Forget Metallica, Every Time I Die Were the Best Metal Band of 2016

It’s tough out there for a metalcore band. You’re the brand of heavy music the Pitchfork/NPR/Stereogum set like to ignore (i.e. not Deafheaven), and you routinely get associated with Monster Energy drinks, doughy physiques, and other general bro-isms. To be fair, this is mostly accurate. But Every Time I Die, who unfortunately get clumped in with the subgenre, are the exception. Consider them the thinking man’s metalcore band, for people who own many leather-bound books and whose apartments smell of rich mahogany (and, fine, maybe a hint of bong water).

The kernel of the Buffalo five-piece’s sound isn’t just the music — beastly, menacing riffs with some swagger to them, drastic switches in rhythm on a dime — but the words, too. Frontman Keith Buckley has been refining his lyric-writing chops for last 18 years; he picks a general concept for a song, then expounds on it with various wisecracks, bastardized idioms, questions, accusations, taunts, and puns, often transplanted from one context to another, and screamed with the urgency of an armed robber, mid-heist. More proof he’s not a bro: he’s a published author (his debut novel, Scale, came out last year) and a former high school English teacher.

That career change is finally starting to pay off (said maybe no one ever, before today, about a metalcore singer). This year, Every Time I Die boldly went where none of their tribal tatted contemporaries have gone before (in 2016, at least): the top of the Billboard charts. Low Teens, their eighth LP, debuted at No.1 on the Hard Rock Albums chart and No.2 on Top Rock Albums. And ironically, they did it without doing what they’re best known for: being ironic. Inspired by a freak snafu — last winter, Buckley’s wife encountered a rare and life-threatening complication while carrying their first child — it’s the band at its most visceral, featuring lyrics that trade in the familiar caustic wit for bare-faced, powerful ruminations; on life, death, love, and the cruel chaos of it all. This is Grown Man shit. And it’s infinitely more thought provoking, not to mention exciting, than the nostalgic dad metal or bloated sludge-noise-hip-hop-electro-core populating most critics’ year-end heavy music lists. So, full disclosure: this record’s going on mine. Because headbanging and chin-stroking need not be mutually exclusive activities.

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SHARP: So I hear you’ve been touring sober for the first time. How’s that been?

KEITH BUCKLEY: It was kind of really fucking boring. Yeah. I played the Warped Tour sober this summer and it was not fun at all. Like, at all. I’m not even going to pretend it was a great experience. It was really, really boring and lonely. Everyone’s drinking, and when you’re sober… it’s not impossible to be social, but it takes an extraordinary amount of effort and energy. It’s not something that comes naturally to someone who’s been drinking as long as I have. So you have to go out, and you really, really, really have to relearn how to walk as far as having conversations and things like that. And I did that at first. I would go down and hang out with a bunch of people drinking and the conversations would repeat themselves, and I was just like, “I don’t have the energy for this.” I’m not saying that drunk people are redundant or are boring, because they’re not. It’s just me, personally, I couldn’t muster up enough energy to keep doing that without alcohol. It’s crazy to see how unequipped I am to have normal conversations without it. It’s really kind of depressing, but…oh well.

So…you’ve given up on sobriety?

Oh yeah. I can’t do it. It’s not for me. I didn’t find myself any more clearheaded. I didn’t feel that I was gaining back a part of me that I had lost. You know, like, “Oh my gosh! I forgot that I used to enjoy doing all this stuff!” No. I could still do all that stuff, it’s just more fun when you’re drunk. I mean, honestly. And this does not apply to everybody but it certainly applies to me. So, yeah. Sobriety definitely isn’t for me.

Well, what made you initially quit?

It’s just that when [my daughter] Zuzana was born, I just couldn’t be drunk at all. Because she was in the hospital and I didn’t know if there was going to be a phone call at any minute, saying that I was needed there. So I just had to stay sober, and that was for a month or two. Then I was like, “Oh, alright. I might as well keep going, see how far I can go,” and eventually I got to the Warped Tour, and…that was it. Also, I always feel like if I do something really good, then I can do something bad. So I stopped drinking, but then I just started eating like shit. I just need moderation. I don’t need all these extremes all the time.

Speaking of which, Low Teens is extreeemest, dude! Although, that title sounds a little…pubescent.

Ha, thanks. Yeah, we were aware of that. But it was just a reference to the temperature at the time [we wrote the record]. Obviously we know it’s going to take on other meanings, so… yeah. It kind of felt like the music we wrote was inspired by the stuff we listened to when we were younger. Some of the sounds on the record just reminded us of why we were getting into music in the first placeYeah. If you’re a depressed teenager, I definitely think we’re the band for you.

That was last winter, right? You had a book launch in Toronto, which I bought tickets for, but it was cancelled last minute because of a family emergency…

Yes. I felt really bad because there was absolutely no option that night. So yeah, sorry about that. My wife had to have our baby extracted because she was suffering from some severe blood poisoning. It’s called HELLP syndrome. It’s like this preeclampsia. It’s amazing that women have to endure this. That it’s even a possibility when giving birth. A lot of the time it is fatal. We didn’t realize that until later, but it was a really, really heavy emergency, so I had to get back there. Yeah, the night my book came out my daughter was born. It was a very strange night, because it wasn’t under good circumstances, so I should have been overjoyed but I was just in hell and continued to stay there for the next two months or so. Had to write a record in the process. So I feel like the record came out as a real-time account of everything that was going on. ‘Cause it wasn’t over yet. I didn’t get to look back on that and then write about it. It was happening while I was writing.

And the lyrics seem very, very literal.

Yeah. I didn’t really have time to fuck around with too much wordplay on this one. I was going through so much. I kind of had to use it for some sort of good, if there was any good to come out of everything that had happened. Obviously, the health of my child and my wife are stable, they’re fully recovered. But then you think, Well, if that’s the case, if everything’s going to go back to normal, then why did it happen in the first place? If everything before and after are the same, then what is the purpose of it during? So I guess maybe the record is all that insight I got about what was going on and what I learned about myself and my family and other people. The first question you ask yourself in times like that is “What can I learn from this?” So the whole record is just kind of digging for some meaning in it all.

What would you say you learned from it?

Oh, a lot. I learned about my relationships with other people, which I don’t really want to get into, but there are a lot of people you count on who end up actually being a complete letdown, and people you never realized were so close to you, who then save your life. So a lot of my relationships have changed since then. But also, I guess, the overall lesson I learned was you really can affect your world with the power of positive thought. And I know it sounds really cult-ish, but there was just so much you had to focus on that you couldn’t have any time to be negative. You just sit there and you envision the healthy baby and you try to make it as clear a picture as possible, and that’s all you do. You just don’t think of anything but them recovering and getting strong. Then they do. Then you think maybe you had something to do with it, just by being there and sitting in that room, you know? Then you realize the effect other people can have on you by being around you, and how everyone is so important to each other in growth and health. Yeah, it doesn’t really benefit anybody to be so negative all the time. There is so much good to be taken out of so much bad. I think it’s really important that people realize how powerful they are.

You mean, the power of their energy.

Yeah. There’s a currency of energy that gets exchanged between people who are connected, especially by a bond — a familial bond, a strong friendship bond. I don’t think that’s anything to be overlooked. I think it’s a very powerful force. I think we’re capable of directing it if we wanted to. And I know that for those two months, when my family was in the hospital, I was doing a lot of it. I don’t know. I think it had a very subconscious effect on the condition of the child that was, you know, born two months too soon. I’m not saying it’s the full reason they’re where they are and where we are, but everyone sort of came together — there was a lot of love and positivity that I experienced online, from strangers, and through friends. It was very much a George Bailey at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life moment where the whole town comes together. It was very beautiful.

That’s awesome. It sounds like you’ve become somewhat of a spiritual person lately.

Yeah, you can’t really deny things like that when you’re put into that kind of situation. There’s something beyond you that is… not in charge — I definitely don’t think there’s some ultimate being in charge. I just think there’s a consciousness that’s underlying everything and there’s a way to get into that, that I am only just beginning to experience. But, yeah, I mean there’s nothing that I could have done; I don’t have any medical training. Even the doctors didn’t know what was going on. So you have no outlet in science, and you go, “Well, I guess this is kind of just up to the universe, then.” You just hope and you pray, you have these little interior monologues. Then things work out and you go, “Okay. Maybe it was something more.”

Well, I know you’ve started meditating. And so does Ray Goldman, the main character in your book Scale. Although it doesn’t quite work out so well for him.

No, it doesn’t for him. Not at all. He’s an idiot. He’s a self-serving narcissist, so it’s not going to work out for him. There are too many walls built up for him.

Well, how much of Ray is based on…you?

A lot of it’s based on a very young me, you know, like a 20-year-old me. Seventy-five percent. But the story is based on composites of people I’ve met on the road and at home and grew up with. It was fun to try to piece a bunch of my life together and see how I can tie it into a narrative that actually was entertaining and had purpose, you know?

I read you were initially an English teacher.

I was, yeah. It wasn’t full time. I wasn’t on the payroll. But in order to get my masters I had to teach high school classes. It was not for me, so when we started touring full time that took precedence. High school is really just babysitting. I wasn’t interested in that. But there was some juggling at first. There were some days that I had to rush back Monday morning for a class after a weekend where we’d done shows. So Friday evening, after class I’d get right in the van and we’d go play, like, Erie, Pennsylvania or Syracuse or something. Then I’d come back after the show on Sunday night and go to class on Monday.

That’s hardcore.

It was exactly that. It was hardcore.

Was your intial life goal to be an author?

Yeah, I’ve always wanted to be an author. I like the idea of being able to be creative without ever having to be a celebrity, you know? I don’t even know what 95 per cent of my favourite authors look like. That always appealed to me. I always knew that I wanted to write, and I have no interest in being a recognizable person. I don’t know if that’s working out. The point is that I like the idea that I could kind of just strictly write without having to have this ‘presence.’ You know? So, yeah. I guess being in a band kind of betrayed that, but…it’s still good!

Who are some of your greatest literary influences?

Growing up, I was really big on the Beat Generation; Kerouac and Ginsberg. But studying at the University at Buffalo, I was an English, British literature major. So a lot of Shakespeare, a lot of Chaucer. I never really liked Chaucer. Shakespeare is kind of like…everyone likes Shakespeare, you know? He’s like the Michael Jordan of literature. Nobody doesn’t like Shakespeare. But once I found my own stuff: Herman Hesse, I love; Murakami, a Japanese author who I love; Borges, an Argentinian author. So, yeah! Those are a few.

Going back to this idea of positive energy impacting other people, there’s a passage in your book where you write something like: “Soon everyone hears your beautiful voice. Everyone hears your beautiful voice and welcomes it into their own heart, and it spreads like a sick light.” So, when writing lyrics are you conscious, or even concerned, about the effect your words can have on listeners?

I’m afraid I never was before. Ever. I suppose I just kind of wanted people to be impressed by them. But now I think I’m more aware of connecting with people. Considering this band is so old, I’m very surprised that it took me that long to learn what connecting with people was about. I was never really good at conversing with other human beings. It just wasn’t a big part of my upbringing, or wasn’t really ever encouraged in my upbringing. So trying to connect with people was a very different thing; it was always very performative, and always very stand-offish. Like, “Okay. This is my thing. You guys can watch it if you want to, but I’m just going to do this.” And very recently, I wanted to try to connect with other people.

Right, and I’ve noticed the lyrics this time around are a lot less sardonic. They’re kind of straight from the heart.

Yeah. I know that we’re not the kind of band that’s going to write, like, a hit album that’s going to be a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame submission. Our albums are kind of just moments in time, and this was just a very strange moment of time. I just try to capture it as honestly as possible. So yeah, it’s lacking the humour and wit of other ones. That’s just ‘cause I wasn’t feeling funny or witty at the time.

Not to nerd out too much here, but another line from your book that jumped out at me was: “A dead-end isn’t as hopeless as something that goes on forever.” Can you unpack that for me? Every Time I Die’s been a band for, like, 20 years. Were you referencing that?

No, no, no. Not necessarily. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, 18 years isn’t really all that long. It’s long for a hardcore band, but considering how long we’re going to be alive and considering how long most people are going to be at their jobs and their marriages, 18 years is the blink of an eye. It’s just the idea that when something dead-ends, at least it’s a very understandable, incontestable, firm end. And then you say, “Okay. I need something new. Now I have to find a different way.” But I just think being led for so long by uncertainty is really, really hopeless. I also think that, you know, once you get the lesson out of something, I feel like it goes, “Okay.” Then it disappears and then there’s something else to get a lesson from. So I feel that the longer things go, it’s just a sign you haven’t really gotten out of it what you’re supposed to yet. I think that was Ray’s whole struggle, the reason why everything keeps happening to him is because he hasn’t learned a thing yet. He hasn’t learned a single thing. So he’s on an endless road.

So, for the record, you’re not going to switch careers and become a full-time author anytime soon?

Oh no, I would love to be a full time author, but that’s the thing — I could be a full-time author while touring, too. I wrote that book while touring, you know? It was written over four years of touring. I can very easily do it. Just have got to get the right idea.

You guys probably tour more than any other band I know of. Which I’m grateful for, by the way.

Yeah. We do. At this point that’s just the gold standard for us. We couldn’t take a break and know what to do with ourselves. It’s just how we are, you know?

And it doesn’t wear you down at all?

Uh, it does in the sense that everything wears down. But you go home, you recharge your batteries, and you get back out there. It’s not impossible. A lot of people complain about how hard it is to be on the road and not shower too long and not eat well, but that’s the life you chose. It’s not life’s fault. It’s not doing it to you. You chose that. So I’m not complaining.

You willed this into existence!

Yeah, exactly! You, at some point in your life, thought, Wouldn’t it be great to go out on the road? And then you did it and so that’s what the universe gave you. Now you go on about it. Don’t curse the universe. It’s not the universe’s fault.