INTO ETERNITY – Interview with Guitarist Tim Roth

Canada's main musical export is prog rock. The highly talented Rush should be credited for making this style of rock so highly popular in their country. Many of today's bands hailing from the northern timberlands and vast prairies have incorporated the essence of progressive rock into a much more aggressive form of music, death metal. Of this type, one band stands above all their compatriots, and possibly the world, INTO ETERNITY. Finding the perfect ratio of melody, aggression, hooks, and technical proficiency, INTO ETERNITY has managed to find themselves on the road with some of the biggest names in metal: DESTRUCTION, MEGADETH, THE HAUNTED, DARK TRANQUILITY, and most recently, DREAM THEATER. During their recent stop at Austin, Texas on tour with REDEMPTION and DREAM THEATER, Metal Centre spoke with band founder and guitarist Tim Roth.

DREAM THEATER has been a big influence on your sound, how does it feel to tour with this band?

Touring with DREAM THEATER is a dream come true! When we formed the band in ’96, DREAM THEATER was one of the bands that we used to mold ourselves, not necessarily their sound, but the high vocals, the clean vocals, and all the instrumental passages. We got all that from DREAM THEATER. I didn’t even know how to write an off-time-signature riff until I heard DREAM THEATER do it. They were one of the bands we took our influence from. It was NEVERMORE, DEATH, and DREAM THEATER.

When I first discovered INTO ETERNITY, two bands I felt that influenced your sound were DREAM THEATER and DARK TRANQUILITY. MEGADETH is another band that I feel has made an impact on your sound. Considering you guys have toured with some of the bands that you greatly admire what other bands would you love to tour with?

My dream as always been, even when we first started the band, my dream has been to tour with DREAM THEATER—I never thought it would happen—MEGADETH, IRON MAIDEN, and PRIEST. We played with PRIEST on a festival in Italy, so that was amazing. MEGADETH we toured with and with DREAM THEATER, now. So I guess IRON MAIDEN would be the next one. I would have also liked to have toured with a band called DEATH, but of course, Chuck has passed on. So, I guess it would be MAIDEN right now. DRAGONFORCE, too, I wouldn’t mind touring with. They’re a more underground band.

How has touring with major headliners like the above helped increase your fan base?

We expect to pull in a few more people every night. Of course, we aren’t going to have full length shows, full PA. Tonight we couldn’t even use our back drops, it was too windy. So, the limited time that we have we try to play as hard as we can, and hope to win over some of the crowd. On MySpace, kids are emailing me every single day. Even some people, who say they don’t like death metal, still say they like my band. We are getting these positive emails every single day, so obviously we must be winning a few people over.

Do you think you have a sound that can cross over the styles?

I don’t know. We are maybe a little bit too heavy for some people. We’ll have to do the next album with some pop songs. You never know with our band.

You go out on the road with EDGUY next. Will you comment on this tour?

We booked the EDGUY tour even before this tour came about. That is starting September 11. Then the DREAM THEATER gig came about and we were like, “ah, man. That’s perfect.” So when this one ends, there is ten days until the next one starts. We will be doing back-to-back tours. We will be moving back into to clubs, I think. A lot of our fan base will always be at those club shows. That’s where kids like to kill each other. Our crowd is generally quite aggressive. It’s interesting to watch people sitting down. Not that that’s a bad thing, they’re watching at least.

I want to shift over to some questions about your guitar playing. Your playing is both energetic and technical. How did you develop this style? Who were your teachers?

In my home town, there are no teachers. The one teacher I had was a country guitar teacher. I brought him Chuck Schuldiner’s “Lack of Comprehension.” I wanted to show him this type of soloing thing, Chuck shredding in that song. “Just accept that you’ll never be able to play lead guitar,” he told me. I think he thought I’ll never be able to play like that, like that fast because he couldn’t. So that started me to sit at home and play to all these instructional videos like Yngwie Malmstein and Paul Gilbert. I even have the John Petrucci video. I would try to copy those licks and sit at home and practice. That’s kind of how I got my style. When we started touring, I realized I couldn’t just stand there and play my guitar. I’m going to have to start lifting it up a bit and doing different things. I would have to put a little bit more of a performance. Right now, that’s what I’m working on, to not look at my guitar and just play.

What about Michael Angelo?

Yeah, I’ve got his instructional video tape. He was one of the first guys I saw speed pick. I like Michael Angelo and Michael Romeo from SYMPHONY X, and Jeff Loomis as well.

Who are you five favorite guitar players? Why do you have so much admiration for these musicians?

Easily I would say Chuck Schuldiner from DEATH; James Murphy, who also played with DEATH and OBITUARY, Alex Skolnick from TESTAMENT, John Petrucci from DREAM THEATER, of course, and Yngwie Malmstein. Paul Gilbert would be the sixth and Jeff Loomis (NEVERMORE), as well. I have to limit myself with seven. I can’t have just five. I’d hate to leave out my favorite guys out…The NEVERMORE guys came down to watch our show in Seattle in April. We got absolutely annihilated! Some fan came up to me and gave me $100. He said, “Go buy yourselves some drinks.” I said to Van, “some guy gave us $100, let’s get loaded.” We just got totally loaded. Jeff said nice things about my playing. He’s a good guy. The NEVERMORE guys are top notch.

Watching you guys play and watching Stu sing, it throws me back to SANCTUARY. When he hits those highs, I’m like, “damn, that’s like early Warrel Dane!”

I had both SANCTUARY albums. I was a SANCTUARY fan long before I ever heard NEVERMORE. I love SANCTUARY. I have both of their cassettes. I show it to Stu and he couldn’t believe that was Warrel Dane.

Do you have an endorsement with Madison?

Yeah, I do for a couple of heads and a cabinet. I’m endorsed through Ibanez as well. Madison is a company out of Denver and he builds them all personally. He totally hooked me up. He wanted me to try his amp and I said, “I’m not going to use it, if it’s not going to sound killer.” I plugged it in and I thought, “wow, this has really heavy tones….” Ibanez just started putting out ads for us, for me and Troy, the bass player.

Headbangers Ball has put your video for “Timeless Winter” into their rotation. Tell me about the making of that video.

The very last show of the DESTRUCTION tour in January of this year, the next day we had no sleep, we got up the next day and we did this ridiculous thousand-shot photo shoot. It took hours. We were all exhausted. Then the label took us to the video shoot at five o’ clock. We were there until like two in the morning. Then we slept for three hours, jumped on a plane and were back in Canada. It was insane! We had no sleep and we just head banged as hard as we could in the video. It was shot in L.A. and even though it was winter in L.A., it was still around seventy degrees. So they had to get a snow machine with fake snow and they were blowing snow on us. It looked pretty cool. Videos are the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s like playing a show as hard as you can and head banging for hours straight. It’s like a work out.

You mentioned on your Web site that this video revolves around a concept. Please explain the concept and how it the video relates that concept.

That’s one that our singer, Stu Block wrote. I had all the music written and he said he had some lyrics for it. I think it has something to do with an ex-girlfriend he had. So it’s kind of like that thing. In the video there is a woman who is waiting for a guy to come. He doesn’t make it, so she freezes to death. It has that kind of vibe.

Would you agree the songs writing on “The Scattering of Ashes” compared to “Buried in Oblivion” seems more hook oriented?

Yeah, I tried writing hooks on “Buried in Oblivion,” but the songs were longer. I couldn’t focus on our song writing like I can now. The song writing on “The Scattering…” I wanted every song to be about three minutes. I have a low attention span. Our band, we’re not writing ten-minute songs. I want to write streamlined songs with technical aspects that are still exciting and then have the big, poofy choruses. The next album is going to have more stuff going on. For “Scattering…,” I wanted it to be non-stop.

Will the forthcoming material be as focused on grand hooks?

Yeah, totally. The other night, I had this Kelly Clarkston song on my Ipod and I showed the guys. I said, “forget the song itself. Sure, we know it’s a pop song, but check out this chorus.” The band hated the music, but they recognized the hook. I like the hook, but the problem is that the rest of the song is boring for me. I can’t deal with that. I’d like to have technical metal songs, but still have those simple, catchy choruses.

When you acquired Stu as your vocalist, you added a dimension not found on your first two albums, high pitch vocals. Do you plan on giving greater emphasis to his talent?

Yeah, I would like to use more clean singing than we did on “Scattering…” album. We’ll have more melodies, but still have those, what we call “witch vocals.” The kind of vocals he does on “Timeless Winter.” We want to do a lot more of that kind of stuff. It was kind of a bit rushed for him when we wrote this new album. He didn’t know how the writing was going to be. This next album is going to be better. We’ll definitely be using more of his clean voice.

Can you give our readers any more details concerning your new material?

It’s going to be a concept album that much I can say. I haven’t told anyone that yet, but that will be a concept album. It’s going to have more solos, acoustic stuff, and other things going on, but still a heavy sound. It will be cool. I have about sixty percent of it written already and a lot more in my head. I just have to get home (from tour) and get it out.

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