Lord of the Wasteland of Metal-Rules.com recently
conducted an interview with 3 INCHES OF BLOOD
guitarist Shane Clark. A couple of excerpts from the
chat follow:
Metal-Rules.com: Jamie [Hooper] had throat problems
and was forced to sit out Ozzfest, which must've
killed him, and the rest of the band, too.
Shane: Oh yeah, man! It was weird.
Metal-Rules.com: I saw you play on Vancouver — one of
the off-dates — and he was there right beside the
stage watching. Did he go out on the road with you or
did he stay at home?
Shane: He had to stay at home to give his vocal chords
a rest and had a weekly and bi-weekly checkup thing
going on. Don't quote me on this, but most likely he's
going to sit the rest of the year out because, for
lack of a better word, he really fucked up his vocal
chords.
Metal-Rules.com: Is it just a day-to-day thing caused
by the rigors of the road or is it something more
serious?
Shane: That's still being assessed. I'll just give you
an idea of what's going on. Jamie started the band, I
think it was in 1999 or 2000, or something like that.
His vocal style is that he's singing from his throat.
Most singers sing at sixty decibels, that's pretty
loud. Jamie sings at a hundred and twenty decibels.
He's literally screaming his head off. After seven
years of doing that, something just pops. I'm not
making light of the situation, he's really got to
figure something out with his team of specialists. If
him sitting the rest of the year out means he'll get
better, then we're one hundred percent behind him.
He's our friend and his health is more important that
doing a bunch of shows and not being able to talk when
you're forty-five years old. On the flip side of it,
Justin has been taking over a lot of Jamie's vocal
parts, filling in for him. He's not trying to imitate
Jamie, he's got his own thing going on and he's a
great fill-in. He's got this Tomas Lindberg thing
going on. Jamie's happy with that. We definitely
didn't want to get some guy to fill in for Jamie, some
guy we didn't know. That would've just sucked, we're a
tight-unit band, we've been through a lot together
since the lineup changes and we're not taking this
whole situation lightly and we're not going to replace
Jamie. So Justin stepping up was great. I don't think
we could've done Ozzfest or anything without Justin
doing that. Until Jamie gets better, he's going to
handle it and it sounds good. We'll just take it as it
goes and won't make any predictions. The power of
positive thinking, it helps you.
Metal-Rules.com: If either Cam or Jamie left the band,
would you continue with just one vocalist or does 3
INCHES OF BLOOD need two singers?
Shane: If Cam or Jamie left? You know what, I don't
think we would replace either of those guys. If Cam or
Jamie lost interest in the band, it would probably be
the end of the band. Knowing that they wouldn't is
really good. That's one of those things I don't think
would happen, but that would probably be time for the
band to move on. Cam is irreplaceable alongside with
Jamie. I mean, Jamie started the band. If you look at
a band like NAPALM DEATH, there are no original
members left so I'll never say never, but today I just
say no.
Metal-Rules.com: How were the Ozzfest shows?
Shane: Killer! It was a big stepping stone in the
band's history. Besides getting so much exposure with
tens of thousands of people in just a few months, we
made great friends, made contacts and had a great
time. It was heavy metal summer camp! I felt like I
should have paid them to do that. To be guaranteed to
play a show with other great bands and have a tailgate
party, it was great, man! Ozzy was only there every
other day, but us, BEHEMOTH, HATEBREED and LAMB OF GOD
kind of got this camaraderie going on because those
were the bands playing shows every day. I almost
looked at those "off dates" as a summer tour and the
Ozzfest dates as the off-dates in a way. Those were
theater shows. We were playing House of Blues and
those kind of places, a bit bigger here and there. We
got an equal amount of exposure on those dates. To sum
that whole thing up: best tour ever! Best tour for the
band, best tour of my life, the best summer of my life
probably. I got to crank my amp every day and it was
killer.
Metal-Rules.com: Did you have any reservations about
playing Ozzfest beforehand?
Shane: No. Before we knew what was going on about it,
a few of us were a bit iffy on the corporate bend on
it. But we'll let those corporate people worry about
that shit, we'll just show up. It was such a stepping
stone for the band, playing in front of so many
people, it didn't really matter whose political and
corporate agendas were going on because the bottom
line is that this was a festival for people to come
and enjoy. It was actually free for people so no one
cared about that. The history of Ozzfest is kind of a
legacy now. It's the only metal festival in North
America. We were honored to be on that. It's a
legendary festival.
Metal-Rules.com: You almost already answered this, but
would you do it again?
Shane: Oh yeah, totally!
Metal-Rules.com: You mentioned your influences and you
very clearly wear them on your sleeve. Does it bother
you when the press or people think of you as a "retro"
band rather than being groundbreaking or original?
Shane: No one really cares about that. Usually, that's
just critics. People at supermarkets are also critics.
That doesn't bother us. If we were concerned about
that stuff, I don't think the band would be around. We
just do what we do and we never deny our influences.
When metal fans tell us, "you guys sound like Maiden
or Priest", hell yeah we do, man! If we deny that kind
of shit we would look like douchebags who are
self-defensive. We're a metal band and to imitate is
to create when you're starting out. I can throw you a
million things that the new record sounds like. There
are "Haunting The Chapel" riffs on there — influenced
riffs, I should say. The spectrum of influences is a
little bit broader on this record but they're
everywhere. The NWOBHM thing is still alive and well
in our sound but there's also a lot more Bay Area
thrash, a little bit of black metal and some seventies
metal. I kind of went off on a tangent there, but to
answer your question, that kind of shit doesn't bother
us one bit.
Read the entire interview at Metal-Rules.com.
__________________________________________________________
Be a better pen pal.
Text or chat with friends inside Yahoo! Mail. See how.
http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/ 
