Interview by Rachel Jablonski
As l Lay Dying now on the Taste of Chaos tour! While waiting to play in San Antonio this afternoon, drummer Jordan Mancino took the time to chat with me about a variety of aspects of his band. The enthusiasm in his voice and the positive energy of the interview was an exciting vibe that I can only imagine will carry over on stage.
Rachel: Hi Jordan! How are you?
Jordan: Pretty good, how are you?
Rachel: Great! Where ya at?
Jordan: We’re in San Antonio right now just at the venue hanging out.
Rachel: Cool. You’ve been on Taste of Chaos tour for a few days now. What are your impressions so far?
Jordan: Very good, it’s been amazing so far. It’s a different type of tour than we’ve been doing and I think it’s really, really cool for us to be playing for a different crowd rather than the normal metal crowd. The response has been great.
Rachel: Since you’re one of the heaviest bands on the tour, what have you noticed specifically about the response?
Jordan: We do stick out a little bit because we are the heaviest band, which I think is good because it’s something people who haven’t heard us before aren’t expecting. I think it’s been a really good thing for us; it makes us stand out a little more from the other bands.
Rachel: In a genre of music that is often perceived as harsh and maybe angry, as a Christian, is it your intent to relay some sort of positive message to audiences? Is it possible to get certain messages across in such a genre?
Jordan: A lot of it is brought out by the lyrics obviously and also by the way we live. We love to meet all of our fans, to let them know that we love them, and that there is a truth out there that we would love to share with them if they want it. We obviously don’t want to shove anything down anybody’s throats or anything like that, but we want to be there for them if they want us to be.
Rachel: Well, yeah, I didn’t even know at first that you’re a Chris—well I don’t like to label things, you’re not a Christian band.
Jordan: I appreciate that you said that. That’s cool.
Rachel: I hate that.
Jordan: Yeah, I know me too. It’s kind of one of those things that’s like, for instance, if a person works at, I don’t know, like a bank, you don’t say that person is a “Christian banker” you know what I mean? He’s a banker. And he’s a Christian as well. It’s the same thing with us. We’re musicians and we play metal, but our music and what we believe are independent things. So, it’s cool that you said that.
Rachel: Do you think most of your fans realize that you are Christian or do you think they’re just like ‘this rocks’ and don’t pay attention to the lyrics so much?
Jordan: As artists that’s why we play our music. We want to attract people with our music, that’s the point. I don’t want someone to like us just because we’re Christians. I want people to like us for what we do, not for what we believe. If they like us for just being Christians then… I guess I can’t find the words to explain it, but do you know what I mean? I don’t want people to like us for what we believe in, I want people to like us because of our music.
Rachel: In May you have some material being re-released. What does this release entail?
Jordan: Our old recordings that we put out on Pluto Records before we got signed to Metal Blade. We stopped pressing and we took them off the shelves for awhile because we wanted people that heard our name to buy our new record, not our old ones. Now that we have built up more of a fan base a lot of people are asking for those old records. So we want to make that material available to them.
Rachel: I read on your website that your old releases were going for like 75 bucks a piece?!
Jordan: Yeah, yeah it’s crazy. A lot of kids really want them and they’re willing to pay whatever. I think that’s ridiculous, shame on the people that are selling them for that much. That was part of the reason we wanted to do it, kids were paying that much money for these CDs and we don’t want them to spend that money. Save that money, save it for something better. [laugh]
Rachel: Tell me about “The Darkest Nights” video that should be airing at the end of this month.
Jordan: It’s kind of hard to explain the whole concept of it. It’s pretty elaborate, but there’s a lot of cool stuff in it. There’s horses, there’s fighting, swords, fires, there’s a lot of cool scenery shots… it’s a really cool concept. It’s different than what we’ve been doing. Most of our videos have been merely performance and for this video we wanted to get away from that and concentrate on the concepts more than the performance.
Rachel: That’s awesome. Do you have any performance in it or is it all conceptual?
Jordan: No, no there’s a little bit of performance it’s just not concentrated on. There are some shots of us in there, but it’s mostly just the concept.
Rachel: I love your band name. It shares a title, of course, with a novel by William Faulkner. Is there significance in this or are there strictly personal reasons for the name?
Jordan: We got the name obviously from the book, but our name has nothing to do with the book. We liked the name because you can tell it’s a metal band, it’s kind of a brutal name, but it also is poetic in a sense. It kind of makes you think a little bit. That’s what we want people to do, to think and not just listen to a metal record. We want people to think about their lives and about more than just the music. That’s why we picked it; it sparks the brain a little bit. We hope so at least.
Rachel: I love it. I have not seen the new Killswitch Engage DVD, but a friend of mine told me there is a scene where you are passed out while on tour with Killswitch and an incident happens?
Jordan: [laugh] Yeah…
Rachel: Have you had your revenge?
Jordan: [laugh]
Rachel: Tell me what happened!
Jordan: Well here’s what happened. We were in Europe with Killswitch and they’re like you have to come out with us tonight! We were sharing a bus with them and I was asleep and obviously I didn’t wake up, I didn’t know what happened. Josh, the drum tech, got naked with a single sock to cover up his area, basically jumped in my bunk, and started to go to town on me. [laugh]
Rachel: Oh my! [laugh]
Jordan: Yeah, I still have to get him back for that one. It was pretty funny. When I woke up the next morning I didn’t know if it was a dream that I’d had or what, but I vaguely remembered Josh being in the bunk with me. I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want people to think I was having these fantasies about Josh! [laugh] Then I found out a couple weeks later what happened, I saw the video, and I was like OH NO. [laugh]
Rachel: That’s funny. Were you surprised they put that on their DVD?
Jordan: Well they asked me if they could. I was like yeah I guess, it’s no big deal. [laugh]
Rachel: Funny. Well you’ve been on the road a lot in support of Shadows are Security. Have you found the time to work on any new material?
Jordan: Not yet. Our tour schedules are so hectic so we haven’t really got a chance to sit down and start writing. But hopefully sometime soon we’ll be able to get the time to do it.
Rachel: What can we expect from As I Lay Dying on Taste of Chaos? I’ll be there in Milwaukee on the 18th of March.
Jordan: Oh cool. We’re playing mostly new songs, a couple old songs. We have a 30 minute set so obviously we can’t play all of our songs. So we tried to pick the few that represent us the best so that people who are hearing us for the first time get a good impression of what we sound like.
Rachel: Well that’s all I have. Is there anything else you’d like to add or talk about?
Jordan: I just want to say thank you to all our fans, I love them. Thank you for supporting us.
Rachel: Thank you for your time! Best of luck to you.