T3M: Congratulations on the new album.

RC: Thank you.

T3M: I've been listening to it for a few weeks now. It's really good.

RC: Oh cool.

T3M: In your own words, how would you describe Demon Hunter's music?

RC: We've been talking a little bit about that recently. For me, it's kind of hard to categorize in terms of modern metal sub-genres and things like that. We have so many influences, most of which fall into the, really heavy, sometimes melodic heavy bands. Anyone from Machine Head, Pantera, Soilwork, and things like that. There's a lot of thrash in there. There are probably some hardcore elements that are dabbled in there. And then just some hard rock, especially with the mellower stuff. It's kind of hard for me to categorize. I do think we have our own thing going on, but I'll put in there somewhere with the other bands I mentioned.

T3M: That's one of the things I liked about the album. Wikipedia has Demon Hunter categorized as a metal-core. This album may start off that way, but then you move into all kinds of different sounds. It was nice to hear that you didn't get stuck in a particular sound or genre.

RC: Right.

T3M: One of my favorite tracks on the new album is "Thorns". It sounds like that song is influenced by old-school punk.

RC: Yes, there's definitely a little but of Misfits thrown in there. Some people say the keys remind them of The Cure. As far as the newer bands that influenced that song it would be bands like HIM and things like that. The pre-chorus is definitely Misfits influenced.

T3M: What really separates Demon Hunter from a lot of the mainstream acts, or any of the other bands on the scene today?

RC: I think just the overall formula we have with our songs... the structures that we do. The melodic singing is even different than a lot of other bands when they sing. I think there's a pop sensibility to it. It's a little more derived from some of the more mainstream bands than a lot of the metal-core bands. I think we dabble in areas that a lot of the metal-core bands wouldn't go into for fear that it would be cheesy or too commercial sounding. I think we're able to juggle the genres seamlessly between really really heave and also very catchy choruses and well thought out melodies. I think that's a rare thing these days. I think when metal bands sing it can tend to be forced... just singing to sing. We make a point of making those parts very well thought out parts of the song, and not just kind of thrown in there just for the sake of doing it. I think that separates what we do from most metal-core bands. I think that's what separates us from bands like that.

T3M: I think a lot of that has to do with your dynamic vocal performance. When I first heard "Lead Us Home" I thought there were three vocalists. Is it difficult to take that from the studio to the stage?

RC: It can be. It all depends on the cadence of the song, how word heavy it tends to be. A lot of the songs that are jam packed with words, sometimes I'll have to get some help... Ethan does some of the back-ups when we play live. In some sections where I'm there's no way I can jump straight from this part into the next part., I'll have him do the last couple words in a phrase, or a word in the middle here or there. For the most part it's just about preserving your breath and your energy. Not like going full-bore on the parts where you know you need to hold it back a little bit. It does take a lot of practice... it takes a lot of figuring out exactly how much to hold back at certain areas, and working on going from the heavy parts to the melodic singing. It takes some tweaking and just figuring out how to do that the best. I try to practice at least few weeks pretty solidly before we go out just to work out all those kinks.

T3M: What was the most challenging song to write and record for Storm the Gates of Hell?

RC: That's a good question. None really come to mind. With this record, we were able to really flesh out the songs in demo form before we went in. That allowed us to work out all the possible kinks before we got into the studio. The songs, for the most part, really maintained their original form when we got in there and recorded them. There were a few little areas, singing vocals and things like that, that we changed, and changed the melody a little bit. But, overall we were able to take the time on this record to work everything out before we got in there. It flowed pretty well when we were in there. I don't remember any songs that we had to rethink... I'd say the closest one would be "Follow the Wolves". We had kind of a different chorus in mind when we went into the studio. We ended up changing it pretty drastically. The disco beat that goes through that chorus is kind of a tricky thing, because it's an interesting kind of beat and if you sing over it in a certain way, it sounded a little corny. We wanted it to be melodic for sure, but we had to add a heavy element back into it, so that it wouldn't sound too corny.

T3M: How was your experience working with Bruce Fitzhugh as a guest vocalist on "Sixteen"?

RC: It was great. We kind of asked him about singing on the record quite a while before we started writing or anything like that. We just kind of mentioned it in passing. He expressed that he was interested. So when it came time to do the record, we just had him come on out. We've known Bruce for a long time. We decided to do it with someone that we really looked up to, a friend of ours, and someone who was also a legend in our eyes. So that was really cool to be able to work with him.

T3M: What's your impression of how people are reacting to the new album?

RC: Good. For the most part, the comments that we see are from people on our sites... and I'm assuming people that are our fans. From them, from what I've seen, it's been nothing but great. Comments and reviews; the bulk of what we've seen has been really really positive, and that's been awesome to see. Publications and things like that, it obviously differs. Certain publications have a one dimensional sort of view. We didn't expect to get great reviews from every publication. The ones that we feel actually do understand where we're coming from, and have an open mind to what we're doing, did give us a pretty good review... so that was great.

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| 12.18.2007 | Interview by J. Pierson |