BRETT CAMPBELL of Pallbearer: The Sound of Home
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
In a little under two weeks’ time American band Pallbearer will be in New Zealand to show everyone just why they have been presented with the 2017 Metal Hammer Golden God Award for ‘Best Underground Band’. The doom metal four piece from Little Rock, Arkansas has recently released their third album ‘Heartless’ which is being heralded as an absolute triumph. In particular much mention has been made in regards to Brett Campbell’s vocals which appear to have reached a whole new level of power on this album. Speaking with Campbell recently we discussed the recording of the album and how he came to be the vocalist for the band.
For your third album you guys made the decision to record on your own with no producer. Why was that?
Well there were several reasons; it’s not the first time that we have done that, our first album was self-produced as well. We just kind of felt when we got into the studio that we already had a kind of idea of what we wanted to do; we already had the arrangements laid out chronologically in our heads before we even got in the studio.
And you know we had this nice studio in our neighbourhood in Little Rock and we had checked it out to see if it would suit our needs and the piano sounds that were recorded in that session were very, very attractive. And so recording two songs in such a short period of time we thought these sound really good; so we felt that we really had something to work on and we wanted to record on analogue which is very important for us and that was sort of the foundation for us to build on.
Yeah also on top of that we needed a lot more equipment because our stuff was incredibly broken down so some of the recording budget went to buying some of the stuff we needed and sending our amps into the shop. We wanted to record the album with the gear that we would be using live so some of the money that we saved by not flying somewhere or driving across the country to a studio went into making us sound better as a band. It was really great working with Billy Anderson on ‘Foundations of Burden’ but we thought it wasn’t completely necessary to have a big name producer or anything and that we would just do it ourselves.
Do you believe that recording the album in your home town brought another dimension into the equation?
Yeah it’s our hometown; we could go back home to our own beds and stuff at the end of the night which was nice, because for Foundations we were sleeping in the studio! Like we did stay at a hotel for a couple of nights but for the most part I was sleeping on the floor and I took showers like five times or something like that in five weeks; it was very disgusting and it was a real stressful album to make because we were having a few problems and stuff.
You know I am mostly happy with the way it came out but we thought that maybe our recording methods kinda also falls into how we associate music. We try to experiment every time with something new so we thought we would take a different approach on this one then we did on the last one.
Heartless was recorded on analogue which creates a real warmth and depth to the overall feel of the album; why did you choose that format in such a digital age where many are looking for that clean and crisp sort of sound?
Well we listen to a lot of older music and I love the high dynamic range for a lot of older records. Most modern metal is you know brick walls, hyper compressed, and it makes it sound heavier I guess but there is no dynamic. It’s just like an unstoppable wall of sound, and I don’t know, it’s not the feeling that we were going for; we want our quiet bits to be quiet, our heavy bits to be real heavy and we think that that sort of approach to recording sounds better so that’s what we were trying to do. The album has an extremely high dynamic range, you turn it up and listen to it on a good system; you can hear the details of all the instruments and all their split phonically.
Maybe we have some younger metal fans that may not consider it heavy but feel like they are listening to Black Sabbath; I mean none of their stuff – their old stuff – none of that stuff you would consider a modern production but the songs are still incredibly heavy and that’s kinda more what we are looking for. We want to be able to hear the tone of the guitars and the difference between the instruments, so it may take a little getting used to instead of that massive wall of sound but I think the benefits of it are tenfold.
In track two of the album (entitled ‘Thorns’) there is the line ‘And our way back Home’. I found that home was a bit of a running theme and it ties in with the fact that you guys returned to Little Rock to record it. Is the theme of home one that is quite important to you?
It is; I mean our home is; I grew up and have lived in Arkansas my whole life and that has obviously had a big effect on me. Our use of the term home can be interpreted in a few different ways. I mean ‘Cruel Road’ Joe wrote the lyrics for that song and you know essentially it’s about how things change, leaving your home and doing things that you really love at one point of your life may not be what you thought they were at the time.
The album cover features a beautiful oil painting by artist Michael Lierly (drummer Mark Lierly’s brother) what does the album cover represent to you?
We essentially tried to take many themes from the album and kinda incorporate it into the artwork. Some of that is Michaels doing – he lives in LA – and so I talked to him over the phone a couple of times and kind of described some of the visual references and the overall elements that we wanted to include in the art. Then he kinda interpreted it in his own way as well, on top of the ideas that we gave him so yeah I can’t honestly tell you one particular interpretation because we all have different interpretations of what the art means and I think its best left to kinda ponder it – it’s better to be interpreted by the listener. The artwork is kinda metaphorical I guess – and yes it is beautiful.
Your vocal skills on ‘A Plea for Understanding’ are quite astounding and showcase such a range – have you always enjoyed singing or is it something that you kinda fell into?
A little of both yeah, I grew up and you know my parents took me to church and stuff when I was a kid so I sang in church but I never like, you know I never really thought of myself as a singer. I never really looked at myself as a guitar player or a singer or anything I just liked to make music with whatever skills I have and singing is one of those skills! When we started the band I happened to be the best singer so I was named the lead singer – but it’s not something I sought out. (laughs) Yeah in that respect I did kinda fall into it. You know I do enjoy singing, and I do try to push myself to get those higher notes; as you can hear, my speaking my voice is not high and it’s quite a wide range that I am singing, so it’s something that I have got better at over the length of time since the first album.
I hear that you are all rather excited to be playing in New Zealand shortly too!
Yeah I am very excited to be there! We played Australia like a couple of years ago and Tasmania as well and we all wished at the time that we could come to New Zealand. So now, we’re doing it!
Pallbearer will be performing at Whammy Bar in Auckland on the 8th July, and at San Fran in Wellington on the 9th July. Tickets to both shows are still available (here) but get in quick as these are intimate venues and tickets are selling fast!
