Spirituality, Christianity, religion it all has a place a name and a meaning behind it but through the eyes of War Of Ages who's been around for over 10 years they take their beliefs to the heart and soul of what they love to do. Having released six albums and being signed to Facedown Records frontman Leroy Hamp discusses with me his band's musical influences, beliefs, lyrical writing, and what it took for “Return To Life” to be what it has become. It in the end it doesn’t matter what it is or what it was its just all music in the end.
1. For those who aren't familiar with War Of Ages can you give us a brief summary?
Leroy: A brief summary of War Of Ages well we’ve been a band for over 10 years, we’re signed to Facedown Records, we have 6 albums, 5 members of metal and love the lord and that’s pretty much it.
2. When did you start writing for this album? How was the songwriting process different/similar to previous War Of Ages albums?
Leroy: Well we definitely did some new things for this album writing-wise. We brought in a new writing style on Eternal whereas Steve and I would comprise vocal melodies and riffs together, kind of find out a structure of a song and started that process about a year before Eternal came out. Then we mixed it with the old style where we’d get together in a practice room and just jam together where we mixed those together.
Now with this new album Return To Life Steve and I just would put songs together finding flow building songs it allowed us from being not as tired. So we just figured it out from there and did it that way. Lyrically I wrote about how I was feeling I have a new addition to the family a new daughter so I wrote more uplifting and what we went with.
We started the record a year before we recorded it so we could see how it turns out and have enough time with it so that’s pretty much how we did it this time.
3. What are your songs about? What specific themes do they cover?
Leroy: We wrote about different topics I had spent the last year and a half studying the bible and still am studying it because it’s pretty long but among other things I was going verse by verse using the internet and other sources on what I was being taught.
So when writing this album a more personal foundation came out and a lot of the people and friends can turn to a faith and live their life and everything will be fine but in reality a boat will be rocked at times. So that’s when you need to firm it up for who you are and who you believe in.
The first song “Immortal” is about this and we’re shooting a video for another song “Silent Night” so that’s about how your world is and how you will stand your ground so that the whole concept is wrapped around the album that way and it’s how I went with it.
4. Who are your musical influences?
Leroy: That’s such a broad spectrum you have Steve who’s into Swedish and American metal like Iron Maiden, Soilwork. While Alex and I are into the aggressive metal me personally love Rage Against The Machine and love his honesty through his lyrics and same goes for P.O.D.s lyrics. If you’ve seen a War Of Ages live show then you know what type of presents I can bring which is like Hatebreed, Madball, and Terror’s style.
5. Did the band have any definitive goals they were shooting for before the recording process began for this album?
Leroy: Well we just wanted to be honest and write what we feel. We just hope that what we bring to the table and people will understand what we say we want kids to understand what we mean and what we believe in and who we are by doing it through our music. I don’t say a lot on stage but I think our music speaks directly and be honest through each of our albums and what we focus on.
6. How would you describe the overall sound of the new album? How does it compare to Eternal?
Leroy: We definitely went way more rhythmic with this release and wanted to create something different and challenge ourselves. It’s definitely a headbanging album it’s definitely along the lines of P.O.D. and Rage Against the Machine lyrically. Musically filled with solos and very pedal to the metal to go with the lyrics, I tried to mix different things like Darkness Hour meets Comeback Kid add some different modes for music than my usual screams I wanted to add on to that. Steve did a great job of rapping instrumentally with what I had wrote lyrically so he wrote riffs to go with it and it worked out well.
7. Did you feel any pressure for a follow-up?
Leroy: I would say no. Every album is its own it doesn’t matter to us we wanted to try this or that with previous albums but to us it’s just a new chapter to this one book. We don’t really care and hope each album is different enough and every album will be better because we’re maturing and hope the music does too.
8. What’s your favorite song on the new record?
Leroy: It’s hard to say because each song has a different delivery like “Immortal” is more hardcore and like “Silent Night” would be my personal favorite because its different vocally, it opens up with a Rage Against The Machine vocal line and goes into a gang chant that’s very emotional and why we’re doing a video for it. It has a lot of mean to it and visually it’s a strong song with the music and gets our point across. I love all of the songs on this album because each one is so different it would just depend on what I’m feeling at the time really.
9. Do you think talking about spirituality in music is becoming more popular and accepted in mainstream music?
Leroy: Yeah I think it’s becoming way more accepted than 10 years ago but with that there does come negative influence when we first started it wasn’t as popular so we got away with stuff and did what we did and getting those bigger tours didn’t even happen but nowadays it’s not a big deal.
Ten years ago it was insane but it’s definitely more popular but with that there is stigma and most people are like yeah you see it once you see it hear all. That always comes but everybody has a point of getting things across so yeah.
10. Does the band ever get criticized for not being Christian enough? How do you respond to those people?
Leroy: I tried to focus on what’s eternal at the end of the day I’m never going to do it right. It’s never going to be enough or be right so I just am going to be who I am being strong and firm with my beliefs. If you don’t accept me then you don’t know who I am. We wanted to focus more on that than anything else. I try not to focus on anything else then who I am as a personal and it will never be enough for every single person out there.
11. Anything else you'd like to say or add?
Leroy: Something to add at the end of this, stay strong and hope to see you at a War Of Ages show be blessed for who those are struggling and there’s always light at the end of the tunnel and for us it was Jesus Christ just continue to look up and head forward with your personal lives.
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