In a new interview with the Thunder Underground podcast, SHADOWS FALL singer Brian Fair spoke about the band’s latest single, “In The Grey”, which was made available last December via SHADOWS FALL‘s new record label home, MNRK Heavy. The track marked the band’s first new piece of music in more than 12 years.
“We’re just so happy to finally release new music,” he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “We’re working on a full album’s worth of material, but I feel like it’s gonna drop kind of in chunks and then hopefully the rest of it all at once kind of thing. We just couldn’t sit on it. We were just so excited with how that tune came out. And it’s kind of a different world now too, where you can release singles leading up to more songs and keeping people interested. So, yeah, man, we were stoked with how it came out and just wanted to get it out in front of people. And I’m super psyched to just be writing again with the guys, ’cause we didn’t know if that was gonna be kind of part of the deal when we started playing shows again. And the writing has really become the main focus for the last year and a half or so, which has been awesome again to kind of get back in that mode. So it’s killer.”
Regarding SHADOWS FALL‘s songwriting approach for the new music, Brian said: “When we first started kind of writing music, we wanted to make sure it was gonna be SHADOWS FALL music. We hadn’t worked on new material in such a long time, and once we started writing, things just clicked right outta the gates. And ‘In The Grey’ was one of those songs that kind of came together pretty quickly too. And we wanted to kind of have the first song pretty energetic, just come out swinging thrash metal style. It’s got a big, melodic chorus, but the rest of it is pretty much just pedal-to-the-metal thrash. So, that was also — why mess around? Just come out with the first one swinging. So we were super stoked. So, yeah, everything about it was just kind of an exciting new chapter.”
As for how SHADOWS FALL approached the recording process after being away from the recording studio for so long, Brian said: “This recording process with [producer] Zeuss [Chris Harris] this time around, we’ve done it pretty stripped down as far as we’re not reamping guitar tracks a ton… Before we would experiment with reamping a million different things and combining tones and all this. This one we kind of wanted to make something that didn’t sound maybe as surgical and clinical as some metalcore or modern metal’s kind of gotten. We wanted to bring a little bit of thrash energy to it and a little more of a raw — not necessarily sonically raw, but just a little more live-ish approach to it.”
On the topic of SHADOWS FALL‘s new deal with MNRK Heavy, Fair said: “We talked to a few labels, but very few, ’cause we kind of had an idea of what we wanted to do and kind of the type of deal we were looking for. So, we hit it right off the bat with them. They have a great roster with everyone from Zakk Wylde and Ace Frehley, but then also DARKEST HOUR and ESCUELA GRIND and then HIGH ON FIRE and CROWBAR — just so many killer bands. So, it really made sense. And they’re kind of also approaching it more as we’re signing for a group of songs where we can sort of release things slowly and then put it all together. ‘Cause just the way we work as a band right now, since it’s not everyone’s full-time life, we wanna do it — not necessarily take our time, but we wanna make sure we maximize our time when we can get it, ’cause it’s so hard to get everyone together. So, they were really willing to kind of work with us on that level of realizing where the band is at this point in our life. So that was a big part of it. And they’ve been killer so far.”
Elaborating on the differences in the way music is being released nowadays compared to how it was a couple of decades ago, Brian said: ”Yeah, it’s more just the break from the album-cycle sort of thing. When we first were around, you basically put out a record every year and a half or so, and then you toured nonstop. And that was kind of how it worked. And now there’s so many different outlets, there’s so many different ways to get your music to people. It’s not as traditional record label relationship kind of setup, which is cool. And you have to kind of have a modern approach. And for a band like us — we kind of come from an old-school approach, so it’s good to have a label that has that forward thinking and kind of knows how to navigate the kind of new way of the music biz.”
Asked about the progress of the songwriting and recording sessions for the next SHADOWS FALL album, Fair said: “We have a couple [of songs] that are totally done that may need some mix [tweaks], but are tracked. And then we have the instrumental tracks for a lot. And we’re starting to work on vocal demos. Right now we’re kind of trading things back and forth. And we’ve got the skeletons to another group of new songs that we haven’t tracked instrumentally. So, all said and done, we’re gonna kind of keep just writing and recording kind of as things come along, but we have a good foundation of, I’d say, six or seven songs that are pretty much there and tracked instrumentally. And the vocal ideas are at least in a skeleton form; it’s a matter of getting in and getting time to record ’em. But then, like I said, there’s a whole other group of songs right behind it that we’ve gotta start working on too.”
When “In The Grey” was first released, Brian said in a statement: “We are incredibly excited to share our first new music in over a decade with our single ‘In The Grey’ and are proud to announce our partnership with MNRK Music Group.
“When SHADOWS FALL first got back in the practice space to prepare for our reunion shows, we did not know if it would lead to new music, but the excitement of jamming together and all of the riffs that Jon [Donais, SHADOWS FALL guitarist] had floating around in his head led us in the direction almost immediately. The idea began flowing, the energy started building and new songs began taking form out of the chaos.”
He continued: “‘In The Grey’ is a full-throttle thrasher that contains all of the elements that are the bedrock of the SHADOWS FALL sound, but also adds new elements and approaches that developed in the recent past while we all explorer other musical avenues. Lyrically, I was trying to put into words and describe the physical manifestation of the weight and crushing power that can come with depression, that feeling that the weight of gravity is crashing down on you or being trapped in the dark waters of our own mind, trying to rise to the surface and take a breath. It can be an overwhelming and lonely place but there is always a light at the end of that tunnel and we always need to keep striving for a brighter day and escaping the grey.”
Fair finished: “We want to sincerely thank everyone for the decades of support that you have given SHADOWS FALL and we cannot be happier to be back and rocking once again. Crank up ‘In The Grey’, raise those horns to the sky, and bang your head as hard as you can. Stay tuned for more music and news soon…”
Last August, Fair was asked by Sh!t Talk Reviews if it is “safe to say” that SHADOWS FALL “is back” and is “not going to go anywhere anytime soon.” Brian responded: “It’s not going anywhere, but I don’t think we’ll ever be the full-time touring band we were. It’s a lot of family stuff and people have just got different things going on. Jon, being in ANTHRAX, that’s gonna be kind of his main gig most of the time. Jason [Bittner, drums], yeah, he left OVERKILL, but he’s also got CATEGORY 7 with John Bush and Phil Demmel and all those guys, and that new record’s killer. So they’ll be busy with that. But we’re definitely gonna keep playing shows. We’re gonna keep doing festivals. We probably will hopefully do some short tours here and there, especially when new music comes out, but we’re gonna kind of pick and choose our battles, which is, again, also a nice place to be in.
“When the band was our full-time job, you couldn’t stay at home for too long or there wasn’t gonna be a home to come home to,” Fair explained. “You’ve gotta go out and grind. So it’s nice to not have that pressure, but also to do it because it’s fun again. Each show that we’ve done have all been blockbusters in our minds because there’s just enough time between each one that you get that excited again. It ramps up and then it’s just like an explosion.
“Me personally, I was so burnt out by the time we stopped touring in 2015. We’d been on a 15-year run where I hadn’t been home for more than a few weeks through that whole thing. And physically, my neck was shot, my back was shot. I was burnt mentally as well, so it was time to come home for a while. But then, now I’m, like, ‘Okay, cool. Let’s go have some fun.'”
“The only way to survive in a band like us… We’re not gonna sell 10 million records and have all that stuff,” Brian added. “So you’ve gotta go out there and stay on the road to keep your name in front of people, keep everything exciting. You’ve gotta sell t-shirts — that’s how you make your money, [by staying] out there on the road. And, yeah, if a label is gonna spend a bunch of money to drop a record and do videos, they’re, like, ‘You’ve gotta go promote it now. You’ve gotta get out there and hit it.’
“What’s driving us to record now is that we love the songs we’re writing. It’s not ’cause there’s a deadline. And the shows we’re playing is because we’re just, like, ‘That sounds like a party, man. Let’s do it.'”
Elaborating on how he and his SHADOWS FALL bandmates chose their new record-label partner, Brian said: “It’s totally changed things where they’ve kind of realized their best role is as a promotional partner and a manufacturer, if you’re doing vinyl or whatever. CDs, they still make ’em, I guess, but not in the numbers they used to. And a lot of them downsized, because they had to. So it’s more about partnering with the band and label relationship and finding a way to make it make sense for everyone.
“The old model doesn’t work,” the 49-year-old singer, who now lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife and their two kids, added. “It’s broken. You can’t just throw money at things and think it’s gonna hit. People have too many choices. You can put out music yourself, so there’s definitely an oversaturation, unfortunately, as well because of that. So there’s just so much content, you’ve gotta find new and innovative ways to share it and keep it special. And I think the labels that are surviving and thriving are the ones who are flexible, willing to evolve, willing to work with the artists’ vision as opposed to just, ‘Cool, man. Let’s stick to the old method.'”
Fair and his SHADOWS FALL bandmates have played a number of reunion concerts so far, including at Blue Ridge Rock Festival in Alton, Virginia, at the Furnace Fest in Birmingham, Alabama, and at the Milwaukee Metal Fest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The long-running Massachusetts-based metallers, who were at the forefront of the New Wave Of American Metal scene that dominated the ’00s, celebrated the 20th anniversary of their “The War Within” album by playing the LP in its entirety in March 2024 at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey, the site of the band’s many classic shows. It also marked the first time the band has performed in the Garden State in a decade.
In December 2023, Fair told RichardMetalFan about SHADOWS FALL‘s decision to reunite: “We’d wanted to play shows again for a while and we just wanted the time to be right. And once the pandemic kind of hit, we sort of realized, like, ‘Why are we waiting around? It’s the time.’ So we were lucky that we were able to kind of get everyone’s schedules together. And it was incredible. As soon as we started jamming together again, it just felt fun, it felt right. So the shows were a blast. We really rehearsed like crazy for it. And we’re probably better prepared for that than anything we’d ever been for before that. And we also realized, like, man, we should have been practicing more when we were together. We used to hate practicing. We always were, like, ‘Ah, we tour enough. We don’t need to.’ And then after we practiced a bunch, we were, like, ‘All right. Maybe we really should have.’ [Laughs] But then also when we started practicing, we figured if we have ideas, why not write new music as well? If we’re gonna get together, let’s see what we’ve got. So that started leading to some new stuff. So [I’m] looking forward to seeing where it heads.”
SHADOWS FALL released a statement in August 2014 in which the bandmembers explained that financial difficulties made it virtually impossible for the group to continue as a full-time concern.
In August 2015, SHADOWS FALL played a few reunion shows on the U.S. East Coast, one year after completing what was being billed at the time as the band’s “final” European tour.
“Fire From The Sky” was released in May 2012 via Razor & Tie. The CD sold around 10,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 38 on The Billboard 200 chart.
Photo credit: Jeremy Saffer
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