CIRCLE PIT \\ AS I LAY DYING Planning 10th-Anniversary Collection Of New Songs, Covers, Remixes

Cameron Edney of Australian metal webzine Disciples Of Metal recently conducted an interview with vocalist Tim Lambesis of San Diego metallers AS I LAY DYING. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Disciples Of Metal: Now that you've had so much time to digest the [latest AS I LAY DYING] album ["The Powerless Rise"], is there anything you would have changed?

Tim: I feel that we took all the time we needed to get things right. There's always a few experiments that you think could sound better. Overall, looking at the actual performances we captured on the CD, I don't think any of us could have gotten a better performance even if we had more time and that's one thing that really makes us proud of the album.

Disciples Of Metal: Take us through the writing process for AS I LAY DYING. All bands have their own way of tackling the process from emailing samples/songs back and forth to getting together and jamming in a rehearsal space. How does the process work for you?

Tim: We do a combination of both; we email ideas back and forth. We all have our own demo studio setups and we'll just write and program in our ideas and make an MP3. Once we narrow down the stuff, that seems to be working and have a good foundation we get together the old-fashioned way and start jamming out in a rehearsal room.

Disciples Of Metal: Even though you are still riding high on the success of "The Powerless Rise", have you begun penning ideas for the next studio album?

Tim: Instead of waiting two or three years to do a new full-length album, we're going to put out something later this year for our tenth anniversary. It will be a combination of new songs, cover songs, and a few remixes. We really wanted to do something to celebrate our tenth anniversary so we're putting together ideas for that. We have three new songs ready to mix.

Disciples Of Metal: Tim, with the tenth anniversary of the band upon us, what comes to mind when you look back on the early days, the industry has certainly changed a lot since then.

Tim: I look back at how much the industry has changed as a whole. When I first started the band, the songs that I wrote and the ideas I was sharing, we always assumed that with our style of music we would be able to peruse it for a while but then we would have to give up on it and get real jobs. Not only has our genre gotten a lot bigger, but the band has developed a lot over the years. When I look back, I realize just how much has changed. Some things have changed for the better, but certain aspects of the music industry have changed for the worse. I think it's a lot harder for a band to get started now than it was back when we were first writing songs.