Protest The Hero

If you’re foolish enough to scoff at the notion that power metal styled vocals and complex song arrangements aren’t relevant in 2008, then you clearly haven’t heard Protest The Hero.

PTH mouth piece Rody Walker called up for a chat…

Interview w/ Rody Walker (Vocals)

of Protest The Hero (US)

By Cameron Chambers

Hey Rody, how are you today?

Good man, how are you?

Things are good man.

A Day To Remember and The Devil Wears Prada. How have the shows been?

Actually… to tell you the truth…

we just flew home and dropped off the tour.

Do you mind if I ask why?

We’ve just become a very disorganized

touring band and we were having some problems internally with our team.

So we flew home, fire a couple of people and now we’re getting our

shit together for our next tour, ha ha.

Well, that question backfired,

ha ha.

It’s all good man, ha ha.

Vagrant Records doesn’t really

did your deal with them come about?

I don’t know really. We were

shopping our first record in the States… it’d already been out in

Canada for a year and I think… there’s one this one guy at Vagrant

who’s a giant metal fan and even though we knew they didn’t have

any metal bands we were into it.

I consider him solely responsible,

ha ha. He was very interested and they were really nice people so we

were like “whatever, let’s just ink our names here”, ha ha. 

Vagrant have something of an

of your band members?

Not really, no. We’ve never

really concerned ourselves too much with paradigms. We just do what

we do and if we piss people off then fuck em. Hell, even if they like

it fuck em anyway, ha ha. We love to piss people off!

Do you think things may have

or do you prefer standing out from the rest of the Vagrant roster?

I dunno. We might be touring with

different bands but beyond that I don’t think there’d be much of

a difference. For an indie label they’re getting our record out there

as much as any other label so I don’t think the difference would be

too vast… if anything at all.

Turning back the clock a bit,

and Fortress (sophomore album)?

Well, as opposed to writing the

debut in my parent’s basement we did Fortress in a rehearsal space.

It was a lot quicker too. We wrote our debut in high school, so we were

in school five days a week, then we’d get home and write until 10pm…

then we did our homework and went to bed, ha ha.

With Fortress it was more like

a nine to five job instead of a twelve to seven album, ha ha. The biggest

difference was also the alcohol consumption. We definitely drank a bit

while writing and recording… actually, I’d say we drank profusely

while we made Fortress, ha ha.

It’s been said that a band

all when putting Fortress together?

Not really to tell you the truth.

We pushed the deadline back a bunch of time too. We weren’t actually

supposed to be writing at the time we were because the label wanted

us on the road… but we had some drug allegations going on at the time

so we thought we’d start writing instead of touring, ha ha.

I read a quote of yours that

with your management or label?

Absolutely! Some of those people

that wanted that commercial viable record are no longer existing within

our framework, which is why we’re home now. We wrote the record we

wanted to write and the other people who were working in the team that

didn’t understand that… well, we’ve fucked em off!

Fans and critics have nothing

that be?

There are still people that doubted

us while we wrote what we were writing but they don’t have much to

say these days. The record has been received quite well so that made

them shut their gullet holes, ha ha!

What have people been saying about

it in Australia… actually, has it even been released down there?

It sure has.

That’s sweet! That’s the best

feeling, when we get messages from kids on MySpace who are in Australia…

we’re just like “that’s sweet”!

Taking into account how complex

to writing and recording?

We had about seven months I think,

two of which were spent in the studio. The rest was spent during winter

in our practice space in Toronto… freezing our asses off and smoking

bud and drinking, ha ha.

Your debut Kezia had one central

or were you simply looking to try something new?

With the debut we wrote it thematically

and it followed one central theme. We ended up getting a lot of people

at shows that were really obsessed with the concept and it seemed to

overshadow the actual music at times.

With Fortress we made an effort

to make it less of a stringent concept and hopefully the concept won’t

overshadow the music. So far, it seems to be working well. 

How did you get Vadim Pruzhanov

from Dragonforce to guest on the record?

Ha ha. We toured with them last

year and we’ve always been big fans of Dragonforce and gratuitous

wankery… as you can tell, ha ha.

We toured and became good friends

and when the record came around we had this part where there wasn’t

anything going on… there was just this chug part and we’re not a

chug band, so we called Vadim and said “do you want to shred something

over this part so it’s not boring”?

We sent him a clip and within

half an hour he sent us back a shredding solo!

I was going to ask if

to see him nail that shit up close.

It would’ve been awesome! Unfortunately

he tracked it at home and sent it through in midi format. Hopefully

we’ll get to tour with them again soon and he can play that song with

us live… hopefully he can use a keytar, ha ha!

Once you guys wrap up this

tour in the near future?

It’s highly likely! We’re

trying to organize something right now so we can come over right after

Japan. We’re not too sure who it would be with though.

We’re looking to play small

clubs with local bands. I think that would be the most ideal thing for

us and to introduce ourselves to Australia.

That’s all we’ve got time

say?

Uh… I think I’m good. Was

nice talking to you though!