There’s no way to discuss The Black Dahlia Murder at this point without some reference to former frontman Trevor Strnad and his passing in 2022. Many were not sure the band would go on, including the band themselves. But they began to pick up the pieces, and now we sit with their first album since, Servitude, almost at its release date. We spoke with guitarist Ryan Knight to discuss the concept of how the band came back, how he himself came back into the band after leaving the band post-Abysmal, what he recalls about when he first joined the band before Deflorate, and much more.
Dead Rhetoric: How much of a debate was there to keep going or to put the band to rest? What was your main goal in continuing The Black Dahlia Murder? I know you had been out of the band for a few years at that time.
Ryan Knight: I think when everything with Trevor [Strnad] happened, there were certainly, in the band, and even the general public, wondered if The Black Dahlia Murder would continue. But I think, before I re-joined, the guys decided that Trevor would want us to continue on. Him and Brian [Eschbach] always wanted to take the band as far as it could go, that’s basically been the mission. But that being said, they essentially decided that the only way the band could continue would be if Brian shifted over to vocals. The idea of getting someone new, having no history with the band, no matter how good they were…they could sound just like Trevor or write lyrics just like him, but it just wouldn’t feel right. We would be replacing Trevor with a Trevor-replacement. It just wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t work for us, and I don’t think it would work for a majority of the fans.
So the band decided to continue touring and writing music, so Brian put down the guitar and switched over to vocals. They called me up, and luckily I was at a point in my life so that me coming back into the band was a pretty natural thing. I would say that everything really aligned, weirdly enough. Actually, kind of the same way it aligned the first time I entered the band. There’s very rarely any times in your life where the stars align and you feel like everything has worked out so well, to the point where it seemed obvious that it is what I should do. So that was the situation again, despite the situation that led to it. I would have never thought about coming back into the band in this sort of situation, you know?
Dead Rhetoric: So did that circumstance kind of shift your view in returning to the band? I know you left the band originally to spend more time with your family. Would you have rejoined if something hadn’t happened to Trevor?
Knight: That’s a good question and I don’t know. When I first left the band, it was a really hard decision to make. It was one of the hardest decisions I had to make. I had to leave it all up to fate if I would be back in the band ever. Like I said, I never thought it would be in this way that I would return. When I left the first time, my daughter was smaller and I was kind of burnt out. There really wasn’t just one factor, but a number of factors at the time. I needed a break.
When Brian asked me to rejoin the band, I was living in Nashville, Tennessee at the time and my son hadn’t been born yet. He was going to be born a few months later. My wife and I didn’t have any family down in Nashville. My wife is from the Detroit area where the band is from, and we had been considering moving back to Michigan. So that made it much easier for us to decide. I would have a job as soon as we got back there. So about a year after getting that call from Brian, we moved back to Michigan.
Dead Rhetoric: I guess that really does move into what you said about everything aligning for you.
Knight: Yeah! It was kind of like one of those weird things where we were already sort of thinking about something and then a different thing happened that helped as a deciding factor to help things along.
Dead Rhetoric: I think it’s nice that they were able to bring you back, as an ex-member. With Brian switching to vocals, you had already been in the band. So there’s a consistency you probably wouldn’t get, given the circumstances.
Knight: I think Black Dahlia is such a very familial unit. There has been quite a few members come through the band, but there are people that we still work with. Our old tour manager Karim, we still work with our old bass player Ryan Lee, and right, it would just be like 23 years in on this thing. To bring in a new member, if you didn’t have to…it’s also much easier to bring someone back who knows the material and has written in the past.
Dead Rhetoric: I imagine, regardless of all that, there was a certain amount of stress to produce something that felt up to the standards of the discography for Servitude. Not necessarily even fan expectations, but your own…
Knight: For sure! Someone asked me yesterday if we felt like we had something to prove on this record. I don’t like that…at this point, as someone who was outside of the band, I don’t feel like the band has anything to prove. We have been out there just grinding for so many years now. But at the same time, yes, I feel like on this record, we do have to prove something to the fans and ourselves. We had to prove that we can do this, we could still put out a high quality record that is going to sound like the band, have everything that people expect, and of course, bring new elements in like we always try to do. I really think we were able to do that. I think after everyone hears the full record, I’m hopeful that for anyone who is a fan who has some anxiety, I hope it will calm that.
The majority of everyone, it’s been 90% positive. With everything that happened, with Trevor not in the band, there will be people who can’t get past it or accept it. That’s fine, we accept that. I’m hopeful that maybe some people who aren’t on board right now that maybe will be on board. If not, that’s totally cool. But I really think that once the record is out and everyone hears it, I think it’ll be okay. This is different – it’s never going to be the same as it was. We as a band have to come to terms with that, the fans have to come to terms with that. It will be cool after the album comes out.
Dead Rhetoric: What else stands out to you about Servitude?
Knight: Off the top of my head, there’s two big things. Obviously we have Brian on vocals now. He’s definitely bringing his own thing. At times, he does sound eerily similar to Trevor. I have been living with this record for a while, and sometimes when I have it going on in the background, I almost forget for a second. Like, oooh, that’s Brian. But he has his own thing. He has his own lyrics, and he’s not trying to be Trevor.
The other big thing is that it’s the first record where you have three songwriters. You are going to hear the spectrum of literally everything. Everyone who has written for this record, you have all of it. This is the first time that has ever happened. It’s pretty diverse. It’s Black Dahlia at the end of the day, but it’s pretty diverse. I guess the other thing is that we have two lead guitar players. That opens some doors. We explored a bit on this record but I still think it will take another record or two for us to fully implement some of these things. Brian will also evolve as Trevor evolved.
Dead Rhetoric: How did it feel to get back into that Black Dahlia Murder writing mode after some time away?
Knight: It’s really good. For me, personally, since I have had some time out of the band. I feel like when you are a musician you are always trying to get better. Especially at songwriting. For me, I knew it had been some time, and I have evolved some since the last time I wrote anything for this band. It was exciting to just write some new material, and have it be an evolution and do things I hadn’t done before. I just have new things going on, and be able to sit back and just observe. I didn’t stagnate! Things were definitely improved upon [laughs]!
Dead Rhetoric: Having some time away from the band, how do you see The Black Dahlia Murder’s evolution since you parted ways?
Knight: I think Brandon [Ellis] brought an immense amount to the band. I told the band when I left, to get Brandon. He can write, he can obviously solo, and he’s just a great musician. He brought a lot of that old school thrash element and some more rock elements to the band. Some of the elements of old school metal. The band needed that. You can only write the same record so many times. So why not evolve with things that already exist in the genre you play in?
I think Brandon brought a lot of that, some cool new elements we can explore now. He brought up the lead guitar game so much, which I knew he would. I feel like when I brought him in, I don’t think the band realized what they were getting at the moment. I do, because I had known him for a while, but they would know eventually. So there was a huge evolution after I left, which was really cool to see.
Dead Rhetoric: What do you feel is special about what The Black Dahlia Murder does as a death metal band?
Knight: I have been a fan of the band since even before the first record. I think I illegally downloaded everything they had from Kazaa or one of those very early sites. I’ve been a fan for a long time. I heard Unhallowed was coming out, back in 2003, and I was so excited for a proper record. The way that the band, especially in the early days, mixed the whole Swedish melodic death metal thing with the whole American brutal Florida death metal scene…I had never really heard anyone do it that way before. Yeah, there have been a lot of bands that have used the Swedish sound, of course. But I never heard anyone do it quite like Black Dahlia did. That became the blueprint for the band, and it still is in a lot of our songs.
I feel like Brian can do that better than me or Brandon could. He just has this thing, and his stamp of what it sounds like when he writes. That’s definitely the core of the band. I really think that any of the bands that I really liked that I have followed for years, or any bands I could toss out, they all have that thing about them. Like, it’s that band, with a thing that they do. I think for Black Dahlia, we have that. I’m not saying we haven’t evolved on it, because we have definitely evolved on it. The sound has changed over the years, but I think that core sound is still with us. I think that’s what some people really gravitate towards. Of course, I think Trevor’s vocals were identifiable and certainly his lyrics. People really identify with that, but maybe it’s a culmination of all those things.
Dead Rhetoric: I think it’s in such a sweet spot. Unlike a lot of death metal bands; there’s an aversion that some people towards this, but I feel like you’ve been a very positive gateway band for the scene. There’s no compromise on the sound or material, but it just comes together in a way that can attract people to the scene that might not otherwise.
Knight: I would agree with you. I was one of those people. I was 18 or 19 and it was right after I discovered Unhallowed, I discovered like a million other things. Like, there was this band and that band. I remember back in the day, I think it was on their website, they had their influences listed. It must have been Trevor there, because it was a trillion bands. You could discover a trillion bands just from that!
Dead Rhetoric: What do you recall around the time that you had joined the band for Deflorate?
Knight: Earlier I was talking about how the stars aligned, I was just thinking about this the other day now that we are coming up on the 15th anniversary of Deflorate. I was actually listening to it yesterday. When I came into the band, it was a crazy time in my life, personally. You don’t realize how crazy it was as it was happening, you look back and you are like, “holy shit!” But at the time I was playing in Arsis, and the band was kind of falling apart. We were canceling tours, and then I found out that my girlfriend at the time, was pregnant. I was about to have a kid! I did my last tour with Arsis in Europe and I think I was maybe up to Virginia Beach and was on my way to the last practice, and I got a call from Mark Lewis, who has done a few records and I have been friends with forever, but he told me that Black Dahlia was looking for a new lead guitar player. Without hesitation, I told him to call Brian and tell him I’d do it. We had just toured with them, so it was some time after May or April 2008. But I knew the guys at that point.
I think on that same drive, Brian called me. They had already started writing Deflorate, and they had some songs, so he asked if I could demo a solo over a song. I feel like that was kind of my tryout for the band. So in 2008 I was already working with the band, then from there I went straight from learning the songs in the set and did my last European tour with Arsis, and it was around Christmas time. Then I went straight back to Michigan and out to Europe for another six weeks. It was like 9 weeks between November and January. I was European by that point [laughs]. Looking back on it, it was a good thing I was 25 years old. You don’t think about these things when you are younger, it’s like water under the bridge.
Dead Rhetoric: You have been out on the road quite a bit already this year to places that the band hasn’t been back to in years. How’s it been, do you notice an appreciation from fans that you are back out there?
Knight: Yes, 100%! The first time I was in the band, which was for 7 years, we toured relentlessly. You kind of become jaded to it, because you are just doing it all the time. It becomes the norm for you. But for the six years I was out, I had a lot of time to reflect on things, not just with the band, but a lot of reflection. But yeah, now that I’m back in the band, and maybe because I’m older…I’m 41 now.
I tend to stop and smell the roses more. When I go to a city, I try to get out and go for a walk in the morning. I observe things. We just got back from Europe, and I hadn’t been in over 9 years. It’s pretty strange, a place like Europe where we would go twice a year, so it’s just a place that you go to. But to not go there anymore, it was almost surreal. I stepped off the plane and was like, “Wow, Europe! It still exists [laughs]! I haven’t been here in forever!” So I have a newfound appreciation for it all.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s planned for this fall and next year?
Knight: We have a US tour coming up in the fall with Dying Fetus, Spite, Angelmaker, and Vomit Forth. Definitely looking forward to that. After that, I’m sure we will be hitting a lot of places around the world. We haven’t been to Asia yet, we haven’t been to Mexico or South America so I’m sure we will be trying to get down there. Nothing is solidified yet, but I’m guessing we will come back through the States again next year. I would guess around later in the year next year. We will probably go back to Europe next year too. But definitely try to hit all the places we usually go to.
Photo by Oli Sansom
The Black Dahlia Murder on Facebook
The Black Dahlia Murder on Instagram