Intervju - Zac Hutton, My Uncle The Wolf My Uncle The Wolf är ett nytt band från Brooklyn, New York och går i samma skola som exempelvis Down och Crowbar. Likheterna slutar dock inte där utan debutalbumet producerades även av Jimmy Bower, trummis i nyss nämnda Down, och som dessutom har ett förflutet i Kirk Windsteins Crowbar. Det självbetitlade albumet är en härlig uppvisning i snyggt riffande med en hel del tung blues i botten. Dessutom är det kanske ingen tillfällighet att sångaren Zac Hutton tidigare spelade i diverse Pantera-influerade band i Brooklyntrakten. Vi tycker att debuten är så pass intressant och svängig att lite frågor kunde vara på sin plats. Vi ringde upp en smått sömnig och krasslig Zac, som dock var en hyvens kille och svarade på de frågor vi hade, trots att det ibland lät som att han skulle hosta sönder en lunga. How are you doing Zac? Zac Hutton: Hey! Well, I´ve been under the weather the past week so I haven´t been feeling too good. Ok, too bad. Do you want to reschedule? ZH: No man, that´s ok. Let´s dig in then! Why don´t you introduce the band! ZH: Basically we´re a four piece out of Brooklyn called My Uncle The Wolf. We play dark, heavy rock and roll and we just released our first album through Cargo Records and last week it came out in Germany and actually it hit stores in all of the UK yesterday. Who´s in the band now, because I understand that you had a different bass player before? ZH: Yeah, we had a guy who started out with us and he quit the band a couple of months before we decided to go down to Lousiana to record. He left and I´d say... I don´t even know how long it took, but a few months after that we started putting up ads and telling people we were looking for somebody new and we got a lot of different responses, but we got the guy we have now, his name is Jeff. He brings more of a proffessional attitude to the band and he´s a really, really solid bass player and has become one of my best friends. When did the band get together? When did it all start? ZH: It started in... probably 2005. Me and George the guitar player played in bands and we got really sick of the metal stuff we were playing. We just decided to play what we wanted to hear som we got together in my house because I was living alone and we just spent a lot of time there coming up with riffs and smoking cigarettes. Some good times. Who came up with the name of the band and is there a story behind it? ZH: The name actually came from my uncle who was actually called Wolf. He passed away recently. Also, it kind of came together by accident. This guy Travis who´s a close friend helped out. A couple of ideas were thrown out and Travis helped in some ways. How did you hook up with Jimmy Bower? ZH: A friend of mine introduced us and we just hit it off right away. We discovered that we had the same taste in music and were into a lot of the same bands. We got together and talked ans smoked a joint. Then I´ve been going down to New Orleans a lot of times and I´ve stayed at his house and everytime his been here he´s stayed at my house. Does he have his own studio in New Orleans? ZH: No he doesn´t but he knows the guy who owns the studio. It´s the Balance Studio outside of New Orleans. Well, he knows him and we got us a good price there and we paid out of our own pockets because we didn´t have a record deal then. Superjoint Ritual recorded their album there and Mudvayne did their latest one which is coming out... I don´t really know what´s up with that, but the same day we came there it was their last day there. I think Evanescence been there and I believe Slipknot is there now. Did the surroundings bring anything to the songwriting or was it all written before you went down there? ZH: Good question! Most of the songs were written prior to us going down there. Some of them were actually a few years old already and then some others were written just a week before we went there. Not all of the lyrics were done and I really wanted to sit down outside and catch the vibe there. Actually the last song on the album, "Lift the storm" was written there. 5 minutes after the lyrics were done I was in the studio singing it and that song really means a lot to me. What did Jimmy bring to the album? ZH: A lot, in ways to really push me as a singer, more than anyone before, since I got into singing and into music. Then he came with ideas and opinions on what we could do. He played bass on the album too. We had decided that we were gonnatake turns on bass, but then he said that he could do it and we took it from there. He really played a big part.in the album. He wrote som cool bass lines and came up with better arrangements on some songs. "Double barrel blues" is one of those songs and he really liked it. Where actually gonna be shooting a video for that one, so that´ll be cool. Right! How´s New Orleans these days? Are things getting better? ZH: I was actually there shortly after the hurricane struck and I was warned to go down there because of the way it was and the pollution and so on. But I think that it´s really getting better. I mean there are things that will never be the same and things that are lost. Old things that won´t come back, but overall it´s moving in the right direction. As a new and up and coming band, do you expect to sell a lot of records, considering the way things are these days? ZH: Yeah, it´s sad. We don´t really expect to sell a lot of records. Just last night a couple of us were hanging out and we found on the Internet how people were downloading the album and we think that´s a good thing. Hopefully those people downloading it will be the ones coming to the shows. We´re not gonna make a lot of money of off album sales, that´s just the way it is. It´s about selling your merchandise and playing a lot of shows. The live show and the studio work, for us, are two completely different things. A lot of the songs on the album, we´ll play those songs live and jam on them for like nine or ten minutes sometimes. The whole live thing, you know, we try to separate that from the studio and make it interesting. The way things are going with the record industry and pretty soon I think... you know, the cd´s are way too expensive now and it makes no sense to me. You´re just wondering when this industry is gonna get its head out of its own ass. You know, we don´t even have a contract in America right now. We signed this European contract because it was a very fair deal and Cargo Records, they were really fair with us and they´re cool guys and they let us do basically what ever we wanted. We actually had never heard of Cargo until they contacted us. They never go "Hey, do this!". They always make suggestions to us. It´s sad (ie: the record industry) but this is the world we exist in now and we just have to make the best out of it for us. Who came up with the art work for the album? It looks great! It really stands out and makes you look twice. ZH: Actually our drummer, it´s all hand drawn by him. A lot of it was hand drawn and put through a computer. All that stuff started out on a piece of paper. Everything on that album is all hand drawn. He´s a graphic designer. The king´s in the booklet and we decided to have it on the cover. That was an important thing with Cargo Records. "If you want to sig nus and put out our album, then le tus do our own art work!". It´s just as important as the music is to us. The booklets and stuff like that. When I was younger and really getting into music, going to the store and buying albums and looking through the booklet while you were listening to the cd was like a ritual. I think that little kid thing in us, we wnated to that with this art work and I think he did a great job with it. Most definitely! I was kind of wondering what you were up to before this band? Were you in a lot of different bands? ZH: I´m 27 years old and I´ve been playing in bands since I was, I guess 18 or 19. I was in like, ah shit... I was in a lot of heavy bands. A lot of Pantera influenced stuff and hardcore bands. A lot of things. I mostly was singing in a lot of bands. We all tried different projects. I´m about to do a couple of guest spots on some other bands cd´s, a couple of vocal tracks. At this point we´re really focusing on this band. There´s a pretty cool side projects that I´m working on that if all goes right, Cargo will put out. I think people will be really impressed with what kind of thing it is. Cool! Looking forward to it. Will you be touring the US now or what´s in the near future? ZH: We´re basically waiting to come over to Europe. Alright! ZH: We´ve played a bunch... We haven´t toured the US yet. We´ve played around the US in different parts of the country. We haven´t done a real tour yet. It´s kind of like... Jimmy gave me some really good advice. If you want to slave it out on the road you go on tour in the US right now. If you go to Europe first, you´ll be better recieved. Europe is, honestly at this point, a lot more important to us. To me it´s like, European music fans and journalists, you guys can really see through a lot of bullshit with bands and to win the respect of the European population when it comes to this type of music, is one of the goals we have. I think right now we´re doing a pretty good job at it, but the next part over is that now we have to go to tour over there and prove to them that we are a live band. We´re waiting for the dates. We haven´t got any dates. We´ve got a couple of venues they´ve been talking about, places in Europé, but nothing is set in stone just yet. I hope within the next month or two, we can go. Yeah, I´d love to see you guys here in Stockholm. Have you written anything for the next album already? ZH: Oh yeah. We´ve got some 22 songs so far. You´ve got to realise that the album was recorded last year. We´ve been sitting on our asses. We played a few shows here and there, but as soon as we got home... I´d say two weeks after recording we started writing new songs already. Now we´re pretty much planned out in what´s coming out next. We´ve pretty much written all the songs for it. We have a lot more songs and a lot more tricks up our sleeves. People that are fans of the band right now or that are getting into us, I think they´re gonna be a little surprised by what´s coming out right after. It´s gonna have the My Uncle The Wolf sound to it, but it´s gonna be a different extension of it. We´ll see who likes it. Some people might hate it, but I think it´s gonna open the door even wider for us. Well, it´s been great talking to you Zac and I´m gonna do my best in hyping up the band over here. I really hope we get to see you guys here real soon. ZH: Yeah it would be awesome! I wish you all the best with the album and forthcoming tourdates! ZH: Thank you so much!
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