In this episode of The Rock Metal Podcast, we're chatting with Chase Wilson of the band Ov Sulfur about their new album ‘The Burden Ov Faith’ out now via Century Media Records.
During our chat we touch on a lot of great tips for musicians, such as living a life of passion through your artistic endeavours; be it music, story writing, or artwork.
'The Burden Ov Faith' was produced by Morgoth Beatz and Logan Mader, mixed and mastered by Josh Shroeder.
For fans of Lorna Shore, Carnifex, Whitechapel, Shadow of Intent, Signs of the Swarm, and As I Lay Dying, Worm Shepherd
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Guest Resource
OvSulfur.com - Connect with Ov Sulfur!
Guest Music Video
3 Heavy Hitters
1. Partnering with the right people can make your music heard in more places than just the local circuit
2. Work with people who are willing to take the leap of faith with you and your music
3. Go deeper into why you feel the way you do, helping to write authentic lyrics with a greater chance of connection
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Show Notes // Transcript
Jon Harris: Well, Chase, go ahead and say hi to all of our beautiful listeners.
Chase Wilson: What's up, everybody? How you doing? Hahaha.
Jon Harris: Absolutely beautiful, and great to have you here to discuss The Burden ov Faith, my friend. What was the greatest moment for you producing this record?
Chase Wilson: Oh, man, there's so many.
Jon Harris: Take us through them all!
Chase Wilson: I'll give you, like, a top three. Obviously, Tracking 'Earthen' was an experience just because because of how emotional the song was. And seeing Ricky put all of his emotion into that song vocally and kind of channeling what I was trying to put forward into that song was kind of crazy to see. So that's definitely number one. Number two is the ending title track, the breakdown on The Burden ov Faith. And having all of us in the studio and drop tuning that guitar down and seeing everybody's stank face of approval, that was definitely one of my hell yeah moments. I was very stoked as a writer for that one. And just kind of three is hearing everything mixed, mastered, polished, and ready to go for public consumption. It's kind of a great feeling when you finally finish something that's been in the works for so long. So those are my top moments for sure.
Jon Harris: Okay, beautiful. Tracking Earthen, the breakdown of Burden ov Faith, doing the drop tuning, the stank face of approval and then hearing everything mixed, mastered and polished for human consumption. Or if you're Dethklok, then it's for fish consumption, I guess, right?
Chase Wilson: Yeah.
Jon Harris: Revisiting some of those. I was like, I love this show.
Chase Wilson: Oh, man. That's one of my favourites, for sure.
Jon Harris: Beautiful. Now, some of what that does is takes us into some of the themes on the record, which we'll get to in a moment, but I wanted to touch base on were there any challenges for the record, and I noticed that you mentioned that the songs have been waiting to give birth for quite some time. Was that part of the challenge or was there anything else that maybe you learned from on producing this record?
Chase Wilson: I mean, it's kind of our first go at doing a band like this, and a lot of us have only been in local bands or maybe like regional touring bands that never really got as far as Ov Sulfur has within the past two years. So I would say the biggest challenge is I started writing as soon as we did one of our first tours with Signs of the Swarm and Worm Shepherd. Right after we came back from that, I wrote 'Earthen'. And between then and the time we recorded, it was like a year. But that year did not feel like that. It felt like a month or two months. So we were like trying to do the balancing act of touring and writing and marketing and all sorts of things. And it's all very new for everybody. So there were a few challenges, but I mean, I feel like diamonds are made under pressure. You can either crack or you can make diamonds. And that's what I feel like. I hope. I think that we did, it's subjective.
Jon Harris: Yeah. Was it charcoal, if under pressure, it becomes a diamond or it just stays charcoal and you get some hot dogs or something. Yeah. You have barbecue or you have a diamond? I'd rather have barbecue, personally.
Chase Wilson: Yeah. I mean, who doesn't like hot dogs?
Jon Harris: Come on, right? Now, one of the things you mentioned there was a first go at a band like this, only been in local bands or regional touring bands, and then the balancing act that has become the new treadmill, I guess you could say that you're on. I've got a tour and I've got to write and I've got a market. Like, what what what's going on here? What was that like? It's kind of a silly question, but how did you know you had, like, you walked through the teleportation or whatever it is. How did you know? You hit that point where okay, we've hit new territory. We're not just a local band anymore.
Chase Wilson: I mean, that kind of happened when we started releasing the first few songs, really, and we got our manager, Brad Hadley, and he was like, okay, we're doing this, and we're doing that, and we're doing everything. That was the point where I was like, whoa okay, this is no longer just like an Internet project. This is like real life now. This is the thing. It was probably at that point where I started to realize, we've got to kind of get our stuff in order.
Jon Harris: Okay, super serious stuff. Getting a manager, especially one named Brad or Bradley, getting the sensation that this isn't just an Internet project anymore. You got to get your stuff together. But I mean, I'm super curious. What did you do that was different this time around?
Chase Wilson: We had the Ricky Hoover Cheat code.
Jon Harris: Which is back back A back back B.
Chase Wilson: Yeah, like a Mortal Kombat fatality. No, I mean, that definitely had something to do with it. And Ricky coming back to music was a big deal. I feel like it's weird because even this, I feel like, is kind of gaining a lot more traction than Suffocate did back in the day, as well. We're pretty much on equal footing now, I feel like, with where that was. And it's probably due, in fact, that we all have kind of, like, different influences in our music and the way we write music. We're taking this a lot more seriously than we would for local bands and stuff like that. And the biggest thing with that is you got to work with people who are willing to kind of take the leap with you, and there's going to be some struggles and stuff like that, but you got to anticipate, but it's worth it in the long run. So I feel like that's what's kind of, like, different is we definitely see the fruits of our labour, more so in this band, more so than any other project we've done.
Jon Harris: Yeah, I mean, I read all of that in the EPK. I put something up on the Internet, and it exploded. And it's funny, I almost hate that story. It's like you're leaving out so many important details. What do you mean? Yeah. You just put something on the Internet and that's it. Right.
Chase Wilson: Hahaha
Jon Harris: But sometimes there's a magic thing that sort of happens, and something I've heard before chatting with other bands, especially once you've been at it for a long time, 25, 30 years is, you know, I don't even know if we started today. I don't even know if it would take. It was just that time and that place for what we were doing. And I think now is your time and place, Chase.
Chase Wilson: Oh, thanks. Appreciate that.
Jon Harris: Yeah, but that's cool seeing the fruits of the labour. Different influences in the music, which I know, at least from what I'm reading anyway, has surprised quite a few people with the different influences and the way that they're getting hit and pulled and tugged all in very good ways. It's a good kind of tug. Not a bad kind of tug.
Chase Wilson: You never want a bad tug.
Jon Harris: Never want a bad tug. And then I read that a mutual friend actually connected you two together, yeah?
Chase Wilson: Yeah, most definitely. That was our friend Alexis. She's known Ricky for years, and, I mean, she lives in Vegas, so with that, she pretty much saw that he posted "I want to start a technical death metal band." She goes, hey, I threw your name in the ring. And I was like, I can't play that. And she's like, well, I think he just wants people to jam with, so whatever. And I was like, yeah, okay, sure. Ricky Hoover will just DM me later tonight, and he DM'd me later that night. So I spoke it into existence.
Jon Harris: Right, okay. So the Tony Robbins thing of speaking things into existence, it works.
Chase Wilson: I guess so.
Jon Harris: Perfect.
Chase Wilson: Never know unless you try, I guess.
Jon Harris: That's exactly right. Okay, now, going back to some of the themes that are on the record, because I remember you had mentioned when I said, hey, what's the greatest moment for you producing this record, you said tracking 'Earthen' because of how much emotion that there is in it and in the EPK I definitely read about that, and I read about several of the other elements that have gone into the project lyrically, emotionally, musically. But I'm just going to let you roll with that with just not a blank question, but like a broad stroke question. But just, Chase, take us through the themes on this record.
Chase Wilson: Oh, man. I mean, with this one, we kind of broadened our horizons a little bit. I mean, obviously, Oblivion was very much so religion hate, anti-God type feel, which is still in this record. There is a lot of that. And we kind of wanted to broaden our horizons with maybe like, why do we feel this way? Especially, like, with something like 'Earthen' and that not only atheists or whatever can relate to, but even God fearing people can be? What kind of God would test a child is in the chorus of that song. And that was how Ricky was feeling during that moment when he lost his nephew and he decided to be vulnerable and kind of share that with everybody. So you've got that. And 'Befouler' is kind of more so about the music industry and how many snakes there are and people that will be cool to you, to your face and then kind of like, talk shit behind your back. We broadened our horizons a lot and kind of, like, wear our emotions a little bit more on our sleeve on this record. And we wanted to talk about things with a little bit more substance. And you can talk about religion and how bad it is all day long, but if you kind of don't explain why, it's kind of, like, overdone. So that's what we try to do with this record and hopefully people catch on to that a lot more.
Jon Harris: Yeah, that's really good, mentioning the religion thing. It's like, okay, well, country songs are about my dog running away. What are metal songs about? I hate religion and war is cool or it's not not cool or something, right?
Chase Wilson: Right.
Jon Harris: Every genre has its trope topics, but what you guys did was fantastic. You said, okay, I feel this way, but let me dig deeper, let me unpackage why do I feel that way? And then allowing yourself to be vulnerable on paper for people, which I've heard in the past, that that's usually a hallmark of success, do you feel that going vulnerable on this record has also enabled the band to pick up more speed than it may not have had?
Chase Wilson: Yes, absolutely. Our whole thing is about the band just kind of has, like, an unspoken agreement that we're just going to be genuine dudes. We're not the metal band that pretends to be angry and beat your ass on stage. We smile, we goof around, we stick our tongues out. It's fun for us. And when we're writing music, we want to write things that we feel strongly about. We want people to connect with us. We want people to really understand. Where and what we're feeling or why and what we're feeling, I guess I should say. But yeah, I feel like authenticity is kind of like a key to success, for sure. Like I said, hopefully that happens with this record.
Jon Harris: Yeah. Now, 'Earthen' – going back to that track because you had mentioned that with your guitar parts, you wanted to try and capture that same level of emotion. And I don't know how possible it is as a guitar player to answer this question, but how did you do that?
Chase Wilson: It's one of those things where it's like, I will sit down. I'm the type of person that has to be inspired before they write. If I'm feeling a certain type of way and I sit down to write, I want to put that feeling into my guitar. If I'm sad, I want my guitar to weep. If I'm angry, I want it to fucking just crush. And in order to do that, I feel like you really have to hone in on. What what you're trying to do and like, what you're trying to put into your DAW or your put on paper, quote unquote. But it's one of those things. I can't really explain it. It's so hard. But you can definitely put some emotion into that, like 'Earthen' being an example, I guess. You have that sombre, melancholy intro and then the lead in that is extremely sad sounding as well. And it's hard to explain why it sounds like that, but if you send it to five people, I'm sure they'd say the same thing. Even our managers like, oh, man, that lead is like crazy. And you can tell how sad this song is. 'Befouler' is another example. It's just a complete ass beater of a fucking song. We were very angry when we wrote that one. It's just drivey, drivey, drivey, drivey, drivey, and then the end is just crushing. So it's hard to say how we do it, but it kind of just comes naturally, I guess, is the point I'm trying to make.
Jon Harris: I just imagined you on a date for some reason, just telling the girl, well, it's an ass beater of a song. I mean, I was angry and it just comes naturally.
Chase Wilson: That's actually my one-liner when I go on dates. So I'm glad you picked that up.
Jon Harris: Yeah, abso-freaking-lutely, baby. Now, I heard the word DAW in there, so for everybody listening in, that is the digital audio workstation. And you'd also mentioned at one point here in the beginning, you'd mentioned that the drop tuning, it did it on the breakdown for 'Burden ov Faith'. So was there any gear that you used on this record that surprised you or was it all pretty par for the course for you?
Chase Wilson: What kind of I mean, we've been using the Digitech Whammy with the Detune function on for a while and we brought it into the studio just in case we were going to use it. We didn't anticipate on it or anything like that, but we used it and it was kind of just magic. Actually, during the mixing and mastering. You hear it on 'Befouler' as well. And that wasn't planned. I think Josh Schroeder had something to do with that and just made 'Befouler' crush like at the very end as well. So I feel like that was definitely a piece of equipment that we utilize pretty frequently, but, and then the rest is pretty par for the course, tone wise. I told everybody I wanted to go for, like, Peavey 6505 or 5150 head through a Mesa Cab. Which is your standard heavy metal death core guitar.
Jon Harris: Yeah. Digitech Whammy with a Detuner, which you brought into the studio just in case you're going to use it. And it sounds like, I don't know, Joshua's something on 'Befouler' and going for that Peavey 6505 or 5150 guitar tone with the Mesa Boogie cabinet. And as you said, standard heavy metal death core guitar. Now, did you shoot any DI's? Or for those listening in who don't know what a DI is, it's where you take the guitar signal raw and send it to a producer so that they can then do what they will with it. They can put it into any amp they want. Did you give them DI's? Do you know what happened there?
Chase Wilson: Yeah, we did give him DI's. We tracked guitar with Logan Mader from Machine Head in Vegas, and we used his Kemper, and we tracked DI, and we tracked with the Kemper tone as well. So it captured all of that. And we sent all that over to Josh Schroeder, and he was like, what are we going for here? And I told him, and he was like, Perfect. Got it.
Jon Harris: Perfect. I've got that right here. Click.
Chase Wilson: Yeah.
Jon Harris: Beautiful.
Chase Wilson: That's Great.
Jon Harris: How would you define success at this stage of your career?
Chase Wilson: Success to me, and not everybody else might agree with this in my band. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I can't speak for them, but when you're proud of the music that you're putting out and people are just vibing with it and you start to see, kind of like I said earlier, the fruits of your labour, that is what success is to me. It's not about money, it's not about – I mean, getting rad tours is awesome, but it's not about that stuff. It's about being happy with where you're at. That's what success is to me. If I'm just being completely honest.
Jon Harris: Yeah, you're putting something out into the universe and the universe is agreeing back with you and you're getting a positive feedback loop. And obviously there's going to be some negative stuff in there too, as it would go. But do you feel part of earlier you mentioned we're not a local band anymore, now we're doing something real. Is that feedback loop a part of that equation?
Chase Wilson: I'd like to hope so, yeah. People were stoked with the stuff we had put out with the Oblivion EP, and it was great, it was cool, and I was very happy then. I'm even happier now because I feel like we've kind of evolved several steps ahead from where that was, and I just feel like being happy and grateful for everything that you have really does make things less shitty. There are things in the business aspect that are maybe not so fun and things that you got to do, but as long as you know you're grateful and you're happy to do them and this is what you want to do and you're doing the thing, then that's all that really matters. It really is. People can define success by loads of more things like money and fame and popularity and this and that and the other thing. It's all materialistic type stuff, and I'm just not that type of person.
Jon Harris: And I just had Madonna come into my head. I think it was the way you said material.
Chase Wilson: Yeah, probably.
Jon Harris: Ma-ma-material, oh no.
Chase Wilson: It's going to be stuck in my head all night.
Jon Harris: Yeah. Oh, it's a worm. Somebody was talking to me about that song the other day and so I pulled it up. I listened to it for about 30 seconds. Oh, yeah. She's not singing in the right key. And the producer I read this tidbit the producer tried to get her to change the key. She didn't want to, so I listened to it and yeah, she's straining. And then for an entire week straight, I'm like, oh, and now it's back again. So thank you.
Chase Wilson: You're welcome.
Jon Harris: Beautiful. Something that you had mentioned earlier on Chase was working with I always thought it was Schroeder. Maybe I was saying it wrong. Schrader. But Josh Schroeder. Schrader, who has worked with quite a few notable bands. Tallah, for sure. Lorna Shore, for sure. Yes. What was it like working with him? Take us through that. I mean, you mentioned that. I've got it in my notes up here. As soon as I find it digitech, whammy, pedal, 'Befouler'. He turned the whole thing into this crushing dream of beautiful 5150 glory.
Chase Wilson: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, man. I mean, it's awesome working with that dude. And we worked with a crazy team on this record. Like, it was Morgoth. Morgoth Beatz producing and doing the synths and producing vocals. We had Logan Mader who's tracked the guitar, and Josh Schrader who mixed, mastered and kind of did his Schrader Schroeder magic. I'm pretty sure it's Schrader. That's what I've been saying. Hopefully I'm not butchering that.
Jon Harris: You've been offending him the whole time and you had no idea?
Chase Wilson: I had no idea. I'm sorry, Josh, but yeah, no, it was amazing working with that guy, dude, like you said he's a legend in kind of like the death core genre. And not just the death core genre. He's done Varials. He's done King 810. He's done crazy stuff. And I think he definitely added his touch on this record as well. And it was definitely a pleasure working with that guy as well as the rest of the team. Honestly, I feel like if we didn't have the entire team team, we wouldn't have the sound of this record. So that's definitely something I'm super hyped on, is we had such an amazing team to work with.
Jon Harris: Yeah. I mean, I would be hyped, too, working with such an amazing team. We had Morgoth Beatz to help with vocals, Logan Mader to help with guitars, Josh Schroeder, Schrader. Schroeder to help bring it all together. What's the number one thing that you would like people listening to do right now?
Chase Wilson: What I would like them to do? I don't know. Tell a friend, share it. And word of mouth is just as good a marketing tool as anything else. Hopefully connect with it. I hope that something we say maybe helps somebody or somebody can relate if they're having a hard time. But those are the things I would probably say if they're listening right now, is like, that we care, and thank you if you're supporting us.
Jon Harris: Yeah. Tell a friend, share it. I always think of the Wayne's World and then their friends tell their friends, and then their friends tell their friends. Goes on and on and on. Yeah. Word of mouth is still the most powerful thing in the entire world. As long as humans do such a thing. Connect with the record. Someone can relate to it if they're having a hard time. So that's cool that you guys wrote the kind of music that you chose to write or felt compelled to write but still wanted to connect with people. And I think that's
showing.
Chase Wilson: Yeah, absolutely.
Jon Harris: Very cool. Track guitars with Logan Mader because you mentioned there was quite the production team. We got Morgoth Beatz doing synth and vocals. Logan Mader helping out with the guitars specifically, I guess because you're the guitar player. We'll chat about that. What was it like working with someone to help you track guitars and then maybe even branch into Logan specifically?
Chase Wilson: I mean, dude, Logan's a legend. Having the dude –
Jon Harris: – also Canadian, so...
Chase Wilson: Yeah, exactly. A lot of great Canadians. My manager is Canadian, too. Love them.
Jon Harris: Sweet. That keeps happening. I keep hearing that.
Chase Wilson: I know. Yeah, it's great. But yeah, Logan's an awesome dude, and we got his insight in playing guitar. And I went in there thinking like, oh, man, this guy's like, this guy's going to put me through boot camp. He's such a good player and this and that. And he is the chillest dude ever. We had such a good time tracking with him. He is such a nice dude, and his insight was unparalleled to anybody else I've ever tracked guitar with. So being that we got his kind of stamp of approval as well, was kind of like the stank
face.
Jon Harris: You got some stank face from him.
Chase Wilson: When we got this stank face from Logan, we didn't even know we had plugged the bass in and down tuned the bass even for that. And he goes, did it work? And then he played it back, and he goes, it worked. I was like, yeah, man. Sick. The bass is tuned was awesome.
Jon Harris: Yeah, the bass is tuned so low, you need bell bottoms to feel the breeze.
Chase Wilson: Pretty much, yeah.
Jon Harris: All right, well, everyone listening in. Go ahead and head over to TheRockMetalPodcast.ca. There you'll get all the show notes for today, transcripts, music videos, links to connect with Ov Sulfur. And speaking of which, Chase, thank you so much for coming on to The Rock Metal Podcast today.
Chase Wilson: Hell, yeah.
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