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Every Time I Die.
 When I speak to Keith Buckley, vocalist from America's Every Time I Die, he is noticeably tired and a bit over everything. Thankfully he's still very happy to talk about the band, their new album and the traveling ordeal they've just been through.
"At the moment we are driving to Newcastle: we just landed here a few hours ago, we've been in airports and the sky for about twenty nine hours," Buckley explains, his thick accent coming through over the phone. Of course, they're also playing later in the day and have a load of press to do beforehand. And there's more: "And they lost all of our equipment! "Well, not really lost it but put it on the wrong flight. I think we're getting it back tomorrow, but that doesn't help us for tonight. It's been hell trying to find new equipment, but the guys we're with here are hopefully renting it and it will be in Newcastle tonight and we'll be able to play - with about25 minutes sleep in the last thirty six hours."
Thinking that the lack of sleep and traveling time might have done a little to damage band morale, I ask Buckley what the mood is like in the band at the time.
"Smelly. It fucking smells, if that's a mood. We're heading to a hotel now for showering and napping and then playing." I suggest that it's all a part of the rock and roll lifestyle. Buckley just laughs in a resigned sort of way.
Swiftly changing the subject, I ask Buckley about the recording process for their new record 'Gutter Phenomenon'. "We went in with a lot of material we were very confident about and did it in kind of the same fashion we've recorded everything else, where we wait until the very last minute to do it. And then we get the purest stuff that we ever write because we don't have any time to change anything and it just comes from instinct. We did pre-production on this record which is something we've never actually done before. That gave us the opportunity to sit down and listen and we had the chance to refigure songs. It wasn't really rewriting songs in the studio as much as moving stuff around. I was a pretty arduous process but once we had everything locked into place it was pretty cool."
Buckley doesn't play guitar or anything, which leaves him free to do whatever the hell he wants with his vocals. Every Time I Die are a very riff-heavy band with guitar parts constantly moving around and changing. I enquire as to how the songs actually come together for the band.
"The rest of the guys write the stuff. For this record the guys were practising in my attic, so the guys would go up there for five or six hours a day and just write and write and write and when they were happy with it they gave it to me and I'd have a listen to it. It was really like that, it was like two separate operations. One was them and then the second part was me. I've always done it like that and I don't really know any other way to do it. If I did it any other way it would seem a bit forced and in a way arrogant. I'm not going to go in there and say 'this is so good, this has to be used for lyrics and I'm not going to accept anything else.'"
On their bio, Every Time I Die don't characterise their hometown of Buffalo in the most positive light. However, perhaps absence really does make the heart grow fonder.
"It's really difficult to say at this point, we've been away from home for a month we've been in Europe and let me tell you we've been to some pretty miserable places in Europe and at those times I would have done anything to be back in Buffalo.
"My only contact with the Buffalo scene when we're on tour is reading the Buffalo message board about the shows they have. That's pretty much owned and operated by kids who will only go to shows if they're held in a basement and the guys need to have certain amps. They're all too cool for anything and they have to be secretive and 'cliquey'," he sighs.
As the van trundles on toward Newcastle - and, hopefully a warm shower and a bed - I wish Buckley well and hope for his sake that he gets some sleep before the gig.
Sam Vinall
 | Every Time I Die play at Fowler's Live on Fri 2 Dec with Parkway Drive. |
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