For some reason, I really hate spelling the word "Martyr." I have so many damn problems with this word, and I'm sure that it is spelled wrong somewhere throughout this interview. I almost wish that they did change their name to Everything Went Black, because I don't get nervous when I spell that. This interview was conducted in their sweaty hot van during the power outage at Metal Fest. They were really nice people and a much improved band than previous records indicate. Pick up On Earth as it is in Hell to see what I mean.

PL: I should start by asking this...for bands that haven't played yet, this sucks. How do you guys feel?

A: I guess right now I just feel lucky that we got to play. I really hope that they can get this shit set back up again pretty damn soon.

T: A whole bunch of bands are gonna get cut. Thats gonna suck.

JJ: Blood Has Been Shed is already not playing.

A: Oh yeah, I feel bad for those guys. Their singer has to leave, so they had to cancel already because of the power outage, and we played with them in Belgium and there was a huge snow storm and their singer couldn't make it because he got stranded in New York. Half the band was stranded in New York and half the band was in Belgium. Those guys are pretty unlucky, I think.

PL: State your names and what you do for the band.

A: I'm Andy and I sing.

T: I'm Tara and I play bass.

JJ: JJ, guitar.

PL: Your band has gone through some shit. Have you ever just wanted to give up music?

T: Maybe a couple times. You know, not probably seriously, but for the moment, yeah. It just got so frustrating and felt like it was never gonna fucking work out right, so it was kind of like, I've done this for awhile, maybe I should just go on with my life and grow up. But then you think about it and you're like, what the fuck, who wants to be normal.

A: I haven't been through the shit.

PL: Well, Holding On broke up, didn't they?

A: Yeah, thats pretty much how this all worked out. I was filling in for Martyr because they got an offer to do a show in Germany and I was gonna fill in on vocals, so I was learning all of the songs and everything. During that time, Holding On ended up breaking up.

T: Not because of us.

A: Holding On got to the point where we had done everything that we were gonna do probably and we wanted to stop while we were still having fun.

PL: So you didn't go through the same turmoil that they did?

A: No, I'm still friends with everyone and we still hang out all of the time. It got to the point where we were doing everything over and over again. So it was a pretty smooth transition from that right into Martyr.

PL: How essential is friendship within a band?

ALL: Very.

T: Thats why we don't have the members that we used to have. You have to be friends. You're together constantly. You're on tour and you're with somebody 24 hours a day for fucking five weeks at a time. If you're not friends, its not gonna fucking work.

A: That was another reason it was so easy to come into this band. I've known Joel and Tara for eight or nine years and Charlie I've known since 8th grade, and Carl I was already in a band with.

T: We were all friends to begin with, which made it so easy. It made it fun again to have people that we actually liked in the band. Its kind of like starting over. Its exciting.

PL: Whats the difference between hardcore and metal?

T: Not much. Not much anymore; maybe just attitude. Hardcore can sometimes be a little bit more close minded where metal kids are open to hearing new things. Usually, not always.

A: There's a lot of stuff now a days and it usually all gets blended in together. Like so many hardcore bands have been influenced by metal bands, and now so many metal bands have been so influenced by hardcore bands.

T: There's metalcore bands. Its all one in the same pretty much.

A: Yeah, its just pretty hard to tell whats what anymore.

T: Yeah, I mean almost every hardcore band is a crossover, unless you're like fast hardcore.

PL: I was listening to Black Flag on the way up here. I was listening to Everything Went Black.

JJ: What a coincidence. When we got the new members, we almost changed our name to Everything Went Black, but at the last minute we decided not to.

PL: I was thinking about how dangerous and ahead of their time music was. How do you think Black Flag would fare today as a new band?

A: You know, I'd like to think that they'd fare really well because they're an amazing band, but there's a lot of awesome bands out there that kind of get lost because of the amount of bands, but that band always worked so hard and toured constantly to make a name for themselves that, if they did that today, they'd probably still do alright.

JJ: Thats a tough one.

A: They were definitely ahead of their time, and sometimes that kind of gets lost in things, when bands are.

JJ: It depends on what era of Black Flag was around then. Like me, personally, I like the later era Black Flag when they were weird.

A: I don't hate that, but I like Damaged.

PL: Do you think that this type of music would exist without Black Flag?

A: Black Flag really set the standard for a lot of bands. They were the first underground punk bands to just tour constantly and start a scene in other cities, but there were also a lot of other bands around at the time, so I don't know. It'd probably be a stretch to say that, but they definitely helped change things and move things along. They were a huge influence on the scene though.

PL: Whats your take on a festival like this?

T: They're fun, but they're long. I mean, we're glad to play and we're lucky because so many bands don't get to play this, you know, we feel greatful that we can play, but its just really draining. There's so many bands that get to play, and there are bands playing against other bands, and that kind of sucks. But, as a whole, its great. If 2000 people watched us today, thats probably 1500 or a thousand people that have never heard us. You get to play to a whole bunch of people who have never seen you or heard you. Its good for bands that aren't huge to be exposed to new crowds.

PL: Do you think that festivals like this help bands to get huge?

A: There's definitely bands that have played these festivals and blown people away and things start taking off right after that.

T: I don't think festivals make bands, but I think that it helps.

PL: Would you rather play a festival like this or just a club show?

T: Probably a club show. Its more intimate, and the people are there to see your show. I don't know, both are good.

JJ: I think that it'd be really tough playing festivals every day.

T: It would be amazing to be on Ozfest, but it would be really hard. It takes a lot out of you. There's just so many people.

A: Its such a bigger mess, trying to load in and load out and there's difficult things that you have to do with your band that you don't have to at club shows. They're fun, but it gets to be-

T: It wears you out.

A: Yeah.

What bands are you looking forward to seeing today?

A: Iced Earth, uh...

JJ: Throwdown

A: Comeback Kid, Terror.

T: Yesterday Killswitch and Every Time I Die. We got kicked out.

PL: You got kicked out?

A: We didn't have the right wristband on.

T: Yeah, we didn't have the right wristband cause we weren't cool enough.

A: We couldn't go in the front door because there was no re-entry after 7. And even though we were in a band, they didn't give us the right wristbands, so we couldn't go in through the back door.

T: We snuck in and we got kicked out.

JJ: And then we snuck in again.

A: Yeah, then we snuck in again.

PL: Did you end up seeing them?

T: We saw three songs and then we came back for Killswitch. Mike let us in.

A: He let us in for God Forbid too.

PL: This is the first time I've heard of a band getting thrown out of a show.

T: We were like, but we're playing, and they said I don't care.

This led to discussion about the power outage and other stuff to do with Metal Fest.

PL: Do you guys have any final comments?

T: We've got a new record out on Victory Records, On Earth as it is in Hell. And we're gonna be touring non stop, so check out our website www.martyrad.com for tourdates and thats about it.

A: Thanks for the interview.

PL: Thank you.

Interviewed by RF

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