(Originally from 12/17/03)
Tourniquet is a thrash metal band that has been around since the early 90s, but not just any thrash band - one of the first Christian thrash bands. They have had very good reactions to their music from the rest of the world and have become well known amongst the Christian and secular markets. Luke Easter has agreed to give us a look into the history of Tourniquet and their recent release: Where Moth and Rust Destroy....
Luke Easter: Tourniquet was formed in the Los Angeles area, and the first album, Stop the Bleeding, was released in 1990. Soon after the third album (Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance) was released in 1993, the original vocalist left the band and I took over the vocal duties. Since then we have released 5 studio albums, a “best of” collection, a “live” acoustic album and several video projects. In March 2003 we released Where Moth And Rust Destroy on Metal Blade Records.
How did you come across to join Tourniquet, and what was it like for you?
I was a fan of the band. I had found about them early on, right after Stop the Bleeding came out, and I had all their albums. The local band I had been in had broken up, and I had heard that Tourniquet was looking for a singer. I contacted them, and sent a demo. About a week or 2 later I went to LA to audition, and soon after we went on tour to support Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance.
Up to that point, I had not played outside my local area, and I hadn’t really played in front of more than 100-150 people at a time, so it was really exciting playing for larger crowds, and playing in different parts of the country. In a lot of ways, it was a crash course in live performance. It was fun, but initially, it was a bit intimidating at times playing with people whose albums you were listening to at home a couple of weeks before.
What process do you usually go through when writing lyrics? Do they come to you, or do you sometimes think on them for a while? Do you ever think of writing music?
I don’t really have a set process for writing. Sometimes I’ll have an idea for a topic I want to write about, or I’ll come up with a phrase that I think sounds cool, and I’ll keep in the back of my mind for awhile until the right time. Other times, I get handed the instrumental demo for a song and I have no idea what to write about.
I’d love to be able to write music, but I really don’t play any instruments well enough, so I focus on lyrics and let the better qualified write music. In the past, I’ve written with people and I’ll have a basic melody and lyric in place when we get together, and they build the music from that. Does that count as writing music?
How important is the message in Tourniquet's music?The message is integral, but it needs to fit within the construct of the music. You can have great music, but really poorly written, cliched lyrics, and the words will negate the music. The inverse of that is true as well: great lyrics over bad music are just as counter-productive.
The artist’s experience and state of mind will always be reflected in their art. We are Christians. That is our state of mind, that is the point of view that our life experience is filtered through, and that is a key element of our art. I think a lot of bands tend to get stuck at the point of salvation. They see the salvation moment as a destination, when it’s really a starting point. We believe in Christ, and we believe that a relationship with Him is the only way to find true peace and happiness in this life and beyond, but to stop at telling people that they need to know Him is selling the whole thing short. Believers deal with most of the same issues as non-believers, but they hopefully deal with them from a different perspective. That is what we try to do with our music. Because our relationships with Christ are so central to who we are as people, the message is very important, but there’s more to the message than just salvation.
When did you all come to know about Christianity?Ted and I have both been Christians since we were kids. I grew up in church, but I didn’t really make a commitment to Christ until my late teens.
What are your thoughts about the pressures and demands on an artist as it relates to the relationship between fans and the artist and how some of those expectations and demands may cross the line?
The relationship between artists and their fans is a two-edged thing. On the one hand, you do or did something that they found appealing, and so now you have a following. On the other hand, if you don’t keep giving people what they want, you won’t have a following for too long.
We’ve been very fortunate to be able to change things up from album to album, and still maintain a pretty high level of interest and devotion from our fans. All of our albums have a fairly distinct personality. None of them really sound alike, but there are elements from one to the next that make them unmistakably Tourniquet albums. In a lot of ways, people have come to expect the unexpected from us.
Even with that, there are always people who are not satisfied with the outcome when we release something new. Some people like a certain sound, or a certain style, and they cannot accept anything but that. Some people want us to just keep remaking Stop the Bleeding or Psychosurgery or Pathogenic… over and over again. Some people scratch their heads and go, “Huh!?!?”, when they hear a banjo or whistling or a flute on an album, because to them, that’s not metal.
Obviously, we want people to like us, but we can’t cater to their every whim. We are artists, and we do our best to challenge ourselves, and create music that is interesting and rewarding to us while still having appeal to as wide an audience as possible. We could be really self-indulgent and just make music that we like, but then there’s a good chance that nobody but us will like it. We could also just take a “paint-by-number” approach and churn out the same old stuff time after time, but then we would likely get bored and not want to make music anymore. We try to find the middle ground, and make both sides happy.
For the most part, people’s demands and expectations aren’t really invasive. Preference and taste are very subjective things. It’s when people start acting like they know better what we should do musically or sonically, and when they start second guessing our choices that it starts to encroach on us.
How do the members of Tourniquet usually go about recording and composing a new album?
Again, there’s no real, set method. Usually, Ted starts coming up with riffs and drum parts. Once he’s got enough, he starts figuring out which ones go best together and builds them into songs. After that, work starts on the lyrics. In the past, Aaron and I wrote together, and he’d come up with music, demo out a rough version and send it to me, and then I’d write words for it. This time around, Ted and I collaborated for the first time as writers, and we worked pretty much the same way.
As the material is being developed, we work out a schedule with Bill (Metoyer, our producer) so we know when we’ll start recording. Once all the pieces are in place, we start the record. We work piece-meal for the most part: the drums go down first, and we build it up from there. Vocals and leads are usually the last parts to be recorded.
Who are your favorite bands or artists?
I think that to listen to only one type of music, and nothing else, is very limiting, both as a listener and as an artist. I try to listen to a lot of different types of music, and I think it’s a great help when it comes time to do a record.
If you could perform with any musician, living or dead, who would it be and why?
I’ve never really given that a lot of thought. I admire a lot of different people, but I’ve never thought much about playing with them. I guess it’d be cool to play with the surviving members of Queen. It’d be great to play live with Marty. Portnoy does a lot of stuff outside of Dream Theater, and I imagine it be a nice challenge to be part of that sometime. I’d love to just be around Nuno Bettencourt. I don’t know…. I get to play in a band with Ted. I’d have to say that it can’t be too much better than that.
On the new album, Marty Friedman plays most solos. What is the relationship between Tourniquet and Marty, and how did you get him to play for the record?
Ted and Marty have been friends for a few years. He’s a very cool person, and he likes our music. When we were going to start recording Where Moth And Rust Destroy, we called him and Bruce Franklin and asked if they’d play on the album, and they both said yes.
I've been asked by a fan for you to describe the difference between your former contract with Intense/Frontline, as opposed to being on the Metal Blade label; the strengths and weaknesses, more/less opportunities with explaining your Christian faith.
They’re very similar in that we get to write and play what we want. Metal Blade has a better distribution network in place, and promotes its bands better. Metal Blade is very cool about us being Christians. For them, its all about the music.
Tourniquet is also searching for a new guitarist at the moment, so how is the search going?
We have gotten some really good submissions, and we’re looking at a couple of people right now. It’s too soon to say whether we’ve found one yet, but hopefully soon we’ll be able to make some sort of an announcement.
How well do you know some of the past members of Tourniquet?
I know some better than others.
Finally, what advice would you give to aspiring musicians or bands?
Figure out who you are, and what you sound like, both as an individual and within a band. Don’t follow trends. Be honest, musically and personally. People can spot a phony, and they generally don’t like phonies. If you’re going to be a “Christian band”, do it all the way; don’t be ashamed. If you’re going into the mainstream, don’t make excuses for it. Most importantly, be open to God’s leading. You may love music, but it may not be His plan for you. If He lets you play, enjoy it, and do it to the bast of your abilities; if He doesn’t, accept it, and be content in knowing that He knows better than we do.
I would like to extend my thanks to Luke Easter for doing this interview, and to all the guys from Tourniquet for making such great music! You can visit the official Tourniquet site at www.tourniquet.net.
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