We caught up with Aaron and John from Success Will Write Apcolypse Across The Sky for a chat about how the band got together, gathered their name, how their current tour is going and much more.

You guys have been together since 2006, how did you form as a band.
(Aaron) How it pretty much started is that I had another band called the Bodies In The Gear of The Apparatus, we had just come back from touring our last CD. We were in the process of writing our full length album and the band broke up, two members decided to move back home to go to school. It was down to me and the new guitar player at the time, Ian who is our other guitar player now to start a new band. We started writing music and contacting people, I started posting bulletins looking for a real brutal singer and that's when John contacted me.

(John) I was not really happy with what was going on with my band at the time, I had played shows with Aaron before and I knew what he was all about, that we were looking to do the same thing. I hit him up and that was pretty much it, I went to check out some of the material they had been writing and I was pretty stoked about it.

(Aaron) In the January of that year we went into the studio and we tracked our first demo, we put it up on line and got five offers from different labels and we went with Debello Recordings and we thought we would go back into record but the guy was like no, the guy said we are putting this out its awesome.

When did you start playing music and what made you pick up your first instrument?
(Aaron) I started to play instruments when I was twelve and I think what really made me is that all my family were musicians. I come from a real kinda southern family where on Sundays they'd get together with bangos, guitars and they'd all sing. I have an uncle who is a steel guitar player, he was the steel guitar player for Dolly Parton. When I was a kid we visited him and he took us to a place called Dolly Wood which was Dolly Partons theme park, the treatment the guy got there was like he was a rock star because he was Dolly Partons guy. I watched the guy walk through doors and shake peoples hands, I was like man I want to be that. By the time I had enough money and could keep it together long enough I went and bought a guitar and a little shitty amp. I started playing then started a band a month after that, I guess I just really wanted to be like my uncle.

(John) Its pretty much the same for me, my father is one of seven kids and four or five of them play instruments so I was around that a lot. I can remember as far back as being four years old listening to Michael Jackson and running around my house in underwear trying to sing, trying to be a show man or whatever. My parents would notice that I could actually keep in time with it and keep the rhythm. I never really thought much of it until the age of fourteen when I decided yeah maybe I am going to try and sing in a band one day, many years later, many years of vocal abuse I would say because I'm not really singing I'm more growling, I would never call myself a singer in a band. Well here I am.

Who or what would you say have been your main influences throughout the years?
(Aaron) I was a big fan of all the mid nineties Relapse stuff but initially as a kid I grow up listening to all the great thrash metal bands from the eighties like King Diamond, Metallica, Anthrax and as I got older I got more into punk rock and grid core. For me I can not say that one band truly influences me, pretty much all the band I grew up with.

(John) For me it was being young and listening to a lot of soul music, RnB and a lot of funk, its just what I grew up listening to. Around the high school years, I heard about this band called Cannibal Corpse and I was like wow that's really angry and its really well put together, that's me I'm angry like that too I want to do that. I went from pop music to the most underground death metal ever over night.

I understand you have just released your debut album (The Grand Partition and The Abrogation of Idolatry) and have worked with some amazing people to create this record, how was the recording process and what can we expect from this record?
(John) Anger, rage lyrical we took a lot of time and just the whole album in general, we took a lot of time to make sure we got our point across of what we were trying to say. Its not one of these record where you put it in and its just break down after break down, we really tried to articulate what we are doing within ourselves with our music.

(Aaron) Also I think too, when we set out to write the record we made a conscious decision to write songs not pieces. We want to make hooks and courses and really make it worth the listener to listen to it. I think there are too many death metal, grind core and hard core bands that write these musical pieces that don't have a begin middle or an end and don't have a point or a pay off. We think these songs are like the great cycle, like the Beatles you listen to it there is a point to it, there is a pay off, there is a hook, there is a climax there is a up and down and that is what we try to put into everyone of our songs. We did not put any filler on this, everything we put on this record is meant to be there , to us they are songs and not pieces.

(John) The process itself was incredible, we got to work with an incredible engineer and producer James Murphy.

(Aaron) His great he really worked with the band not just recorded us and slapped us on the back and took all our money. We would spend hours on the phone with this guy, I would go and sit down by the lake with the guy for three or four hours, he really captured us and made us sound like what we wanted to in our heads. We did not want this record to sound like the new version of recording, where everything sounds the same and its too digital. We wanted the record to sound like the kind of record you grew up listening to.

How did you come up with the title The Grand Partition and The Abrogation of Idolatry and could you give us a break down of the tracks and your favourites?
(John) I don't know If I can enlighten everyone on the title as much as our other guitar player, as he is the one that really came up with it.

(Aaron) I'm responsible for the ridiculously long band name and he is responsible for the ridiculously long album name.

How did you come up with the band name?
(Aaron) We did not just make it up, its actually a sentence taken from a short story written by William Burroughs.

(John) Its to do with art jumping off it canvas and taking on a living life form and then taking over the world.

(Aaron) I originally saw it when I had an old magazine, I think it was called scratch magazine or something, I found in some used record shop in south Philly. In the magazine there was a whole article on William Burroughs, in his house literally written on his walls really big was Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky. I thought that could mean so many different things to so many people. The first time I saw it, I though wow your right the bigger you build shit up, the higher you build it the further its going to come crashing down to the bottom
The album title?
(John) The Grand Partition is the wall that each one of us as individuals have put up in front of ourselves, to limit ourselves. The Abrogation of Idolatry is the destruction of that wall, the destruction of these idols that we hold higher than ourselves. The have to be destroyed, these hero's on TV that people have grown to accept these figures as real things, its not real!

I have to say you have some really sick cover art going on, on both the new album and the EP Subhuman Empire who has designed the art work and did you have much input?
(Aaron) The EP was done by a friend of ours in the States called Mario who did a killer job. The new album is done by Colin Marks, his from London and he has done a great lot of cover work. We are sill blown away by it, he really captured what we wanted. We really wanted to make it a esoteric piece of art.

You have been on tour with Bleeding Through, Darkest Hour and more as part of the Crash and Burn tour for the last month. How have the shows been going and if you had to pick one show as being the highlight of the tour which one would it be?
(Aaron) Pinarella Italy

(John) So weird, so incredible. For an opening act on such a high profiled tour like this, we have no complaints. Its been awesome, we are on a damn tour bus for gods sake! We never expected to have that.

(Aaron) We get sandwiches and yoghurt in the morning and beer, its not like that in the statues. Its weird coming over here as nobody has heard us and we are a little bit different to the other bands. We are not on a death metal package, we get a lot of blank stairs when we play then they come at the end of the night and buy our merchandise. So they like us

You are one out of seven bands on this tour, are you fans of any of the other bands and have you made any new touring buddy's?
(John) I have been listening to Darkest Hour since 1999 so its awesome for me. I am a really big fan of At The Gates so when I heard an American band at the time doing a similar thing, I was like this is awesome ever since then I have been a fan. Beneath the Massacre every night are blowing me away, they are fucking awesome. I can not really say that we have specific touring buddy's I think it would have to be the whole tour. Every night from start to finish we help each other out, there are no rock stars on this tour.

(Aaron) There are only three dudes that work for the tour, everybody else that is loading and unloading are bands guys. We all work together, everyone is great.

How would you describe your live show and what is your favourite song to play live?
(John) The live show, angry, frustrated, fast, sad and sweaty. Favourite song I would say right now is Despot, I think its really really aggressive and brutal all the way through and that is how I like it.

(Aaron) Actually one of my favourite songs to play we don't have time to play on this tour, its A Path. Its an oldie but a goodie and its my favourite song to play live.

Do you have any funny tour stories you would like to share?
(John) Honestly every story on Trash and Burn is funny, there is no individual story. Its a party, we are all getting along and having a blast. I will tell you this one though, in Spain Lonestar from Darkest Hour he takes out his acoustic guitar and there is a sea of kids from like five to ten years old surrounding this guy. Seriously there had to be twenty five to thirty five kids surrounding him while he was strumming his guitar, screaming at him.

(Aaron) Singing Beatles songs with them. Then they go inside for the sound check and all the kids pull up seats. They were all screaming and giving metal horns. It was classic.

If you could be in any other band past or present for a day, who would it be and why?
(Aaron) I would be in Elvis Presley's last touring line up, when they did all the gospel blue brass stuff and I would play bass.

(John) I'm right where I want to be, I can not picture myself in any other role. Ok then I will be Elvis Presley's drummer next to Aaron

What will you guys be doing after finishing this tour?
(John) Touring again, we are going right back on the road in like three weeks. Then we have some amazing stuff coming up at the end of the year that we can not talk about yet, it might involve being back here that is all I will say.

Okay, one final random question; if you had a choice, what animal would you be out of a Zebra and a Giraffe?
(Aaron) I would say giraffe.

(John) Me too, I would love to tower over everything else.

(Aaron) You could see shit coming a mile away and you can still run really fast.

(John) You could also crap on anybody.

Thanks for your time, is there a message you would like to give to your fans reading this?
(John) Wake up, open your eyes you have been lied to.

(Aaron) Stop watching our news its full of shit. Stop aborting American culture, English culture is great stop becoming us. To the men women's pants don't look good on you, don't do it!

(John) We love you.

Interview By Ellie