“I had a millisecond to decide: Do I either maintainsome dignity and wipe it away, or say, ‘Screw it,’ because I’m from hell and Idon’t care and just go for it,” Tilley says. “So I just said, ‘Screw it.’ Whenyou’re up there, especially in this industry, you can’t have any pride ordignity. You can only be primal.”
It is with this philosophy that Tilley and the restof Architects of the AftermathDathan Lythgoe (guitar), John Gehring (guitar)and Dave Koehnlein (drums)handle music. They try to hone it to its truest formwithout any of the cartoony, ’80s feel.
“I think it’s interesting taking the thrash genre ofthe ’80s, using those same tools, and use it now,” Tilley says. “Thrash went todeath metal and got all mutated. We wanted it to be just undiluted,straightforward and focused, not mixing it up that we’re kind of this and kindof thatjust straight to the point and no gimmicks.”
When it came to picking a band name, the band didn’twant to fall into the trappings of the typical thrash metal name.
“We [would] tell people that we have a metal band butdon’t have a name, and they [would] say name it Necro this or Satan that,”Tilley says. “No, we’re actually going to try to be serious about this. Thepoint was not to have something too stupid, but not too clever that peoplewould say, ‘Oh you’re better than us?’ or, ‘You’re trying to have ironicdistance from the genre?’ It’s important to not have a name that’sdistracting.”
Metal fans expect more in 2010 and the band hopesthey can help deliver their own spin to the genre. For Gehring, who originallygot the idea to form a hardcore/thrash band in 2007 with Koehnlein, giving theaudience something original but true to the genre merits special attention,especially with a tough audience like the metal one.
“We have to gear it and apply it with more moderntools or aspects that help make it relevant and fresh even though it’s a prettyclassic metal genre,” Gehring says.
With the release of their debut album this weekend,they have physical proof of their almost yearlong recording process. The albumcomes in CD and cassette formats and features a set of songs that originatedmostly in Gehring’s basement. The music is frantic, wild and roaring, butsomehow it manages to keep from falling apart.
“The music’s so fast that I think it will collapse atany second; it’s just on the verge of reaching some kind of critical mass,”Lythgoe says.
While the band takes what they play seriously, it’simportant to note that the band is all about giving their audience a good time.
“We take the music that we do seriously, we take thegenre seriously, but we in no way take ourselves seriously and I think that’sthe most important thing,” Tilley says.
Architectsof the Aftermath play an album release show at Club Garibaldi on Saturday, May1, at 9 p.m. with openers Death Dream, Mother Orchis and Centipedes.
