Acacia Strain vocalist Vincent Bennett describes the Springfield, Massachusetts’ quartet’s new CD as "Definitely darker than anything we have done in the past." Guitarist DL disagrees. Sort of. He talks about Continent, their fifth CD, by saying, "The band grew as a whole in the past year." Right away, you can tell that Daniel Laskiewicz doesn’t go in for hyperbole or the hard sell. In fact, he even goes so far as to admit that the group hasn’t reinvented the genre. For him, it’s much simpler: "Good riffs, man; that’s all we like is good riffs." There are some good riffs, some great riffs on Continent. DL waxes honestly about them and about Acacia Strain’s place in the metal universe.
UG: What is it about this brutal type of metal that so completes you? By nature, are you a frenzied, dark type of character? What brought you to this type of black metal?
Daniel Laskiewicz: I think my favorite part about doing the last record and all the records before that or actually just being in the Acacia Strain or playing heavy music in general, it’s good for me because I’m like a super heavy-handed player. It kind of gives me the opportunity to just like dig in, you know; I don’t have to hold back anything when I’m playing our riffs.
When you were growing up and first beginning to understand the guitar, did you naturally gravitate to the huge distorted chords of metal and that type of style?
Oh, I loved it, man. I listened to so many different kinds of music, I can’t just like single out any certain genre or band or anything. But there’s definitely, in our music writing, there’s been a lot of influences and stuff. That stems all from, of course, what we listened to when we were kids and what we grew up listening to.
If some band names were tossed out at random, how would you respond? Metallica, Iron Maiden, Zeppelin …?
I was never a huge Metallica fan but Iron Maiden is definitely up there. Our drummer (Kevin Boutot) is a huge Iron Maiden fan so he like actually brought a lot of different pieces to the table. Me and him always vibe off each other when we’re writing a record and it’s usually me and him sitting down and getting shit together. And then Vincent (Bennett; vocals) will come in and put in like his two cents. But for the main part, the influences are between me and the drummer that like all the music comes from.
What was is specifically about Iron Maiden that appealed to you? Most of the bands playing this kind of metal tend to mention Maiden as a big influence. Certainly a lot of their music was pretty intelligent and very musical. But there was some of that was just a bit over the top; almost Spinal Tap-like.
Right on; I feel you. Well, that’s like one of his (Boutot’s) big influences. Me, as far as influences go, my top two influences are Crowbar and Meshuggah. I’m sure you can like see both of those a little bit in our music, you know. Crowbar was always a big influence on me because they kind of re-defined making a heavy song but they understood that a song is simply melody and structure. And it’s hard to find bands that do that well; they can be brutal as shit but then they can still keep the melody and keep you interested. And not many bands do that now. Everybody just tries to be as brutal as they can be.
Following up on that idea that not a lot of bands incorporate melody and song in the brutal approach, how would you characterize Acacia Strain as being different than these other bands? What is it that separates you from these other bands?
I think the biggest thing about Acacia Strain is that it was never a band that cried, “Look at me! Look at how sick I am!” As far as music, we never broke the mold; we never wanted to be or ever tried to be the next Dream Theater, you know what I mean? Too many bands are concerned and concentrate solely on like shredding and impressing people; but we never wanted to impress people. We just wanted to write heavy fuckin’ music that you could bang your head to. Good riffs, man; that’s all we like is good riffs.
"I’m like a super heavy-handed player."
I wouldn’t say it’s darker than The Dead Walk but in a nutshell, I’d say the band grew as a whole in the past year or so. We kinda tried to keep everybody’s opinion in the mix because on Dead Walk it was, “We have to do this.” We only had a very limited amount of time to do that record and then we were in the studio with Adam D (Dutkiewicz; producer). For Continent, we had so much more time and we kinda just got to like all sit down together and be like, “Alright, this is the kind of record we wanna do and this is how we’re gonna do it.” So, there was way less of a time limit and way more time to think about what we wanted to do.
Zeuss produced Continent; was he different than working with Adam D. on The Dead Walk CD?
They’re totally opposite dudes. While we were recording with Zeuss, some of the shit I think Adam totally would have like had us maybe try out or something, I would suggest it and Zeuss would just be like, “No, man, absolutely not!” So I mean right off the bat, yeah, they were totally different; but I mean, in a good way because we needed a little change. I think Zeuss brought out a different aspect of the band for us; especially with the tones and stuff that he got.
Because you did have more time to work in the studio, was it a chance for you to explore different guitar ideas sonically and arrangement-wise?
Absolutely, man. As far as Continent went, we kind of wanted to focus more on atmosphere during a heavy riff because that, to us, makes a part. If you can feel or you can see somewhere that you are during a part, to each his own; that CD can kind of like interpret itself to whoever you are, you know?
As the sole guitarist in the band, having that time to experiment must have been both challenging and rewarding. If we take a song like “Dr. Doom” and use that as a template, describe how you constructed the tracks?
Alright, well, it all comes back to pre-production and stuff. When we’re doing pre-production, when we’re first tracking the songs just to like get them down and move on, I always think of like the rhythm. The rhythm, to me at least and to the rest of my band, is always the most important thing that’s going on. You’re pretty much the second in line to the backbone which is the drummer. As far as like live situations go and stuff, there is a shitload of stuff on Continent that doesn’t get played live. But bands like Killswitch (Engage), they have a lot of stuff on their records that they don’t do live. But it was always, put up the best in the studio because when you’re in the studio and you’re making songs, that’s just the bottom line; you’re in the studio and you want to make a good record. If some of it doesn’t come out live, then you just have to grin and bear it.
Pulling in a second guitar player live to cover some of the album parts is not an option you’d consider?
We haven’t really talked about it much; we talked about it a little bit, we tried out a dude, and it seemed like it was just too much for right now. And it’s really workin’ well with just one guitar; me and Jack (Strong), the bass player, we all work well together. We have a solid bunch of dudes and I think this is the longest we’ve had a solid lineup. So, we’re just trying to stick to it. That doesn’t nix the fact that we might ever get a guitar player; if the right dude ever comes up and that’s exactly what it is, it has to be like the perfect dude. A guy that understands my playing style and it won’t be a hassle; it’ll be an added (thing).
Talking about your playing style, the solo on “Dr. Doom” was really economical. Do you consider yourself a straight up metal soloist who does his 16-bar break when the song calls for it?
Umm, soloes to me are, I love ‘em; I love leads, I love soloes, I’m a sucker for that kind of shit. But I think the biggest thing with Acacia Strain and the most important thing with Acacia Strain is we keep stuff like that really tasteful. Too much of it just fuckin’ turns into every other band; all the bands are doing that now, breaking down and shred for like half of the song. To me, if you keep it tasteful, it’s cool; but if it’s just too monotonous, then it doesn’t have any credibility. It’s more of a showoff thing if you do it too much.
You spoke about your rhythm playing as being a huge part of the feel of the band. Where did your right hand chops come from? A lot of terrific solo players cannot play a groovin’ 1/8th note riff.
Totally! Me and my dudes talked about this and we’ve come to the conclusion that I’m considered a percussive guitar player. Kevin and I, our drummer, he thinks the same exact way as me; if he played guitar, he’d be the same dude or if I played drums, I’d be the same as far that goes. He has the same mentality on drums that I have on guitar. Yeah, sure he can blast beat, sure he can fuckin’ do things all day, but it doesn’t make you a better player. Dudes do that kind of shit all day but then they come to do a kick-on-snare like disco beat, dumb cock rock beat, and they can’t fuckin’ do it. It’s stuff like that that gets lost now and we like to bring stuff like that back. We’re all like huge 80s fans so we love the kick-on-snare cock rock bullshit. Our biggest thing always was keep it simple and that goes from our music to our rigs to our setup; it’s pretty much how we’ve always rolled.
"Everybody just tries to be as brutal as they can be."
Oh, absolutely, man. I run Randall XLs and they’re loaded with Vintage 30s and I pretty much have a simple setup: I run two Mesa heads and that’s pretty much it; I just push my Mesas with Tube Screamers. One of the Mesas is newer; it’s a Dual with the three channels and one of my Mesas is an older Dual with the two channels; it’s a 1990 model or maybe a little bit earlier. They sound similar but totally different if that makes any sense.
For guitar players, that makes perfect sense.
And the blend I get from those heads, it just sounds awesome. I’ve gone through so many different amps and tried so many different things; it always comes back to the good old Mesa, you know what I mean? A lot of the new companies like Krank and all that, they’re trying to do what amp companies did before but we all know the amp companies that like started the main stuff like Marshall and Mesa and Peavey. Everybody takes those heads and tries to like beef ‘em up but it always comes back to the good old faithful heads.
So, you did make the rounds of Krank and Diezel and the more boutique-oriented companies? These companies make terrific amps but they just didn’t quite do it for you?
Yeah, absolutely; I’ve been there and back many times.
It is a real searching out then in terms of looking for that perfect amplifier to complement the way you play? That’s a process unto itself and some fans might think that when they listen to your playing on the Continent CD, that you just walked in and automatically dialed in this great guitar tone. It actually was a long and complicated process?
Oh, absolutely; it’s the biggest part of it. And even now, I love my setup and I love how simple it is but I’m always looking. I’m always looking for that next rig I’m gonna use. And actually recently, I’ve been talking to a couple people at Line 6 ‘cause I like a lot of their products. I’m thinking of going with Line 6 and mixing Line 6 stuff with Mesa stuff.
And your guitars?
I play ESPs and I love ‘em. I really honestly can’t play anything else right now, I’m so used to my ESOs; we’ve been with them for years now. That’s just a given right off the bat.
Again, was it a pursuit of tracking down the ideal guitar?
Oh, absolutely, man; I’ve played so many guitars when I first started. I’ve played many and I’ve broke many and ESP always backed me up.
We’ve just had this discussion about big guitar sounds and how you create them and soloing and all of that. But the most intriguing track on Continent is the instrumental, “The Behemoth.” The layering of the clean guitars and the atmosphere, as you mentioned earlier, on this song is really deep. Am I now in the crosshairs for going for the least brutal track on the album?
Oh, no! And honestly, to kind of go with you on that, to us it was definitely one of the funner songs on the record to write. We love chill music; when we’re all home or when we get finished with a show and we’re packin’ up and getting ready to go to the next show, we don’t listen to metal. We love chill music. Me and Kevin, we’ve been on this huge A Perfect Circle kick for like a while; we just love like groove, chill kind of shit and that song kinda like came to us from listening to A Perfect Circle and just trying to make it like an atmospheric kind of vibe than more of a metal song. Because there’s not too much shit going on and for me that was one of the funner songs to do on the record.
You describe it as having the vibe of A Perfect Circle; it reminds me of U2 meets Pink Floyd. Does that make sense?
Right on, yeah, I could see that.
"We kind of wanted to focus more on atmosphere during a heavy riff."
For that track because it was gonna be like the big last track of the record and everything, I think we wanted to write a song that people could sit back and just like think about shit, think about what they just heard, think about what they’re going to do after they listen to our record; kind of a reflection song.
It kinda gave us a chance to get away from the normal Acacia Strain without fuckin’ pussying out and doing a fag singing part. You know what I mean? No clean vocals allowed in our band that kinda just gave us an excuse to be a pussy for six minutes.
Does this type of song with a clean guitar tone and no distortion demand that you use a different kind of playing technique? Something less heavy-handed as you touched on earlier?
Absolutely, yeah, totally. When you’re playing like the clean (guitar) and doing all the different effects on everything, as hard as it is for me being the aggressive player that I am, you do have to lean back on it and kind of chill and kind of feel it.
Does this kind of style and sound satisfy the guitar player in you? Could you do an entire album of instrumental-based music ala “The Behemoth?”
Oh, absolutely. Actually it’s funny that you mention that because I have been working on some shit, just me, and I’ve been just tracking everything myself; drums, everything. And I’m hopefully doing something with that; at least put it out so people can hear it. I don’t know, it’s gonna be a while before anyone hears anything but it’s definitely gonna come out probably. Yeah, it’s gonna be along those lines, man: Super melody like ballad fuckin’ shit.
The strange thing about “The Behemoth” is that even though it’s a pretty minimalistic track guitar-wise, it’s probably one of the more difficult pieces you played on the CD. The fall-back guitar tone in metal that monster overdrive and distortion which is a pretty flexible sound in terms of getting away with maybe sloppy playing and that type of thing.
Oh, totally; over-saturated, overdriven and you can get away with the biggest shit ever.
And when a guitarist has a song like this on an essentially all-metal album, it truly reveals his technique and craftsmanship.
And the funniest part about all that is guys always ask me, “Oh, man, like what, does your fuckin’ amp go up to like 20 on gain?” And I laugh at them because I’ve shown people my setup and this and that and it blows people away because I have my Mesas set to like 2 ½ in the gain department out of like 10. We’ve always said it, man, as far as tone and everything, 70 per cent of that shit is in your fingers, man.
Lyrically, the band references films and comic books. The track “Sloth Loves Chunk” from … And Life is Very Long, your first CD, is an allusion to The Goonies, of course, and one of my favorite movies.
(Much laughter).
If Vince brought in “Skynet” or “Dr. Doom,” would you think Terminator or comic book character and try to develop a guitar riff that somehow captured that feeling?
We never really based our songs off of his lyrics because our lyrics and vocals usually came in last. Even in pre-production, we would finish three songs and then Vincent would go in after us, like the day after we’d be done tracking pre-production, and he would lay a couple songs down and we’d listen back. We never really based the sound of a song off any lyrical style.
“JFC” (meant to stand for Jesus Fucking Christ) sounds like it may have upset some people. Was that the idea?
Honestly, like (DL seemed truly at a loss in describing this particular lyric and may have even been a bit perplexed and bothered by the content himself), I wish I could answer you totally. But our singer, his mind is a deep, dark place. We understand where he’s coming from when he writes his lyrics and we know what to expect. But the stories that that dude can come up with to write a song, like he’s a dark fuckin’ dude. And it’s really hard to like read that kind of shit sometimes even being in a band with him. Mysterious dude! It’s impossible to answer that at least for me.
Interview by Steven Rosen
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