Do you even prog bro? We have Washington DC prog heads Wings Denied as our Artist of the Week. We’re also sponsoring their Summer 2013 tour up and down the East Coast alongside our friends at got-djent.com, It Djents, The League of Extraordinary Djentlemen, and THE DJENT-LEMAN’S CLUB. Too much djent for you to handle! Read here for details.
In addition to this we’re all backing a contest for the dudes in Wings Denied. This is a great chance to win some goodies. Details down below.
We also conducted our first in a series of interviews with Wings Denied. Read up below!
This message is endorsed by Nikola Tesla.
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ENTER TO WIN
1. Like Wings Denied
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Wings Denied will randomly pick from everyone who has done this. One winner be announced, this Saturday, July 6th. The winner will receive one of each of our new T-shirt designs, and a physical copy of each of our EPs, shipped to them free of charge (all pictured above). The contest is open to anyone, any country in the world. Best of luck!
WD – We are embarking on our longest tour to date. I guess actually it’s our longest band endeavor to date because right after we are going in and tracking for a full-length album as well. Zach has been working his ass off for a couple of months being our personal tour manager and booking 20+ dates all DIY. From July 5th-August 1st we are touring from the North East, through the Midwest, and down to the South and back. We are really amped up about seeing crowds in places we’ve never been and just to get out and see more of the country!
MT – What are you looking forward to most on this tour?
WD – Honestly, for all of us this is what we legitimately love to do. We are looking forward to playing music and spending a month with our best friends.
MT – It’s a good time waiting to happen. What is the craziest thing that has ever happened to you at a show?
WD – On our first show on our last tour in Raleigh we had an AWESOME turnout. Around one hundred people came out to support The Isosceles Project and us. We get on stage and we’re all jacked up on adrenaline and ready to play the show. We get on stage and start playing the first couple of riffs in Maiden. I (Alec) look over at Zach as he jumps up in the air and gets crazy like he normally does. As he lands he goes to move his foot and it gets caught on a cable. He fell on his ass harder than I’ve ever seen anyone fall and I was the only one on stage that saw- all without missing a note in the riff. Needless to say, I was cracking up and trying to hold the Maiden groove together, which is admittedly hard when you can’t stop laughing. We ended up finishing the song and all being alright, but afterwards Zach poured water in his hair to cool himself off without realizing he was right over our other guitarist at the times’ gear. So he completely waterlogged it. Lucky for him the gear ended up being ok as well. It was a rough show for Zach.
MT – Classic! Hopefully this tour goes smoother for Zach. If you could tour with any bands in the world, who would you hit the road with?
WD – We have a variety of interests and a lot of bands we draw influence from within the band. But, if we could do a super tour it would be Wings Denied with Intronaut, Meshuggah, Periphery, TesseracT, Tool, Deftones, and Between The Buried and Me.
MT – I would go see that in a heartbeat. Maybe one day. You guys recently dropped a split EP with North Carolina’s As Oceans. What went into making that release?
WD – The Split EP was actually a big pain in the ass for us. We had encountered a multitude of problems on our end that delayed the final production of it. However, As Oceans are really good friends of ours and amazing people, so they were super patient with us when it came time to release the split, which was actually pretty delayed. In fact, when our original producer dropped off the project, Joey from As Oceans actually stepped in and became the head engineer of our end of the split.
MT – It’s cool that it actually became a collaborative effort like that. And I agree, the dudes in As Oceans are awesome. Who or what inspires your music?
WD – On the creative end on how we write music Zach is the primary contributor to writing music. He explains it like this, “Generally, a song will start out either as a rhythm or chord progression that I come up with either in my head, or just jamming around. Once I’ve got one riff that I’m happy with, the next one or two generally just seem to fall into place pretty easily. I have Synesthesia, which essentially means that I associate different notes and chord progressions with certain colors, almost as though playing a part makes me feel a way that I imagine a color would feel. Every song we write has it’s own set of colors and shades that work together to create what it is. Once I’ve got something together, I’ll tab all the guitar parts out in Guitar Pro, and generally whatever ideas I have for bass lines and drum parts (though those get changed pretty quickly once the other members get a hold of it). If I’m having trouble with transitions, I’ll generally just write it in Guitar Pro as well, cause it lets me see what works better.
MT – Gotcha. So how did Wings Denied get started up?
WD – Zach and our old guitarist Paul, who were roommates freshman year in college, started Wings Denied. They wrote some demo riffs and grooves and started to look for a drummer. They found me through my roommate and I became their drummer. I had been looking for a band as is and was really pumped to have found a band to challenge my abilities. I had a buddy that I had met at school named Luka who became our singer. After we set that lineup we went on tour and picked up Jackson Smith our touring bassist. After a couple lineup changes Jackson became our guitarist and we picked up Rob Moore to play bass.
MT – How did you come up with the name Wings Denied?
WD – Wings Denied is a reference to an Alice In Chains song, “Down in a hole”. Originally our band name was Aeviternity, which is as pretentious and dumb as a progressive metal band name can be. After we realized it was an awful name and no one could spell/pronounce it Luka came up with the name and it stuck!
MT – You mentioned you have new music on the way. Can you tell us about it?
WD – Yes we have a lot of new music that we’re playing on this tour. We are going to be recording a full-length with Jamie King (Producer of BTBAM, Scale the Summit, Wretched) in early-mid August, but it has no official release date as of right now. So if you’d like to hear some new tunes come see us on tour! We have eight new songs in our set list as well as the old tunes!
MT – Good shit! You guys are deeply involved in the metal underground. What upcoming bands would you recommend?
WD – We recommend our friends in: As Oceans, Lorelei, The Isosceles Project, Æther Realm, Fall Of The Albatross, FXZERO, Cryptodira, A Hope For The Dying, and Acoasm. We Also STRONGLY recommend the guys we’re touring with A Minor Error and Caricature.
MT – Some solid music there. Here’s the fun round… Do you even prog bro?
WD – Man all I do is prog. Nikola Tesla fully endorses this message.
MT – Hell yeah Tesla progs. That’s all we have. Thanks for your time! Any shout outs to give?
WD – Yeah! Serious shout outs to all the bands, fans, promoters, and venues that have hosted us and welcomed us to their respective hometowns on this tour. It’s absolutely mind-blowing for us to see the overwhelming support we receive on a daily basis! Without you guys, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.
