Heavy metal and hardcore music have become two distinct styles of heavy music that have complimented each other into forming a new sound. Bands such as Coalesce, Deadguy, Integrity and Earth Crisis were some of the names that played this style of music and helped push its popularity for future generations to become inspired by.
Shai Hulud became one of the longer running bands that have influenced the sound now known as metalcore. Starting over 13 years ago in South Florida, they have been cited as an influence upon many bands out today. Their deeply thought-provoking lyrics, along with a diversely arranged musical style has attracted fans for years.
They return with their latest release titled Misanthropy Pure, their first record in five years. Guitarist Matt Fox spoke to Blistering.com about the new record, their recent lineup changes, and his knowledge and love of heavy music.
Blistering.com: It’s been a few years since Shai Hulud’s been actively touring and recording. Could you give us an update on what’s been happening within that time?
Matt Fox: You know what’s funny? Probably in the eyes of people that are reading, maybe it seems like we took some time off. On our end, it has been constantly rebuilding, and I think consistently touring. Maybe not as aggressively, and a few months out of the year, but since we parted ways with our singer [Geert Van Der Velde] in 2003, we’ve been still touring with sometimes with the guy we parted ways with and sometimes with a friend filling in. So we have been pretty busy. I’ll tell you this…it’s a really neat feeling. It sounds corny saying it because everyone says exciting, but it is! It’s exciting to have a new album out for people to comment on, whether it’s positive or negative. Even releasing a new song on Myspace, getting people’s reactions, whether they love it or hate it…it is exciting. It’s corny to say to have something new to share with people and to go out and hopefully have people be there to rock with us. It really is an interesting and exciting feeling.
Blistering.com: Towards the ending cycle of That Within Blood Ill-Tempered, things ended on a sour note. There were tensions with Geert that became public. What exactly happened there and then leading to using Chad [Gilbert] to do that run? Could you clarify what happened to lead towards uncertainties then?
MF: Sure. I could see why you would think that. I’ll tell you everything. First, I will tell you that we are still very good friends with Geert. It’s like being friends with someone you dated for a long time. You realize that he or she is awesome, great, and smart, but for some reason, it’s not gelling. You realize that it’s not going to work any longer, but that doesn’t mean that you want that person out of your life. That’s how we feel about Geert, and I think that’s how Geert feels about us. I think it’s pretty clear that there is a deep and mutual respect between him and the band – myself and [Matt] Fletcher, who were in the band with him. Even when things were tense when he was in the band towards the end, like I said….there’s nothing in Geert’s character that is mean or nasty or ill spirited. He is a very good, decent caring person. Whether or not I could be in a band with somebody doesn’t take away from the fact that he has those characteristics. So that’s why he’s a friend of mine now and why he will be a friend of mine twenty years from now.
But at the time, without going into the dirty laundry basket, it’s the same things you’ve heard a million times. It’s not like the Motley Crue book The Dirt. No one was sleeping with somebody’s wife or anything like that. It’s just being in the van, difference of opinions, all of a sudden this guy is sick and tired of everything this guy says, and if this guy touches me again, I’m going to kill him. It’s those kinds of tensions, and we were in a band with him for four years. I think we all have, in our own right, strong personalities. Sometimes you can’t make it work. It’s as simple as it is. As meaningless as that sounds, it gets to a point where all of the useless things that people are fighting about…the people that are looking from afar think “What the hell is wrong with you guys? Are you kidding me? You can’t get over that?” All of those little things that seem so trivial to people on the outside, when you’re living it, especially in a van, sleeping on floors not getting ample sleep, those tensions get so high and gets to a point where you’ve got to split. That’s really it. I have no one event where I can say “OK, Geert’s out of the band because he did this…” I don’t think he could say the same thing about us. It was just clashes of personalities and people irritating each other. In retrospect, to even thinking about it, it’s like “Geez, could we have not made it work?” Who knows? Maybe we could have. We are stable now and at the end of the day, we have a good relationship with a good person still. No hard feelings there. He’s busy with his band. He’s got a band now called The Black Atlantic, which he is doing well with. Everything’s good on that front.
As far as going with Chad [Gilbert]…I don’t know if it was our idea or his. Somehow we all got in touch. We’ve all been somewhat in touch through email or phone calls here and there. Doing the idea was to do a few shows with Chad singing. So we were into the idea because we had just finished a Japanese tour with Geert. Even though we knew that our time wasn’t completely done with Geert after we did the Chad shows, we did another run with Geert in Australia. We knew we didn’t part on horrible terms with Geert. Since we didn’t have a singer and Geert was not in the band, we thought “Let’s do the shows with Chad.” Those went well. I think we did four shows. Chad sang the songs we did originally and playing some songs we hadn’t focused on in some time. That was cool. The shows we did after that, I think the next year, we did a month tour in Australia with Geert. We had been active even in our inactivity.
Blistering.com: For a short while, you had the band under the name The Warmth of Red Blood. Why did you change the name, and then revert back to Shai Hulud?
MF: I just answered the question and I’ll tell you pretty much the same thing that I said. We made a decision out of fear. As boring as that sounds, or as weak as that sounds, we were scared. We parted ways with Geert, and we simply had no idea what we were going to do. Matt Fletcher and I, who were the mainstays in the band, at that point because we had a friend filling in on guitar and on drums – we never wanted to stop with Shai Hulud. We didn’t want to stop playing “A Profound Hatred of Man.” We didn’t want to stop playing “If Born From This Soil.” We also wanted to keep writing the new album that we were writing as Shai Hulud, which is finally being released as Misanthropy Pure. So we didn’t want to stop any of this. But our lives, to make it sound so dramatic, had changed. Now we don’t have a singer. Can Shai Hulud, a band that’s sustained member changes, particularly vocalist changes a few times – can we get away with replacing a singer again while keeping the name. We were uncertain so we asked some friends – 50% of our friends said “Are you kidding me? Of course you should keep the name. That’s your band. It doesn’t matter who is singing. Don’t you dare get rid of the name?” And then we asked another 50% and said the opposite. “Are you kidding? Keeping the name is the worst thing you guys could do. If you part ways with Geert, do not keep the name.” So that leaves us scratching our heads being confused, even more than we already are. We kept the fact that we didn’t know what the hell we were going to do. We went over it a million times in our heads. We finally decided changing the name was the best idea. But let’s take lyrics from the Shai Hulud songs so it shows we are continuing. It allows us to play Shai Hulud songs. It allows us to continue writing these types of songs.
As far as why we changed back, it was because we recorded a demo. We played that for some friends too, and they asked if this was the new Shai Hulud. We said it’s the Warmth of Red Blood. They said it sounds like Shai Hulud to me. It’s not…it’s going to be Shai Hulud no matter what you want to call it. If you don’t call it Shai Hulud, everyone’s going to think it’s a Shai Hulud rip-off. Everyone said it sounds like Shai Hulud or is trying to be Shai Hulud. Unless you want to be ripped apart, you’d better keep the name. We made the decision last minute. It’s a year and a half later…I don’t know if it’s the right decision. We get criticized and accused of breaking up and getting back together 13 times, which is not accurate. No one knows what was going on our end, so it’s easier to say that.
