The Gauntlet: Looks like you guys have a busy schedule coming up, including dates with Three, Priestess and The Sword.

Dan And: Yea, we just got back from 2 ½ weeks with Baroness and Genghis Tron across Canada. We hooked up with the Cancer Bats and Johnny Truant for shows too, which was pretty rad. Yea, then we’re going down to the States, playing with, like you said, Three, The Sword, Black Cobra. Doing some dates out east with High on Fire. So that’s going to be probably 4 or 5 weeks there. Then coming back up to Canada and hooking up with Priestess and some friends of ours, Barnburner from Montreal. So we’re pretty much out for about 2 months.

The Gauntlet: How is the metal scene north of the border right now?

Dan: It’s awesome. Vancouver especially has crazy amounts of different kinds of metal. There’s some more well-known stuff like, you know, Zimmer’s Hole and 3 Inches of Blood. Then there’s crazy amounts of like crusty thrash and grind and all that kind of shit too. Just heavy bands all over the place.

The Gauntlet: It’s always been a hardcore punk capital.

Dan: Yea, for sure. It’s still kicking.

The Gauntlet: How long did it take to write “Quiet Earth,” and are you happy with the way it came out?

Dan: Honestly, right after “Earthbound” came out we pretty much just started. We never sat back and were like, “Alright, ‘Earthbound’ is done, now we can just live on that.” It was just constantly, “Oh hey, I wrote another song. Oh cool, I’m working on this.” Some of those songs are like a year old, and one of them we were still writing in the studio. It wasn’t even done yet. It wasn’t like we just sat down and wrote an entire album. It slowly built until we felt like we had a group of songs that we wanted to record.

The Gauntlet: Did it come out sounding just like you’d pictured it?

Dan: Oh yea. Our good friend Jesse Gander from The Hive did both “Earthbound” and “Quiet Earth.” He’s just an old bro of ours. He did one of the older 3 Inches of Blood releases, and he did a bunch of James’ (Farwell) old band, S.T.R.E.E.T.S. We were so happy with how “Earthbound” came out, and that was just 4 days for everything. Tracking, mixing, mastering, 4 days and we were done. With this one we were able to spend more time. We didn’t want to work with anyone else. We just wanted to work with our friend because we trust him and he is a total genius. So we told him, “We got some more time here, so lets see what we can do.” Yet again he exceeded our expectations.

The Gauntlet: My favorite song on the album is “Wendigo, Pt.1” How did you guys come up with using strings. That’s pretty ambitious for such a young band.

Dan: (Laughs) Yea. First of all, thanks a lot. Wendigo 1 and 2 are my babies so that’s awesome. We just happen to know two people. One friend, Cris Derksen, is a cello player and she does that for a living. She plays for hire. She played with Kanye West! She’s a professional and just happens to be a bro of ours. We were hearing the song and were just thinking it would be so funny if we did that. We don’t take ourselves that seriously, you know? Another really good friend of ours, Colin McKill, plays the violin, so we just got them to come in one day and played them the riff. They were like, “Well, what do you want us to do?” We were like, “I dunno, just do something.” They did a bunch of different takes harmonizing with each other. We did it in like an hour. They’re both musical wizards. They’re like “Do you want us to do the 3rd or the 5th?” I was like, “Uhh, I dunno!” Also, right before the end of that song, you hear that growling? That’s actually James’ dog, Milo. We got him in the studio, then Jesse just took it and ran it through the effects.

The Gauntlet: Obviously, you guys are a fun band and don’t take yourselves too seriously. Is there anything that you do believe in and take seriously, though? Any messages you want to send through your band?

Dan: In terms of a lot of the songs we’re writing about the doom and gloom of the world. You know, “the world’s fucked up” and all that kind of things. We’re not trying to offer up any solutions, though. It’s more like, “Shit’s fucked up, lets just be rad to each other. Lets just try to get along because the world is trying to kill us as it is. All the stresses in the world are trying to beat us down. Lets just get together and bang our heads and try to forget that shit for a little bit.” Just to take that out into your daily life and be rad to other people. We’re not trying to be like, “You gotta smash the state,” even though that’s kinda what’s going on in our heads.

The Gauntlet: Have you guys ever been called a Mastodon copy by critics or fans?

Dan: No one has ever said, “You guys are a Mastodon rip-off.” We love Mastodon, they’re a fucking amazing band, but I don’t hear it myself.

The Gauntlet: I think it might be less in the sound, but more in the image of the band with the god-like animal mascots.

Dan: Which is kind of funny, because I used to play in a band called “Wooly Mammoth.” I didn’t actually name that band, I just joined them as a guitar player. There’s been some comparisons, and it’s an absolute compliment. The first time I heard it, I was like, “Holy shit, really?”

The Gauntlet: What exactly is a Stokasaurus?
Dan: That was the first song James and I worked on together. He pretty much wrote that one, all those lyrics are his. He came up with this name and was like, “I swear to God, there is an actually dinosaur called a Stokosaurus.” I’m pretty sure he was just wasted and misheard it. I was like, “Are you sure it wasn’t Stegosaurus?” And he was like “No, no, it was totally Stokasaurus.”

The Gauntlet: Do you have a favorite album of 2008?

Dan: Holy shit… Nobody’s asked me that in a long time, now I can’t think. There’s a lot of stuff that’s been released. The new Fuck the Facts record is amazing. We just are constantly listening to music in the van.

The Gauntlet: How about the new Opeth?

Dan: We just saw Opeth the other day actually. Oh ok, here we go. High on Fire’s “Death is This Communion.” (Ed. Note: Album came out in 2007, close enough.) We just saw them with Opeth. They just killed it. The new Torche album, “Meanderthal,” is fucking amazing. Did Baroness’ “Red Album” come out this year? That was another amazing one. (Ed. Note: 2007 as well, also close enough.)

The Gauntlet: Thanks for the interview!

Dan: Cool, thanks a lot!