Show & Tell - an interview with Philip Labonte, of All That Remains

PHILIP LABONTE OF ALL THAT REMAINS
04.23.04

Not long before his departure from Shadows Fall, singer Philip Labonte had formed side project All That Remains. After his departure, ATR became his main focus. Until…

Several years in, when Killswitch Engage loses singer Jesse Leach, Philip tries out for the slot, eventually losing the gig to Howard Jones [ed.’s note: and that’s Howard Jones of Blood Has Been Shed, not the 80s sap of the same name].

Now, with their sophomore release This Darkened Heart on shelves, their singer firmly entrenched, a new guitarist and a new bass player on hand, All That Remains has found renewed focus; the ghost of broken armed drummers, lineup changes and singers trying out for other bands behind them.

We talked with singer Philip Labonte.

Show & Tell: What’s going on, man?

Phil: Not much, Kevin, how are you doing?

S&T: Pretty good. So what have you been up to?

P: We just got back yesterday from the tour with God Forbid, Scars of Tomorrow, and Trivium.

S&T: How was that?

P: It was pretty cool, man, really good to go out with God Forbid. We’ve been friends with those dudes for a long time and, uh, the guys from Scars of Tomorrow and Trivium were all wicked cool guys, it was a good time.

S&T: Was there a good showing?

P: Yeah, the shows were cool. There weren’t huge showings but the fans were into it and the kids were dancing and stuff so it was a good time and it was all around cool.

S&T: Where are you calling from?

P: On my cell phone.

S&T: You still on the road coming back or you home?

P: No, I’m home.

S&T: Are you getting excited for Metal Fest?

P: Yeh, dude, Metal Fest has always been cool and I’m really pumped. So I just found out that there’s gonna be press and stuff there all day and like they’re gonna have us do a walk on for MTV and I'm super psyched about that. They’re setting up something with Uranium so the video is actually going to air probably the week after Metal Fest so I'm really, really pumped.

S&T: Are you nervous at all?

P: Umm, that’s a big time, you know what I mean, and so it does make me kinda nervous but you gotta do it because you want to promote the band as much as possible.

S&T: When I saw you at a Seemless show a couple weeks ago I noticed you seemed like you were really good friends with Jesse Leach (Seemless’ lead singer and former Killswitch Engage front man).

P: Yeah, me and Jesse are wicked, wicked close. Well, as much as we can be but when we see each other we love hanging out. He’s a great dude and they’re wicked nice guys.

S&T: Did you meet him through bands or have you been friends before hand?

P: Well yeah, it’s kinda weird because like I used to go and see Killswitch and stuff like that and he didn’t really know who I was. And I’ve been friends with Adam D. and stuff for years and years, and we never really got to, I mean he knew that I was a kid out front, you know, singing along but he didn’t know that I was in All That Remains. Then one day I think we played a show with him or something like that in New York and he was like, “holy shit I had no idea that you were in this band!” So we just started bullshitting from there and stuff. He’s a really cool dude and I’m really happy to be able to call him a friend.

S&T: Are you a big fan of Seemless?

P: Yeah, I love Seemless. Yeah I love them to death, great band.

S&T: A while back you were (the original vocalist for) Shadows Fall and were asked to leave. Are you upset that they’ve been successful?

P: Nah, not at all. I wish nothing but the best for them guys. We were friends a long time before I was in Shadows Fall. We were all friends before then and we’re still friends now. There’s no hard feelings or stuff like that. I wish the best for them and realistically, from a practical standpoint, the more success Shadows Fall has, the better it is for other bands from around this area and so the better it is for us, you know. So I’ll ride their tail all day long! (laughing)

S&T: Gives you some more press because everyone knows you were once in the band.

P: Absolutely, absolutely. But I wish nothing but the best for those guys.

S&T: About the new album, what was it that you did differently writing this one?

P: Umm, we kinda focused on the songs more, focused on the songs as if they were songs as opposed to focusing on them as parts. The last album was a little self-indulgent. There were parts that really didn’t accentuate the songs. I think there were really cool parts and musically we all really liked that but I don’t think we paid as much attention to structure on the last music as this one. Arrangements and structure is probably the biggest difference. If you listen, the actual riffs and stuff could have been on (first record) Behind Silence and Solitude and it wouldn’t have sounded weird and vice versa you know, it wouldn’t have sounded out of place. It’s just that we kind of arranged them a little differently.

S&T: I thought it had a little “heavier” sound?

P: Yeah, it’s got a little heavier sound. We were kind of looking for a little less melody and a little more kind of in-your-face heaviness, you know. By no means heavy like Cannibal Corpse but we listen to that stuff and got influences from that stuff and the sheer brutality from that stuff.

S&T: This album was produced by Adam D. (Killswitch Engage), how did that come about?

P: We just called him up and said, “hey, we want you to produce our next album,” and he said okay. It was pretty simple. He’s a busy guy and he’s hard to tie down but, like I said, it’s another one of those things were we’ve been friends for so long, you know. I’ll call up Adam and just be like, “hey what’s up?” and it’s not weird, you know what I mean, like he’s a friend as well as a dude that works in the industry and stuff like that. We hang out when we can and when we’re both in town and stuff we get together and stuff and go out just to get a bite to eat and stuff so it was pretty much like, “hey dude, we want you to do our disc and he was like, “okay,” found the time and scheduled it.

S&T: Working on a professional basis and being good friends, was that hard?

P: It made it so much easier because the fact first of all, we all love Killswitch Engage. We love the work that he does with them, I trust him with the music and stuff like that. A lot of times I would think one thing and Adam would think differently and I was like, “you know what? I trust his judgment, let’s go with what Adam says,” you know and so it made it easier being friends because you don’t have to like get to know anybody.

S&T: I noticed with the songs, “The Deepest Gray” and “Focus Shall Not Fail,” there’s a lot of melody. Did that have a lot to do with Adam or your love for Killswitch Engage and having those influences?

P: I think Adam had a lot to do with slowing us down. I want everything a million miles an hour and Adam is just like, “look, just slow down.” He had more influence on tempos and when it actually came to writing the actual melody lines and stuff like that, that was all us. That was all, like the line in “The Deepest Gray” that was the call into the turn of the chorus, that was planned out even before we had planned on working with. It wasn’t one of those things were Adam came in and said, “oh, this is what you gotta do.” He’s very much like, “this is what I think, what do you guys think?” And you know sometimes Adam was right or sometimes we were kind of like, “no, I think we should do it this way.” But like the clean stuff and the different style of singing, that was all us. So we’re to blame, we’re the culprits.

S&T: Were you upset you didn’t get the role of lead singer for Killswitch when you tried out?

P: Nah, Howard’s better like a regular singer, he’s been doing it a lot longer. If I think something is fair and right I really don’t let it bother me so it doesn’t upset me that Howard got the job and it didn’t because I’m really happy with All That Remains and the way things are going with the band so it’s no hard feelings at all.

S&T: Were there any hard feelings from your band when they found out you were trying for that role?

P: Um, not really, I don’t think so. I mean I know some of the guys were like, “well, ehhhh” but at the same time we had just gotten back from the first leg of that tour and our drummer had a broken arm and our bass player had just quit and we had just gotten a new guitar player so everyone in the band was pretty much just like, “well, I would do the exact same thing if I had the opportunity.”

S&T: At that point did you think it was the end of All That Remains?

P: Umm, no. I never planned on quitting All That Remains to join Killswitch, All That Remains would have had to been a side project, kind of like Blood Has Been Shed is for Howard, you know, it would have been something that was less intensive but I don’t think that, in my mind it would have ever been the end of All That Remains.

S&T: If a fan were to hang out with you what would a day with Phil be like?

P: It would be pretty boring. Realistically it would mostly be me on my cell phone talking to our manager and they’d see me smoke a lot of Marlboros and drink probably 3 or 4 Red Bulls and then go to bed early, because I’m pretty much a boring kind of dude. None of the guys in All That Remains are really big partiers. We’re the band that after we get done playing we’re like, “shit, lets go to the hotel and sleep.” We’re not partiers at all. The closest thing we’ve come to a partier was Matt (Deis) and he’s our big new bass player, twenty years old, so he’s got a little more get up and go or umph than the rest of us. We’re pretty much all just like, “yeah, okay, we’re done playing lets go to sleep.” When it gets to be like 1, 2, 3 o’ clock in the morning, we’re just like ready to go to bed then to play again tomorrow night.

S&T: What are your main goals for the band?

P: We’ve got a couple tours lined up and so pretty much get through those and expose the band to as many people as possible and we’re hoping next year we can get on Ozzfest so, you know, cross your fingers. We’re hoping to get to Europe at the end of this year, beginning of next year because there’s a lot of people out there that we want to go and play for. So play as much as we can and hopefully we can get ahead and do another video for a song off of this album. We’re hoping to have a new album out in the end of the year 2005, 2006, umm, you know. We’ve already started thinking about it and messed around with some riffs so, we’re just gonna plug away at it and work as hard as we can.

S&T: So you don’t have one complete song already made?

P: No, nothing is complete. We’ve been working on it up until our album just came out a month ago and, you know, we were on the road and we don’t write very much on the road. It’s kind of tough to when your playing shows, to actually sit down and write ‘cause being an opening band we don’t have sound check too where we can go and screw around ,you know what I mean, and we’re driving in a van so we don’t have room to have our guitars in there and stuff like that.

S&T: Did you write more than ten songs for this album, any b-sides?

P: Ten songs is what we got done. We’re underachievers when it comes down to that. We’re the guys that are gonna turn our homework in, turn the paper in on the day that it’s due, and get it done like the night before.

S&T: Jen from Metal Blade says hi.

P: Oh cool, Jen Pentagraham.

S&T: She wants to know why you don’t take off your shirt at shows anymore.

P: It still happens. I get crap for that all the time. We were playing in Tallahassee and the sound guy for God Forbid, and we were playing and off goes the shirt and Billy (the sound guy) starts yelling, “can I have more nipple rings in the monitors?” ‘cause I have these big door knocker looking nipple rings (laughing) so it’s not that it doesn’t happen anymore. Funny how word travels.

S&T: (laughs) Yeh. Thanks, Phil.

P: Thank you, man.

interview by kevin curtis