features
Norma Jean: Surrender Yourself
Alternative Press - Editorial Intern on 11/7/08 @ 5:17 PM - altpress.com
STORY: Andrew Kelham
PHOTOS: LeAnn Mueller
It's a strange and curious thing when a magazine reporter hears a band's new record before everyone-including the band. Due to a brief allegiance between geography, technology and administration, AP heard the final mastered copy of Norma Jean's latest, The Anti Mother, a mere three hours after it was finished, before copies were even put in transit to the band.
"That's weird," comments guitarist Scottie Henry from the back lounge of the band's coach as they travel to the first date of Warped Tour. Part joking, part concerned, he asks, "How is it?" Good. In fact, better than good. It is easily great, definitely amazing and potentially a standard-bearer for an entire genre. The Anti Mother is an unexpected record for Norma Jean: It's heavy without being dense; melodic, but not basely so; and most significantly, it's completely devoid of the techy Botch-imitation breaks and lines the band were so heavily associated with in the past. Whether the band knew it, liked it, discussed it or admitted it, this album had to deliver the goods. When original drummer and crucial member Daniel Davison publicly and hurtfully announced his departure at the end of 2007 [see sidebar], hinting at internal difficulties in the group, critics were still debating if last year's Redeemer was a good record or a mere replica of that which had come before.
"I'm really excited about how the new record turned out," Henry says, beaming. "I'm really proud of what we did. Looking back on it now, it's crazy to think that we made it. The record came out very different [from our previous records]." The band returned to Ross Robinson (who produced Redeemer), but the reunion was far from comfortable once the recording process began. "Ross had a studio built into his basement, so we actually lived in his house while we were recording," explains Henry. "It was definitely a different experience recording where we were living. There was a lot of excitement being able to record a riff whenever we wanted, but there was a lot of frustration, too. He was finishing up the studio the day we got there, putting the final touches on it and sorting out problems as we arrived." The band had spent the prior two months writing and wanted to start recording the minute they arrived, but because of the construction, they could not. So they moved into the basement and waited for the paint to dry, the equipment to be installed and the bugs in the system to be eradicated. "I just wanted to see it come together," concedes Henry. "I just felt ready to do the record and we were just waiting a lot to begin with. That was hard."
Norma Jean-Henry, guitarist Chris Day, bassist Jake Schultz, vocalist Cory Brandan and new drummer Chris Raines-spent nearly three months living and recording in the basement of Robinson's house in Venice Beach, California. Despite the initial teething problems and suffocating proximity, they soon embraced the conditions and challenge ahead of them. The band knew they needed answers for the worried fans (and circling cynics), so they started to think big. Helmet founder Page Hamilton (who attended one of the band's shows last year) was invited to write a song. Buoyed by his participation, the band started plotting to ensnare another dream collaborator. "We were on a roll, so we asked our manager to try and approach [Deftones singer] Chino Moreno," continues Henry. "[Moreno] was into it, and he came out to the studio and we wrote a song together. We had a riff, he had a riff and we just jammed. It was totally different and incredible at the same time." The results, the crunching "Opposite Of Left And Wrong" (with Hamilton) and the lush Moreno collaboration "Surrender Your Sons" are not only musical firsts for the band, but two signposts to their bright future.
By the end of their time with Robinson, the band felt they had 10 great tracks that fearlessly fused old-school grunge with tech metal, hardcore with ambient, and various other genre-splice experiments that sounded good regardless of genre dogma. But as the band came together to create the songs that would comprise their fourth album, it looked as though their frontman was falling apart.
According to the well-meaning but dubious information portal Wikipedia, The Anti Mother has been described as a concept record based on a character invented by vocalist Cory Brandan. That description is essentially a lie. But it's a convenient one that hides the grim reality behind the band's latest offering. When AP catches up with Brandan, he's more than willing to set the record straight. "The Anti Mother is really a sub-personality of us all, and me specifically," he admits later in the bus' back lounge. "It's very deceptive and beautiful on the outside and brutally infested on the inside. With me, it came out [through] my wife, Nancy. I should have snapped out of it and realized what kind of person I had become. I realized there was another part of me making decisions on my behalf." Nancy, Brandan's second wife, left him as Norma Jean began writing at the beginning of the year. "The bad decisions I made ultimately ruined our relationship," Brandan concedes, blaming himself for the problems in the marriage without offering specifics. "I think sometimes we get in this place where we feel we have everything figured out, then we just fail. I felt I had life figured out, and then I was ultimately humbled. That was, for me, very unpleasant." It was so difficult that Brandan chose to hide his personal life in his lyrics so even his bandmates were kept away from the real meaning of the songs. ("I'm not exactly sure where [the concept of] 'the Anti Mother' came from," Henry admitted earlier in the day, before AP's conversation with Brandan. "I don't know where it started or where it came up in his life.") Henry and his other bandmates might not have known, but the singer does. Brandan knows what "unpleasant" feels like. The split with his second wife was just the latest in a long line of personal disasters that the frontman has been dealing with for well over a decade. At age 19, the singer was married for the first time; by 21, he was divorced with a daughter. He found love several years later with another woman and fathered a son, but soon after the birth, the relationship soured. "After my son was born, the girl I was with became addicted to methamphetamines," Brandan explains. Since they were not married, she held all the custody rights; thus, the singer found himself locked out of the child's life as drugs pulled her to places he simply refused to follow. In despair, he spent many nights sitting in his car across the street from her house, peering through the windows and watching her self-destruct and cruelly neglect a child he had helped to create. It was torture, and after awhile, it became too much to stand.
"There was one day where she just left the house and left my son there alone," he continues. "There were some random guys inside the house, too, but they left to go to the store. I thought to myself, 'This is it. Screw it. I don't care how illegal this is. God, I don't know if this is wrong or not, but I'm doing it.' I went up to the house, broke a [back] window and took my son. I pretty much kidnapped my own child."
Brandan went to work the next day at a local restaurant, expecting to be confronted by police wanting the child returned to his mother. He was told he had to comply or face kidnapping charges and a long jail sentence. His response? "Come and fucking get me, dude," he says, before breaking into a hearty laugh. "At that point, I was living with my uncle in the woods in Alabama, completely hidden away from the law. My mom went in and talked to the District Attorney and got them to realize there was a lot of shady business going on and got me off the charges. My court date came for custody, and his mom did not even show up." Despite rescuing his son, things did not get better. Brandan, though aided heavily by family and friends, struggled to raise his children. He spent time touring in bands (Eso-Charis, Living Sacrifice, Uses Fire) but he eventually found himself unemployed and living in his mom's basement with no house, money or car to his name. Despite his desperate situation (and torrid past), he had two beautiful children and Nancy, the young lady who was desperately in love with him, who later became his second wife. He eventually decided to quit music and focus on what he had at home. That month, someone from Norma Jean's camp called: Josh Scoggin had quit and they asked Brandan to become their new lead singer. That decision started him on the road to now.
Listen again to the Norma Jean albums Brandan has contributed lyrics (beginning with O' God, The Aftermath) and you can hear these stories veiled in metaphor and wrapped in code. For him, 2008 was looking like another bad year. Utterly absorbed by the tragic failure of his relationship with his second wife, Brandan could only participate in the band's writing by creating from what he had just destroyed. Consumed by the forgotten promises he made to a woman who loved him with everything when he had nothing, he wrote lyrics that were both bitter and regretful. Before he knew it, he was in the basement of Ross Robinson's house screaming, "She's not breathing/Choke that witch out/Suffocate her/Choke her out" as he tracked "The Birth Of The Anti Mother," a song that deals directly with the beginning of the end of his second marriage. Soon afterward, he was tracking "The Death Of The Anti Mother," a brutally raw song that deals with the literal desire to murder and the extreme depth of his anger-not exactly the sentiment or situation one typically expects from a Christian metal band.
"To be honest, the entire new record is [inspired by] Nancy and that whole situation," Brandan affirms. "This album comes from things I went through this year. It's about realizing the situation I was in and the shock that came with it."
Although The Anti Mother is a great record, it's Norma Jean's most important, for reasons entirely unrelated to accolades, sales or fame. After writing lyrics based on some very awkward truths, Brandan quietly approached Nancy toward the end of the recording period to see if there was any way they could work things out. "We are actually kinda reconciled a bit," the vocalist explains. "The thing now is making sure we do it right, by being really honest with each other and opening up all the lines of communication. It will take a little more time, but we are both so patient. I think it will work in time. I really do." He pauses. "I really love that girl."
Norma Jean have weathered a lot this past year. They lost a member, their frontman nearly lost his marriage and the entire band almost lost their minds in the studio as they tried to create an ambitious work. But what about the future? Has The Anti Mother-and all the emotional baggage that came with her-worn the band out? Absolutely not.
"In this band we know who we are," states Brandan, proudly. "We are not about trying to perfect ourselves or be better, as we don't think that is possible. We live like we do and try to live and love. This band moves forward with that in mind. We put our blood and souls into the new record, and it feels great. It feels good being in Norma Jean right now."
TO SEE MORE, CHECK OUT ISSUE 242.
Post a Comment