?
I do feel like we’re doing our best every night. From the beginning of the tour to the end of the tour, we’ve feel like we’ve so far thought that the first few dates were great, but we were trying to lock it in. I think there were some up and down levels. The first couple days of a tour is [all about] feeling out touring, feeling out your live show and getting back to where it used to be. Once the 3rd or 4th show hit, everything just locked in. We were playing everything tight, and it was just like the record. Everybody is really positive, and as the tour has gone on, the response has been getting bigger and bigger. More people are learning about us, and we’re able to start playing off of that in the live show. It’s awesome when kids start singing the words and Chris [Clancy, vocalist] can unleash as a frontman and really interact with the crowd. There are a lot more things that are happening now that the record release is getting a little bit closer.
So you feel like you’re seeing at least a few people every night that are there, if not necessarily to see you guys explicitly, that are there and definitely know who you guys are?
Yes, it’s starting to grow, definitely. We’re doing our best online and on the tour to really promote. I definitely feel that from the start of the tour to now, the awareness is growing because we’ve been seeing it. We see more and more kids come to shows, sometimes just for us. Sometimes they come to shows just waiting to meet us and waiting to talk to us, waiting to buy a shirt and all that stuff. That hasn’t been [the case] before, but now that the record is getting close and awareness is building, it’s been really cool to see. I think we all notice that as the tour has been going on, the anticipation and everything has been raised.
How does this compare to the Soulfly tour both in terms as to what we were just talking about with audience reaction and also in terms of the experience of touring and the match up of the bands?
The Soulfly tour was great because it was our first ever tour, and that’s a big tour to get for your first tour. It was really us learning how to tour, what to pack, what to eat, how to stay positive, us learning about our gear… there are so many things. Once you hit the road, you really don’t know what to expect. It’s much different than we had ever thought. You’ve got to learn the ropes. That was very good on the Soulfly tour. The Soulfly tour happened back in October. Our record wasn’t even close to coming out. So the awareness for us wasn’t as big as it is now. With this tour, we already know the ropes for touring. We know our gear. We know how to stay positive. We know all that stuff, so we know how to get along. On top of that, the crowds have been bigger, and the awareness is much higher. I think as we do touring all year long, we’re going to see that that is going to continue to escalate. We hope so.
Do you have anything special planned for the day of the record release?
Yeah, I think we’re doing an in store performance on Friday at Vintage Vinyl in Fords, NJ which is sick because that’s my record store, man. I’ve been going there since I was a kid buying records. I’ve seen a million bands there and gotten autographs signed there. I’ve been going there forever so now that my band is there that’s pretty crazy.
That’s cool, man. That’s so awesome.
The next day is Looney Tunes in Brooklyn in store.
Oh! No shit? The 24th? I’ll have to come out to that then. What about after that? Do you guys have any spring tours or summer festivals stuff lined up yet?
We have a tour in April where we’re in support of Sonata Artica and that’s a North American tour, and that’s sick because that’s been one of my favorite bands for a very long time. They’re one of the first metal bands that I got into. The tour with them is going to be sick, and the fact that it’s going to be a main support slot is even cooler. We’re very excited for that. It’s April 2nd to May 2nd, and we’re going to see the whole country and Canada.
Are you doing any of the summer festivals either in Europe or the traveling festivals here?
Should be announced. We don’t know anything yet.
That’s cool. Hopefully it works out. That’s a whole different, crazy scene over there.
Yeah, we don’t know anything about that yet. We can’t wait.
How has it been with Roadrunner? Just working with them in general after all this time being an unsigned band, and then being a signed band kind of in limbo for over year or however long it was before the album came out.
Everything’s happened very quickly. We got signed, and we got such support from them in making the record. It was unbelievable. They let us go to 2 different studios, they let us try out different mixers before we actually locked it in. We had been planning on making this record for years. We wanted to do it right, and we wanted to get it completely perfect. To have Roadrunner supporting us financially and also supporting us in a positive way, they’ve all been so positive, and they loved the music we were doing. They wanted it to come out right, so that was huge. After that, they’ve been piling up the interviews and tours and everything. They’ve really been pushing this thing. They’ve been telling us time after time that they believe that we’re the future of metal, so we’re not going to let them down and they’re certainly not letting us down.
-VN
