Baseball and Guitars – An Interview with Mike Martin of All That Remains
The members of All That Remains should have some pretty impressive frequent flyer mile statements by the end of this year. The band has jumped from tour to tour and already been across North America - including the Rockstar Mayhem Festival, Europe, Asia, and Oceania in 2009 alone - and still they’re not done yet.
Riding on last year’s Overcome, the band’s popular, fourth studio album, there’s been no lack in the demand to see these guys live. Fortunately for the band, the Mayhem Festival actually gave the guys somewhat of a second wind rather than tire them out even more.
“The Mayhem thing just really kicked us back into gear, we were getting a little burnt doing the overseas stuff. We’ve taken like 5,000 plane rides since the beginning of the year, we’ve been to Europe twice and Japan and Australia so we felt like we were going to die,” laughs All That Remains guitarist Mike Martin. “You’re pinching pennies the whole time and there’s definitely never a direct flight, it sucks. Getting back out here is awesome; we’re kind of getting back into our usual American routine, we’re feeling pretty replenished.”
With so many bands on the same tour together was Mayhem chaotic or just a big party?
“It was kind of a little bit of everything. As much as it is chaotic it’s very easy to get into like a routine which is kind of cool. Press is the same time every day, catering is the same time everyday, and you play at the same time every day, so it’s really easy to get into a groove – it’s awesome. And then once 8 o’clock at night hits everybody’s done eating dinner and showering and stuff, that’s when a lot of times the parking lot kind of turns into a big party, or a summer barbeque.”
Yet one of the downsides to being a part of a huge concert festival is the time limit on each band’s set.
“Only a half an hour, unfortunately. The crowds have been so good you kind of just wish you could play longer, plus there are more songs we want to play. But we were just sticking with what people want to hear the most; the hits.”
Was it difficult to weed through their material to decide on which songs to play?
“Yeah, it was a little rough, and then what made it kind of extra rough is our drummer being a dumbass and breaking his hand. So we kind of just wrote out a set list because our fill-in drummer, Tony, only had three rehearsals we wrote out a set-list while we were in Europe that we just emailed him saying, ‘Just learn these eight-to-ten songs.’”
Were there any that the band really wanted to do but couldn’t due to not having Jason Costa on drums?
“Yeah, the song ‘Not Alone’ is always like a big live song for us and we’re not playing it which is really weird; it’s the first time it hasn’t been in our set for like three years. But there are a bunch of other ones too; we’re getting most of the stuff that people want to hear in there though.”
As far as what the All That Remains guys want to listen to from other bands and something that people might not expect is that Martin actually grew up being a huge fan of Bon Jovi. Do the other guys in All That Remains ever give Martin a hard time about that?
“I love Bon Jovi; I’m still into Bon Jovi. But no, because everybody has their own vices in this band so if we all make fun of everybody for everything…” Martin breaks off in laughter. “Everybody at least likes a few bands that are like, ‘Wow – that’s not cool.’”
However, Martin isn’t very fond of the new direction that Bon Jovi has taken sounding a little more country than rock.
“Yeah, that bums me out. Like, I never got the latest ‘country’ album; I never really listened to it. I’m not into that stuff, but I still like love a good four of five of their albums from the early days.”
Speaking of albums, the plan thus far is for All That Remains to put out their next release sometime in 2010.
“It’s looking that way. As of right now it seems like we’ll tour until springtime or summertime of next year and then do the record. So depending on how long it takes to actually write the songs and record them when it actually comes out next year. I’d imagine it’ll happen next year unless things really just don’t slack off with this album because right now they’re not slacking off at all. If it keeps selling more we’re just keep touring more and more.”
So does All That Remains ever try to do any writing while on the road?
“No, we don’t even bother. We don’t even try at all because it’s just a lost cause, we can’t get all of us in like a private enough area to just do stuff and get stuff done. Oli writes a lot of the parts and stuff and he’s always writing guitar parts and me and Phil will come up with some guitar parts while we’re on tour but it’s just noodling around, nothing actual song-wise gets done and until we get home and into our practice space.”
And get rejuvenated…
“Yeah, it’s always nice to feel like a human being every now and again,” Martin laughs.
So any ideas yet which direction the new music will go?
“For us it’s always like whatever’s flowing at the moment. I know people are already assuming that we’re like this radio band now and it’s going to be the most mainstream thing ever but if we feel like writing a really heavy album it’ll be really heavy. It just depends; we don’t ever force anything, if the music happens to be melodic stuff and singing stuff, and if it happens to be really deathmetal sounding then it’ll sound like a deathmetal album,” he chuckled. “We just like to make sure it’s not forced because people can tell when it’s forced and that’s when band’s start failing. We don’t want to do things for the sake of making other people happy, we’re doing it to make us happy first and then hopefully people will keep liking it.”
When Overcome was released there were some praises for the fact that ATR had gone with a more mainstream sound, but then of course, there were also the critics saying the band had altered their sound too much.
“Yeah, yeah, we did it and we started to hear a little bit of the criticism but then once the album started selling five times faster than anything we’d ever done, we were like, ‘Man, this really isn’t a bad thing at all.’ It wasn’t something we really had to dwell on because it was like ok; this is obviously doing good things so we weren’t worried about it at all.”
In closing, other than All That Remains and endorsing Washburn Guitars, are there any other goals Mike Martin has in mind for his life?
“Yeah, I think it’s a good idea to come up with a back-up plan especially with how shaky this music business is. If I ever took the time to really apply myself to certain things – I really like personal training and fitness stuff like that. My friend just got certified as a personal trainer and he has all the stuff you would need to watch and read and study up on to get certified. He gave it all to me and all I have to do is actually bring the stuff on tour and start reading it,” laughs Martin, “I didn’t bring it on this tour because I just knew it wasn’t going to happen; it’s a summer tour and I’ve got some friends with me but one of these days I want to read up on that because all you have to do is study it and then take a test and you’re a certified personal trainer so it would be something cool to fall back on later. And in this band I’m like super-jock compared to everybody else, everyone else is big Lord of the Rings and Star Wars nerds. I watch sports all the time, I’m one of ‘those’ dudes,” he chortled. “I played baseball for 10 years; baseball's my favorite thing in the world besides guitar.”
All That Remains is currently gearing up to headline the HardDriveLive Tour this autumn. Supporting bands include Lacuna Coil and Maylene & The Sons of Disaster for the entire tour, and then also the bands From Sword to Sunrise and Taking Dawn on two additional legs.
All That Remains Tour Dates:
October, 5 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Pop’s, Sauget, Illinois
October, 6 2009 06:30 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Newport Music Hall, Columbus, Ohio
October, 7 2009 05:30 PM - HardDrive Tour @ House of Blues, Chicago, Illinois
October, 9 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ House of Blues, Houston, Texas
October, 10 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ The Palladium Ballroom, Dallas, Texas
October, 12 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Sunshine Theatre, Albuquerque, New Mexico
October, 14 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ House of Blues, Las Vegas, Nevada
October, 15 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Marquee Theatre, Tempe, Arizona
October, 16 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ House of Blues, Los Angeles, California
October, 17 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ The Crest, Fresno, California
October, 18 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Grand Ballroom, San Francisco, California
October, 20 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ The Knitting Factory, Spokane, Washington
October, 22 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Murray Theater, Salt Lake City, Utah
October, 23 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ The Fillmore, Denver, Colorado
October, 25 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ The Venue @ Playmakers, Fargo, North Dakota
October, 27 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ MacEwan Hall, Calgary, Alberta
October, 28 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Edmonton Events Centre, Edmonton, Alberta
October, 30 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Garrick Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba
October, 31 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Epic, Minneapolis, Minnesota
November, 2 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ The Village, Little Rock, Arkansas
November, 3 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Valarium, Knoxville, Tennessee
November, 5 2009 07:30 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Culture Room, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
November, 6 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ The Venue 233 W University Ave, Gainesville, Florida
November, 7 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ The Masquerade, Atlanta, Georgia
November, 8 2009 05:30 PM - HardDrive Tour @ House of Blues, Orlando, Florida
November, 9 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Music Farm, Charleston, South Carolina
November, 11 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Rams Heads, Baltimore, Maryland
November, 12 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Chameleon Club, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
November, 13 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Starland Ballroom, Sayreville, New Jersey
November, 14 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Webster Theater, Hartford, Connecticut
November, 16 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Le Medley, Montreal, Quebec
November, 17 2009 08:00 PM - HardDrive Tour @ Sound Academy, Toronto, Ontario
All That Remains Official Website
Tags: all that remains, mike martin
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