JH: Give us a brief history of the band.

AR: Well, we basically formed back in 2003, I did a little bit of shred guitar in the past, and I was recording on a four track. Nothing serious, I came home from college and this kid was just slamming the blast beats, and I was like ,Who the hell is doing that?

BR: That’s Bob

AR: Yea is was Bob. I ran down stairs and my little brother was just tearing it up. I was like dude, we’ve gotta form a band. So Elctrikchair was born from basically that day.

JH: And you just turned 13:

BR: Just turned 13. Just last month.

JH: So where you guys from?

AR: We are from Denver , Colorado.

JH: How’s the metal scene there.

AR: The metal scene’s excellent there. A bunch of bands from there are actually playing here tonight. Our buddies from Throcult, ah, Cephalic Carnage, Try Redemption.

BR: And my buddies The Misfits.

AR: Yea The Misfits are coming down.

JH: How would you best describe your sound?

AR: We are, it’s not even finely coined, uh, originally we started out as a thrash metal band. Along the lines of Slayer and Testament.

BR: Then we went to death metal.

AR: Yea, then we went to death metal trip. Then we progressed to what you call progressive black metal now. You know we just change our sound randomly. We go from black metal then we hit to power metal so ….

BR: Even a little bit of hardcore.

AR: Even a little bit of hardcore, we throw some breakdowns in there and it’s just crazy.

JH: What sort of topics inspire your writing?

AR: Basically we try to stay serious. We used to do fantasy stuff. You know real cheesy power metal stuff, like Dungeons and Dragons stuff. But now we moved on to more serious stuff like the AIDS crisis, we sing about the oppression from religion, hypocrisy. You know we kinda took a book right out of the hardcore book and kept it more serious.

JH: So what geared you toward this genre of music?

AR: Basically I just grew up listening to Death, Yngwie Malmsteen, Metallica, and these guys grew up with Mteallica, The Misfits, Slayer, Slipknot. I was more into the European stuff. In Flames,

JH: Iron Maiden?

AR: Oh I love Iron Maiden, ah, Gorgoth, Dark Throne, and just a bunch of black metal bands and ,oh, Children Of Bodom.

BR: Hey you forgot my big influence, Obituary and Slipknot.

AR: Obituary, of course.

JH: What other influences?

AR: I’m into some really odd stuff. I like classical guitar, Andress Sagovia (not sure I’m hearing this name right), like the flamenco master really got me into it. There’s a guy who advertises guitar on T.V. who’s got countless albums, Estaban. I also like bluse. B.B. King, to Billy Holiday. And jazz like Satchmo. A lot of them are contemporary stuff that I really don’t listen to. We listen to a lot of punk rock too. Like real punk rock. The Sub-Humans, Black Flag and stuff like that.

JH: And what about you?

EF: Cliff Burton, early Metallica, Black Sabbath. Ah , Anathemia and Cradle of Filth. Stuff like that.

JH: Bob?

BR: I like the jazzy punkish ya,ya,ya. And then I got into Slipknot, with the awesome drumming. Road Angel, Obituary, Death. Did I already say Morbid Angel?

AR: No.

BR: Oh ,okay…

AR: King Diamond?

BR: Oh yea King Diamond, yea a big influence. The Misfits. Just jazz drumming too.

JH: Do You have a release out yet?

BR: Yea we got a demo.

AR: ah, actually we have our new E.P. that’s coming out as of the end of July, or I mean possibly September because we’ve got to do all the printing and that. That’s the one with all the clips. Right now we’re getting put on the radio, 1190 in Boulder is playing us. KBPI featured us on The Pit. Counsel Bluffs is playing us on the unsung. KRNU, up in Nebraska is playing our stuff and Hot 97.1 ,Outlaw radio, and North Plat, Nebraska is playing us and KCRT is playing us and did a whole feature on us on night.

JH: Any labels showing any interest?

AR: Right now we’re looking at possibly Century Media, we already sent some stuff out to Victory Records, um, Deftone Records actually approached us but we decided that at this point it’s in our best interest to stay independent until we find something better that comes along.

JH: So how will people be able to get a hold of you demo and upcoming release?

AR: Just check out our website at www.elctrikchair.com or, yea just get a hold of us through e-mail. We have a merchandise site. Where you can order t-shirts of ours, and cds.

BR: And if you want any mp3’s or dvd encodes ,contact me at bob@elctrikchair.com.

AR: Exactly, he’ll encode one of our videos from one of our performances.

JH: So are you currently touring, or is this a special trip out for you?

AR: This is actually the end of our first tour. We just did a big tour with Something Must Die and A Gross Persuasion and then we jumped off and did a show in Shawano with Beyond Therapy . Yea and then we got to head back to Colorado and play a show with Semmitry(sp) . One of the most incredible prog metal bands I’ve ever heard. We’ve just been all over the country. All over the place.

JH: So what’s your opinion of the Milwaukee Metal Fest so far?

AR: Milwaukee Metal Fest? I love the people here, good turn out, it was a little slow at first earlier in the day, but I think in the end they showed what real metal is all about.

JH: What do you think of festivals in general?

AR: Metal festival are ran really well in my opinion. Sometimes I think the micing could be a little better, ‘cause I saw what happened to Testament at one of the fests. They only got to play four songs cause the micing kept going bad. Other than that ,I feel they’re well organized. And the promoters are excellent. And we enjoy it. We’ll be willing to play anytime, anywhere.

JH: Have you played any other big festivals?

AR: This is actually ours first one.

JH: What other bands have you got to share the stage with? I mean you’re opening for Death Angel tonight.

AR: Yea we can say that now. Like I said we played with Something Must Die. Then we play with, it was a weird show cause this bands now on MTV. But it was like a crossover show, we actually did a show with a national Emo band called Acceptance from Seattle. That was a weird show but we had a great time and they were a bunch of great guys. They all loved metal so they were down with us.

JH: What’s your opinion of the underground metal scene here in the states?

AR: Here in the states it’s great . Except I’d prefer all of the racist crap to stay out of it. Personally. We’re totally against that. We preach about that in our music. We support any type of metal. Other than that it’s really great. We love the under ground metal scene..

JH: So what’s next for you guys?

AR: Uh, just getting this E.P. ready, then we’ll be hitting the road again.

EF: Aren’t we gonna take a break or something?

AR: Yea ,we’ll probably take a break right after this.

JH: Eloy wants a damn vacation.

EF: Yea…

BR: Yea ,how about a couple months?

AR: Well We’ll take some time to recuperate. Get the cd promoted. Then we’ll turn around and do a cd release show. And then what we will do is probably hit the road to the west coast. Do San Francisco, Los Angeles. Some shows out there.

BR: Be ready for our ’ Shadows Of Death Tour ‘.

AR: ‘Shadows Of Death Tour’ will be taking place next year.

JH: How’s the future looking for you guys at this point?

AR: We’re going to keep going.

EF: Haven’t hit no bumps yet.

AR: Yea we haven’t hit any bumps yet, everything has been going really great. The fans have been real perceptive .

BR: Except for the camping.

AR: Well yea, the camping has been rough. Other than that, it’s great being here. Just being here and getting this kind of exposure has been all I ever wanted. This has been like a big goal in my life. You know to play the Milwaukee Metal Fest. And we’ve pulled it off.

BR: Just being able to play with Macabre is amazing. Death Angel. Every band here. I have not found one I do not like. I love every band here.

AR: Exactly.

JH: Anything you’d like to add?

AR: Yea. the fuckin’ Milwaukee Metal Fest is the shit. And we’ll be back.

BR: If you’re in a metal band, do it.

JH: Quite one?

EF: ….Misfits.