BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition April 2019

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DAN BRITTAIN
GOING
APE
Ape War find their voice (again)
and prepare for the looming
apocalypse By JONNY BONES
W
alking the razor’s edge
APE WAR
between crust, thrash
and grindcore, Ape
War has been offering
an auditory onslaught
to the city’s underground music
scene since their inception more
than seven years ago. Within that
time the band has gone through
multiple members, released four
albums and is prepping for the end of days
with their newest offering, War Ape.
“There’s been steady evolution,” says
guitarist Jonny Bumknee. “OG Ape War
dissolved a few years ago. Waves of jobs,
weddings, breeding, the usual stuff. You
know that feeling where you dread going
to jam, rather than get pumped and end up
making excuses to skip it a lot?”
Suffering another exodus of members in
the summer of 2016, just as Bumknee had
brought second guitarist, Squealy Dan, into
the Ape War army, things were looking grim.
Pub 340
Friday, April 5
with Old Iron,
Mess & Nehushtan
Avant-Garden
Friday, April 19
with Balance, Terrifying
Girls High School &
Shearing Pinx
Refusing to submit, the band began to
reach out. “I started asking friends if they’d
be into helping to continue Ape War,” Bumknee
says. “It reassembled really quickly, like
within a month of it being mostly dead. It was
refreshing to jam with new input and talent.”
Having been through battle, Ape War have
emerged with a new roster, new songs, and
a refinement of their annihilistic sound, the
results of which can be heard in the new
album. “We really try to write quickly,” says
Bumknee. “Overthinking songs tends to take
all the energy out. We’re all pretty equally
involved. There’s not one person showing up
with riffs.”
As the new album began to take shape,
a new challenge arose with the departure
of vocalist, Doug Gregoire, leaving the band
without a voice only a week
before they headed to the studio.
“No hard feelings” Bumknee explains.
“They just didn’t have the
time, which was a real bummer.”
Never ones to say die, the
position was filled by longtime
friend and fan of the band, Dylan
Aine.
“Dylan was at pretty much
every show. Always got the pit
going, just amped up the gigs, so it was a no
brainer to ask him to step in,” Bumknee says.
“We’d been rehearsing without vocals for so
long, once we heard vocals, it was like a new
fire was lit.”
With the final piece in place, Ape War has
once again found its voice and the result
is 17 minutes of auditory assault. You can
catch them ushering in Armageddon with
this month’s release of War Ape. If you ever
wanted to listen to the apocalypse, now is
your chance. ,
BEN WEEKS
IN
GOD
WE
TRUST
After 20 years,
Godsmack rise up and
turn the page on a new
chapter
By JOHNNY PAPAN
W
hen Godsmack first
hit the scene with
their self-titled debut
in 1998, fans
were bathed in the
raw-aggression
of downtuned guitars and guttural
vocals pushed forth by a young and
pissed off Sully Erna.
Godsmack’s sound connected with
angsty teens of the new millennia
and, alongside a multitude of award
wins, their 2003 breakthrough, Faceless,
earned the band several Grammy
nominations. With the taste of
success came a whirlwind of substance
abuse and anger issues that
followed the band for much of their
career. For years, Godsmack was consistent
with their sound and lifestyle.
But now, 20 years after their debut,
the band has found a new zen, which
is reflected in their songwriting.
When Godsmack first announced
that their then-upcoming album,
When Legends Rise, was going to
see them explore more commercially
friendly stylings, purist fans hated
the idea of the band selling out. The
debut single, “Bulletproof,” stayed
true to Godsmack’s intentions. It was
catchy, simple and crafted for radio,
but the album as a whole is much
heavier and still retains their fundamental
core, layered with polished
evoluti
“It was risky,” frontman Sully
Erna admits. “Sometimes you have
to take those steps. Even though it’s
scary, a lot of great things can happen
from it and you can find yourself in
a much better position later. That’s
kind of the theme that runs through
GODSMACK
Friday, April 26
Abbotsford Centre
Tix: $79.50, ticketmaster.ca
this whole album: rebirth
and transition. It also
gave us an opportunity
to put something out that
people weren’t expecting.
I really like the element
of surprise. I don’t want to be predictable.
I thought ‘Bulletproof’ was
a good way to tell the fans that we’re
not going to be making the same record
over and over again.”
When Legends Rise gave Godsmack
a chance to break everything
down and rebuild from scratch. Erna
compares the album to a phoenix rising
from the ashes. Lyrically, it’s one
of the band’s most intimate releases
to date. And as much as the record
is a look towards the future, it’s also
an introspective dive into paths once
followed.
“I went through this transitional
period a couple years ago where
I realized there were a lot of people
who were there for the wrong reasons,”
Erna says. “As we
talk about crossing paths
in our lives, coming to
crossroads, people coming
in and out of your life,
one of the main things
that I realized is that everybody is
in search of love. Whether it’s from
your parents or your wife or your
kids or whatever. Unfortunately, we
go through some damage in our relationships.
Because of that, sometimes
you meet someone that could
be great for you, but you fuck it up
because of the scars that you carry.
The song ‘Under Your Scars’ is a
representation of meeting somebody
who could really be a positive influence
in your life and understanding
that they have their damage. It’s
about basically telling them ‘I’m willing
to live with your scars as long as
you’re willing to live with mine,’ because
we all have our own baggage.”
Erna concludes: “I think this is like
I think
this is like a
gateway album for
us, a new beginning.
We’re hoping people
come along for
the ride.
Godsmack’s Sully Erna
a gateway album for us, a new beginning.
Whatever we did from zero to
20 is one chapter in our lives, and
from this point forward could be a
whole new sound, but we’re trying
to be sensitive to not going too far
that it’s going to alienate our core audience.
You have to be able to grow
with your fans, and the fans have to
grow with us because we’re different
people now. I’m not that same angry
guy I was when I wrote the first record.
This is where we are musically
right now, and we’re hoping people
come along for the ride.” ,
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APRIL 2019 BEATROUTE 19