Paradise Slaves might not be a name that people instantly recognize, but there’s a great chance you’ve heard some of the players over the years. With members from 36 Crazyfists, Diecast, Pentagram, and more, the group has a notable history within the scene. Paradise Slaves aims to further that notion, with their sweeping sound that pulls influences from metalcore and rock, engaging fans with massive hooks and Brock Lindow’s recognizable vocals. We spoke with guitarist Jon Kita and drummer Ryan Manning about how the band got its start, the challenges of starting a new group, their cover of Soul Asylum’s “Somebody to Shove,” and more.
Dead Rhetoric: I saw you had intent to release this independently before you got connected with Spinefarm. Has it been tough trying to hold onto everything for a year now?
Ryan Manning: Oh yeah, definitely. The Spinefarm thing kind of happened after. We formed the band about four years ago. We started writing songs, and we are all from different parts of the country. It’s more of a long distance project with Brock [Lindow] being from Alaska. Brock had made a post a few years ago, just saying he was doing something new, and the internet just broke for a few days. Everyone was wondering what was going on with 36 Crazyfists. That was the answer [laughs]. All of a sudden we started getting some plays, and then all of a sudden Spinefarm contacted Brock. They asked him what he was up to, so he told them, and they asked if he wanted to put it out. We didn’t really entertain many labels. Brock said that they ruled, and we went with it.
Dead Rhetoric: With that in mind, with the longer lead time, have you been writing more given the length of time to give it a proper label release?
Manning: We are all from different parts of the country, so playing live shows is pretty few and far between. We all have our own projects and lives, but these songs that are coming out on the album, they are already years old. We have done a few demos into a second record already. So we are always writing. We pass things back and forth.
Jon Kita: It’s always the best part about having guys like Ryan, Brad [Horion], Tyler [Stroetzel] , and a guy like Brock in the band. They are creative so they are always going to be creative. So even if, like you said, we have been holding onto these songs for quite some time. It’s just been a matter of convenience, for the label to find a spot on the schedule to get it out. In the interim, these guys have been writing and demoing. I’ll pump Ryan up here, but some of the stuff that he showed me that they are in the ‘demo stages’ but they are about as ready as they could possibly be. No time is wasted when you are surrounded by creative people writing music.
Dead Rhetoric: I know I kind of skipped the gun in going to new material when we haven’t discussed the debut yet…to get to With Hell in His Eyes, as your debut, what’s your hope when people get to hear the whole thing?
Manning: From my perspective, we sort of wrote these songs collaboratively, to quench our own thirsts, as a group of guys having fun and playing music. Literally anybody who likes anything that we are doing, or cares about what we are doing, is a bonus in my mind. Our expectations are just to write songs, have fun, and be positive. I know it might sound a little cliche, but it really doesn’t go much deeper than that.
Kita: I would agree. The whole way that the band came together and how we wrote the songs was pretty organic. So it was one of those things where the expectations couldn’t be any lower. The whole thing was that we were working with someone who made an impact and hasn’t recorded vocals in quite some time. We were always aware, no matter what, it was going to be related to the 36 Crazyfists stuff. It should be. 36 Crazyfists is one of our collective favorite bands. We knew going into it that it was going to be judged against that. The amount of people, even if they are saying they aren’t super into this, but it’s so good to hear Brock’s voice, it hits us on such a higher level. I can appreciate it more, even if they may not be a fan or it might not be up their alley, simply because they are like us in being such big fans of Brock. But we went in without any expectations, and we are very lucky that people have gravitated towards it. As well as Spinefarm being kind enough to put it out. We had demos on our phones for years with no anticipatory release, so anything we get, any set of ears, is amazing to us.
Dead Rhetoric: Could you go into the diversity in terms of where you all are coming from with songwriting and how you decide in the creative process how to write songs?
Kita: Each one of us has a recording studio of our own, to produce a number of other things. So we are lucky enough to have the ability to sit down whenever an idea may hit or just spend some time on music. I don’t know, outside of having been in a few bands where we could get together and get through some ideas in a preconceived way, or get to jam out some songs, which is fun, but that’s the only thing we have missed from a traditional band standpoint. I’m pretty sure Ryan can also field this, like back in the day Meshuggah was just bouncing tracks back and forth through email, hundreds of miles away from each other and they still came up with some of the most blistering music that has ever been released. There’s always been a part of me that thought that if you had the right components and people willing to put the time and effort in to make it work and be collaborative, but I think outside of getting to sit down with the guys once or twice a week in the traditional scope of the band, that’s the only thing that I think is missing from this. Otherwise, it’s the same way that other bands would approach something, despite the distance between us all.
Manning: It helps that all of us, as writers, we all come from that hardcore/metal pedigree, but we are also all eclectic people when it comes to just listening to music. We have this band group chat that has been around since 2021 that has never been deleted. You can basically, if you wanted to scroll back, you could watch this whole thing evolve.
Kita: I think The Scorpions are our band avatar. They are all shirtless men. You can create an avatar for a group chat, so someone made it The Scorpions.
Manning: That sounds like a Brock move. But it helps to that we are all writers. I play drums in this band but I also play the guitar. I have my own studio, and I play in some other bands too. I feel like anytime I have ever brought a riff to the table, and sent a demo to these guys, it’s never met with much criticism. I’m up to hear anything too, if I wrote something that is absolute garbage, I want to know! Luckily, these guys have been super awesome. Same thing – Jon has riffs, Tyler has riffs. Anytime I hear anything, I can’t say enough about everyone sort of knowing what is in our wheelhouse. It’s very rare is there something that we have something like, “I don’t know, that sucks! I don’t like that.”
Kita: Anyone who has been in a band that has been shook down by another member, it’s sort of heartbreaking. The time and the effort that people put into it and outside of it, isn’t really seen. If Ryan or someone brings in a riff or whatever, he could have been slaving over it for hours or days, and for someone to shut it down, it’s cold. I never want to be this guy. There’s this ethos with the improv comedy troupes, where they go in and learn that you never say no. It’s “okay, where are we? We are in a car and having a conversation. Yes…and” then you add to it. That’s how collaboration evolves. “Yes, and.” You listen to it, even if you want to be like, I bet we could take that here, it’s not the same as saying no, let’s change that and make it better. It doesn’t cultivate a sense of creativity between people when you say no. I’m always game to be the “yes, and” person, and everyone else seems to be the same way.
Manning: We challenge each other. Like, “That riff’s cool. Maybe try half-time, to bring up the music.” That is the way this project has been since the beginning. Like Jon mentioned, Meshuggah is from different parts of Europe. You can’t get into a rehearsal space a few times a week, hash out the riffs. Now I have known these guys for four years, now I can do that. But for With Hell In His Eyes, it was pretty collaborative. We were just flying files to each other, Tetris-ing these songs together, and then we had 10 songs. Then we went into song order. It’s been sort of a cool teamwork project too!
Kita: The time that we had was one of those things that most bands do. A band can put together a number of things, being off the radar like we were. But at the same time, there’s something to be said for the time to go over things that we had. You can obsess and we do, but at the same time, the more time and effort you put into something, at least creatively, the better results you may be able to get. Or at least you can make educated decisions for things like the layout of the songs. We want you to hit play and not hit stop at any point. You have to keep the momentum going and hopefully there’s an ebb and flow to everything. If you press play and put it on shuffle, that’s fine too. I know a lot of people that don’t have any expectations on things, but we had zero. Whether this would really come out, other than a self-release, was entirely up in the air. As far as we were concerned, anything is amazing.
Dead Rhetoric: That’s a refreshing mindset, with the improv comparison. Do you think that is something that has come about due to your experiences in other bands over the years? That you have already seen that it doesn’t work when you just shoot things down?
Kita: I would say so. That’s not to say that every band we have been in has been a difficult time in writing anything. But i will say that the flexibility this creates…the other thing I have to say is that oftentimes I’ll lose a word in a sentence, and I’m just done. I will lose my train of thought and it will completely derail. Oftentimes, Ryan can also speak to this, but tangents, I have a difficult time starting to talk and I’m not sure where I’m going with it, but I’m opening my mouth and saying dumb things. So to that point, if I am in a practice space with someone, I often don’t have the best foothold to immediately talk about something, or disseminate something and think about what I want to say and then say it, so the flexibility of getting a song, listening to it, and being able to see where they are going with it, as opposed to hearing it in the room for the very first time and not understanding it as deeply, I think that’s great! Every band I have ever been in, we have always had a couple of the guys, I don’t want to say steering the ship, but you have a guy who does one thing well, and another who does something else well, and because you are a unit, you operate well because of it. But often it’s 1-3 people in a band who are writers, and they steer the ship creatively. We are lucky enough to have if this way, and it’s a bit different.
Manning: There’s like 5 cooks in this band [laughs].
Kita: Like, what’s for dinner? We could go with anything.
Manning: We have like 5 options.
Kita: Plus you have a guy like Brock who just puts what he does on top of everything.
Manning: Seriously. Let’s talk about a guy who never brings anything bad to the table [laughs]. Jon, Tyler, or I have a demo, what Brock will usually do is take the demo and mill over it for a few days. He will sometimes send us iPhones of him singing a capella. We are like, “oh god, this is going to be good!” He books studio time on his own and then flies the files back to us. It’s like, “yup!” He asked if we wants him to change anything and it’s like, “nope!” It’s completely fine! He’s cooking rainbows all the time!
Dead Rhetoric: You covered Soul Asylum’s “Somebody to Shove,” what made you choose that particular song?
Manning: It’s a great story, it actually follows my girlfriend Nikki. We probably had three demos cooking back in 2021, and Brock suggested flying into New England for us to hang out. Brock and Tyler go back, they did a record together, and Jon had toured with him twice, but it was my first time meeting him in person. It was the first time the four main members met, and we were in Tyler’s kitchen listening to tunes, just vibing and hanging. It was awesome. All of a sudden, we were listening to Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, and all of a sudden my girlfriend, who is a really big Soul Asylum fan, I accredit her for even reminding me about them. There was “Runaway Train” which I had as a kid, but someone had thrown “Someone to Shove” on and everyone was singing along to it and Brock knew every word. We thought it would be cool to cover. A week later, Jon went into his story and he did the whole demo and mapped it for us. We sent it to Brock and I think it’s the same track. It’s the demo vocals on the album version.
Kita: I had to go to sleep early because I was on a virtual call the next morning. The guys were up in the kitchen and the conversation went in the direction of Soul Asylum, but also why hasn’t anybody covered this song before? It seems like a nobrainer. So I looked around and no one really had. Why? It’s nuts! So I put it altogether and sounded like what we were doing, so Brock knocked it out. That is on the record. That conversation you guys had really inspired a big ‘what if.’
Manning: That song is arguably pretty metal. The lick that starts it, the guitars are more distorted. It just begged to be covered.
Kita: As well as the guitar solo. We did some interpretation…we forced a breakdown and some harmonies. It works, it fits in the set.
Dead Rhetoric: It took me a minute when I heard it, like you said, when you think Soul Asylum, you think, “Runaway Train.” It sounds like it really matches up with the album’s sound.
Manning: We put it in later in the album. I don’t want to call it light or dark at certain points, but I feel like it gets progressively heavier. We put the Soul Asylum track towards the end to ‘happy’ everyone up a little more.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s exciting and challenging about starting up a new group?
Manning: I think the way technology is now, especially post-COVID. When COVID shut things down, it sort of forced everyone into doing a lot of online covers, drum playthroughs, etc. As a musician, you either leveled up your audio game or you took a two year break. I think that when it comes to starting something brand new, I think it’s easier to start something – anyone can start a band. Anyone can do what I do or bring to the table. It’s like trying to get people to listen. Shows, even now, are few and far between even on the local level. I wish people, including myself, I try to get out there when I can but I think getting people out and listening to your band, that’s the hard part. The easy part is learning the instrument, making songs, and even making it sound half way decent, that’s way easier these days than it used to be. When people are going through TikToks and Reels, attention spans have shortened. It’s harder to win people over with a full song today. That’s why all five of us, we are happy if anyone pays attention to us for a minute. There is so much out there, so if anyone lands on us, it’s amazing.
Kita: It’s wild. There’s this disconnect where you have so many options. You have so many options to listen to things at your fingertips. You are a search or an app away. But you still need a minute of someone’s time for them to listen and get into a song. To make a judgement, to get to a chorus, or to basically sell that song. Oftentimes, people click on Spotify. We didn’t have anything else to put it against besides previous bands/projects we did. I feel like the disconnect is that it’s so easy to listen, but it’s still harder to get someone to actually sit down and listen to it.
Manning: You are also fighting an algorithm now, there are millions of bands trying to filter your way to say ‘hey, I exist. Listen to me!’
Kita: It’s easier to start, write, and publish your music in the grand scheme of things. That’s no longer the biggest hurdle to get through. It’s being heard about everything else. There’s a lot of great stuff out there. For all of those bands that don’t pull it off live and are studio creations, there’s some amazing music that I have to give credit to, just because it was incubated in a studio and they can’t pull it off live doesn’t mean I don’t feel something. There are so many amazing songs and bands, that just getting someone’s attention and getting them to listen is a lot harder than it used to be.
Manning: Who isn’t in a band [laughs]? It’s great to see that culture, especially in young kids, learning an instrument and putting themselves out there to be heard and seen. Now the algorithm is the hurdle you climb. If we didn’t have Spinefarm, it would just be five dudes constantly on our Instagrams saying ‘check out my band, please.’ We all promote in our own way, but the thing about Paradisse Slaves, I don’t want to call it a supergroup, but it’s members of past bands that all have fanbases and there are pathways. The pathway to Paradise Slaves isn’t as hard as a dude in his garage that no one knows. So the hardest thing everyone deals with now is the human attention span.
Kita: Also, of all of the bands that we have been in prior to this, I would be willing to say that 36 Crazyfists probably would be considered the crown of them all, just based off of their output. They were always out there, they were road dogs for so long. Not to mention that they are one of the most unique voices in the scene, if not all the spectrum. It’s funny that we talk about the algorithms and all of the digital streaming, as opposed to the ‘oh no, we still have to worry about whether we are doing a disservice to all the 36 Crazyfist fans who are still out there and have to listen to it to hear Brock’s voice and get super disappointed.’ That’s in the back of our minds, there’s this feeling, and I’m glad I have been able to see it. I felt this way, and I didn’t know why, but I saw the interaction between some of hardcore 36 fans and some of the first impressions of the new music, and we were just hoping to hear his voice again.
Seeing the responses to it, and it’s really cool. Like, people have been waiting to hear his voice again for over 10 years and now that they have, they are really happy. Will they buy the album? No, but those Brock fans make it worth it because you can see how important his voice was and what he has contributed to them. Since it’s baked in there, there is a responsibility not to screw it up too badly. I really don’t think that we did. Anyone who is coming in as a 36 Crazyfists fan coming in will find something to latch onto, without a doubt. I do respect the fact that they can listen to this, and then say that they are going to listen to the 36 Crazyfist albums instead. We are okay with that. We have prepared for that possibility.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s planned for the rest of this year after the album comes out?
Manning: We are taking it single by single, and now that the record is coming out, we have a couple shows planned. We are going to have a show on the east coast, sort of in our home town collectively. Then we are flying up to Anchorage [Alaska] to play a show with Five Finger Death Punch. We have a two show run.
Kita: It’s kind of funny, because the only shows we have done are in Massachusetts or Alaska. Back in the day you would put a pin in a map with where you played. We couldn’t even hold up the map. But we are just going to kind of go from there.
Manning: We are hitting our two main markets [laughs]. We are just putting it out there and seeing how people like it. Hopefully they like it, we loved putting it together. We are already starting the next one. We take it all a day at a time.
Kita: When it comes to the label, Spinefarm’s parent company is a European entity. There’s a possibility that something could happen there. It’s all going to be based off of who chooses to listen to the album. We are open to the idea, we have been in vans more of our lives than we haven’t been, so we are up to bag it all up and packing it in. We have never been above playing places, like ‘we are going to book you in a closet,’ okay. The technology is getting smaller and smaller, so we could travel a little lighter. We’ve only had three shows total so far.
Manning: I thought it was two. We had our first show with Killswitch Engage, and then Three Days Grace in Alaska, so it’s been two.
Kita: I had such a great time I inflated it! I love playing live. We finally have the technology for it to feel amazing.
Manning: The first time we got together in a room, we were rehearsing for a show opening for Killswitch Engage, so it was like, ‘here we go.’ There was a definitive moment when we went, ‘okay are we just a studio band or are we live?’ Absolutely, the minute we started playing, it was there. It was one of the best feelings to me, because I knew it was going to work.
Kita: I agree. I told some of my friends at the show not to tell too many people, but that was the first time we had stepped foot into the same room with all of our gear was Monday, and the show was on Friday [laughs]. They were shocked. Everyone did their homework and it came together. Neither of us probably walked into there thinking it was going to be a train wreck, but there’s always a question of whether you can pull it off in front of people.
Manning: It’s kind of like dating. A long distance relationship, you are texting back and forth, and you are flirting, but then there’s the big meet up. Is it going to work? It was the best first date ever.
Kita: It’s just been a honeymoon. Everyone says that it ends, but we still enjoy it, legitimately. When we had the text thread and we were all on it, I initially wondered how long it would last. I didn’t want to put it out there, but I wondered. I get a good morning from Brock still four years later. He wakes the rooster up and then gets his phone to wake us up. It’s so cool. It’s not just a band, it’s a bunch of guys who really enjoy talking about anything in particular and making music, and we are able to talk to people like you about it.
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