Interview with Mark Hunter, Vocalist with US Tech Metallers Chimaira @ Rock City, 6th March 2010.

Been a fan since your inaugural release, 2001’s ‘Pass Out Of Existence’ and you guys have recently celebrated your tenth anniversary show with an upcoming DVD release…

Oh man, are we gonna start this off with you calling me old? (laughs)

Well not intentionally, but did you guys think that after your first record, your careers would still be going strong after 10 years?

In the beginning the focus wasn’t so much on thinking like that, more where do we want to go, and what kind of places we wanted to take the band? We were on this road, and we didn’t really want to ask how long it was you know, but the next thing we know we are at our 10 year anniversary, and its a humbling experience. But in the same way, it’s like a fresh chapter; an opportunity for new experiences. We spent those years trying to get to this spot, and now we are known all over the world, and have such dedicated fans who love our music, it’s maybe a little scary actually, not sure where to go from here (smiles).

Starting a band, and achieving success is always a great thing. But as you guys have progressed and gone through numerous line-up changes; you’ve had members get married and start families; has there been a big mindset change knowing that this band isn’t just what you guys do, but also the thing that both yourselves and others livelihoods depend on?

Yeah, we’re still in the throws of all that, got a couple more weddings coming up to, and Matt [DeVries, Guitar] just had a kid too. Back in the day we’d wear a Slayer shirt or something and talk about shit, and then the other day me and Rob [Arnold, Guitars] we’re like talking about recipes and stuff like that… We are all a very big family now, it’s been a life progression, and one we are all still very much enjoying… I don’t know if that’s what you asked…(laughs)

Are their any added pressures in the writing process knowing you need to keep up a good level of success?

Well, the first album, when we lost Jason our first guitarist, it wasn’t a huge blow, we didn’t, at that time have what I felt was a core writer in the band, and now I feel that we do with myself and Rob. We now know what we want and what we want an idea to sound like, and whilst we have lost and gained members of the band, we’ve always had us two to keep it constant. And yeah, we develop with the addition of new people, but we are still unmistakeably Chimaira. Considering the more constant line-up we have had recently, any loss would probably be devastating, but I guess it seemed like that in the beginning, and to be honest with anyone, including crew, who’ve parted ways with over the years, but for this to keep going… Well it’s the thing that we love and that we’ve put the most into, so no-one is going to let it go to easy. Matt was a great addition to the band, he has a lot more of hardcore background that we [Mark and Rob] didn’t really have. The darkest time for me I think was when we lost Andols [Herrick, drums], when he was replaced with Kevin, then Ricky. I didn’t care to work with them, they where great drummers, just a little to many personality clashes. When he came back, it was great, and we’ve had a much more constant line-up for a long time now.

I met Rob Arnold back in 2003, and he said that it would it be great, one day, to be considered up in the ranks of say Pantera or Metallica, do you still maybe fancy that?

Well, I guess now we wouldn’t want that. It’s different times now. I see a lot of parallels with the metal world that we grew up in. It’s truthful, but weird to say that we are considered one of the bigger metal acts out there, it’s bad because I feel almost egotistical saying that, but that in itself is pretty fucking awesome, obviously not on the same kind of scale that say. Had we been around in the 90s we may have been able to be at the highest level; metal was a lot more truer and maybe even popular than it is now, in this whole digital era anyway. To be considered like that is still a huge honour, but not quite the realms of Pantera…(laughs)

You guys have managed to survive through many changes in styles, and indeed where as other artists who were big back in the early 00s but have waned in popularity and had to play smaller and smaller venues. You guys have always managed to stay constant…

With them the pressure we have to keep that up is what keeps us writing music that we love and hopefully in turn the fans love, we can only ever be who we are. Some of our records will always strike better with certain people than others, but that’s the music industry, you can never please everyone. All we do is take the same approach with each record, and that is to try and outdo ourselves, and to better what we had. When we made ‘The Infection’ [2009, Nuclear Blast] we where just trying to make an album that was better than ‘Resurrection’ [2007, Ferret]. Me personally, I’m never happy anyway, I always think that everything new we do is better, because I love playing new, fresh material. It’s like a relationship, when things change you look back and ask what went wrong and how to fix it, and that idea gives me new ideas and things to work on.