Rob caught up with a very jet lagged Jon Rice from Job For A Cowboy for a short chat before their show supporting Lamb Of God at the Academy in Birmingham to talk about many things such as their current support slot with Lamb Of God and what they have planned for the future.

Thanks for your taking time to do this interview.

First of all can you give us a brief history of the band such as how you came together as a band and came up with the name Job For Cowboy?
The name started off as a bit of a joke, I wasn’t a around when it was tagged, but they had gone through many metal band names, It was originally A Job for a Cowboy, then it stuck, they put out a demo, then an EP, then when I joined the band they had just finished, Genesis, then started touring on that, then we did Ruination in the winter of 2009 and we’ve been touring on that ever since. This is our first European run in support of the record.

Who would you say your main musical influences are?
The band is influenced by id say are, Cannibal Corpse, Decapitated, Opeth, it runs the gammet really, there’s a lot, everyone in the band listens to something different.

You are signed to Metal Blade Records, how have they been treating you?
It’s fantastic, I couldn’t see the band with another label, they have treated us very well, there probably the best metal label out there right now, as shown by the fact, that they still sign bands, and support metal in the way they do.

You released your second studio album ‘Ruination’ back in July 2009 how did you find creating considering it is so different from your debut album mainly for the fact that it isn’t a concept album?
we had a lot more time to make it, we sat down and wrote songs for 6 months straight, that really helped, if you listen to it you can hear a lot of nitpicking, if we didn’t like something, we would fix it or scrap, Johns lyrics are a little different this time around, there more based on destruction of our constitution, and what goes on in the rest of the world, we’ve used a different world topic in every song.

Are you happy with the response ‘Ruination’ has got from both your fans and the press?
Yeah very happy, we haven’t had chance to see how fans will respond over here yet, since it’s our first tour in support of the album in Europe, but in the US, it’s been defiantly overwhelming, journalists have been rating it well as well.

If you had to choose a favourite track from ‘Ruination’ to listen to and to play live what would they be and why?
To listen to, it’s probably the title track, its dirty, writing and playing it live is fun. To play live it would be the first song, it’s a fast, brutal song, all the way through, I really like playing that one, its fun.

The artwork for your releases are pretty outstanding, who comes up with the ideas and final designs?
We Johnny, gives the artistic direction to quite a few artists, then he nitpicks with what they have sent back, and gives general feedback, we went with Brent Elliot White for Ruination, he does the magic the gathering cards, and he hit the nail on the head with the concept, I think terrorizer picked it as one of the album covers of 2009.

You have recently completed a tour of America with Gwar and The Red Chord how was that?
It was riddled with problems, I mean it was a fun tour, considering how fun GWAR are on tour and on stage, it’s odd when you see how they act with other people on tour because there down to earth people. We've been friends with the Red chord for a long time, so it was a gathering of good friends. We had a few bus problems though.

Tonight is your first show supporting Lamb Of God across the UK and mainland Europe, what can we expect from the show?
Hopefully tonight, it’ll be better than we think it will be, I’m sure we’ll do just fine though, it’s a pretty strong set list and give it our all, despite the jetlag at the moment

You are playing over 20 shows on the tour, are there any shows you are looking forward to playing more than others?
All of these UK shows are supposed to be massive, so I’m looking forward to them, we also playing Scandinavia, doing club shows there, and were going to Milan and Rome, places we’ve never been before, so they'll be good too.

Can we expect you to head back to the UK in the summer to play any of the major festivals?
Yes, but nothing confirmed as of yet.

Where would you like to see Job For A Cowboy in a years time?
Probably still touring on this album but coming close to the end of touring on it, were still pretty fresh and still be positive about it all at the end of the tour cycle, I’m sure we will be.

Thanks for your time do you have a message for your fans reading this?
Download the album, buy the album, we don’t give a shit just get the album, and come out to the show and have a drink with us and have a good time.

Interview By Robert Lawrence