MAJOR LESSONS
MELDING THE SOUNDS OF MODERN METAL AND POSTHARDCORE WITH THE IMAGE AND ATTITUDE OF THE GREATEST ROCKERS OF THE ‘80S, IT SEEMS THERE IS NEVER TIME TO REST FOR ESCAPE THE FATE. LOCHLAN WATT QUIZZES DRUMMER ROBERT ORTIZ.
former vocalist Ronnie Radke was asked to leave the group due to being sentenced a prison term for multiple narcotics and battery charges, an event which left the band unable to tour outside of its home state. Though he’s always pulled through, Ortiz reveals that life on the road can get pretty touch and go, himself having already “quit the band several times”. “I quit the band every fucking day,” he chuckles. “There’s been times when I’ve been like, ‘I’m fucking done’. I’ve been there before. It gets hard man. There’s a lot of pressure that goes into it. Everybody wants to be famous and control their own destiny, but when you do you’re always on thin ice no matter what you do. You don’t know how long it’ll last. I feel like our band’s doing great right now. A year from now it could be like, ‘What the fuck happened? Why doesn’t anybody care about us anymore?’
“I
f it’s not us being completely, wondrously successful and dominating everything, or at least trying to, then it’s us falling apart at the seams, or shooting ourselves in the foot and not getting along,” says Robert Ortiz of Escape The Fate’s year thus far. “There’s never a dull moment, but overall it’s looking to be the biggest year for us right now. We haven’t gone backwards; I can say that at least. We haven’t shrunken in popularity, which is a good thing, and shows that our album is doing pretty well.” Since forming in 2004 the band has released three fulllengths and gone through just as many ex-members, amid all sorts of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll style controversy. Previously signed to punk label Epitaph Records for 2006’s Dying Is Your Latest Fashion and 2008’s This War Is Ours, the group now calls major label Interscope home. Last year’s self-titled album is the first fruit of said relationship and has brought the band to dizzying heights of success. “I’ll never forget playing in New York City when Max [Green, bass] fucking collapsed on stage on our biggest headlining show to date,” he says of their most recent headlining tour. “There were so many people there it was incredible and Max just collapsed in the last song, for reasons we’ll never for sure know, but it happened. That moment right there just symbolised everything about Escape The Fate. We can continue to grow when we do our best and when we come together, everything is right with the music and our lives. Everything is incredible and it props us up with everything that goes on.”
Just how has life changed for the band since the major label move? How do the label’s approaches differ? “Epitaph just kind of do whatever they feel at that moment and they go with it and it’s cool. They don’t really have too much at stake,” he says matter-of-factly. “They’re basically giving bands chances, you know? “But with a label like Interscope, there’s a lot to lose with them and they definitely know that this shit can hit and it can be great, but they can lose a lot of money if it doesn’t. They want to make sure that their hands are on everything we do, but we don’t want them to. We told them from the get go that our music, that’s the one thing that they don’t touch, ever. Whatever songs we create, they don’t touch that. That’s what we’re going to do, whatever we’re feeling.” However it appears things aren’t always peachy and Ortiz has his qualms with how things work. “They just want us to do all this shit. It’s how we present the music that
becomes a difficult part. They don’t want us to do certain things, like maybe do remixes or do all this weird kind of shit and like release this, or do this weird tour. We’re like, ‘No, that doesn’t fit right, it’s not what we’re about, or it’s not enough’. We’re trying to make a music video right now for our next single, but they don’t want to just yet. But it’s like, ‘Dude, come on, let’s roll with it’ and they want to sit back and wait for it to kind of simmer. So you get these little things that ultimately slow down the process. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain man, there’s like weird shit, there’s ins and outs in the business that are just not fun to talk about. They’re just weird and sometimes you disagree. But they do care a lot – they really care.” With the hedonistic lifestyle of Escape The Fate a part of their ethos and more or less of their overall image itself, the band’s rise to stardom has not been without some serious hitches in terms of maintaining their ranks. Original guitarist Omar Espinosa abruptly up and left the band in 2007 due to “personal issues”. In 2008
twitter.com/drummedia
“There’s times when things are great and everything seems to be working, making sense – the fans are there, they’re responding, everyone’s into it and everything’s awesome… and you just can’t get along with your bandmate and you’re just like, ‘Fuck you dude, I hate you, I don’t want you in my life anymore!’ You kind of gotta take a step back and realise that you all have the same goal in mind and ultimately we’ve created a record and the music we make together far surpasses everything else. So we’ve found a line that we’re all comfortable with each other, we know what makes each other tick. It’s not always peachy – and we still don’t get along and we still fight – but you know, we’re older now. We’re still really young, but we’re adults now and everyone’s got shit going on. Sometimes you don’t even care about this any more and you want to leave and do something else, but you come back to your senses and realise everything you have at stake and you go, ‘You know, maybe it’s not that bad. I’ll go for a little wander and let’s figure this out’. You don’t look for a way out anymore, it’s a way to fix the issues, whereas before we’d reached a point where it was just done and there was no way to fix it. It’s learning, man.” WHO Escape The Fate WHEN & WHERE Saturday, UNSW Roundhouse
THE DRUM MEDIA 26 APRIL 2011 • 37 •