Sky Eats Airplane Interview
by Mark Hensch
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Since their formation in 2005, Fort Worth, Texas' Sky Eats Airplane has rocketed towards the forefront of the avant-garde movement in metalcore. Combining their spastic brand of metalcore with ethereal harmonies and glitch breakdowns tailor-made for the Computer Age, the group is onto something special with its 2008 self-titled debut. Catching the group before a big US tour with A Day to Remember and The Devil Wears Prada, I saw what is in the cards for this most unusual of bands.
Mark Hensch of Thrashpit.com: Thanks for sitting down with me in the middle of this tour. It is a real pleasure. Here is the first question. Who coined the name "Sky Eats Airplane" and what, (if anything) does it mean?
Jerry Roush (vocalist): That is a very common question from interviewers. The answer from (guitarist and founding member) Lee Duck is that it means nothing and that it just sounded cool at the time. It means absolutely nothing and there is no cool story behind it.
Zack Ordway (rhythm guitarist): I think he picked it as he was tired of the all the generic band names at the time. Bands with names like Blood, Death, or Seasons in the name. He just came up with something really stupid and just stuck with it. Lee Duck is pretty different in the head (laughs).
Thrashpit: You guys have a unique sound. What other bands or artists have influenced you thus making the final sound people hear today?
Jerry: We each individually have our own tastes. In our band there is a very wide array of music. We are all into really different stuff yet we all have the some common interests too. We all listen to lots of Meshuggah and generally like European polyrhythmic metal. That definitely shows through in our music as well as a lot of jazz. Recently, as in the last year, we have also been jamming to nu-metal, stuff like mid 1990s Korn, Sevendust and Limp Bizkit. We like a lot of the guitar tones but for the most part we listen for pure nostalgia. It is cool hearing some of the breakdowns though as it was so ahead of its time.
Thrashpit: How would you describe yourselves to someone who has not yet heard you?
Jerry: We have a standard answer. We call ourselves electronica-infused metalcore. We are pretty metalcore with the screaming, soft singing and heaviness. Still, there is that electronica of course.
Thrashpit: Your debut album was released on Equal Vision Records. How have you like being on that label so far?
Jerry: I love Equal Vision. I wear one of their pins everywhere I go. They are the best label ever.
Thrashpit: The self-titled album is largely brand-new material but there are a few older songs on there too. How did these older songs change in the re-recording process, if at all?
Jerry: We did not change anything drastically but some electronica was added. Once we went to a producer and he heard the songs he had his ideas for where they should go. They resulted in some minor changes.
Zack: "Long Walks on Short Bridges" had some changes. We added in a different hook at the beginning and the end.
Jerry: We wrote these songs when I first joined the band two years ago and our primary purpose in writing them was to shop them around to a label. It took us awhile to get signed but after that we needed to show what the new version of Sky Eats Airplane was like in comparison to old CD. I think the sound had progressed a lot since then.
Thrashpit: A video for "Numbers" just dropped. How do you guys feel about how it turned out?
Jerry: I hate it. It does not make any sense, it is stupid, and it was not fun to film. There was all this random stuff happening in the video and after a while all of us were just sick and tired of making it. It was actually our second video for the song as we recorded two videos. We recorded a whole video, scrapped it, and then did the current one with the same guy. At that point, we were all just like "whatever, let's just get this damn video out." I lost interest in caring. The first version was a nightmare given that we filmed it in a venue we had played in that same day. The second version was really cool as we rented out this huge mansion where all these movies had made but the producer after he went back edited it into something that made no sense. We originally wanted this video to come out a month after the self-titled CD in 2008 but it took so long it is just coming out now, almost a year later. We even have a different drummer then in the video! It does not give us a bad taste in the mouth for filming music videos but sh*t DOES happen.
Thrashpit: They say a musician is his harshest critic. What is your favorite song on the self-titled album and why?
Jerry: All of us have different songs we like a lot. I like the song "Worlds between Us," "Transparent," and "Disconnected." "Disconnected" is heavy as sh*t. I honestly like listening to the album without my vocals on it as we recorded them in a studio before I had ever sang them live or in front of a crowd. I like feeling it from my heart more. Now live the songs from the studio get different stuff from me. I can feel different parts more.
Zack: For me I feel the album is so strong I do not hear songs I hear a complete piece of music. What I can tell you is that my favorite song to play is "Disconnected."
Thrashpit: I noticed that "Numbers" features guest vocals from Oh, Sleeper's Micah Kinard. How did that come about and how do you guys know each other?
Jerry: Oh, Sleeper is also from Fort Worth, Texas. Even before we were touring heavily and everything we were always playing shows together. To me, when I was going into the band my main friends were in the band. I have very little pre-Sky Eats Airplane background. Immediately after joining some of my friends were from any band that played in the area. They are almost our friends by defeat. Micah and I are good friends and we recorded the screaming tracks at another friend's house.
Thrashpit: Given that this is your first album which was released right out of the door by a label, what differences are there between the self-titled and your previous release Everything Perfect on the Wrong Day?
Jerry: It is more us as none of us besides Lee were on the first album. We put it out and now things are getting bigger because of things like Facebook and Myspace. Now we are doing stuff like this tour and playing lots of shows.
Thrashpit: Your band has a heavy electronica element. What kinds of programs do you use in writing the music you do?
Zack: We use Reason 4.0 and we are starting to use a lot of Logic. Those are primarily the two programs. Reason is really easy to use and the tools are ready to start writing music right way.
Thrashpit: Given that you guys are on this tour with The Devil Wears Prada and A Day to Remember right now, what would you say it has done for your exposure?
Jerry: It has been a lot of fun. Everyone is really chill on this tour. Sometimes on tours you are with a band that is super rock stars. Some tours make me f*cking hate my life, not because I hate touring, but because I am always walking around on eggshells trying not to offend anybody. This tour has a much more relaxed environment and everyone is cool with each other. As far as the exposure, we have more kids coming up every night and saying "I have never heard of your band in my life but holy sh*t you guys are awesome!" A Day to Remember and The Devil Wears Prada are bigger than us, you know? A lot of their fans come out and they are forced to listen to us whether they like it or not. Love us or hate us we are going to play, and you are going to have hear it either way.
Zack: Actually, on this tour our van got broken into. It was in Montreal, Canada. They stole Jerry's lab top bag and a lot of our sh*t is gone. I lost my phone, medication I take daily, and my passport.
Thrashpit: Last question! What does the future hold for Sky Eats Airplane?
Jerry: We are going to take over the world and the moon. The moon is made of cheese so I am going to make a big-ass grilled cheese with the bread being the two polar ice caps of the Earth. We are going to keep doing what we are doing now, just touring and having fun. It is not about making millions for us. It sure beats working a 9-to-5. In just the last two years we have put 85,000 miles on our fan and seen both coasts.
Thrashpit: Thanks again man. I hope you have all the best!
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