Music Existence Because of Music, We Exist
It’s been three years since the bands debut of “Terms of Surrender” under the independent label e0ne Music and now the St. Louis thrashers Black Fast are back and have just release their sophomore album “Spectre of Ruin”. On May 7th the band gave us the first taste of new music from “Spectre of Lies” with the premier of their new video for the single “Cloak of Lies”. Music Existence had the opportunity to sit down with members Aaron, Trevor and Ross to discus the new album along how the band first got started.
ME: How did you guys originally meet?
Trevor, In 2008 attending school at the University in Southern Illinois which is 25 minutes across the river from St. Louis met Aaron at a gas station and a week later met Ross who was his roommate.
ME: You met Aaron at a gas station?
Trevor, Yeah he was in line behind me. I was going to school for Jazz and had always wanted to play metal and start up a band I just needed to the guys. I was in line and said to myself thats him, he fits the part (laughter) Ross, I moved down to Edwardsville from central Illinois on a whim because the music scene was dead where I was living and I needed some people to play with so I had to get the hell out of there. At the house I was living at we would throw parties and through a friend that had live down the hall from Trevor on campus said he knew a guy that played guitar and was into metal. We started playing together and I was living with Aaron, Ryan our bass player was going to school with Trevor so we all just got together.
Aaron, We were all living in a big ass house that was throwing parties centered around having open jam sessions. There was people that wanted to play so we were feeling it out and said hey lets start a metal band and its been about 8 years since our first show.
ME: Where did the name Black Fast come from?
Aaron, At first we were a bad that just played shows without a name we were the no mane band from St. Louis (Laughter) It was something that I had been stewing on since I was a kid, it was something I had heard from someone that before a priest would an exercism he would fast and that fast would be called the Black Fast
Trevor, It’s a pretty extreme fast
Aaron, The whole starving yourself thing before confronting the demons I thought thats cool! That would be a cool name for a metal band some day. That was when I was young, so young that certain metal bands scared me. I saw a Slayer VHS tape when I was like 7 and it scared the shit out of me (Laughter) thats when the wheels start turning .
ME: In 2014 you signed with e0ne music yes.
Aaron, yeah we signed with e0ne in 2014, November
ME: Then you debuted “Terms of Surrender”
Aaron, Yeah in August of 2015. We signed with e0ne in November and a few months after that went into the studio in January of “15” and put out the record in August.
ME: That record was produced by Erik Rutan right?
Aaron, yep Erik produced that.
ME: Was the new album “Spectre of Ruin” produced by Erik as well?
Aaron, Yeah Erik produced this one as well.
Me: With your new album did you go into the studio doing anything different then you did with the first album?
Trevor, having worked with Erik on the first album we were a little sharper, we knew what to expect, we were more prepared even with the song writing since we had done it before.
Aaron, We had also been on the road for a year and half pretty heavily so we had more of our shit together more. The first time we went into the studio we were pretty green, we had all the songs written obviously.
After already doing the first one we knew exactly what to expect and how it was going to go, some things even carried over from the first time like next time we’ll do this next time we’ll do that. We even knew exactly what amps we were going to use. We still had to go through the motions trying stuff out, but we were like “fuck it” we knew exactly how we wanted it to sound and how we were going to do it.
Trevor, We were particular with everything would spend a week just getting particular sounds, we might be there for a few weeks but we would get tones for everything for a few days before we would track anything. we would take a whole week off from recording while we were there just to getting sounds for everything.
Ross, We’re very particular with our sound
Trevor, Thats why it sounds the way it does awesome
Ross, we spend a lot of time capturing the tone
Trevor, we try everything
Ross, It was cool! I was definitely more comfortable unstanding exactly what we were walking into, not that it was anything uncomfortable in the first place but just knowing the studio , knowing Erik actually having built a relationship with him.
Aaron, Just having that thing, OK its not like I think I can do this it’s no I know I can do this because I’ve already done this.
ME: “Cloak of Lies” is your first single off the new album, what made you decide that this would be the first single?
Trevor, Well its got a little bit of everything in it, It’s heavy on the riffs, It’s heavy right from the initial attack.
Aaron, Right away we knew it had to be track one it had to open the the record because it just starts immediately we all just thought it would be a cool way to open the record.
Trevor, Like a shocker
Aaron, it starts like ah (Laughter from everyone)
ME: I myself had to play it over aa couple of times when I first listened to the album. I wasn’t sure if it was buffering and I was missing something when started.
Ross, Boom!
Aaron, Yeah it just starts on one. It has a little bit of everything in it that we fancy in our writing riff wise, we’re a guitar riff band you know! That song that has a little bit to offer it just shows a you .little bit of everything we do.
ME: Can you explain for me the concept behind the artwork for the “Cloak of Lies” single?
Aaron, It came from the original album its a cropped image off the full artwork for the cover. It was done by Mark Richards from San Diego who had did artwork for some of our shirts in the past so when it was time to do the cover art we said lets get a hold of Mark
Trevor, He nailed it! He’s really good
Aaron, Yeah definitely! I gave him this outline kind of ideal and basically let him run with it.
Trevor, It’s pretty in depth, the record tells a story it’s basically a concept record. The Spectre of Ruin tells a story.
ME: Is there anything planned for the future you can talk about?
Trevor, We have a another single coming soon that we will announce the day of, thats really all we can say about that now.
Aaron, Touring Europe we would like to get out to there. We’ve gotten a lot messages and request from fans asking about us coming to Europe and other places like South America as well.
ME: “Spectre of Ruins” out now on all major music platforms and be sure to check tour dates below to catch Black Fast out on the road as direct support for Ringworm.
TOUR DATES
7/13 MOHAWK PLACE BUFFALO, NY
7/14 THE SHASKEEN MANCHESTER, NH
7/15 ALCHEMY PROVIDENCE, RI
7/16 SAINT VITUS BROOKLYN, NY
7/17 THE FIRE PHILADELPHIA, PA
7/18 METRO GALLERY BALTIMORE, MD
7/19 THE CAMEL RICHMOND, VA
7/20 OUTPOST CONCERT CLUB KENT, OH
7/21 TRANSPLANT FEST CINCINNATI, OH
8/17 SPECTRE OF RUIN RELEASE PARTY ST. LOUIS, MO
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