Many are looking forward to a fresh blast from yourselves, which is fortunate because you’re new album A New Era of Corruption is just round the corner, coming out in the beginning of June. What can we expect from your new opus? I take it it hasn’t got soprano singing?
It still sounds like Whitechapel, we didnt sell out and change our sound. It's still just as brutal as ever, if not even more so. The songs are just more refined and matured. We really focused on writing well constructed, memorable metal songs.
You managed to get not just Vincent Bennett from the Acacia Strain but Chino Moreno of Deftones fame to sing on your new album. How did that come about and what was it like to have those guys collaborate?
Vincent has been a long time friend of the band so that came easy, we just asked him to do it and he was down. We put him on a heavy ass breakdown so he still sounded in his element as he does in The Acacia Strain. With Chino, our manager used to manage his side project Team Sleep and has been friends with him for like 10 years so our manager asked him if he would be down to do it and he checked out a clip of the part we wanted him on and he liked it so he was down. It's really cool to hear Chino out of his element and on something heavier.
As a band you’re right at the heart of the new wave of death metal in North America. You’ve been touring constantly, I’ve seen countless kids wearing your shirts, and you’ve shared the stages with some of the biggest names in the modern scene. You must be pretty chuffed? (chuffed means pleased :P)
Yeah we're really happy with how the band has been going. It seems like since 2006 we have always been climbing and growing, we've never plateaued and we're grateful for that. We have the best fans and they have always supported us.
You've only be going since 2006 and you’ve enjoyed a remarkable meteoric rise, what do you think has been the key to the success?
A lot of hard work and determination, as well as being at the right place at the right time. I think we caught this new movement of extreme metal at the right time and kids caught on to us really quickly. We've always busted our ass to get this band where it is today.
I've never personally heard a band refer to themselves as “deathcore”, and you often hear that term being bandied around as a term of derision by listeners and fans of more traditional metal. What it’s like to actually be in a band that people put under that banner and how do you yourselves feel about that label?
We don't consider ourselves "deathcore". In our eyes we are just a metal band and we always have been. We incorporate many styles of metal into our sound so we collectively just like to call ourselves a metal band. We just try to write heavy, aggressive, and dark music.
I love the artwork for the new album, what were the ideas behind it?
We let the artist take control. We just gave him the theme of the album, which is the downfall of humanity, and told him the track titles and showed him some lyrics and the art that came out is his vision from all of those combined.
Is it very different playing over in Europe rather than in North America?
Not really, I mean a show is a show you know? You walk out on stage and do your thing, and the crowd goes wild and then it's over. Regardless of where you are metal heads around the world all pit the same! hahaha!
How stoked are you to be playing Download this year and are we likely to see you here in the UK at some other point soon?
We are extremely excited to be playing Download, it will be by far the biggest show we have ever played thus far. It's going to be like playing to a sea of people. And I'm sure we will come back to the UK soon in support of our new album.
Where was the best place you’ve played and why?
I think the best show weve ever played was Chicago on the Rockstar Mayhem tour, there were like 7,000 people when we played and they were all going absolutely insane!
