Metal in Ruins: alright. lets do this.
Sebastian Wheeler: lets roll
MIR:so explain a little bit about the demo, what songs should we be expecting?
SW: well fans can expect one of our oldest songs on it called "Through the victims of Charles Manson" as well as a new spin on our sound we've been piddling with these past few months especially with our newest song that we will debut on the demo as well as Made To Suffer.
I'm especially excited to see what fans and newcomers alike think of the newest song we're debuting, just wish we could think of a damn name for it.
MIR: how do you feel about the slowely rising musical success of Wideyedaze?
SW: in all honesty I'm stoked, I really couldn't be more proud of how far we have come as people and as a band.The slow but sure success just shows me how far we have come talent wise and that Death metal is back on the rise again.
MIR: you guys have played with many great bands out there, would you care to talk about some of the experiences you've had with the bands at shows? What by far has been your favorite?
SW: Well experience wise we've had our fair share of weird and awesome times that are bound to get even weirder and even better!Overall the best experience we've had live as a band was November 5th at the warehouse in chattanooga tennessee where we played with Unspoken Triumph(those guys headlined for their first time and tore it up!) My friend the captain(I wasn't to thrilled about them) I believe Axiom(some indie/core/scene christian band they throw a good show though) and someone else I forget but we packed that place out with 140+ people which was sick.This was like our 3rd or 4th show so we were pretty tense and didn't expect this kind of turn out. So we're playing and everyones eatin that shit up and I remember in the middle of the song "Eyes" some kid runs and does a fuckin backflip in the midst of the audience/pit.We later found out we couldn't hold time to save our lives when we recorded our shitty ass demo lol but everyone loved it at that show and came up to us and shook our hands,it was incredible to feel like we were doing something right. The only other time I'd have to say is our last show which was the Axiom CD release where,too my knowledge which is suffering from a bad memory lol,we stole the show kinda along with Cartographer.
MIR: well awesome. Aside from the demo, do you guys have any upcoming plans in the works?
SW: Other than the demo I know we plan on getting a trailer and booking out of town shows along with trying to force feed this demo to as many record labels that think we deserve a chance.I mean I don't know about the rest of the guys or you but working at Taco Bell sucks and I don't plan on staying that much longer if things go as planned! we plan on doing a nice little memento piece of merch that shows how we do what we do to get where we want to get.....aka a DVD documentary! I don't plan on it being a HUGE hit but I plan on it being one later on down the road when we're hopefully as big as Cannibal Corpse. but we can only hope!
MIR: sounds exciting! How long do you plan on shooting this DVD Documentary?
SB: well, me and Nick(our drummer) sat down and talked about it and we decided that we film everything from us taking a piss,hanging out, to shows and I really want to get some footage of us on the road for the first time cause that in itself will be a HUGE stepping stone for us.So give or take anywhere between 4 months to a year and 6 months.This sucker will be jammed pack with us doing all sorts of stupid crazy shit and also have some pretty in depth interviews. so overall this DVD will be more or so a landmarker for us on down the road so we can look back and say "we've done a lot" and be proud of where we are then.....or not so proud depending if we have any line up changes.
MIR: sounds great! now lets talk about gear, what is your current guitar set-up right now?
SW: yes gear! I LOVE talking gear.Well at the moment I am running a 30 some odd year old Crate Excalibur GX-900H through a Crate Blue Voodoo with 1 1/2 inch birch wood loaded with Celestion Vintage 30's.I run a Boss NS-2 through the FX loop of the amp and through the input(front) to cancel out any unwanted noise and to keep things super tight.I then send that on down to my Digitech Harmony Man which runs on to my favourite pedal the Boss FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz for some super grind tone like Rotten Sound which then hits up my Boss PH-3 Phase shifter for some trippy sounds and the like.This is then followed up by my TC Electronic Flashback delay pedal which is DAMN good for a pedal I then send it through to my ModTone Stutterkill Killswitch and end it with y Line 6 G-50 Wireless. I do have one piece of equipment on the way which is a modified channel selector switch which changes channels and splits my pedalboard into 2 loops, one for each channel which will allow me to use my absolute FAVOURITE effect which is my bit crushers which will be alternated between my WMD GCCI and my Catalinbread heliotrope for my solo channel! These two pedals will definitely give way to a defined sound for Wideyedaze and for me
MIR: so over-all there is no doubt all together that is extremely expensive
SW: yeah Taco Bell comes in handy but overall it isn't too terribly expensive like some rigs I've seen,its just I whoop Tom Morello's ass in effects. Though don't confuse all the gear as something I hide behind live or in the studio or that I'm a tapdancing maniac from the 80's.
MIR: excellent. Do you know much about the set-up and gear of the other members as well?
SW: why yes I do! our bassist runs a Carvin RL600 600 watt bass amp along with a 1x15 carvin cab.Rusty's is pretty simple but he gets shit done and tastefully, he runs an Ibanez Toneblaster X 150watt into a B-52 4x12 with a Digitech RP255 for a noise gate and a gain/level boost in front of the amp.nick plays some franken GP's with one kick thats longer than the other but his other set is a killer 8 piece Ddrum with a rackmount brain for his bass drop.Our singer is getting himself a wireless Shure SM58 I believe but he usually works with this Shure AXS-1.
MIR: sounds great! so can you tell us a bit about the origin of how Wideyedaze got started?
SW: Well too my knowledge Wideyedaze was started from Nick and Rusty's friend Zane who wanted to start a band like the grateful dead but was too lazy too or something of the sort to do it.So in a way Nick took the band name after his and rusty's jam band Sabian X failed or stopped. The original line up began with Alex Dutto, Rusty Johnson, and Nick johnson.This later changed cause Alex never made it to practice and shit of the like.In which Alexus Murfin joined and I think Alex got bumped to rhythm guitar somehow but ended up just quitting. I'm not all too sure how Brandon Sutton came into the picture as the vocalist but he did, then Nick looked for another guitarist for rhythm and heard about me playing a seven string and hit me up via myspace at the time. I grabbed my gear and hauled ass to the shed.(which at the time all I had was a Peavey XXL 100 watt amp head and some shitty Crate 4x12 and an MXR 10 band EQ)
well after awhile our bass player at the time ,Alexus murfin, left due to she wanted to focus on schooling, which we were chill with. We found a temp of sorts in which he just did NOT work out cause he was tone deaf out the ass but we kept him around.Then we lost Brandon due to issues with him not showing up,contributing, and overall being irresponsible and the fact the only way things got done were if I bitched. Not gonna lie I could have gone about it better, but we changed for the better through all this. We then began to audition singers in which we went through this one guy who was ok but was super weird and I think a closet racist and then we got 2 dudes in one day.One of them was Donovan something and the other was Danial Elrod. Donovan was......odd, Danial just cut the cake and kicked ass....plus he drove so that got him a foot in the door. We then auditioned a few bass players after the temp bass player started his eternal man period in which I think he has to this day and left.So we auditioned this one guy named, damn I can't think of his name.... anyways, we spent 3 hours trying to teach the guy a triplet and he couldn't play it at all.So he got scrapped....OH his name was Darian, good guy but he could not play that triplet to save his life. We then tried out Lyn Williams, this guy wasn't super awesome but he was motivated and learned songs quick as flies on horse shit.So we got the guy and well hes now are bassist and is pretty damn good and impresses me still!
and thats how Wideyedaze has come to be so far!
MIR: Sounds interesting. What are just a few of Wideyedaze's main influences?
SW: Oh shit man thats a good bit. well, mine come from tech metal like Viraemia,Necrophagist, and Spawn Of Possession as well as Racer X.Gotta dig some paul Gilbert.
Nicks derive indefinitely from Dying Fetus,Suicide Silence, and Black Sabbath and some Slam Death. Rusty is the true oddball of the group on influences. this guy is old school, in which I respect highly. He pulls from Randy Rhodes,Jimi hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Yngwie Malmsteem and can show it too. Lyn pulls from shit like Helloween,Lamb Of God, and Maggot twat and hes showing it each and every practice too! his playing style is definitely something in its own. Danial pulls alot from everywhere, even the Bee Gees. Yeah I'm serious, the bee gees. but the guy mainly pulls from Dying Fetus,Pathology, and Dysentery. overall we pull from Cannibal Corpse and Slipknot as well as napalm death.
MIR: Speaking of the Bee Gees, Apparently Wideyedaze is doing a bee gees cover?
SW: we're thinking about it.It started as a joke and then well our bassist and vocalist are like FUCK YES.Seriously its so easy we're dumb not to do it lol plus it'd be nice to hear a GOOD cover of it that has a serious overtone to it. Like my bud Pete Manzella in Maggot Twat says "Taking not being serious, Way too serious"
MIR: haha, well that would be extremely interesting. Well thanks for taking the time to do this with me. do you have anything to add to this?
SW: No problem man! I actually really appreciate this!And if theres anything I could add to this is "if you pick Metal or death metal and plan to get rich and famous you're wrong" think theres hot chicks backstage? nope its some fat dude with your band name written in sharpie on his shirt along with #1 fan.
but its all worth it!
-David
