ATREYU
Remember Yesterday

Far from their hair-metal predecessors, Atreyu readies fans for “Deathgrip on Yesterday.”  

By: homie

I can’t google my name without the band coming up too. You write two sentences in one email and BLAMO! Your name is all over their press. I suppose it happens sometimes but hey, at least I wasn’t misquoted. So goes the print biz and so continue the careers of 20 and 30 something’s pushing forward as we all forge our separate ways in the music industry.

Atreyu’s amazon.com page for their sophomore release “The Curse” attributes a part of a quote to me that says “…For aggressive audiences, this is where it’s at.” To this day, that continues to be true. The Orange County rock act exploded onto the scene shortly after the release of 2002’s “Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses” and it’s been caviar wishes and champagne dreams ever since…maybe not. But it has been one hell of a ride. Today’s interview is with front man Alex Varkatzis who calls from the set of their new video.

“There’s actually a raging wildfire outside right now, it’s kind of insane.” Says Varkatzis of the view from where he sits. “We’re in downtown LA and the whole side of the hill is on fire right by where we are.” Surely a lesser writer would liken this to the fable of how Atreyu’s rise to greatness has come about…how they’ve spread like wildfire, choking the victims that dare lay an ear on the music, refusing to let go until the lifeless masses incinerate at the feet of the metal gods. But that ain’t me so lets cut the crap and see what’s happened in the nearly 2 years since the release of “The Curse.”

“Overall I think the Curse is at a little over 300,000 sold I think.” These are huge numbers for an independent band on an independent label. “You know, I’m pretty pleased with it. I’ve got no complaints.” The record spawned two commercial hits for the band in “Right Side of the Bed” and “Crimson” that lead to radio airplay, videos on Mtv and more. Surely with success comes a new standard. 300,000 copies of your record sold is no small feat. When asked if Varkatzis is nervous about the bar the band has now set for itself he says, “It also gives you a lot of freedom to do what you want cause you’ve got people who already believe in and support your music. So it gives you a lot of artistic freedom and that’s more what we used with it.” He also says that while the band did attempt to write on the road, very few, if any, of the riffs they worked on made it back at home and eventually on to the record. The band chose instead to invest a solid two months in the writing process, seeking out what would define their next release. “We had two months you know? We just wrote, wrote, wrote-changed, changed, changed-we just worked on everything on our own and did demos. This and that, and then the next thing you know we got the song structures down, and then I’ve got to throw down lyrics. I spent a lot of time on lyrics, (drummer) Brandon pushed me really hard on lyrics and I busted my ass to make sure that things were even more hard, more raw than they were on The Curse.” The end result is for the world to consume March 28 th when Victory Records releases “A Deathgrip on Yesterday,” the third release from the band in four years.

Much has changed in that time. Perhaps not nearly as much with the band as with the entire aesthetic that is the music scene in 2006. Some have gone soft, opting out for indie rock and nice slacks. Still others have lost even the sleeves to their shirts and made a return to the heyday of the arena rock sound. So how does the development of bands like OC counterparts Avenged Sevenfold affect Atreyu? “We don’t really care. We’ve always gone between scenes. We’ve never been locked into the metal world. We’ve been on Ozzfest and Warped Tour and Taste of Chaos. I think we’re pretty lucky that we can run the gamut. We’ve toured with bands like Taking Back Sunday and the Used and then we’ve toured with heavier bands like Chimara or Unearth, Lamb of God, Ozzfest. To us it doesn’t matter. Success or not success anything like Avenged Sevenfold doesn’t really do anything to our band. It cant hurt us but it doesn’t matter either way. We’ve been around just as long as those dudes and we’re pretty established as far as being an underground band goes. It’s a slow build with us and it always has been. We work hard and we do what we want because of it. I’ve got no complaints and no cares either way.”

In fact, the only care that Varkatzis and his group seem to have is what Atreyu does or perhaps how Atreyu is perceived. He’s tight-lipped from the set for the first video from the record “Ex’s and Oh’s.” But does say that the band works well with most everyone they’ve encountered from producers to video directors. “I think for the most part that we have a good repore with everyone we’ve worked with but we’re really strict to adhere to what we want, and our vision, and sometimes that can cause you to be unsatisfied. But its more so with ourselves than it is with anyone else’s work. We’re always like, ‘man I wish we’d pushed harder.’ But the thing with albums and videos is that you’re only as good as the people pushing the buttons. They help you get there.” The band had a great time working on the latest effort with producer Josh Abraham and Ryan “The Dave” Williams. Despite success, the band has done its job fending off the typical signs of rock stardom though Varkatzis assures “I don’t give a fuck-sorry I cant curse. I don’t really care if people like me or not. I can only do what makes me happy and is true to myself at the end of the day.”

Suffice to say, ‘Deathgrip’ is true to itself with the band grasping to find their way out of the pigeonhole dug previously. “On the Curse we got pigeonholed into a world of dark images and things like that and we used dark imagery metaphorically but those songs weren’t about that. I think on this record (Deathgrip) everything is raw. It’s about really specific things in my life. It was real easy for me to sort of, put it out there. I thought I was done with most of it but then Brandon said ‘I think you can push more’ so I got really as raw as I could with the lyrics. Musically, we didn’t really think about what we were doing with the music. We just kind of did it and if it felt right, we ran with it. In the past we would limit ourselves. We would say, ‘we need to be heavy right now’ but that’s not our band. We can do whatever, so its important to do that. True to ourselves and music and that’s all you can do you know?”

Admittedly pulling inspiration from newer records including System of A Down’s “Hypnotize/Mesmerize” and Alkaline Trio’s “Crimson,” Varkatzis says that all the songs on the record have unique pieces about them. “I know it sounds like a cop-out but songs 1-9, all of them standout.” “It doesn’t have to just be the chorus; there are things that can just like, stick out and hopefully the parts that stick out to us will stick out to other people at special parts too.” The band plans to stick its special parts out in a live setting though the Taste of Chaos tour through April 15 th in an arena near you.