 Interviews - Deadbird
02-26-2005, 12:42 PM
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by Rube
February 26, 2004
 One of the great surprises of 2004, Deadbird’s The Head and the Heart is a deep grower of a record – songs with dense, metallic frameworks that move through beautiful, sometimes psychedelic changes with no fear of melody or emotion. Starting the year as a largely unknown quantity, Deadbird had a fantastic 2004 capped by the announcement that The Head and the Heart will be released in 2005 on UK’s Codebreaker Records. Guitarist/vocalist Chuck Schaff took time from his busy schedule to answer a few questions about the Arkansas scene, whiskey, and of course, all things metal.
Hellride Music: Give me the background on Deadbird – when you guys got together, who’s in the band, what you did/who you played with before hooking up.
Chuck Schaff We formed in the winter of 2002, and started out with just me Phillip and Alan. Me and Phillip had a band a year or two before called Ill Conduit. Alan was in a band that I recorded called Them of Delphi. We all knew each other for a few years before we got together. Todd joined about six months ago on bass and that has helped to really fill out the sound.
Hellride Music: Tell me about your time in Rwake. Why did you leave? What are the differences in your opinion between the two bands musically?
Chuck: Rwake has been one of my favorite bands since they started. My brother and I saw their first show and they were killer way back then. I've known those guys/girl for a really long time and they're definitely the best, most dedicated musicians that I know. It was a huge honor to be able to play with them and they taught me so much about being in a band. Before I joined them, my brother and I had been playing for several years together in a few different bands. I kind of felt like I had unfinished business there and that I ultimately had to get back together with him and try to make it happen. It was a real hard decision to make as I was really just starting to get comfortable in Rwake and it was always a massive experience playing with them. Rwake, musically, is out of this world and it's really impossible to nail down any direct influence in their sound. I guess that Deadbird in comparison would be slower and less technically involved but we're always striving to be as heavy as possible which is definitely one thing we have in common with Rwake.
Hellride Music: The Head and the Heart is fantastic. Tell me about the writing/recording process. Do songs come from jams or are they more thought out?
Chuck: Most of the songs came from jams, but some ideas were brought into the jam room. It took us about a year to write the record. We tracked the drums on analog and then dumped it over to digital, it took a couple of months of booking a few hours here and there to finish, because Dwight was so busy, but it was a good experience as a whole. Dwight was a lot of fun to work with and had some good ideas to throw at us.
Hellride Music: Who were your early guitar influences?
Chuck: James Hetfield, John Christ, local legend Tony Moser, Slayer, George Lynch (yeah, I was rockin with Dokken) Tony Iommi.
Hellride Music: Who would you say influenced Deadbird as whole?
Chuck: Sabbath, Neurosis, Floyd, Darkthrone, Zeppelin, the Little Rock underground metal scene was probably the biggest influence (Sickshine, Crankbait, Sunny Daze, Camp Suicide, Dayngul, these days you got Shitfire, Rwake, 1000 Points of Pain, Confederacy, Burn Reverend Burn; these are bands that everyone should be on the lookout for.)
Hellride Music: Jack Daniels or Jim Beam?
Chuck: Jim Beam cause its cheaper
Hellride Music: You recently hooked up with Codebreaker in the UK. How did that come about? Will they be re-releasing The Head and the Heart? When?
Chuck: I sent out a bunch of CDs to labels and distros that we felt had the same interests, and we had sent one to Duncan's label Rage of Achilles, we got a bunch of standard replies from most of them. Rage of Achilles got in touch with us, letting us know they weren't taking on any new bands, but that they liked the album. A few months later, out of nowhere, Duncan emailed us and told us about Codebreaker, and wanted us to be involved, so he is re-releasing The Head and the Heart, remastered with new artwork that he designed. It looks and sounds quite a bit better. It will be out in March, I am pretty sure. We are very happy to be a part of Codebreaker, every band that he has signed is heavy as hell.
Hellride Music: Any plans to tour?
Chuck:Yeah we want to tour as much as possible, Phillip’s in school so we have to work around it, but we want to get out this Spring and Summer and do as many dates as we can.
Hellride: What are your plans for recording new material? Do you think it will differ much from The Head and the Heart? I’m wondering if things will get even more expansive and psychedelic.
Chuck:The new songs are slower and much heavier, with Todd involved in the writing process it is much more dense. We have a few places in mind that we'd like to record, we just have to write a few more songs.
Hellride: Standard question time: Top 5 Desert Island discs.
Chuck: No particular order. Slayer – South of Heaven Neurosis - Souls at Zero Led Zeppelin II Metallica - Ride the Lightning Tie: Sabbath - Volume 4, Dio - Holy Diver and Ozzy - Diary of a Madman.
 Read the Hellride review of The Head And The Heart
Purchase The Head And The Heart at the Hellride Music Superstore
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04-10-2005, 01:07 AM
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#2
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Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 47
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right under my nose and ive never heard the upChuck and "THAT BAND YOUR IN" live!! wtf...Da Bootleggah
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04-14-2005, 07:05 AM
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#3
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Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: FUBAR, Rhode Island
Posts: 1,567
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Deadbird kick so much ass.
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04-14-2005, 10:47 PM
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#4
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Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 47
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by 70345
right under my nose and ive never heard the upChuck and "THAT BAND YOUR IN" live!! wtf...Da Bootleggah
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if they "innie" ting like Ill Conduit!!! holy fuckin christ cake....they must be bad ass. and fuckin upChuck is one hell of a cool humble fuck, a tad bit too humble since we've hungout several times over this passed year and he never said shit to me except thanx for some old tunes i threw his way...fuck i'm on the hunt for this shit....Da Bootleggah |
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04-27-2006, 05:28 PM
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#5
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 283
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Did you guys know Chuck was in Mutha's Day Out?
They were a young alternative rock band, quite good for kids in their teens. They were signed to Chrysallis, were pretty big in Europe. The label folded and the band disappeared. Chuck and Jeff went on to form some very different local bands, Copsodomy being the best (I can upload some tracks if you want), then they formed Rwake. I totally missed Deadbird, though. I'm listening to a track right now, "Illuminate The Decay," and it's pretty badass. Is the rest of the album up to this quality? |
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