From Athens We Fled Fee's No More

Rock'em n sock'em dynamic quadro progressive/metalcore act From Athens We Fled hails from Phoenix, Arizona. These guys are pushing relentlessly onward, perpetually striving to provide more than a show for its' audience. Each performance is to be an experience not soon forgotten by their fans. In fact these guys took some time to discuss their latest album as well as plans for the rest of this year!

1. Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in From Athens We Fled, and how long the band has been together.

Band: I'm Jacob, one of the original members, and Mike is also an original member, Josh on drums, and Justin on bass, we all have our share of backup on vocals.

2. What type of band are you?

Band: A pretty bad one. It's metal and kind of hard to label yourself having someone say this or that. We're screaming metal music the type that your mom doesn't like and neither does ours (laughs).

3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there?

Band:  We're based out of Phoenix, Arizona, there are some bands growing within this scene but usually the band's like us are already signed and touring right away so hopefully we're next. The scene itself though is tough a lot of the venues, promoters, base it all on ticket sales, depending on who it is and there's a lot of self promotion too. We're had a lot of people hit us up for shows so we usually play between 3 to 4 shows a month at this rate, it's been picking up quite a bit since these last 2 years of being a band.

4. Do you think not being from a big city like LA or NY influences your sound?

Band: I don't think it really influences our sound. With the self promotion you need to prove that you don't need a label or sell out so we play what we want. It doesn't matter to us what we play we play what we want to play. It shouldn't sound the same unless it's a concept release, we have a lot of different songs we like to play around with when it comes to sound, like we have songs about video games, crazy shit, it just depends. You can grab any band and have them all be next to each other and they could all sound the same so no boundaries for us.

5. How did you guys come up with your band name?

Band: I (Jacob) was the only one who liked it, I had given the guys a long list of band names going over all of them,  I wanted to capture something musically breaking away from everything that binds you to something. Plus we like FAT chicks! (All Laugh)

6. Do you write your own songs? (Discuss the songwriting process in detail.)

Band: We write all of our own songs so the writing process goes like one of us is at work then texts or emails us so from there we go with it, listen to it, then see where it goes.  From there go into practice where we put it altogether, collaborating together from there.

7. What are your songs about? (What specific themes do they cover?)

Band: There's not really any main direction trying to speak from one point of view. One of our songs is a fan favorite "Drop" while another is about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. A large area is covered vocally and instrumentally so it could be anything really whatever we write and feel. Some songs are stupid and some songs are not we get by.

8. Who produced Ctrl Alt Kill and what was it like working with them?

Band: We didn't have a producer but had a recording engineer Michael Beak and did a fantastic job so he gave us helpful comments here and there.  He worked with us and what our goal was so check him out he is awesome and great to work with so no worries on anxiety or trying to do anything to change our music, it was all open for us, able to get good sound, bring ourselves into it, that's all we really needed really.

9. Is there any story or concept behind the Ctrl Alt Kill title?

Band: Really it was the last thing for our band so we liked it. We had a concept of having those keys Ctrl, Alt, Del key being gone and replaced with Kill so we had gone with that theme for this first break through album.

10. Who did the cover art for Ctrl Alt Kill and how much input did you have on it?

Band: The cover artwork input was from all of us. We had come up with the idea while in the studio joking with the engineer, so we came up with this idea of having the engineer propped over the sound system with a gun, so we looked at everything laid out, everything joined together. It was fun day and the metal guy we had wanted to come in didn't make it so we used the light guy our photographer had brought and everything worked out well.

11. What are your expectations for the CD?

Band: I didn't take anything seriously, didn't think our local radio station or an interview would happen even. I just thought I was going to play shows so we hope through the word of mouth that people will hear about us and go out and get our stuff.

12. Do you guys have any new material in the works?

Band: Definitely you guys will dig this material. There are a couple of songs we will be recording that we played at shows so a 10-song release is in the works and lots of fun. A sneak peek can be heard at this show we got coming up.

13. What are your upcoming plans for this year?

Band:  We're half way through the way and have a lot accomplished so far. Play the Battle of the Bands for Mayhem and the Battle of the Band's for Warped Tour. Just trying to take those steps and get out on tour and play shows.

14. What do you hope for in 2013?

Band: We just really hope to make it as big as possible, get our music out there, unleash the new material, it's all amazing for us really. Our goal is to get flashed by the girls in 2013!

15. Anything else you'd like to say or add?

Band: Thank you guys it means a lot that people like our music and it's the way it will spread so without you we wouldn't be able to do it.