{"id":27914,"date":"2015-09-14T07:30:56","date_gmt":"2015-09-13T21:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=27914"},"modified":"2015-09-12T21:39:18","modified_gmt":"2015-09-12T11:39:18","slug":"dan-jacobs-of-atreyu-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2015\/09\/dan-jacobs-of-atreyu-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Jacobs of Atreyu"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>\u201cIt\u2019s been kind of a whirlwind, we went from doing nothing for several years to all of a sudden back in the saddle again to recording and doing music videos and just touring around the world and just being all over the place and I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s awesome, it feels good and I\u2019m really, really excited about the whole thing\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

From release: A fire requires only one match. Sometimes, it can be struck in the oddest of ways, but once those flames spread, it\u2019s impossible to contain. In 2014 after a three-year hiatus, the embers started to collectively glow again for Southern Californian metal trailblazers\u00a0Atreyu. To date, the group has moved over 3 million records worldwide and sold out countless shows . Long Live<\/em>, Atreyu’s triumphant return, will land with Australian audiences on Friday September 18. Fans are suitably prepped for the release following the band’s Australian visit as part of Soundwave’s 2015 lineup. The pieces have fallen into place , the fire has been stoked and the flame is roaring. Long Live Atreyu!<\/p>\n

We caught up with Dan Jacobs of Atreyu to fill us in on the band\u2019s new album \u2018Long Live\u2019 as well as the band\u2019s return after a lengthy hiatus. We talk touring, Australia and much more\u2026<\/p>\n

When we last spoke pretty much this time last year you were just back with a single and now it seems like it\u2019s all guns a blazin for Atreyu, back on the road and more importantly with new music! How has the last year been for the band?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s been kind of a whirlwind, we went from doing nothing for several years to all of a sudden back in the saddle again to recording and doing music videos and just touring around the world and just being all over the place and I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s awesome, it feels good and I\u2019m really, really excited about the whole thing and there\u2019s been a great response everywhere we\u2019ve been which is definitely fuels the fire even more.<\/p>\n

So when you make a return after a few years away, going in to making the album, what was it like getting back and having that creative process happening once again?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s good, it feels like kind of riding a bike, we were probably all a little bit nervous when we all got into it because we didn\u2019t really know how it was going to be, especially taking that many years off, maybe we were all a bit rusty especially was that mindset has changed over that amount of time but as soon as we got in a room that chemistry that has always been there was blatantly still there and it made it easy for us to just start pumping out songs which was really cool, even then that fuelled the fire even more and just getting us really excited.<\/p>\n

Did the hiatus help shape what became the songs on \u2018Long Live\u2019?<\/strong>
\nYeah I mean along with everything and I mean everything in our past including the hiatus kind of helped us all come full circle I\u2019d say and it was kind of the missing link we needed to kind of get to the next step, and by doing so we were able to see who feels as passionately as we do from our earlier records and put that same kind of passion and drive into this album because of kind of taking that breather and getting excited again and not feeling so burnt out.<\/p>\n

So did you tackle this album differently in any way as opposed to previous releases?<\/strong>
\nYeah I mean in particular we kind of broke up the song writing and recording process, normally what we would do is write all the songs that we\u2019re going to put on the album and once we were done we just go in and record them all, where in this case we recorded three songs probably around July last year we did \u2018Long Live\u2019, \u2018Reckless\u2019 and \u2018When The Day Is Done\u2019 and then from there once those were done we went and did five or six more songs, wrote those and recorded them, and then wrote five more songs and recorded those. So by doing so there\u2019s a cohesive vibe through all the songs but at the same time because they were written at different times and recorded in different groups each set of songs has a totally different vibe than the other set.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a huge sound, who did you have producing the record?<\/strong>
\nFred Archambault who\u2019s probably best known in the music world for doing the first Avenged Sevenfold record. He\u2019s incredible with what he does, he records a lot of live stuff, he does the Carson Daly show, and so for us we almost want that big arena like Metallica, like fuckin\u2019 Bon Jovi, just huge sound to the recordings and stuff, so we get that live vibe. Someone like him, he\u2019s so used to recording bands that want that big kind of epic sound and doing it live so we wanted to create that live vibe on the album as well to make it huge and stuff is something he\u2019s really good at.<\/p>\n

Other side of that, what does \u2018Long Live\u2019 represent to you personally?<\/strong>
\nI guess just the fact that our band is here to stay and I think we finally figured out who we are as people and who we are as a band and what works best for us to be able to continue what we\u2019re doing and do it in the most passionate, best way possible, and Long Live kind of encompasses all that, just us kind of truly feeling like we\u2019ve just grabbed the whole thing by the reins and have true control and I don\u2019t know, we\u2019re going to be doing this forever.<\/p>\n

After such a break what are the feelings like when you\u2019re about to release a return album?<\/strong>
\nI mean a little bit nervous, we\u2019re excited on one hand because we haven\u2019t put out anything in so long, and we\u2019re so proud of everything we did on this album that we just can\u2019t wait for everyone to hear it, and to just get the full response, the response so far has been so good we can\u2019t wait to see what the full release is like. At the same time too we\u2019re a band that\u2019s been gone for a while, especially in the social media rise with Instagram, facebook, Twitter, we kind of went off the grid, so coming back we don\u2019t have the kind of reach of some of these bands that have been grinding away the last five years and have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers of whatever, so having that reach. That makes us a little bit nervous to shake the dust off a little bit to get back in the game, but I don\u2019t know, I\u2019m very confident, even hearing what\u2019s going on now in music and in what we bring to the table, it\u2019s still very unique yet feels very relevant. I feel like we\u2019re going to stir some things up a little bit, so from that perspective it\u2019s very exciting.<\/p>\n

You were of course here for Soundwave earlier this year, what was it like being back out in front of Australian audiences?<\/strong>
\nIt was amazing, I mean honestly, it was legitimately the best response that we\u2019ve had since we\u2019ve been back as far as anywhere in the world, it was hands down the best shows we\u2019ve had. We had no idea what to expect coming in, we were literally playing the small stage and at first we heard we were going to be on the main stage and as everyone knows with Soundwave the line ups are constantly changing and these posts of what the potential line up and dates are going to be, and for us it changed literally the day before we left, we thought we were on main stage and we ended up being on a small stage and it\u2019s like \u2018oh man, what does that mean? Maybe nobody knows who we are over there anymore, we\u2019re blowing it.\u2019 So we get over there and all the bands before us had barely anybody watching them, it was empty pretty much the entire day and it was like \u2018man, this is not going to be good, this is almost embarrassing *laughs* like what are we supposed to do?\u2019 and we get up on stage and all these people come out of fuckin\u2019 nowhere and just pile in and for us they put on an amazing show, like wow that was an intensive energy we haven\u2019t felt in a long time, even compared to our hometown show where we sold out two nights in a row at our local venue it still wasn\u2019t as intense as the Australian audiences.<\/p>\n

Leading to the obvious question of when do you think we might see you back?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know, hopefully sometime next year, we don\u2019t have any official plans yet, but we\u2019ve got our eye strongly on Australia. I mean we\u2019re not going to do Soundwave again because we did it this year, don\u2019t want to do back to back. I mean we love it, the entire country is like southern California and we\u2019re all Southern California guys so it feels like home and it\u2019s always nice to be over there\u2026 down there.<\/p>\n

With many more shows back under your belt, has everyone got their footing back on stage?<\/strong>
\nYeah I think we\u2019ve kind of got our groove back, I mean at first it was a little bit of a clusterfuck, you get up on stage and you need to get your footing and just feeling out how everybody moves again and get a rhythm going so you\u2019re not running into each other the whole time, and but now we\u2019ve done a decent amount of shows like you said on all different sized stages, like big amphitheatre stages to small club stages and everything in between, I think all that too can help to tune in your stage performance just by playing all the different sized stages you know how to work with any scenario.<\/p>\n

Besides Atreyu, what bands are you really digging at the moment?<\/strong>
\nOh man, I mean the stuff I listen to is kind of out there, I really like Mariachi El Bronx, their newest album, I\u2019ve been listening to a little bit of this band called Santa Cruz they\u2019re actually on our label Spinefarm, they\u2019re from Finland and they kind of sound like if Skid Row came out this year it\u2019d be these dudes, it\u2019s pretty amazing, it\u2019s kind of like 80\u2019s throwback but with a modern kind of edge to it. You\u2019d love it, it\u2019s really good. There\u2019s a song called \u2018Wasted and wounded\u2019 you\u2019ve gotta check out, something about Falling, basically there\u2019s two music videos for their two most popular songs on all the stuff. If you love Skid Row you\u2019ll love this shit, it\u2019s really good.<\/p>\n

Lastly let\u2019s look ahead to the future, so finish this sentence for us, in 2016, Atreyu will\u2026<\/strong>
\nBe playing places we\u2019ve never played before, extending our boundaries and hopefully get down to south America which we\u2019ve never been to before, do a little bit more of Asia and a little deeper into Europe, all the above.<\/p>\n

And back to Australia, right?<\/strong>
\n*laughs* and back to Australia, absolutely.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Essential Information<\/strong><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> Orange County, CA, USA<\/p>\n

Band members:<\/strong> Dan Jacobs – Guitar, Porter McKnight – Bass, Travis Miguel – Guitar, Brandon Saller – Drums\/Vocals, Alex Varkatzas – Vocals<\/p>\n

Forthcoming release:<\/strong> Long Live \u2013 (September 18 \u2013 Spinefarm Records)<\/p>\n

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Website:<\/strong>\u00a0 http:\/\/www.atreyuofficial.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n