Music
As they release their new LP, frontman Caleb Shomo tells us about overcoming second album syndrome.
One word sums up the Beartooth experience succinctly: intense. Caleb Shomo, the band's founder, frontman and songwriter, goes balls-out, hell-for-leather both on stage and, it turns out, in the studio. When he hits the studio it's not for a leisurely, years-long, Brian Eno-sque adventure in sound. Instead the Beartooth man followed up his band's 2014 debut Disgusting by writing a second LP in a month.
"We'd been touring for two years straight so I was really antsy to write, and getting home it flowed really fast," Shomo explained recently. "But making a record is a pretty intense process for me. After I make one, I kind of checkout from the writing process for quite a while."
This shouldn't come as a surprise given the Columbus, Ohio punk rocker prefers to write (and, mostly, record) solo, alone in his basement. This sort of self-imposed exile from reality isn't to be encouraged, but in the case of Beartooth's raging new album, Aggressive (out today on Red Bull Records), it appears to have paid off handsomely.
So after two years on the road how exactly did Caleb finally get back into the songwriting groove to make that difficult second album? Read on for some pointers.
Don't start on the concept albums just yet Usually I'll come up with a very loose idea or concept of an emotion, but I don't really write a story with Beartooth songs. It's about capturing the emotion of the moment. This music isn't for telling stories, it's for really feeling the energy. The first record was sad and self-deprecating, but this one is way more pissed off. I let that happen. I try not to overthink it. It's hopeful but pissed off, pursuing happiness violently and aggressively.
Utilise, even ramp-up, the intensity I wrote it in a short space of time. It was also snowy and dark out, and it all combined. Like, even when I left the studio and went for a cup of coffee I was still trying to live in this pissed-off emotional state, the darker side of being trapped alone in my basement. I like to keep that emotion on my shoulder, you know? It puts me in a different mindset.
Listen to music that fires you up Writing a Beartooth song is a mental state I get into, but I will say that the music does bleed in to a point. Like, I was listening to a lot of rock 'n' roll and Foo Fighters stuff for a while, then Led Zep, then Slayer. You can definitely hear how it all comes through in the songs. But I don't pick and choose exactly what I'm going to be listening to while writing, I just gravitate to it. This was an intense record, an intense process, so I listened to intense music.
Don't forget you'll eventually have to tour your new creation Watching bands' shows and seeing how massive records translate live was a huge part of it. Our live shows are a big part of who we are and I was very conscious writing Aggressive about what people are going to grativate towards live, what I'm going to have fun playing. When you tour with a band like Slipknot and you see the show every night, the crowd is going ballistic the entire time. If there's a quiet moment, it's calculated. That was a huge influence.
Remember, your fans love you for what you are We toured non-stop for two years, that's all we really did. Sometimes we played boring shows to crowds we didn't expect and we had to work through that, but generally the biggest thing that's happened to us is that a lot of people are really starting to get into this. It's surreal. Going from the first album and not really caring how it went down, to seeing so many people clinging to it. It made me feel comfortable writing this album.
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Their new album Aggressive is out now. Buy it here.
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