Interviews: Intentional Trainwreck


On this new occasion, we have had the opportunity to interview the Progressive Metal band, Intentional Trainwreck from the USA. Check out the interview and follow the band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1.Where did you get the idea for the band name, you planned it or came out just like that?

Patrick: One night at rehearsal, we were discussing how a song should end. I said “This song used to come to a crashing halt with everyone playing a random note, like an intentional train wreck”. At that very moment, we all looked at each other and knew that was the name.

2.Why did you want to play this genre?

Pete: I like metal, but I feel that many subgenres of metal are pretty limiting in terms of what people will accept. I don’t like having limitations, and prog metal seems like the best genre of heavy music to accomplish this.

Patrick: I will literally play anything if it contains strange times and meters, but I like the aggression and adrenaline that you’ll find in the progressive metal realm. Tricky and acrobatic riffs are so much more fun to play when they are a little dark and heavy.

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed?

Patrick: No, but if we did, we would be on our 10th album.

Pete: We did not, I responded to a craigslist ad looking for a “maniacal guitarist” 

4. Each band member favourite band?

Pete: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Patrick: Today, it seems to be Spastic Ink 

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs?

Patrick: I am inspired by so many people. It would be impossible to list them even in general terms. For instance, I am inspired by the street performers of Toronto playing a set of buckets equally as much as the Batwa pygmy children in Uganda beating on a handmade drum with a stick. It’s all so inspiring. Also, the shapes and sounds of the world around me add to that inspiration. I love to hear nature sounds and then represent that on paper, sort of in the same fashion as a lot of electronic musicians will compose a score - drawing shapes to infer dynamics and timbres, etc. Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMjuXkrjlYc

Pete: Typically real life events, things that make me angry most of the time hah! Sometimes personal things, sometimes things on a more community or global scale. Sometimes it will be inspired by a game I’ve played, a film I’ve watched, or a book I’ve read.

6. Where was your last gig?

Heaven and Hell in Washington DC in 2016

7. Where would you like to act?

Pete: I’d love to play at the 9:30 club in DC at some point

Patrick: For a long time, I’ve seen a lot of great prog-metal bands coming out of Sweden. I’d love to fly there, rent a van and some equipment then play a show every other night in different towns. On the nights in between I would try to find out if Morgan Ågren or Meshuggah were playing anywhere.

8. Whom would you like to feature with?

Patrick: I would love to share the stage with Mastodon, Mats/Morgan, Blotted Science, Univers Zero and King Crimson

Pete: Napalm Death, Mastodon, Gojira, or Devon Townsend Project

9. Whom not?

Pete: Brokencyde lol

Patrick: I’m not a big fan of solo DJ acts.

10. Any of you has ever suffered from stage fright? Any tip for beginners on how to beat that?

Pete: Oh yea, pretty much every time! Pee at least 10 minutes before you have to get ready with everything else and either don’t drink alcohol or if you do, drink in moderation. I find breathing exercises help a lot, like meditation essentially, and particularly with this band’s music, it’s something that’s pretty intense to sing and play at the same time! Just remembering to breathe some deep breaths and focus on the instrument and the music instead of your anxiety, the crowd, the lights, or whatever is stressing you out. Focus on the music, not the stressor, and remember to take deep breaths.

Patrick: Playing complicated music usually induces some level of stage fright. So, practice the music and then practice some more! Know the music so a distraction won’t derail you. Also, if you know your parts inside out, you won’t panic if you can’t hear a certain instrument or the vocals. If you need to rely on other instruments to know where we are in a song and you can’t hear them because of a shitty mix, then you start to worry. Having the music ingrained in your mind will help avoid this scenario, even if your part involves improvising a little.

11. What bands have inspired you the most?

Patrick: ELP, Watchtower, YES, Megadeth, Planet X, RUSH, Igor Stravinsky, Zappa

Pete: Megadeth, Alice in Chains, At the Gates, Carcass, Meshuggah, Slayer, Tool, System of a Down, Dillinger Escape Plan,

12. What's the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for?

Pete: How thick my guitar strings are, oh yea! :D I prefer elixir 7-string .09-.056 setups, but they have been a bit challenging to come by because of COVID affecting supply chains from my understanding, unfortunately. 

Patrick: Well, there are thousands of ladies that want to know the drummer better and they can ask some pretty wild questions. But seriously, the weirdest thing was once during a rehearsal with another band, a one-armed man, a woman and a young boy in a suit just walked into the house and asked if we wanted to go on tour with an Elvis impersonator, which turned out to be the little boy. He was probably six or seven years old and was actually quite good. We played about 3 Elvis songs with him. Then we told them to get out.

13. What do you think of your fans?

Patrick: Our fans are fantastic. For being a hard-edged group of headbangers, they are typically polite, friendly and smart. Most are well-educated in a vast array of subjects, especially music which makes them sincere in their allegiance to the music scene. Without them, we are just playing for the love of playing and a possible like on FB or YouTube. With them, we celebrate and enjoy the times we spend together at shows or wherever else we meet up, online or otherwise. I love them, their support and try to give back to them all by presenting quality shows and products. Thank you, everyone. Stay safe and seek the most out of life while you can.

Pete: I appreciate them a lot, and I know it’s kind of challenging with this genre to break through to an audience, because the term “prog metal” is kind of overloaded and could mean almost *anything* at all. This may cause people to be confused or just turned off from the idea of listening to the music just based on the subgenre of progressive metal and how vastly different bands in that subgenre can be. I think that a lot of metal shows with more extreme or heavy bands are kind of not always interested in booking us because we aren’t heavy enough, but rock shows aren’t either because we’re too heavy! That’s ok though. One person this told me “your music makes me not want to kill myself”. With COVID happening, a lot of people are in dark places, and I hope that with this kind of dark music, people can find comfort in it if they are in a bad place right now. I like that there are people that have genuinely reached out to me personally and told me how much they appreciate what we’re doing. I think that’s been awesome and I know we can make some new fans this year because this new album is so much better than the last one for so many reasons. I’m happy for the fans we have, and I’m excited to have new fans that I think will find out about our music for the first time this year. Yea, I love our fans. I have an innate drive to make music that I think people will like, that I will like, but you know, having people that genuinely love your music is a blessing! It definitely drives you to push forward and continue to thrive as a band. I’m grateful for our fans, they are a blessing and an inspiration to me.

14. What do you think of our site?

Pete: I don’t know a lot about it, but I like the user interface. I used to make user interfaces for websites, for many years, and I can appreciate a good user experience. It’s a nice clean interface that has the content very clearly laid out, and I honestly enjoy that from a design perspective! It looks like you cover a wide variety of subgenres, which is cool! It seems a lot of review sites only focus on pretty specific genres, so I like that a lot. Today I learned from BTC that Warhammer 40k metal is a thing. Nice!

Patrick: Breathing the Core is an excellent site. I absolutely love the breakdown by country! I save all of my money to buy drumsticks and then use the rest to travel. I’ll usually spend the majority of time deep in some jungle or savannah but when it’s time to come out and go home, I will spend a few days in the port city to see how the normal people live. Your list of bands by country is a great tool for finding music when traveling around the world. Sweet. Besides that, the layout is great, the content relevant and current spanning many genres. Well done!

15. Something add?

Smokestack of Souls is currently being funded through a KickStarter that runs through 29 May 2021, and is going to be absolutely stellar! We hope we can provide some great music for you to enjoy going forward, and thanks for having us! :D

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