If you’re involved in anyway with the world of heavy music then the name Jamey Jasta is familiar to you. The long standing frontman of hardcore stalwarts Hatebreed, Jasta has spent the last decade or more carving out a name for himself not just with Hatebreed but also Icepick, his label Stillborn Records, his clothing line Hatewear and of course Kingdom Of Sorrow.
Starting out as a simple side project between Jasta and guitarist Kirk Windstein Kingdom Of Sorrow has grown into something bigger than either man had anticipated. This month they dropped their sophomore release Behind The Blackest Tears and are gearing up to tour alongside Rob Halford and Motley Crue on this year’s Ozzfest. Jasta took some time out of his busy schedule to talk to me and it was one of the more honest interviews I’ve been a part of. Ranging from personal demons, reaction to the recent deaths in heavy metal and on to touring and the future concerning Hatebreed, Jasta was as blunt and unabashed as his music.
CRAVEONLINE: Had you and Kirk always planned to do a second Kingdom Of Sorrow album?
JAMEY JASTA: We kind of did. We said when the first one came out that we’d see what it does and feel it out. Then when I toured without Kirk, which was scary but the crowd reactions were really great and we were opening for Gwar so it was like playing for fresh ears. These people didn’t know our other bands or even care and the reaction gave me the confidence to move in some other directions. So I kept writing and called Kirk and told him I’d done all this writing and we should do another record and he said sure.
CRAVEONLINE: Why did you tour on the first record without Kirk?
JAMEY JASTA: He did some Ozzfest and Mayhem dates with me but the full tour with Gwar he only did one or two shows. For the rest I had Kenny (Hickey) from Type O filling in and that was really cool because he brought the hardcore Type O fans out. Playing for Gwar fans can be rough, they’re a tough crowd, but I was glad to be thrown into the fire that way.
CRAVEONLINE: With all of the stuff that you and Kirk are involved in how did you find the time to do a second record?
JAMEY JASTA: I just kept recording. Whenever I felt it was right and I was inspired and channeling a different energy with music and lyrics I just kept putting it all together. When the songs came I said I would just go with it and not fight it because I’ve had writer’s block before where I felt I just didn’t want to create. When I gave Kurt the songs he was like “Dude I’m impressed, you’re really growing as a writer” and coming from a guy who is so influential to me it really made me feel good. From there we just recorded a bit at a time.I think no matter how busy you are when you feel good about something it’s not like work. This just happened without that stress so when Kirk came into the studio and we were getting used to each other again it came together and we banged it out quickly.
CRAVEONLINE: With Hatebreed being such a different style of music is it hard for you to get into that new head for Kingdom Of Sorrow music?
JAMEY JASTA: No because when we started the band we asked ourselves if this could be a place, a place to visit creatively and artistically. So we set out to make sure when you heard the songs or saw the cover you knew this was a metal record. I wrote a lot of the stuff on the new album but when Kirk came in he really put his own touches on everything. There’s a song called “With Barely A Breath” which kind of had a New York Hardcore sound to it and he made it more metal, he took it and really turned it into his style. We call that Kirkifying, it’s like a joke in the studio, he’ll come in and say “Whatta ya got for me fool, let me Kirkify it”. When he does that it really became it’s own thing.
CRAVEONLINE: Having been so central in the new material what do you see as the musical growth on Behind The Blackest Tears?
JAMEY JASTA: The growth would be writing a part and neither of us saying would a Hatebreed, Down or Crowbar fan like this. None of that came into mind, instead it was more about do we like this, is it catchy, would we want to go listen to it right away. We focused more on creating parts that took you away on a different journey as opposed to the last album where we focused more on how heavy is this and how low can we tune it. One thing we did on the last record was to create and use a lot of parts we would have used for our other bands. We didn’t do that here.
CRAVEONLINE: So why call it Behind The Blackest Tears?
JAMEY JASTA: I used to have night terrors and sleep paralysis especially in my early teenage years. My father is a Vietnam vet and used to experience really bad flashbacks and night terrors and somehow I inherited that. It was something I was always very fearful to talk about once it went away because it was a huge relief for me and I was afraid if I thought about it or talked about it they would come back. Over the last few years of my adult life I decided I didn’t want to be running from anything, I don’t want to feel scared of anything.
I have an old composition pad that I used to write down stuff whenever I had the night terrors and one of the things was a lady coming to me with this black substance in her eye sockets. I wrote this down at age thirteen and I decided now I was just going to face it and it became one of the songs then Kirk said it should be the name of the album. Plus it was the first new song we had written and it seemed symbolic of a new beginning.
CRAVEONLINE: The cover art for both records has a very dark warrior Frank Frazetta vibe to it. Why does that appeal to you?
JAMEY JASTA: We actually joked around asking ourselves if Manowar would use this as a record cover. If the answer was yes or possibly then we’d use it. We did two covers one for the deluxe and one for the normal version and we ended up using the normal version because it was really metal.
CRAVEONLINE: You guys are playing Ozzfest this year on the second stage. Do you prefer that to the main stage?
JAMEY JASTA: Yeah I prefer it that way. Having done the main stage with Hatebreed and then the second with Kingdom I prefer the second stage because you get the kids dancing and the mosh pit and stuff. You play to less people but you get the pit and you get to play in the day. That’s the beauty of the second stage.
Though I will say it’s a real challenge playing to people in the main stage seats. That’s when you know who you’re turning into a believer and who you’re not. The guy eating nachos with an Ozzy shirt on is probably not into it but the people that started with their arms folded and now are rocking out is really fun to see.
CRAVEONLINE: There’s a great lyric on the song “God’s Law In The Devil’s Land” that says “You don’t get mercy from a desperate man”. What’s the line and the song all about?
JAMEY JASTA: Originally I was going to leave that up to interpretation but Relapse was really on me about doing liner notes and explaining what the songs were about. I don’t want to tell people what the song should be about for them but for me it’s about people who aren’t ready to deal with being clean and sober. I always say you can’t rob a man of his bottom. Having five years sober people always come to me and say they really want to stop using drugs or drinking but there’s always an instance when they need it.
They’ll say I can’t fly without this or deal with my family without this and I always say when you go back to that place you never know what you’re getting. Especially with hard drugs people are risking their lives every time they take it. I know people who’ve gotten a bad batch of something and not made it. It’s a fucked up thing to me to think that one bad sniff of blow or a bad hit of smack could end your life. The song is about that and dealing with junkies in my family, the idea that there will be no divine sense of order when you go to a dark place.
CRAVEONLINE: How has sobriety and being a father changed your outlook on the music industry?
JAMEY JASTA: It’s just made me easier and better to deal with. When you’re always drunk or on pills or partying for days on end there’s only so long that’s gonna last and only so many people that will think that’s cool. I missed a lot of cool stuff like birthdays and holidays and little graduations. I just don’t want my daughter to really have any memories of me like that and she doesn’t.
I used to be the guy who would say a band was better on drugs or like Megadeth was better when Dave Mustaine was a mess but I realized I want these people around for a long time making music and the only way to do that is to live some kind of a healthy lifestyle.
CRAVEONLINE: That brings me to another point. There’s been a lot of recent tragedy in metal with the passing of Pete Steele, Dio, and Paul from Slipknot. What’s your reaction to all of that?
JAMEY JASTA: Pete Steele just really hit me so hard and desensitized me because it was such a part of my childhood. I used to go to Brooklyn to intern and I eventually started working for Type O Negative’s management and I was there through a lot of their achievements. The thing about Pete Steele was that he came from Carnivore a super controversial hardcore type band and then reinvented himself, became hugely successful, didn’t give a fuck what anybody thought and paved his own way. That was very inspirational for me and when I got to tour with him and get to know him I just had that much more respect for him.
We used to joke around about me producing a new Carnivore record and I have so many cool stories with him. When I found out he was clean and sober I was so excited for them to do another Type O record and maybe a new Carnivore record. Sometimes it happens that guys clean up and then still don’t make it and that was just so sad. My heart goes out to Kenny, Johnny and Josh (Type O Negative) those are some of the best guys ever and I was just lucky to know Pete as a buddy.
So when I got the news about Dio I was just like what the fuck. He was one of the nicest guys ever. One of the worst interviews I ever did for Headbangers Ball was with Bruce Dickenson, I guess I caught Bruce on a bad day but he was a real dick to me. Later I got to interview Dio and he was just so cool and it made the whole day better. I told him a personal story about Frank (Novinec) who wasn’t in Hatebreed at the time and how we used to blast Dio Live At The Spectrum and how Frank’s neighbors knew Dio but not by choice. Years later I saw him and he remembered my name and asked about Frank. I told him that Frank was now in Hatebreed and he thought that was great, again he was so cool. To have a childhood hero live up to that expectation especially somebody with that kind of talent. Dio was doing it before studio tricks or auto-tuning; he’s just the most talented ever.
With Paul (Gray, Slipknot) passing it just sealed the deal with me, it was so hard to even fathom it. I had just traded emails with him and he said he was expecting a daughter and everything was good and he was going to record with his first band Bodypit and he asked me about singing on a track. To me the bands that came post Headbangers Ball into popularity we owe it all to Slipknot. I mean Hatebreed went from playing CBGBs to arena shows with Slipknot because when they blew up and became a platinum band they kept their promise to help out underground bands.
I witnessed it all around the world; nobody had a fan base like they did. They changed the whole game; they changed the whole music industry. It’s easy for people to talk shit on the Internet with their own twisted reality, especially older guys who don’t get Slipknot, but from ’99 on the bands that opened for them are the bands that blew up like us, Lamb Of God, As I Lay Dying, all those types of bands. We were given that platform to play for people by Slipknot. Paul had a lot of input and did a lot of the writing. He’s the guy in the band that nobody had anything bad to say about. He’s just that one unique personality, super sweet, down to Earth and cool to hang out with. He’s going to be sorely missed.
CRAVEONLINE: Post Ozzfest what are the touring plans for Kingdom?
JAMEY JASTA: Well really I need to go to the South Pacific with Hatebreed. We’ve been putting it off and I really want to go play Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines and all the places that have written us boatloads of mail to come out. We’re lucky that Hatebreed has become this global thing and I really want to work on that.
CRAVEONLINE: So what is going on with Hatebreed?
JAMEY JASTA: The covers record came out in May of ’09 and then in September we had the album. I almost feel like we’re ready to do another record but I don’t want to drop too much stuff at one time. I have songs and Chris (Beattie) has just recently started sending me more ideas. Right now we’re on Roadrunner throughout the rest of the world but we’re kind of free agents in the states. We had a really good experience with E1 Records so if it became a situation where they were really pumped we could get another record out but I don’t want to push it. I really want to finish this cycle strong.
CRAVEONLINE: How about your label Stillborn Records? Anything new there?
JAMEY JASTA: Ok here’s what’s going on with Stillborn because lots of people have been asking. It’s take kind of a backburner and I don’t want people to think I’ve lost interest in helping smaller bands it’s just difficult when before the record is even pressed it’s available for free on some guys blog. The downloading really hurts the smaller bands and labels so I’ve just had to become picky about what I put out. I’m getting inspired again and things are turning around right now. I’m a DIY label and I want to continue doing artist friendly deals because I know what it’s like to be on a label and not have the right treatment.
I’m going to focus on my roster now, which is small. I have a band called Thy Will Be Done who is really doing well, in fact they’re out right now with Fear Factory. I have a newer band called The World We Knew who are from Long Island and kind of remind of Unearth, Black Dahlia Murder and some of the more modern type of metal bands. World We Knew are so DIY they’ll play anywhere at anytime. They never sit still they just go do it. I also wanted to grab a more traditional hardcore band so I put out a band called Strength For A Reason.
These are the types of bands and people I want to work with. I want to work with people when you leave the meeting or turn off the record you feel better. You can’t manufacture that feeling. The whole downloading thing has made me change my business model and how I do the label. I’ve never really made money off the label or if I have I’ve put it back in. Stillborn really keeps me attached to my roots and what’s going on now in music but it is hard and whether people like it or not it is a business and nobody should do a business for free, you should at least break even or make a little profit.
CRAVEONLINE: When Jamey Jasta decides to retire from music what do you want your legacy to be?
JAMEY JASTA: I just want it to be that I screamed my fucking head off and got it out of my system and it made people feel good.
For more on Jamey Jasta and Kingdom Of Sorrow check out:
www.myspace.com/kingdomofsorrow
