INTERVIEW WITH TIM LAMBESIS OF AS I LAY DYING

BY

MICAH L. JONES

Prophet Newz:  As a Christian band who is your target audience?

Tim Lambesis:  Umm, I think a lot of bands approach music with a certain audience in mind and for us our attention was really just to play music that we love and hopefully be able to make a living doing that.  We didn’t really have a target audience in mind, we just wanted to play.  I would say that the majority of the people who listen to our band are between… like, the ages fifteen and thirty… like in that age group.  But, we don’t try to play for a particular audience, it just happens to be that most of our fans are in that age.

Prophet Newz:  From the beginning of 2001 to now how would you say As I Lay Dying has matured?

Tim Lambesis:  It’s not like we’ve changed a lot, you know.  We’ve become much better musicians and individually we’re all able to play our instruments better, which I think naturally feeds into better songwriting.  But, I think just the understanding of the songwriting process… we understand that a lot better.  The band I think is a little faster paced now then we used to be, I think some bands tend to slow down over the years, we do the opposite.  (Slight Laughter)

Prophet Newz:  I’m glad you said that because that was another question I was going to ask.  (Slight Laughter)  Particularly in Christian rock, you’ll find bands come out pretty heavy, they play good, they release a CD or two and then after that they mellow out.  I don’t know if it’s old age or I know some say they can’t make much money in Christian rock so they mellow out so they appeal to more.
Do you ever see As I Lay Dying doing the same thing?

Tim Lambesis:  No, definitely not.  I don’t think that we’re trying to be heavier or like lyrically to turn people off in any way.  I don’t think we’re going on our way to do those things.  But, lyrically I’m still very up front about what I believe and musically speaking, what keeps us entertained is the faster paced kind of heavier stuff.  It’s just what we have to do to keep ourselves passionate about our music.

Prophet Newz:  Do you guys have a home church as a band, or individually?

Tim Lambesis:  Each, a couple of the guys actually moved out to San Diego to join the band, so they’re sort of in this in between phase, but the three of us that are from San Diego we all live about twenty minutes from each other, so we go to different churches.

Do any of you play for a band within the church?

No, because we’re only really home… maybe three months a year.

Prophet Newz:  Have you ever been told your music is from Satan?  And that what you’re doing is from the Devil?

Tim Lambesis:  Yeah, yeah….

How does it make you feel?

I don’t really get bummed out that somebody’s saying that about us because I know it’s completely ridiculous.  I get more bummed out that Christians with that kind of mentality are out there representing the same God and Savior that I’m out representing; I think that we’re fighting against each other and it is really unfortunate.  It really saddens me more so just the way that it comes across to other people who are not Christians.

Prophet Newz:  Do you guys have families?  Married, children, any of the band members?

Tim Lambesis:  I’m the only one in the band that’s married.

Any children?

No children.

Now, does your wife come with your on tour?

She’s a teacher, so she comes out whenever she can, which is… typically every other weekend she’ll come out.

Does that make it hard on the marriage?

Yeah it does.  But, now we’re at the point where… she used to tour with us all the time and then she decided to take this job teaching because teaching is her passion and I want her to pursue her passion as well.  So, now we’re at the point where it’s a little easier because instead of touring nine months a year consistently like we used to, we’ll do more like six months a year; we’ll be on tour for a month, we’ll stay home for a month.  So, it’s like for every month we’re gone we’re home.  It gives us a chance to really spend a lot of time together during those months that I’m home and of course she still visits me on tour.

Prophet Newz:  Who are your influences as far as musically?  Where do you draw your inspiration from?

Tim Lambesis:  It’s tough to say because I think I’m influenced by a lot of music that we don’t necessarily sound like.  When I was younger I grew up listening to a lot more like punk bands and us being a metal band… that transition happened with me when I started learning to play guitar and I wanted to be a song writer.  Punk was a great style for me to listen to but it’s wasn’t really that exciting for me to play and so I started getting more into metal just because I wanted to play that style of music.  I’d say even now I still listen to as many other styles besides metal as I do listen to metal.  My influences are pretty various.

Prophet Newz:  What do you think of Christian music today?

Tim Lambesis:  I think there’s definitely… better bands… I mean ten years ago there’s better bands than there was fifteen years ago.  It seems to keep getting better and better as far as the talent that the bands have.  I think the only unfortunate thing is a lot of bands I think start off under the Christian umbrella because maybe… it is easier for them to find support; they can play in local church shows and things like that, but as far as their personal convictions… I think sometimes it’s more of a convenience for them rather than something they really care about.  We’re not a very preachy band by any means but I think if somebody was to read our lyrics they would definitely see that we’re out here fighting for what we believe in, we’re standing up for our beliefs and if anyone wants to dig into our lyrics there’s more substance there.  Some bands… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with starting a band that’s just a band and if someone’s faith isn’t going to influence their music then they should just call themselves a band.  Sometimes I just think the music gets better but then the message gets more watered down.

Prophet Newz:  What do you do in your spare time, you and the band when you’re not touring?  What do you do for fun?

Tim Lambesis:  Well, because on tour we’re traveling, kind of a fast paced, a lot of change, always a lot going on, whenever I’m home I just take it easy.  I have a recording studio at my house, so I’ll records ideas here and there even if it’s not ideas for As I Lay Dying, sometimes I’ll record for other bands.  I’m also kind of one of those people that’s kind of like a gear-nerd, like I’m always doing research on what can make something sound better, this and that, I enjoy the technical side of that as well.  As far as hobbies I do enjoy snowboarding but I really only get a chance to do that once a year.  I don’t really have too many other hobbies, just hanging out with my friends and barbequing, relaxing.

Prophet Newz:  If you weren’t in a band, you weren’t doing music, what do you think you would be doing for a living?

Tim Lambesis:  Well, I probably would have continued going to school and… probably would have been a teacher especially because my major was… I was three semesters from graduating with a philosopher’s degree, which really doesn’t apply to very many jobs and so I probably would have taken that and gotten like a masters or something like that to where I could go back and teach.

Prophet Newz:  What do you see in the future for As I Lay Dying?

Tim Lambesis:  I see the future as being very similar to our past, just keep touring, and keep writing records.  As long as we stay passionate about what we’re doing there’s no reason to change.

Prophet Newz:  Out of all the CD’s you guys have made what is your favorite song?  Which one do you enjoy the most?

Tim Lambesis:  Umm… certain songs I think come across stronger on albums and not as great live and vice versa.  Some songs aren’t that great on the albums but when we play them live something just clicks.  So, I’d say my favorite live song that’s a combination of the both… my opinion I would say would be “94 Hours” and “Confined”.

Prophet Newz:  What about on CD?

On CD I really like… —this is diffcult too (vague laughter) —

Prophet Newz:  Well if you didn’t have so many CD’s it would be easier.  (laughter)

(laughter)  Yeah….  On CD I really like… we have a song called “Comfort Betrays” and really like it on CD but live sometimes it’s a little to fast and maybe over people’s head a little bit.

Prophet Newz:  During your concerts do you ever talk about what you believe in to the crowed?

Tim Lambesis:  It kind of varies.  Sometimes if everything’s running smoothly… we generally try to have thing flowing from one song to the next and stop as little as possible.  But, you know if someone breaks a guitar string or their fixing one of their cables or something like that I’ll take that time and talk about usually what the next song is about and then sometimes we can’t play straight through for an hour and we have to catch our breath every once in a while.  I’ll definitely when we need to catch our breath take that time to explain what the next song is about but I feel like the real way for me to get our point across to get people interested in reading our lyrics.  Talking what the songs are about is an important thing to me because I feel like I’m never going to be able to explain the entire gospel in thirty seconds, I mean or—

Prophet Newz:You don’t want to ram Jesus down their throats.  (laughter)

(laughter)  Yeah, but I mean, I guess you could try to like explain the key elements of what’s important to us and what we believe.  But, I feel like realistically in order for somebody to grab onto something and have it stick with them, not just be this emotional excitement from the concert, it’s got to be something they have a discussion about or they’re really able to sit down and think and read through lyrics and get to some of the deeper issues.

Prophet Newz:  We noticed that on the album “Frail Worlds Collapse” that the drumming was very unique and well written, then on the album “Shadows are Security” the drumming sounded more like loops and now on the album “An Ocean Between Us” the drumming has regained it’s more unique style.  Is that due to a different style of playing?  It’s still the same drummer.

Tim Lambesis:  Yeah, well a lot of that has to do with the way our CD “Shadows Are Security” was written and recorded because we really only had like… we were suppose to have two months but in all reality we had a little over a month to write the CD and go straight into the studio.  Some of the songs were actually written while we were in the studio recording.  There’s one song completely wrote in the studio.  So, the way we wrote that CD just made it feel a little bit more formulated because we didn’t really have the time to jam it out, the more interesting kind of transitions where you really get the character of the drummer and you wouldn’t just feel like it’s looping.  So, it was like a more traditional structure for us then our previous CD, I kind of think the first chorus kind of thing a little bit.  Then also the way it was recorded, one person recorded it that had a tone in mind—which was actually the same guy who recorded “Frail Worlds Collapse”—and then the guy who mixed it his ears had a totally different preference and so he drastically changed the drums and in doing that they ended up sounding a little bit… you know, like you can change the sound of something but if you change it to much it eventually almost becomes kind of stale; if you get your guitar amp to sound great it’s so much better then just getting an okay sounding guitar then EQing it with tons of EQ, it ends up sounding a little to synthetic that way.

Prophet Newz:  Do you have any stories from fans on how your music has affected their lives in any way?

Tim Lambesis:  The most mind-blowing one to me is two instances where… one was a guy, one was a girl, two totally separate venues and situations where this fan came up to me and said “I went through a suicidal time in my life and I made the decision to end my life and then through listening to your music I wanted to read the lyrics and just… getting into the meaning of what’s behind your songs about hope made me change my mind”.  According to these people our music was responsible for saving their lives, that’s pretty mind-blowing that that’s happened not only once but twice.

 

 

 

 

 

PROPHET NEWZ 2008