Witherfall are the masters of dark and adventurous metal. Their fourth full-length ‘Sounds of the Forgotten’ once again shows the band exploring all the dynamic possibilities of their sound. Singer Joseph Michael and guitarist Jake Dreyer sat down with me to talk about going independent, playing metal with non-metal musicians, and the one idea that was too crazy for their highly varied sound.

After releasing three albums with Century Media, ‘Sounds of the Forgotten’ is the first album released on the band’s own DeathWave Records. Witherfall has essentially gone independent. “Again”, Michael clarifies. “It’s working out rather well. It’s just a cost-benefit analysis; what the label was bringing to the table didn’t really merit what they were keeping. The thing is… I think that younger bands don’t realize that even though the dollar figure waving in your face might go up, it’s still a loan. Another reason was that there were some creative decisions, as well as marketing and release strategies that we were just tired of fighting over.”

“For example, we’ve released almost every single song from the new record with a video”, Dreyer adds. “A label would have fought us tooth and nail for that. We have one song from ‘A Prelude to Sorrow’ called ‘Vintage’ that is arguably our fan favorite, but it performed pretty terribly on streaming platforms, because it didn’t get a push. Probably the best song on that record didn’t get the spotlight it deserved. Mainly because it’s an eleven-minute-long song, but there’s an audience for that. But try to tell a label that; they want to push the shorter songs. We were just tired of fighting about that kind of stuff. We know what songs are going to resonate with our fans.”

Non-Typical

“Even if you’re going after new fans”, says Michael. “I thought that maybe we could benefit from the relationship when they merged with Inside Out. I thought: somebody over there knows how to market non-typical song structures and bands. But no; it actually got worse once that happened.”

“We always had final say”, Michael puts the band’s relationship with Century Media in perspective. “Our deal was pretty artist-friendly to begin with. And we hired our own publicist here in the States. We signed that deal to see what Century Media could do to get us into their community, and maybe put us on some tours, just getting us acquainted with the industry in other territories. You didn’t see us touring anywhere in your area with any Century Media bands.”

“And we liked Phillip”, Dreyer says of the label’s VP Phillip Schulte. “He was really cool. And we had some keen guys there that were nice. There’s two sides to every argument. I’m pretty sure they’d probably say some shit about us, that we didn’t do what they had hoped. At the end of the day, let’s just get the record out there and promote it.”

The Meat of What It’s Going to Be

Witherfall’s complex songs and dense arrangements sound like everything is meticulously crafted before going into the studio. It turns out that this is not entirely the case. “They’re finished songs, and they’re arranged”, Michael explains. “But we don’t do drum demos or anything like that.

When we do song demos, they are mainly intended to get the arrangement ready, so that the drummer can come in and hear what’s going on, and I can generate the click tracks, the transitions and stuff like that. But that’s like when a seamstress is making a design on graph paper. You know what they’re going to cut, but you have no idea what the pants are going to look like based on that design.”

“We hear in our heads where it needs to go”, Dreyer adds. “It’s really difficult when we’re taking it to the other members to perform their parts based on a scratch demo. But luckily, we use guys like Marco (Minnemann, who drums on ‘Curse of Autumn’ and ‘Sounds of the Forgotten’). He can hear it once we explain something to him. We finished writing the final musical arrangement for ‘What Have You Done’ maybe less than a month before we went in to do drum tracks.”

“That was minor though”, Michael emphasizes. “For the most part, I’d be comfortable saying that within the first few times we get together and start working on a record, we have the meat of what it’s going to be. Not all the details, but a lot of the initial songs. Or what you would call a song: here’s the verse melody, here’s the main riff, here’s the chorus…”

Pigeonholed

Listening to Witherfall is quite the journey. There are influences from multiple styles of rock and metal, prominent acoustic guitar sections, and even some fusion-esque virtuosity. Is anything ever too crazy for Witherfall? “No!”, Dreyer laughs. “There have certainly been ideas that we’ve thrown out, but there’s nothing where we would say: we’re not going to do that. Every idea is allowed if it works for the song and if it sounds good.

When we first started the band, we were coming from bands that were very pigeonholed with some ideas. At least at that point in time, back in 2013, where people would say: we have to write songs that fit under this banner. That’s just dumb. We listen to so many different artists, we have so many different influences… If it makes sense within the song, why not do it? It has to fit though.”

“The only thing I think we’ve ever not allowed to be on a recording was a hip-hop, jazzy bumblebee thing that Anthony (Crawford, bassist) tried to put on ‘Sacrifice’”, Michael adds. “We weren’t there when he recorded it. We didn’t know Anthony yet at the time, so we thought: let’s just send him the songs and see how it goes. Everything was great, except this one thing. It was comical. There’s this song about death and strife, and then all of a sudden, there’s this weird bass solo in the middle of it.”

“We told him we were going for a Pink Floyd, ‘Animals’ type feel”, Dreyer explains. “Where it’s just a very simple bass line. Three notes. He sent back this dubstep thing, where we thought: where was the wire cross here? You think that’s what Roger Waters would have done? Haha! So yeah, that was too crazy of an idea.”

“We can get crazy, dissonant and atonal as much as we want”, says Michael. “But once it starts crossing over into dance music tropes, like bass drops with oscillators… That’s too much, haha!”

A Whole Bunch of Ingredients

Another thing that helps with the versatility of Witherfall’s music is the fact that apart from Michael and Dreyer, the band members are not primarily known for playing metal. Bassist Anthony Crawford played with legendary fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth, pop phenomenon Justin Timberlake and progressive rock band Chon, while keyboard player Gerry Hirschfeld played with country legend Willie Nelson, as well as playing in indie folk band Wax Owls with Witherfall’s new drummer Chris Tsaganeas.

“I think that adds a lot to our sound”, Dreyer says. “Especially when working with someone like Anthony. Although the thing with ‘Sacrifice’ was a little chaotic, we have to give him so much credit. For example, the bass line on ‘When It All Falls Away’ is full-on seventies R&B type stuff. I don’t think a bass player who only listens to guys like Cliff Burton would come up with a line like that. So it’s really cool to have that melting pot. There’s a whole bunch of ingredients being thrown in, and out comes a stew that’s hopefully not going to poison the whole town, haha!

Of course, they still have to have a little bit of knowledge of the background of the bands that we listen to. Dream Theater, King Diamond… All that stuff. These guys all know those bands, so it will make sense. Anthony is a big fan of King’s X, Queensrÿche and Metallica, so he always claims he’s a metalhead at heart.

It’s a lot of fun working with non-metal musicians on these types of songs. We’ll give them a guitar and a scratch vocal melody and ask them to come up with something. And then for some of it, we think: holy hell, I never would have thought that would work over that part so well. It’s a lot of fun. That’s what makes it interesting.”

Leading the Fans Along

“Sometimes the whole thing about making music seems to get lost”, says Michael. “Nowadays, it’s often: we’re a metal band, we have to do this. No, you guys are musicians, you should just do what you want. You’re supposed to lead the fans along. You’re not supposed to find a group of people huddled together, looking at their shirts and go: okay, I’m going to write a song that all the people in those shirts are going to like. What’s the point then? There’s already a million records for them to listen to.”

“We wanted Witherfall to be like a version of Queen or Led Zeppelin”, Dreyer explains. “Because each song is kind of different. Some people asked us if ‘Opulent’ was really a Witherfall song, because it’s so different. But the cool thing about that is that once we do it, it’s already out there, and you can reference it back, and it won’t be as jarring to the listener when we finally do our Indian symphony, haha!

We have done acoustic songs before on various records. And within our style of music, that is not too uncommon. But it’s always fun to branch out on it a little bit more and really freak people out. A record that’s just the same thing the entire record fatigues me after a while. What I want is a record that takes me through different peaks and valleys. Like a roller coaster. When I devote fifty minutes to a record, I want it to take me somewhere. And hopefully back again.”

Boot Camp

Compared to his previous bands, Dreyer has a slightly different role as a guitarist in Witherfall. “I’ve always been a lead guitar player”, he nods. “So when the solo comes up – especially with White Wizzard, Iced Earth and Demons & Wizards – that was my time to put my stamp on the song. I really worked hard on trying to make those solos so that if you were to take them out, the song would be different, so the solo is not just there to be there.

With Witherfall, I helped write the songs, so I can put solos wherever I want. I also really love harmonies. Brian May is one of my favorite guitar players. He was such a master at that. I wanted the beginning part of ‘Ceremony of Fire’ to be like if Andy LaRocque and Brian May were listening to Brahms having some wine.”

Although describing himself as a lead guitar player, Dreyer’s rhythm guitar playing is actually a lot more accomplished than that of most soloists. “I really had to go to boot camp when playing with Iced Earth”, he admits. “Because Jon (Schaffer, Iced Earth’s rhythm guitarist and main songwriter) was very meticulous with it. Jon used to be the main guy in the mix. My goal was to make the sound guy think: let’s put Jake up a little bit more, rather than it just being the solos.

So I really wanted to double a lot of what Jon was doing. I feel like some nights I got it better than others. Some of the stuff, man, my arm would be burning. Especially the earlier Iced Earth stuff. For some of those songs, we didn’t use clicks live, so they were up there in speed. The hardest one was Demons & Wizards’ ‘Crimson King’ though. That song was a bitch to play. Especially when we were playing it at Wacken, trying to not get blown up by the pyros and everything. It was wild.”

Everybody Can Do Everything

The fact that Witherfall is a five-piece poses quite the challenge recreating their layered sound on stage. “It never works”, Michael claims. “We dabbled with backing tracks for the first couple of performances. And I hated it so much that we’re not going to do it again. I hate watching bands with tracks too.”

“We don’t have a semi-truck following us around so we can have all the amplifiers to create those tones”, Dreyer adds. “But you can get the idea across well enough. It’s not going to sound the same as the record. We use Kempers live, which just makes it a little easier. I wish we could use real amps, but when you’re going to all these festivals and flying, you can’t take four heads with you. Or rely on what’s set up once you get there and have those amps work for you.”

“As far as performing the actual music: everyone in the band is a multi-instrumentalist”, Michael continues. “Gerry picks up some of the guitars, then I’ll run off and do some keyboards, or vice versa. If there is no bass going on and we need another keyboard part, Anthony can do it. Composers used to conduct their own performances back in the day. Some would go as far as to play violin or piano while they do it. Everybody can do everything. Except sing, but we’re working on that.”

“It’s not going to sound 100 percent like the record”, says Dreyer. “It does sound different, because it’s a real band playing. It’s not set to clicks, there are no backing tracks, so the tempos might be a little different from the record. Which is always cool; I don’t really like it when concert performances sound just like the record.”

“I’m excited for the new band”, Michael states. “The way that we’re going to bring the music to life with these guys is the best it has been so far.”