Interview: Last to See the Sun

Interview: Chad Tenwick and Jason Bahr of Last to See the Sun
07.02.15

Local Seattle metal band Last to See the Sun put out their debut album War/Religion in May. We sat down with band members Chad Tenwick and Jason Bahr to dig into their process, the results, and what they’re bringing to the table with their melodic metal sound.

SMN: So you’ve got the album War/Religion out now.
Chad: Yeah.
SMN: But your Facebook page says the album is called Observer.
Jason: Yeah. There was a last-minute switch on the album title.
SMN: Why?
JB: It was just something we were throwing around for a while. We ended up in a lot of a rush just trying to get everything in place and working on the record. Getting ourselves really ready for the whole push to do it.

SMN: Where does the War/Religion title come from?
CT: It was a song title from Jason and I’s original project and we were struggling with a title for this album. Jason just suggested, the whole album is themed around, or a lot of it is, Warhammer 40K, and similar war stuff in general. Then there is a sentimental thing for us, bringing back something we had created earlier during the inception of our project.
JB: The first song on the album is about space vikings. That’s a pretty big theme throughout the rest of the record so it’s a good establishing note.
CT: It’s not political or anything like that. It’s more fantasy sci-fi driven.
JB: A lot of the stuff is based on the factions inside of 40K. They are completely based around war in taking over everything. They have a war religion.
CT: It was damn near going to be a theme CD but we wound up having other ideas and other content that we wanted to add.
SMN: Mix it up a little but keep some of the original, overarching theme?
CT: Yeah, and it’s got to be difficult to write a themed CD because you can grind a topic into the ground. I think that was where we were at. I wrote several songs based on this theme and it got to the point where we had to integrate new stuff. Because I got bored writing on the same topic.
JB: Or, it was just going to take us forever.
CT: Yeah, that and I don’t want to get too carried away with it. I’m probably the guy in the band that’s really into 40K universe. It’s one of the biggest universes ever. It’s bigger than Star Wars. The books behind it all are just a super deep sci-fi rabbit hole. Probably deeper than anything else. Anyway, I let that carry over into my writing because, for whatever reason, I got really into it for a period. Now, I’m on a totally different page. I could care less about writing about that topic.

SMN: What are you writing about now?
CT: I just started writing, and I don’t know if it will even pass or go through but, it’s like scratch. Initial stages. Right now I’m just writing about how I would possibly want to have kids but I might be getting too old to have kids. I’m going to be an old guy if I have a kid. Also, is our world going to totally disintegrate if I do decide to have kids? Is it worth bringing them into this shit storm we’re going through? Just more grown-up topics. But we’re always going to keep shit not too serious, and probably on the nerdy side, at some level.
JB: Oh yeah. It’s too ingrained in us not to be. It’s part of who we are.

SMN: Did the band to start as the two of you and gather other people along the way?
JB: Yeah, a lot of the stuff we’ve done in the past has actually primarily been Chad and I. The last project was just us. We had to find other people to play the other instruments and sing other parts, people who have stuck around and really stood out talent and personality wise. We just all meshed. We started writing as one band, finished writing is another. You can hear a little bit of the stuff that was before and after. Some of the newer stuff is more polished up.

SMN: You guys went into seclusion to get this project done at the last minute to knock it out. Tell us a little bit about the actual record making process.
JB: It was actually Chad that was like, “Hey, man. We should probably just start writing.”
CT: Yeah. We played a show at the Highline and we didn’t promote it very well. We just had some friends come out. I could just feel the band wasn’t where it needed to be. Maybe even the material felt a little tired or not quite where Jason and I were at. We were writing so much and working on stuff so much that I felt like we were getting to another level. I had a negative feel about the show. Truth be told, my vocal coach is also a psychic reader lady.
SMN: Nice.
CT: Really cool lady. Yeah.
JB: That’s her official title. Psychic reader lady slash vocal coach.
CT: She read my fortune and all that stuff. Based on what she told me, it was time to knuckle down. Everything we do as a band, Jason and I talk about together. We take the next step together. I was like, let’s just shut down and really work on a full-length album, as hard as we can, for the next year. Try to get our songwriting ability to the next level. Because we’re always trying to achieve something greater. I don’t think either one of us are ever satisfied with what we do. We’re always just like, “That was good, but we can do this better.” So we spent that next year, instead of trying to play shows, writing and then finding the right guys to actually create a unified band where we’re all working together. Forging of the sword for the next year, and set the tone. So that’s what we did. We quit playing shows and just worked on writing. Got more guys involved.
JB: We didn’t even practice, had to have been nine, ten months. Around the same time, both of us ended up getting gear at home so we actually did some nice playing and writing. Being able to put stuff down, listen to it, have immediate feedback and then just try and concrete the idea and get as much down as you can. You’re trying to really understand what you’re going for, what sounds good, and what you just need to get rid of, and move on. That was a big part of this. I think once we were able to do that, we were able to push forward on the material, and immediately able to tell if it worked.

SMN: Most of the band members contribute vocals, which is unusual.
CT: We are quite literally trying to be the Eagles of death metal.
JB: Or of melodic metal, whatever.
JB: We were having a hard time nailing down a drummer that could do all of the stuff that we were trying to do. The problem with Seattle is that there are so many drummers that are good enough but there’s not enough drummers that are really good. When they are, they’re in five bands. You can never play with them. We got to the point where Chad was playing the drums. He was pretty much like, “Hey, man. I think it’s kind of a sign. Maybe I should play the drums and we can kind of split up the vocals I can’t cover.” All the rest of us are trying to step in. Necessity is the mother of invention.

SMN: Are the drums new for you?
CT: No. Not at all. In fact, they were my first instrument. I’ve been playing them my whole life. I took a break since my early 20s, just because I became a singer. I was in an opposite position where I couldn’t find a singer that was doing the stuff that I wanted to do. It paid off for a long time. I got burned out on drums because I have played them my whole life but it came full circle and my interest in drums just came back like a flood. But just to be a drummer, now, would not be enough for me, either. I want to sing. The same thing is happening with these guys, now that they’ve gotten to do other parts. They’re feeling like if they’re just playing guitar, it’s not enough for everybody. They want to sing, too. There’s more power there and more expression as an individual.

Also, we do so many harmonies on the album, vocally and guitar wise. That’s why we have three guitar players. When we were singing, even if I wasn’t playing drums we have to have all these guys doing parts anyway. We’re trying to do the album as live as we can. All the sound samples on the album are happening live. All the harmonies that are on the outcome are happening live. The doubles. The dual screaming vocals at the same time. Because we want a direct interpretation happening, we’re trying to do our album justice when we go on stage.

SMN: Your live show has layers and backing tracks. With metal bands, you don’t necessarily see that. You’re adding all of these elements that might be more familiar to another genre. Was it mostly just about getting the recording to transfer to a live show or was there interest in incorporating those in the recording to begin with?
JB: For me, personally, when I go see bands that I really like, I like insanely layered guitars. I have a serious like for harmonies. It’s like a borderline sexual preference. When I go see it live, and there’s two guitar players and four guitars on the album, half the music’s gone, that bums me out. Personally, I want to hear that. It’s not like I want to hear just the album played really loud. I want to watch it happen. When you see a band that that really puts their album out there live, the music is coming from them they’re not playing through it, it’s a lot different. That’s why we have three guitar players. There’s tons of backing guitars, tons of harmonies. When we play live, we want to hit home. We want that whole atmosphere to be there. We want to pull the people into what we’re doing. We want them to be part of it.

I don’t really think I will be super happy presenting what we have if it’s not all there, the big picture. If you’re not bringing everything then people are missing out.
SMN: Good way to look at it.
JB: Pretty much like I said, if it was on the record we were going to try to find a way to do it live.
CT: Jason is a consummate artist. He’s adamant, every step of the way, that it be as good as it could possibly be and it transfers over to live, also. If we did this on the album, we’re doing it live. I don’t care how difficult it is. I don’t care if your fingers twist into a pretzel when you’re trying to do it. If we can’t do it live, he cuts it off the album. We’re not going to be the band with seven guitars going, all at once, and there’s one guy up there with a loop station. That’s not us. We do have digital. We do play to a click but it’s even more difficult than to not. To do the stuff we do is actually harder. We’ve seen criticism on click tracks. They were basically downplaying people that play to digital tracks. I can’t emphasize enough, how much harder it is to actually play to the click and have it right. Especially when we’re doing so many off-time signature changes and everything else. We miss one of them, we’re off. We have to recalibrate, re-orchestrate, figure something out. You have to study. You’ve got to be on point every step of the way.
SMN: It’s harder to change a backing track live.
JB: Yeah, totally.
CT: There are people who don’t approve. From the old school, still trying to keep it real. We think that’s awesome too, we love those bands, also. Who knows, we’ll probably do a few songs that don’t have any kind of backing tracks. We don’t necessarily have sound samples for some songs that we do play.
JB: Yeah. Actually, there’s some stuff that’s literally just vocal effects happening around the sound mixing, and stuff like that. The whole first track on the record doesn’t have any sound sampling or anything.
CT: We’re going for something more. We’re going for modern. We’re trying to take all of our influences and take a step in a new direction and do it right.

SMN: Your melodies, harmonies, time changes, they set you apart from other metal bands, but what’s your unique thing?
CT: Not to be arrogant it’s me, basically.
JB: I thought you were going to say it’s my good looks.
CT: I don’t think anybody else has their drummer as their main singer in a metal band. I don’t even know of anybody signed that’s doing it. I want to beat them all to the punch, if we can. I really feel like we’re bringing something new with that. I have a band that supports me and has enough faith in me that they let me do it. I was like, “I’m a hundred percent sure I can do this but I don’t know how long it’s going to take. You guys are going to have to be patient with me.” The doubt was very small. It opens them all up to be able to sing and be even bigger on their part. They can create more. It just opened up our whole dynamic and made sense for everybody. It’s not necessarily just me. It’s the idea of everybody participating on the vocal front.
JB: Yeah, it’s a big dynamic shift, compared to how we were going to do everything live. It’s breathed a new life into the rest of the band because we were grinding out some of the material for a while. Just trying to learn it and get it down. Then, in the middle of that, that’s when we switched over and Chad was like, “Well, why don’t I just stay on the drums?” We did the whole vocal switch. We started learning parts and everything. I think it helps reignite everybody into relearning everything, completely. When you learn something, and you have that spark, it’s a lot different than just playing the riffs. You get that feel for it and things just start coming across way better. Things just, they shine.
SMN: People get more involved.
JB: Yeah, exactly. This is an accidental byproduct, I guess. It gives people more of an engaging thing to see. Before you know it, vocals are popping up over here, over here, over here. You’ve got to see that’s Chad doing it while he’s doing his crazy drum beat. It keeps the audience a little bit more engaged in what we’re doing, too. It’s that force.

SMN: If you had to describe your music in three words, how would you describe it?
CT: I didn’t practice for that. It’s going to be a tough one. We might have to come back to that.
JB: Really frickin’ nerdy.
SMN: Acceptable answer.
CT: Really frickin’ nerdy. Definitely charisma. Liberal. Not in the political sense but just as a band. Dedicated.
JB: You had a better answer than me.
CT: Yeah. Yours is equal.
SMN: It’s the median, though, that I think is where the band resides.
JB: Yeah.
SMN: That’s what you end up with. You have a lot of people in a band, you all kind of merge into something new.
JB: Yeah.
CT: Yeah. What I like about my band the most is I feel like nobody in the band puts on a front. When you meet us, you can just take it for what it is and it’s going to be honest. My favorite thing is showing up to practice, and it’s almost better than therapy. It can be maddening to people actually trying to accomplish something but everybody in the band is a comedian, just on a crazy level. You get everybody together in the same room, we bounce ideas off each other and it gets to the point where we’re almost something goofier and funnier than a band.

SMN: Excellent. You’ve got a Lynnwood show coming up soon?
JB: Yes. July 10th at One-Eyed Jack’s. Which we are very excited about. We’re playing with Sausage Slapper.
SMN: That’s a name.
JB: Actually, our guitar player Sean used to play guitar for them.

SMN: Then we will ask you the one final question that we ask everybody. Ready? You’re on a desert island. You get one album, one book, one movie. What are they?
JB: Does comics count as one book?
CT: Sure, man.
SMN: You tell me.
CT: Do a graphic novel.
JB: One movie, one book, one album?
SMN: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
JB: For Chad, it’s the Deathwatch rules book. Because otherwise we can’t be friends.
CT: The one album I’m just going to say, lately I’m going to go Queens of the Stone Age. I just cannot, like physically, stop listening to that album. Haven’t been able to since it came out. I’m going to go with that but that’ll probably change within the year. And yeah, I am going to go with Deathwatch.
JB: Yes.
CT: For the book. Then, what was the other one? Movie?
SMN: Yeah.
CT: I’m going to take us back. My favorite movie, lifetime, has always been Vision Quest, out of the 80s.
JB: I think I’ll go with Times of Grace, on the album. And I almost want to say the complete collection of Batman: Hush by Jim Lee and Jeph Loeb. Man, movie, huh? Maybe the Dark Knight. I don’t know, I’m a Batman guy.
SMN: That’s okay. Batman’s pretty cool. Nobody’s going to fault you for it.
CT: You’re doubling up on Batman, though.
JB: Dude, why not?