The theoretical and musical sledge hammer of Thor crashed down on State Theater Thursday night as Atlanta’s mathcore band The Chariot tore up the venue, or at least themselves. My jaw was on the floor and I don’t think I scraped it off until the end of their set. The bands intense energy overshadowed any other performance of the night. It was like being given a Warhead, eating the Warhead, being told you’re going to get another Warhead and then given a skittle instead. You don’t want a dang skittle! You want another Warhead. I wanted more of The Chariot. I got a chance to chat with lead singer Josh Scogin before the show while he still had some breath in him.
Are you guys exhausted? You’ve been touring since the beginning of this year!
Yeah, since January! Im not tired, but I love touring. It will be nice to be home for a little bit and sleep in our own bed but at the end of the day it’s been like a week or two and your reading for touring again. This years been a little crazy, but my wife is really supportive. Usually we tour for a month and then have a month off but this time it’s been non stop. When I’m home I’m home though, I don’t have another job besides this, so my wife and I are really just able to hang out 24 hours a day. Definitely quality over quantity sometimes though and it’s all in what you get use to. I look at it as a win/win, I’m able to tour but I’m also able to have a family which rules because a lot of people don’t get to do both.
You guys will be touring with Dan Smith from Listener, are you guys looking forward to being able to play David De La Hoz from your album?
Yes! Ever since we saw him that was rule number one, we have to tour with him! We’ve done a few shows here and there with him but it will be great to do a whole run and play the song every night. Our drummer saw him at a festival and was like, “you guys gotta see this guy’ so we went and watched him. What he dos is such a different world than our world I was blown away. I wanted to do something with him but I was like, I don’t even know if he knows our band... or knows the world we live in. Then at the show I saw his guitarist had OUR sticker on his guitar, it was the only sticker on his guitar. It was like fate, or at least they knew who we are. I went up to him after the show and I think I told him within the first ten minutes of meeting him “we want you on our record” and he was like, “Okay” he didn’t even know what we were writing. We flew him in and we showed him the song and told him we were probably going to shoot a video that night too and he was just like, “Okay.” We’re kind of an impulsive band, just roll with the punches, so when other people get involved it’s kind of funny because we aren’t pre-plan this and pre-plan that. He’s like us though so it worked out. It started off a beautiful friendship.
For that song I know Dan asked you for lyrics and you sent an Email that just said, “Stay the Path” what did that mean for you?
As an artist you never want to put barricades on another persons creativity, I want to keep it loose and free. So I was like this is generally where this song seems to be going right now, so I wanted him to write about about whatever he felt from that. He wrote the lyrics on the plane to see us and while walking the streets of Atlanta.
A lot of the songs from the album are people’s names from a contest you did. Were the songs already written and just needed tittles or did you you write the songs after meeting the person?
We didn’t get to meet the people until now, we knew we wanted names as our song tittles and now we are friends with those people. We wanted it to be a part of our fourth record, it’s a very grateful record. The more we talked about it the more we wanted it to all tie together, to have the songs named after people that have supported us in any way, basically as a thank you record. It’s for anyone that bought a record anyone that gave us a place to stay and anyone thats helped us with a broken guitar, whatever the case may be. We were thinking a good way to do that would be to pick five people that would represent everyone thats ever helped us. The idea started to fall together like puzzle pieces. Long Live, and the way we are able to “long live” is via people supporting us so there are those five songs. The other five, you have The Audience, which is the group of people which would grow into The City... It’s just a growth process. From The City you’ve got The Earth, and from there you’ve got The Heavens, which kind of breaks the boundary of latitude and goes longitude. Instead of human relations here you’re dealing with a totally different side. From there you have The King and whether that’s spiritually the King or a regular king. In either realm that’s when it’s the most rewarding thing to be able to do, to perform in front of a king. It all ties in with Long Live, it’s not a concept record but it’s definitely got that common thread running through it.
You did a solo record last year, any chance of another one?
Yeah actually, I’ve been writing some stuff and sort of recording. That’s always kind of an ongoing thing. The Chariots always so busy that I just squeeze in three days here and three days there. The songs usually come naturally I don’t try to force anything out, which I think it’s better that way. With this project I don’t have a deadlines, I don’t have a label choosing dates, so I can just write songs as they come naturally. As one gets to where it’s in a finished state I send it over to Matt Goldman, who does all The Chariot records and all the drums from my solo stuff. As that stuff kind of piles up over the months I’ll decide on when I should release it. Right now I have a majority of the songs for whenever the time comes to release, but this year is the busiest we’ve ever been. That’s a great thing though but for me to get in there and record a few is always a daunting task. This isn’t a project that should be stressed over though, it’s just another out for me, something softer. It’s nice to know I can be like, “I might release an album this year, I might release an album five years from now.”
What about The Chariot?
For the Chariot its somewhat similar but its a little different, deadlines come up, the Label says we need a record by such and such time, so we’re always writing with the chariot. It’s cool to live in both worlds though, almost like having my cake and eating it too. In a way that I’m really grateful for, to be able to do both. I’ll ride that train as long as I can.
So is there talk of album number five?
Yeah, we are actually going to be recording in January. We are always writing. Songs come on their own, kinda naturally. We got together a couple days before this tour to practice for this tour and accidentally wrote two songs. It started with a riff and then developed into a song. We’re always moving forward and never trying to hang out too long. Artistically you never want to get bored, you never want to get stagnant. Like, I love songs even from our first record but at the end of the day if someone has seen us more than two, three, four times it’s nice to give them a new song, something fresh for them and gives them a reason to come back to another show. We are just always trying to move forward with that. It’s kinda a little bit our ADD mentality of how these things keep coming we just kind of keep writing. We never get bored with the Chariot songs though, they are just so fun to play. For this show we have a 25 minute set and we have four albums to kinda cram into that. Theres comes a point in time where we are like we’ve played this song for like five years we HAVE to drop it.
But then theres that one fan that’s like WHY DID YOU NOT PLAY THAT SONG!?
[laughs] But none of us want to drop it and we hate having to drop it, because we know the energy that it brings and the fondness of it. We get to do a headliner coming up though and I think it will be one of the longest sets we have ever played. I’m anxious to see where it goes because I know there are songs we all want to play. But doing what we do the set can’t be too long.... we’ll die [laughs]. I don’t have that capability.
You guys are headed to Europe at the end of the year, where are you looking forward to going to most?
We’re headed to Russia and I’m really excited because last time we only did Moscow and St. Petersburg and this time we are doing 15 shows in Russia so I’m anxious for that. Europe in general will be cool because it will be with the Norma Jean boys and Stray From The Path which are super good friends of ours. So I’m looking forward to being there with all those guys.
Any quirks from the boys that you were not looking forward to this tour like, “geez he pops his gum so loud! I just can’t take it anymore!”
[laughs] Actually no, with all of us we are such easy going guys and then all the Underoath dudes we’ve known them for just years and years. Daniel, playing drums in Underoath was in Norma Jean and I’ve known him since middle school. We’ve been playing together since early high school days, so it was actually great to rekindle that. Hanging out is such a rarity so it was great to be able to hang out every day of this tour. In theory, you see each other on tour somewhere or something but when your on tour together you really have a whole month and a half to catch up with friends.
Brandon is the newest member, both he and Stephen we’re in Written In Red, is that how he kinda got thrown into the mix?
Yeah, we actually played some shows with Written In Red a long time ago but we knew them really well because they were local. When they broke up Brandon went and joined this band called I Am Terrified and played with them for a while. They broke up and right around that same time our guitarist decided to leave to do his own solo thing. Brandon has always wanted to tour so we were like dude, why don’t you come play with us, he was just the perfect fit because we’ve known him forever.
......We are all truly, in every way friends and we try to keep it that way. It’s never just a business, we’re not making money off of it. At the end of the day if you’re just doing it to make money, you might want to pick a different genre. To be able to be friends and to look forward to hanging out and look forward to the goofy antics that come is the best part, that’s the payment. It’s like being on permanent vacation status. It is hard work, but when you love your work you never have to worry about it. It’s a real blessing to me in every way.
You guys recently signed to Good Fight, how has it been working with them so far?
It’s been great, they really sort of know the world that we live in. They understand the whole touring aspect so that’s been really pleasant. They know you have to drive 16 hours or 8 hours or whatever the case may be, while other labels are just business. Maybe they have some pros, maybe they know what it’s like but they can be like, you didn’t send this in” and you’re like, “Dude, I’m literally in the middle of nowhere, on our ninth hour and I have six more to go.” They are just like “raaahhhhhh” but with Good Fight they understand. It makes it really helpful, they know this punk rock vibe, so it helps when you’re communicating because you don’t have to explain a bunch of stuff. It’s a bunch a really great dudes running that label.
Now you guys being a christian band..... did you get to see Stryper?
[laughs] I’ve actually met them. Several years ago we did a tour with P.O.D. and Stryper actually came out to one of the shows so we got to meet a few of them. They’ve done some really cool stuff, there are a lot of anti-God bands that credit them [Stryper] as their influences. I look up to that and think that’s pretty impressive that they are able to say that.
Do you guys have plans for Halloween?
I don’t, I don’t make any plans ever but we have one more show on our way back home which will be considered a Halloween show. Last year we dressed as women, maybe this year we will dress as Stryper [laughs].
