Believer started out in the early 90s and played a very unique brand of technical thrash that always got them mentioned along side bands such as Cynic, Atheist and other high-quality metal bands. I was looking forward to the interview with Kurt Bachman (guitars & vocals), but was surprised to get Vince (Metal Blade Rep) first. He thought he was talking to Kurt and I thought I was talking to Kurt, but after a few seconds we both realized our mistake and Kurt got on the line:

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SM: Actually I was going to start with a couple of questions based on the past albums if you didn’t mind.

KB: No, yeah.

SM: Alright. At the time of those albums, the opera and the metal and all of that stuff wasn’t really a typical combination yet. I was wondering where you got the idea for that -  for “Trilogy of Knowledge” [from Dimensions].

KB: We’ve always been into classical music and stuff and I played cello in high school (laughs). Scott Laird was my music teacher at the time and he was fresh out of college, so I was always into the classical thing. And we kind of got together and started playing some stuff and I said hey, we have this record that we’re writing, Sanity Obscure… actually it was for “Extraction” [“Extraction from Mortality” from their debut] because he did a little piece on “Extraction” for our very first album, that’s what it was. And then coming into Sanity Obscure we said, well lets write a whole tune and his sister [Julianne Laird Hoge] was an opera singer at the time and we said why don’t we incorporate some of that; that would be kind of different. So, we did that and then Dimensions came and we said ok let’s push the envelope and let’s do this and then be done with it. You know we didn’t want to become confined…or have a label placed on us. What we were playing, it was really experimental. You know, the musicians that were around at the time; it was something that wasn’t being done so we said let’s do it.

SM: Ok, ok. What was the reaction to that at the time from fans.

KB: It was interesting. You’d have a fan – yeah, we’re getting used to this now because it’s pretty much like this for every Believer album. You know, you get the ‘this first half of the album sucks and the orchestra part is awesome’ then you get ‘the orchestra part sucks and the first half of the album is great’. You kind of have both sides.

SM:  (Laughing) Yeah

KB: You know so it was – I mean there were people that liked the whole album, of course, but you know, so we’re used to that. We find that we try to do a little experimentation here and there on every album just to make it different, to make it more creative for us. I mean we really, we try not to rehash what we’ve done before and even if a song does sound like something we would have done in the past we try to make it – to add something to it.

SM: Right, I got you. Do you think you would have taken that [the opera/classical aspect] any farther if you had put out an album directly after Dimensions?

KB: Definitely not. I think that would have been it. I think, you know, would it have sounded like Gabriel? I doubt it, but I think the whole opera-style aspect would have been – it ran its course for us.

SM: Right. So than it was a pretty conscious decision with Gabriel to not include that kind of stuff and not take it any farther?

KB:  Absolutely. When we started writing Gabriel and stuff like that, that really didn’t even cross our minds. We really didn’t say ‘let’s not do any [phone call garbled]… We’re pretty good at where we’re at in time and what our influence is…how do we want to write it and what do we want to incorporate; and that changes during the whole process of writing and recording. We really kind of like to – we like to have some stuff planned out but very little. We like to have that kind of ability to shift pace at a certain time and say ‘you know what, that’s not working let’s go with this’ or ‘lets try this and if it’s awful, if we think it’s awful we’ll just pull back on it’. So, we have our own studio, it’s not like we book time somewhere and we have to go in and we just record exactly what we bring in.

SM: Ok, so you have a little more time to adjust and change things up because you’re not on a schedule or a budget really.

KB: Exactly. So, that makes it very nice.

SM: Alright, cool. So what have you guys been up to between the last album and this one? I know Joey [Daub, drums] played with Fountain of Tears [female-fronted metal band] but other than that there’s really not a lot of information on what you two have been up to.

KB: So, Joey was doing that. He was playing with some local musicians in the area and they were recording a bunch of stuff but it will probably never see the light of day or whatever, but just having fun with it. So, I went back to school and got my PHD in Molecular Medicine and started my own cancer research lab, which is what I still do; I’m a cancer researcher.

SM: Oh damn, you took that in a whole new direction.

KB: Yeah. It was interesting. I’ve always been interested in science and after Dimensions I really wanted to pursue that and it was a good time for me to go back. It’s one of those things where, you know, music and science – they kind of go hand in hand in my mind, it’s a very creative process; you can be creative in both things. It’s a different process, obviously, and they really feed off each other which is really cool because I can be in the lab, I can be thinking about how do I want to target cancer cells to cure the disease and then I can leave there and say ok lets write this riff and stuff like that, but it’s all a creative process. There really wasn’t any kind of conflict, per se, in my mind and I love both things. It still amazes me. I have to reel myself in sometimes because it’s an exciting time for me, so (laughs)…

SM: I bet.

KB: So, that’s really cool.

SM: I’m sure there’s a lot of fans that want to know - I know I personally want to know; is this a one-time thing or do you think you guys might be around for a little bit again.

KB: We signed a three-record deal…

SM: Oh nice. So, we can hopefully expect at least two more…

KB:  …and, you know, we’ll see what it goes after that. So, yeah, we will be around for a while.

SM: Nice, I’m glad to hear that. Your other albums were all through Roadrunner, when you reformed were they interested at all? How’d you finally end up with Metal Blade?

KB: You know it’s sixteen years so we were a known entity but we were kind of an unknown entity. I would be very hesitant – and we actually weren’t planning on – we were thinking ‘well, lets put it out ourselves for people to download’ or that type of deal. It was really working with Howard Jones [Killswitch Engage vocalist] when he came in to do some vocals and stuff. He said ‘look I’ve been talking to Brian Slagel [Metal Blade Records founder] about starting my own imprint and it would be great if you’d agree to be my first band’ (laughs).  We were like, well let’s talk about it. Lets see where things go and how things work out. It’s one of those things where Howard’s a friend of ours now and having the opportunity to work with Brian Slagel [phone call garbled]… it’s pretty amazing being with Metal Blade and just the history of Metal Blade itself; it was kind of a no-brainer for us. So, we didn’t really, like, record the record and pitch it to Roadrunner or anything like that. I mean, we’re friends with Monty – you know, Roadrunner kind of went in a different direction; they have a lot of really big bands. We were like ‘well we’re not going to say that we’re going to do a ton of touring or anything like that’. You know, we’re at a certain place in our lives, we want to – I mean, we’re going to play shows… but the whole four/five month tour thing - so, we kind of shied away from going after Roadrunner… [phone call garbled – the sound really faded in and out a few times during our conversation].

SM: You cut out for the last part. The ‘Metal Blade’ thing – what, sorry?

KB: The Metal Blade thing basically, it just kind of fell together.

SM: Ok, ok.

KB: It wasn’t like we were looking for a record label or anything like that; it just felt right.

SM: Ok, and did Howard approach you guys about singing on the album or was it the other way around?

KB: It was interesting because we put out – I guess on Joey’s drum website or something like that, he put out something that, you know, we were talking and we were working again and there was some excitement and I guess Howard must have done an interview where he said, I think Believer is writing again and he was stoked about it and we were put in touch with Howard. Borivoj [Krgin, Blabbermouth founder] from Blabbermouth said ‘you guys should contact him, maybe he’ll do something’. And we were like ‘yeah, well whatever’ so Mike [couldn’t understand the last name] from Roadrunner got us in touch with Howard and we talked for quite awhile – he actually knows more about the history of Believer than we do. He was a fan and we said ‘hey, why don’t we fly you out here and why don’t you do something on the record’ and he was like ‘ok’. And then we played him “The Brave” and we said ‘hey, we want you to sing’ and he was like ‘What? You want me to sing on a Believer record?’. We were like ‘yeah, why not it’s something different’. So, yeah, that’s kind of how it all fell together and then he said about the imprint that him and Brian Slagel had been talking about.

SM: Right and did you guys write his parts for him or did he come in with his own ideas?

KB: So what we did is – what we wanted to do is, you know, there’s Howard on there and then there’s Deron Miller from CKY, Joe Rico from Sacrifice and some of the other people that we’ve had before play on records. You know, this time we wanted to bring people in, talented people that were creative and say ‘Ok, here’s the backbone now go for it. Do what you want to do and stuff’. So, we spent two days in the studio with Howard thrashing around some ideas and stuff like that and we really wanted to tap outside of Joey and I’s mind and see other people and what they were in to. They were a little hesitant at first, they were kind of like ‘well, what do you guys want’ and we were like ‘we want you guys to be happy with what you’re going to do’. We just feel that if you surround yourself with really talented people and let them do what they’re good at that you’re going to add kind of another dimension to your sound. I think that’s what – we’re happy with the way it came out.

SM: Well, that’s cool. I especially like the solo on the opening song [“Medtwon”, featuring Deron of CKY for a solo]. I like how he went with that.

KB: Yeah, he’s really good. CKY was actually playing in our area and he had contacted Roadrunner and said ‘hey I heard Believer is putting out a new record. I’m a big fan, is there any way you could get in touch with them so I could play on the record’ and then they were playing in the area and he came over to my house and we sat here for a long time through the night and we talked and he was playing – I think he had a really good time. It was cool. It was very cool and the solo is fantastic.

SM: Definitely. I know that you guys always kind of deal with interesting topics on your albums; what kind of topics are you dealing with on this one?

KB:  (laughs) A lot of different topics. I don’t like to get into specifics, really. I mean, it’s one of those things where, even like the title Gabriel – people ask what does that mean and for me it’s like a lot of topics on the record come from personal things that we were going through or it could be anything, something we saw on TV or whatever. You know, I don’t want to like – a lot of people are going to formulate their own idea of what a song is about - kind of personal.

SM: Right

KB: I feel like if I come out and say ‘well, this is what it’s about’ – and now they’re like ‘oh, ok. Well now the song is about something Kurt Bachman was dealing with’. (laughing)

SM: Alright, that makes sense.

KB: I kind of always want them to – and it is really cool because we do get feedback about like ‘I think this song means this’ or ‘this is what the song is’ and that’s awesome because then it becomes something personal. That’s like the highest compliment any type of artist can get. Even a painter, you look at a painting and you’re like ‘wow, this is how that painting touches me and this is what I think that painting is about’ and it could be something totally different than what the artist – but I mean that’s the cool thing about art. Then if you read a review and it’s like ‘oh yeah, this is a song about like making toast’ (laughs) – well, that kind of blows.

SM: (laughing) Yeah I bet. You spend those hours and months and days trying to get a song written a specific way and then they take it that way I’m sure you’d be kind of disappointed.

KB: (laughs)

SM: Is there anything you wanted to try on this album that maybe you just couldn’t at the time or decided to hold off for the second or third one?

KB: That’s an interesting question. You know we’ve been – actually at this point we haven’t thought about the second and third one musically. I mean, Gabriel is still fresh; we want to let that die down in our minds. You know, we’re rehearsing a lot with Gabriel so like, you know, the riffs are still there. It’s one of those things where the next album, we want it to come from a different place [phone call garbled]. I think we need to let Gabriel die down a little bit. We’ll probably start thinking about new stuff, I’d say early summer or something. You know, our process for writing and recording now is pretty lengthy so – because we like to take our time. We like to make sure that we’re happy – and you know, ‘throw away this riff, leave that one’ type of deal. You know, I don’t know. That’s a good question because I’ve been asked that by other people’s bands and other people in general – you know, like where are we going to go from here and I think it will hit us. It’s one of those things where you experiment and then it hits you and it’s like ‘yeah, that’s it. Let’s go there’.

SM: Speaking of experiments and stuff, the instrumental – the “Nonsense Medicated Decay” …

KB: Oh yeah...

SM: Yeah, where did that come from? I know you’ve got – I don’t know if they’re samples or just a band member talking about the alien abductions and all the…

KB: That’s actually a guy named John Boden who’s a friend of ours who’s a short story writer. So, we started writing these riffs and we wanted to almost put something together that was almost like a short film or something where it had different parts to it and different feelings for each part; different imagery, per se, for each part but make it kind of a tune that’s tied together with certain things. We started writing this and then we gave that section to John and we said ‘go off and do what you do’. He actually wrote the short story – it’s his voice on there so he recorded it in this kind of like, almost like what we call a Western Pennsylvania dialect with some of the wording and some of the phrasing and stuff like that. He recorded it and he brought it back to us overlaid on that piece and we were like ‘fantastic’. It just adds this – you know, we wouldn’t have thought of it. He thought of it and we really liked it. So, that’s kind of where that came from.

SM: Ok

KB: You know, a lot of the sampling and a lot of the weird sounds – again we went through our bassist [Elton Nestler] who’s also a programmer and we said ‘take this and have fun with it and let’s see what you come back with’. So, he did and that’s how it all came together. It’s kind of like ‘on-the-fly’. One of the things about having your own studio is that you’re not booked for a month; you’ve got to get it all done – so we can keep the creative process still flowing while we’re recording, even after we’ve recorded stuff…

SM: So you mentioned… [I realize I’m talking over him]… what was that last part?

KB: I mean, we kind of kept the process going even during the recording and what came out was “Nonsense Medicated Decay” and it’s kind of strange, but it’s something that we had never done before and we had fun with it.

SM: Well, it was really enjoyable. I know the first time it came on and I was listening to it and that last track came on and I was like ‘whoa’.

KB: (laughs) I know. It’s one of those things where we’re like ‘ok, how many times are people actually going to listen to that’, but it was like ‘that’s cool’. You know, if it hits people once or twice or they don’t listen to it for a while and they get to the end of the record and they just let it play through it’s like ‘oh, ok’. It’s a little extra-added thing there.

SM: Definitely. I think it’s a good closer. I think it helps decompress after kind of like the intensity of the other tracks.

KB: You know, that’s kind of what it was for us in the studio too. It was a definite decompression from the rest of the album. It was actually the last song we recorded and the last song we made and it was kind of a breath of fresh air – and it’s really cool to listen to with headphones too so…

SM: Oh yeah, I’ve already done that.

KB: (laughs) That’s cool.

SM: So, you mentioned that you let your programmer have some run on that; how much input did the other three members actually have in the writing?

KB: Basically, Joey and I – and this has been the history of Believer, I mean, Joey and I kind of get together and we write the bare-bones of the music. It’s almost kind of like ‘ok here’s the riffs’. We did a lot more on the other albums and stuff but it’s kind of just when we were – you know, we had some talented guys with us and we would lay down the stuff and then we would get input from everybody. We tried to – you know, people were hesitant at first; they were like ‘oh it’s Joey and Kurt, maybe they’re not going to like what I have to say’ or whatever, but we really tried to create an atmosphere in the studio and stuff to give people the freedom to express what they thought should go where. What Joey and I kind of found out later was that we may have said ‘I wouldn’t normally do that but lets try it’ and we would try it and it would turn out really cool. So, we finally kind of let our guard down a little bit. Even me with Joey, when I was recording my guitar tracks, Joey would say ‘Don’t play it that way, try playing it this way’ and I would give him crap about it – ‘you’re an idiot. I don’t want to listen to you’, but I would do it anyway just to appease and him and then after I would do it I would be like ‘hey, you know what? This sounds really good’. There was a lot of that. It was more kind of opening up to other ideas and stuff like that, which was good.

SM: Did you end up recording pretty much all of the guitars yourself or did Kevin [Leaman] play his parts on the album?

KB: I recorded all the guitars myself. Kevin came in a little bit later with, you know, we were thinking about the live band and what was going to happen. The thing that was great having Kevin there while I was doing this was that he’s a guitar player and he’s coming from a band that was really heavy, grindcore type of stuff, but he loves all types of music. So it was great having him in the studio kind of bouncing ideas off of him. He eventually opened up to it and said ‘Kurt why don’t you try this’ or ‘this might sound cool’ etcetera, etcetera.  It’s one of those things where even though he wasn’t playing guitar on the record, he had a lot of input on what came through and now, fortunately, he’s part of the live band.

SM: Was there ever any talk about bringing back anyone from the previous albums or were you always wanting to get new musicians for this one?

KB: For this one it was basically we wanted to get guys that were a little bit more local to us and they’re friends of ours, they’ve been friends of ours throughout. We wanted to get people that weren’t Believer-history, you know, that would kind of bring new life to the band with ideas and with their talent. Elton was in kind of a more industrial type of hardcore-y type of band. You know, a lot of programming experience, a lot of that stuff. Jeff [King - Programming and Keyboards] has always kind of been in – you know he’s in Fountain of Tears with Joey, so that kind of keyboard stuff, you know, very Dream Theater-inspired type of keyboard player and coming at it from a different direction. It kind of opens up, you know, us to move in kind of so many dimensions.

SM: Right.

KB: The one thing we didn’t want to do was revamp all of Believer and come out with something that didn’t sound – we didn’t want to like over-saturate keyboards and stuff like that. We just looked at it as kind of this extra layer that we can put on there to kind of open things up.

SM: I think it worked out pretty well that way.

KB: Thanks.  That’s a great compliment because that was one of the things we were always kind of back and forth with. Jeff really enjoyed it. It was stuff that he’d never done before, and he’d never been asked to do it before. He kind of met that challenge head on and became really excited about it.

SM: Right on. Well, I know you’ve been doing interviews all day so I’ve just got a couple more questions and I’ll let you…

KB: No, that’s fine

SM: You’ve mentioned touring but on your website you don’t have any kind of, I guess, concrete plans. Is there anything you could hint about for the future as far as touring or bands you might be playing with or want to play with.

KB: Yeah, so basically the album just came out – everybody is kind of waiting to see, you know, how will the album do, is there still any interest in Believer, that type of deal. Once that kind of – once we kind of get that type of information and stuff – like I said we are rehearsing, we plan to play out – we’ll probably be setting up some mini-tours here and there, we’ll be doing some [something] shows. We’d love to be able to open for bands that even come around our area on tour – the whole East Coast type of thing. We want to come out west and play some shows. We want to get out there and play this live for people, but like I said it probably won’t be any of these three/four month extensive world tours or anything like that, but we do want to bring the live show out. So, that’s in the plans and once we get some more information we’ll absolutely let everybody know what’s going on.

SM: Well, I’m looking forward to it. Definitely.

KB: Cool.

SM: My last couple questions are kind of random questions. There’s pretty much, in this day and age, kind of a default question for musicians – the illegal file sharing thing; what’s your opinion on that and do you think it’s going to affect your band at all?

KB: Yeah, I’m sure it will. The thing is, it’s kind of one of those things that’s out there, it’s going to be out there, people are going to do it. If we were trying to make a career out of it – it really hurts those bands. I mean, if you’re not selling a million albums… and you’re a band trying to start out, and you’re out there, and every album sale means something to the record company pushing you and putting the marketing dollars behind you and stuff like that. Those are the bands that it really cripples because then it’s like ‘well, you know what guys? You didn’t sell any albums, we’re cutting you from the roster, you’re not going to put out anything more’. So, it really affects those bands. For me (laughs), for me personally, the thing I don’t like about it is it’s not the best quality. We go into the studio, we make this, we record it, and even us when we were previewing mp3s from the mastering process – they were pretty decent quality, but when we got the disc it was like a totally different record. There’s more space, you can hear all the subtle nuances that you couldn’t hear from the mp3s. That’s the thing that kind of bugs me. These people are kind of going to be judging the record on a very sub-par recording.

SM: It still sounds- I mean, I got the promo through Metal Blade and it sounds really good. I really like the guitar tone you’ve got on that.

KB: Did you get the promo disc or the mp3s?

SM: The mp3s. I plan on getting the disc now that it’s out.

KB: Oh yeah. When we got the disc we were just like ‘wow’ – blown away.  What a difference it made. There was more punch to it, like I said, more space. There’s like more separation and stuff. It was good, we were really happy.

SM: So, second-to-last question. Back in the nineties you guys toured with Cynic and Pestilence. Your band was always kind of mentioned with that style – Cynic, Pestilence, Atheist, and that kind of band. Both of them [I can’t count] kind of disappeared, too, in the nineties and have just recently come back. Have you heard either of their albums yet?

KB: Absolutely. They’re fantastic and to even think that we were in that mix of bands is insane to me because I think those guys can play circles around us. We’ve been in contact with Kelly Schafer from Atheist. He was really excited that we were putting stuff out, you know, I sent him a bunch of tunes early on. I’m excited to hear the new Atheist. I can’t wait for Kelly to get me some tunes. I was in contact with Paul [Masvidal] from Cynic when I heard they were doing some new stuff and was very excited about that. We’re actually going to get together with those guys when they’re in our area on their tour. Pestilence, I mean, what can you say? It’s fantastic and then the Obscura thing too. Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s weird because it was like we all didn’t call each other one day and say ‘hey, you guys should put out another album, we are’ or anything like that. It’s just happening, which is bizarre.

SM: It is - all at the same time.

KB:  It’s cool.

SM: Hell yeah. There’s a lot of people that have only heard about them and now they come out with the new albums ten years later and people haven’t even heard the older ones.

KB: Yeah, I know.

SM: Last thing is, I guess, any final things you want to add that maybe I missed?

KB: Not that I know of, man. I mean, I want people to – hopefully people will enjoy the record, give it more than one listen. We hope it’s one of those records that grows on people with every listen and that they notice something new every time they listen to it. We’re excited about doing this again. We’re refreshed and we’re looking forward to even the next album. We’re excited about that and we’re excited to get out there and play live for people. It’s a cool time. We’re having fun with this again and we appreciate you taking your time to do the interview and write the reviews and stuff and people like that supporting us. We can’t thank you guys enough.

SM: Well, it’s easy when the music is like what you’ve got out right now.

KB: Thanks man. Thanks very much.

SM: Alright. Well, I guess that would be it then. Have a good night and hopefully you don’t have very many interviews left.

KB: Thank you so much, again for doing this. We really appreciate it.

SM: No problem, no problem.

KB: Alright, you take care. 

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