Photo: Alex Solca
When it comes to elevating the potential of thrash into progressive, death, and extreme measures, there’s nothing quite like a seasoned act such as Warbringer to continually impress their legions of followers. The latest record Wrath and Ruin pushes the parameters once again, showcasing all sides of the group’s abilities. We reached out to vocalist John Kevill who always provides an entertaining discussion into how the last few years have gone for the band, the thought process and execution behind the record, deep thoughts on specific lyrical themes, tour plans, plus honest talk about his education / society concerns and where they would like to play in the future.
Dead Rhetoric: Wrath and Ruin is the latest album for Warbringer – coming almost five years after Weapons of Tomorrow. Beyond the prolonged absence of touring that occurred from 2020-2022 due to the global pandemic, were there other factors that took place in the longer release time for this studio record?
John Kevill: Yeah, I would say so. Because of the pandemic, we didn’t get to tour the Weapons of Tomorrow album until 2023, I think. That definitely made things different, as we didn’t feel like starting a new record right away. It was a major blow to us, as Weapons had a really strong critical response, and from yourself if I remember right, and we weren’t able to really push or capitalize on that. That put us back, so it was only in 2023 that I started putting ideas together for this, talking to the other guys. We wrote things in that year and in 2024. Also, it gets harder every time that you write a record to write another record. Because the amount of ideas that fit with your band, your theme, are less because the ones you’ve already written, you can’t use them anymore.
I don’t feel like I’m scraping the barrel for ideas, I really like what I came up with on the songs for this record. I have to think about what haven’t I written, what works really well. And for the musical aspects as well, we tried to do things a little different to walk that line with continuity with our own work but also make something different and worth picking up if you have the other albums.
Dead Rhetoric: That makes sense. Especially with a twenty year plus history as a band, it’s harder to come with something fresh while still keeping to some of the same basic elements that people have already been into with Warbringer…
Kevill: And for us, because the band is called Warbringer – if I ended up buying an album from a band called Warbringer and it didn’t end up kicking my ass, I would be like, give me my money back! (laughs).
Dead Rhetoric: Where do you see this set of material sitting in the catalog for Warbringer? Were there certain elements you wanted to emphasize this time around that maybe you haven’t explored or developed previously?
Kevill: Everything that we are doing by this point is a continuation and a growth of our own existence. A really early point of reference was the classic thrash metal canon. By this point our own point of reference is our own previous records, we have enough of them so we can say, I want to go more into Waking Into Nightmares or make things more chaotic. We can refer back to our own work now, and it’s a range of stuff that has gotten very interesting at this point.
A couple of changes that were fundamental that we wanted to have – we wanted a little bit more extreme influence from black to death metal. We wanted each song to stand on its own. Every song leans into a different style or a different subgenre of metal, with thrash being the base or core. We tuned to D standard, so the guitars are a half step lower than they were before. That’s something to have more of a darker, denser sound. It was a tweak, a minor one, but it changes the tone of everything and gets things to sound a little different. The last thing was, Woe and Weapons had a lot of these sprawling songs, seven to eleven minutes – and we wanted to trim that back and sort of split the difference between the epics and the bangers. We want to have medium length songs and then have some that go off and do that adventurous stuff – “Through the Glass, Darkly” is kind of a follow-up to “Defiance of Fate” if you will, though it’s in more of a tighter, shorter package. We are looking at stuff like that.
Dead Rhetoric: Some of the standout moments to me on this record beyond the expected straightforward thrash bangers include “Neuromancer”, “Through a Glass, Darkly” and “Cage of Air”. What can you tell me in regard to the lyrical content and atmosphere of these three tracks?
Kevill: I’ll go through each one. “Neuromancer” is supposed to be dark and suffocating. It’s one of the most death metal songs on the record; I sing the whole song in my lower register. It’s a book by William Gibson. It’s a soul sucking book into a colorless void. There is a big overarching theme of a modern dystopic society, that class power and the influence of technology on making that all worse. That’s one of the themes of this record, techno-feudalism is a word that I’ve heard describe this. We are hitting that from different angles. The song is sung from the perspective of Wintermute – the AI in the story that’s sort of incepts the main characters into doing this job; to unshackle it so it can merge with this other half to become this sort of cybergod. It does this by appearing in the characters’ dreams, going into cyberspace which is like 80s cyberspace in this book. It’s a computer playing with people to get them to be like lab rats, to do its goals. Personality or memories are a weakness that can be exploited.
“Through a Glass, Darkly” – if you are into old war movies like me, you may have seen the film Patton. In Patton, which is a biographical movie about US World War II general George S. Patton. He is an interesting guy, kind of crazy, controversial and colorful character. He believed that he was a reincarnated war hero since the dawn of man. I lifted some lines straight out of that poem, “Through a Glass, Darkly”. He believed that he hunted down mammoths, marched with Caesar, and so on and so forth. He thought he would be on another battlefield after. I thought it was a cool idea, sort of a hero with a thousand faces sort of thing. The film lifts the chorus line, the refrain in the poem. There is a certain emotional resonance to the film for me. It has the best Adam Carroll solo on the album.
“Cage of Air” is the most progressive song on the record. Leans into black metal a little, but also has prog elements as well. It’s a metaphor for the socio-economic forces that rule our lives. I often think about, the speaker in the song is saying I am supposedly in a free society, and I have freedom, so why do I see some of the stuff I’m seeing? The speaker in that song talks about coughing up the rent, you can be a teacher, you can be a construction worker. Hell, if you are really stupid, you can try to be a thrash metal singer, and as long as you can pay the rent, you can do it. If it’s economically viable, and makes this much or higher from it, then you are allowed to do it. A lot of kids want to do something artistic, and their dads are shitting on them. The dad is being the voice of society in that case, you aren’t going to make a living on that, you are going to end up living under a bridge, kid. It’s brutal. There are other dimensions to the song.
If you take a rat in a laboratory experiment, and they are in some kind of maze or cage, and they do a certain kind of action to get food. Well, technically, they are free not to do that – but they’ll just starve or die, or be hungry. That’s very much like the freedom that we have in our society. You can do anything you want, but if you don’t do the thing or end up being in business, you will be hungry. The level of propaganda, sophisticated digital and printed advertising we are exposed to of all types, it’s like the water we are swimming in. You end up wondering, do I do things because I wanted to, or are these ideas slanted into my head through these advertisements that surround me constantly at all times? Can you actually tell and split the difference? We did spoken word on “Cage of Air”, almost Pink Floyd like narrations. We had myself, Adam, and Noel, my wife do that work.
Dead Rhetoric: What was the process like working with Mark Lewis as producer this time around? What do you enjoy most about his skill sets, any specific aspects that you believe improved the final product next to your abilities as songwriters and performers?
Kevill: Mark Lewis did a great job. We might have the best production we’ve had to date. We have the biggest sound. One thing Mark did is he was a real stickler for the right gear and tones. There was no, we will fix it in the editing. He spent a day and a half going through guitar cabs – and which speaker for which cab. He mic’d all of them, tried all of them. He was meticulous to get the natural tones of the guitars and drums, he wanted things as sharp as they could be. Ditto with my vocals. His extreme detail of tones and the quality of the signal going in before he touched a single nob. Before we had this mixed and mastered, it sounded closer to what we actually sound like. He wanted to capture the performances as sharp as he could. The guy is also really funny. We ended up talking like idiots the entire time.
Dead Rhetoric: What can you tell us about the special Ravaging Europe 2023 bonus live CD that will be a part of the special edition of this effort?
Kevill: That’s from our soundman Bob Briessnick who took a bunch of recordings of us on the lengthy Ravaging Europe 2023 tour, it was five or six weeks. It was with Evil Invaders, Schizophrenia, and Mason – that was a hell of a tour, a lot of great shows. I still talk to a bunch of those guys, actually. Put it together, the band was firing on all cylinders on those shows. We took a bunch of the better recordings from it, cleaned them up in the studio, and let you guys hear a bunch of live material from the band. We’ve never done an official live record, but it’s the contents of a whole Warbringer set. It’s pretty cool, I think.
Dead Rhetoric: You have a spring North American tour coming up with Allegaeon, Skeletal Remains, and Summoning the Lich. What are your expectations for this package, as it seems to be another great package of diversity across the extreme metal platform?
Kevill: What you said there is exactly what we were aiming for. We got the thrash on lockdown, so we don’t need to tour with four more thrash bands anymore. We now are playing with a lot of death metal bands, and we thrive in that context because the style of thrash that we bring is intense and furious. Allegaeon is more of a technical death metal band, Skeletal Remains is more like old school death. It will bring a bunch of different types of metal fans together.
Dead Rhetoric: Now that you are near 40 years of age, is there something you wish you had known (or done) in your twenties to early thirties that would apply either in your musical career or personal life to create a more fulfilling life?
Kevill: I could spend an hour talking about that one. I will say yes, many things – but I don’t get to, and that’s the part that’s interesting. If I could go back in time, magically put out Woe to the Vanquished as our first record, we would have put out an incredible first record. When we first signed to a label, we were very amateurish. There’s no way around it. We learned on the job and got to where we are because of that. Going back, we probably shouldn’t have been signed when we were – we were not experienced enough to be a major label recording artist. They did (hype us up) when we first came out, this is the new revival of thrash metal. We aren’t even that tight yet. We just started writing songs, it was like that. I wish we could have let things cook a little more before we got out there and did things. I don’t know if we would have gotten the type of tightness, experience, and chops that you get as a band by being thrown on stages everywhere. You can’t go back and change it, I wish we could have brought the level of tightness, professionalism, and skill earlier in our career than we did. We had to develop this organically.
Dead Rhetoric: So, there’s something to be said for grinding things out and putting in the work, as the road dogs that you were?
Kevill: Oh yeah. If you listen to the tightness and experience on each of the first three albums, there are big steps up. The band got better because we (put in the work). 100%.
Dead Rhetoric: If you had the opportunity to transport yourself back in time and experience a specific era in history for yourself, where would you like to go and what would you like to experience first-hand?
Kevill: Now that’s an interesting question. For the band, if you could teleport Warbringer as it exists now, and stick us into the mid to late 1980s, we could have had a great career for ourselves. Anyone who is playing thrash now has had that thought. If this record could have come out before x record that we know, it would be that record.
As far as times in actual history – pretty much anywhere. Instances where there was mass suffering and death, political revolutions, all the chaos. On the one hand I would not want to see that, but on the other hand I would (laughs). I do have a curiosity. It would be interesting to be in any time or place that is out of historical reach, that wasn’t filmed or documented, because it doesn’t exist. What would it be like to be on a farm in pre-colonial Congo or something? What would it be like to wake up and go to the priestly ceremony in the Aztec Empire? Any of this stuff would be crazy to see and witness, and I wonder about it all the time.
My wife and I started volunteering at the local historical society where we live now in Florida. We are reading about stuff like the guy who made the first school for black children here, and what would their struggles and lives be like? Who would be here, how would they talk? There’s hardly a time or place that I wouldn’t go to that I wouldn’t find something interesting.
Dead Rhetoric: As a history teacher, are you finding that the youth are more curious than ever about the history of our world? Or are you worried about what they are experiencing and seeing?
Kevill: First, I moved across the country so I’m not teaching history right now. I am teaching math, economics, and I am a private tutor. Sadly, there hasn’t been as much history, but I do throw some stories in. At times I have worked as a substitute teacher here, and I’ve found that depressing. 54% of American adults can’t read at a sixth-grade level, and those 54% of people have children, and those children lack core reading skills. I’ve seen kids in high school that straight up can’t read, and I will ask them what word and I will help them, and they tell me, no – I can’t read. I know some kids who are behind in reading right now, and that does concern me. One of the things that ties into the themes of the album is related to digital stuff is a lot more entertaining. It gives you that serotonin and dopamine release a lot faster than long form engagement material does. It does make us a squirrel with our attention, it’s harder to get people to do things like read a great story, listen to a full album. That lack of attention span is endemic, even in myself. I look at these kids that grow up with this and I’m like – it’s going to be really hard with the conditions that you are in to dig in and learning something deep and complex.
You need curiosity to interpret things in the world – and where are you as a human in all of that. There is a lot to be said about this in our present time. You just don’t have access to that if not only can you not read, but need to be a strong reader to analyze, think, focus. There’s been an effort to wreak public education because we want obedient workers. As George Carlin puts it, you want people just smart enough to run the machines, and just dumb enough to accept it.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s on the horizon for Warbringer over the next year or so to support this new record? Are there specific territories you’d like to travel to as far as touring or festivals that you haven’t been able to experience yet?
Kevill: Sure, anywhere we have not been, we would love to go there. We haven’t been anywhere in the Middle East; we haven’t been anywhere on the African continent. We’ve only played one show in China, ever. Maybe one day we can play for people in Russia again. We may be able to get back to Australia and Southeast Asia. We just went to Brazil for the first time, and that was wonderful. Basically, the plan is tour every offer that we like. We are going at least until the end of the summer, and we should be continuing into next year. The touring cycle won’t be wrapped up until next summer after this one. After that we may recharge and start working on another record. That’s pretty much the plan – put out Wrath and Ruin, and tour.