{"id":23809,"date":"2014-11-11T00:00:31","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T00:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=23809"},"modified":"2015-02-11T02:17:33","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T02:17:33","slug":"feature-job-for-a-cowboy-11-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-job-for-a-cowboy-11-14\/","title":{"rendered":"JOB FOR A COWBOY – A Global Shift (November 2014) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

JOB FOR A COWBOY – A Global Shift<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnthony Morgan<\/span>
\nNovember 2014<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nAmerican death metal outfit Job For A Cowboy hired Nick Schendzielos during early 2011 to handle bass duties, previous member Brent Riggs having occupied the position since 2004. Figuring among the line-up of Denver, Colorado-based death metal assortment AinMatter, Nick caught the attention of grindcore act Cephalic Carnage, Denver also being home to the aforementioned.<\/p>\n

\u201cCephalic Carnage is an international touring band, who\u2019s on Relapse Records,\u201d Nick informs. \u201cTheir bassist quit (Jawsh Mullen), so they hired me. I\u2019ve been touring the world with those guys, and meeting friends. We toured with Despised Icon, and that\u2019s when I met Al from Job For A Cowboy (Al Glassman, rhythm guitars). Then he ended up going into Job For A Cowboy, and then I was doing some session work down in Arizona. The drummer that was doing the session work… Well, there was two of them. One of them was Sam Paulicelli, who\u2019s now in Decrepit Birth and has got funny YouTube videos. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe other drummer was Jon Rice from Job For A Cowboy, so Jon and I talked. \u2018Oh yeah, Al. He\u2019s awesome, a good kid. We toured with him, with Despised Icon.\u2019 Then a month later from that, their old bassist Brent just walked off in the middle of a tour. Then they called me up, like \u2018Hey, we know you\u2019re not as busy with Cephalic. We\u2019ve got this EP that we already have scheduled, and then this tour, and all of this stuff, so we could really use some help.\u2019 I was like \u2018Okay, cool,\u2019 so we just kind of tried it out. It was a really good fit. Everybody\u2019s humour clicked, and it was a lot of fun. My band Cephalic was willing to work with me on the schedule, and so it\u2019s been cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scheduled EP in question would surface under the title Gloom<\/em>, arriving in June 2011. \u201cI remember getting together, and it was colder than hell in Boston (Massachusetts),\u201d the rhythmist shares. \u201cI remember thinking \u2018Holy shit, these are really technical riffs.\u2019 I didn\u2019t really kind of expect that so much, because I hadn\u2019t really ever gotten into the band\u2019s catalogue. I remember it being a challenge bass-wise to get the technicality up there. Cephalic actually had tons of crazy riffs and lots of speed and stuff too, and it was with (Jason) Suecof again down there. Experiencing him for the first time definitely tripped me out, because he\u2019s a kind of whacky cartoon character-like dude.\u201d<\/p>\n

Demonocracy<\/em> marked the first Job For A Cowboy studio full-length to feature contributions from Nick. Issued in April 2012, it was the band\u2019s third overall. \u201cWith that one, we had a lot more time,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI remember guitars taking like a month (laughs). It was literally like three weeks of guitars, and that was kind of a similar experience \u2013 kind of the same thing. It was really cool just to get to live with these guys, because you go and you live with these guys. We went down to Florida, and all lived together as a band; we hung out, and watched our favourite TV shows together. You really kind of bond with each other in that type of experience, and you do with the engineer too. That\u2019s a big part of it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

November 2014 effort Sun Eater<\/em> happens to be its successor. \u201cWe essentially came home from this Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, and decided that we wanted to write something different this time around,\u201d the four-stringer notes. \u201cWe actually even had the idea of what we wanted to do; on the Mayhem tour, we were talking about it. We kind of had this idea for a while, and we ended up deciding to go for it. Even up until the last day of Mayhem, we started talking about the actual storyline of the album, of this particular character that the album is about. Then with that in mind, the concept of this character \u2013 which is the Sun Eater<\/em> character \u2013 we went home, and everybody kind of started putting ideas together. <\/p>\n

\u201cTony (Sannicandro, lead guitars) and Al did the majority of the songwriting, as far as putting the actual riffs together. Tony had most of the riffs; he would be kind of the riff factory, and wrote the riffs in mind of the concept of each song. Then him and Al would get together and work out the kinks, and Al would try to make the songs flow together better. Then they would send the songs to Tony\u2019s brother Peter, who is really good at programming drums. He\u2019s real fast; you tell him what you want, and then he would program the drums. Then they would email the songs to Jonny (Davy, vocals) and me, because we are across the planet essentially (laughs). I\u2019m in Colorado, Jonny is in Arizona, and then there\u2019s Danny Walker (Intronaut), who we had doing the drums. We were sending him the tracks too, and he\u2019s in LA (Los Angeles, California). With everybody split up all over the place, email is the only way really. Using this technology, we could actually get this record done. <\/p>\n

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\u201cAnyway, they would all email the tracks and then we would take them, import them into our computer, and play with them, chop them up, pull off the distortion, add different effects, and rearrange stuff. Then we sent all that back to Tony and Al, and then they would make further revisions. Then we actually went down to Florida and did pre-production on the songs, and then did the actual production with Jason Suecof. That was the writing process this time around, but it was a much more deliberate process. It was a much more… We knew what we wanted to create beforehand; instead of just kind of writing each song and letting each song be what it was, each song \u2013 on this record, anyway \u2013 had a specific purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Full-length albums three and four as well as a lone EP now boast Nick\u2019s services, and so penning compositions was theoretically a more comfortable process. \u201cThis time, it was definitely easier and more cool,\u201d he confirms. \u201cI was more comfortable, and the same with Tony. I think all of us had really decided that we knew what we wanted to make this time around, and so it had this intention behind it which just made the whole process a lot more… I guess a lot more artistic, I would say \u2013 if I could be so bold as to use that word. I think it\u2019s a lot more artistic in the aspect of that we weren\u2019t trying to prove something this time around, which is funny because I think that this record actually does prove something. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt proves that we are sort of a legitimate death metal band, and that it\u2019s not a guilty pleasure to listen to us any more. I think it\u2019s along the lines of we didn\u2019t have to have a million riffs per song and to have nothing repeat, and to have different details on every single little riff, and all of that kind of stuff. We could take the concept of somebody that thinks the fluoride in the water systems is being specifically put there to crystallise our pineal glands so that we\u2019re not aware of the manipulation of all of our essential awarenesses of what\u2019s going on with the planet, and that kind of stuff, and that type of a concept. <\/p>\n

\u201cJonny would handle conspiracy theories and that kind of stuff in the lyrics before from a much more political standpoint, but this one\u2019s from a much more artistic standpoint because he\u2019s imagining it from this different person\u2019s perspective, and writing it from this different person\u2019s perspective. I think it was just in that way. I know being artistic and art itself is subjective but I think that\u2019s one way it came out more artistic, is having that freedom to use a lot more imagination this time around.\u201d<\/p>\n

As referenced, prior to Sun Eater<\/em>\u2019s issue, the bassist feels that Job For The Cowboy were a guilty listening pleasure. \u201c(Laughs) I think that it was, man,\u201d he reaffirms. \u201cI don\u2019t even know if \u2018guilty pleasure\u2019 are the correct words to use, but I think you had to have your ducks in a row. If you said that you like JFAC or if you were wearing a Job For A Cowboy shirt, there\u2019s this stigma behind it, like \u2018Oh, that\u2019s that deathcore band that wears really, really skinny jeans and has haircuts with the swoops the eyes. They just play breakdown after breakdown after breakdown.\u2019 I think that that stigma and that image was stuck in people\u2019s minds, even though the band hasn\u2019t put out anything resembling deathcore in eight years. I think in that aspect, even if somebody liked Demonocracy<\/em> \u2013 it\u2019s a tech death record, a total tech death record \u2013 they had to listen to it, and hide it from their friends (laughs). Not everybody. You know what I mean? <\/p>\n

\u201cI think with this record now though and the word that\u2019s going around about it \u2013 that it\u2019s a straight-up, legitimate, awesome record \u2013 the old fans like it and new fans like it, and the death metal elitists are finally conceding that this band is really awesome. It\u2019s Danny Walker on drums, and he\u2019s a pretty legendary person. I think that finally now, it\u2019s like \u2018Oh yeah, that new JFAC is cool.\u2019 It\u2019s kind of like the reverse of Metallica or something; you\u2019re supposed to like old Metallica and not like Load<\/em> (June 1996) and ReLoad<\/em> (November 1997) and St. Anger<\/em><\/a> (June 2003), but with us, from the death metal elitist point of view it\u2019s not okay to like the old JFAC, but it\u2019s okay to like this new stuff because it\u2019s legitimate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critiquing Job For A Cowboy\u2019s discography as a whole, describing either of the ensemble\u2019s outings as being deathcore in nature seems tenuous at best. \u201cI think you are right,\u201d Nick agrees. \u201cI think that people like you have gotten it all along (laughs), but I think there\u2019s this kind of elitism that\u2019s out there where those people hadn\u2019t really gotten it. If you listen to Genesis<\/em> (May 2007), Genesis<\/em> doesn\u2019t have a single breakdown on it. In my opinion, when you combine the genres of death metal and hardcore for deathcore, the \u2018core\u2019 side of it essentially means breakdowns, and there are no breakdowns on Genesis<\/em>. I understand completely what you\u2019re talking about. It\u2019s not what that is, but for whatever reason, people weren\u2019t even willing to give the albums a listen maybe is probably the real truth of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue is once you\u2019re labelled as a group and deemed to belong to a specific genre, music fans will have a preconceived opinion of your material prior to hearing it. \u201cExactly,\u201d the rhythmist seconds. \u201cThat\u2019s a 100% true, dude. A 100%.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Returning to the topic of Sun Eater<\/em>, the album\u2019s corresponding artwork depicts its titular character. \u201cIf you look at the album artwork, that\u2019s what the album\u2019s about,\u201d Nick elaborates. \u201cOn the cover there\u2019s this character, and she is on the edge of this cliff. She\u2019s holding the ram\u2019s head, and it looks like she\u2019s levitating off of the ground \u2013 like levitating into the cosmos \u2013 peering over this sort of destruction that exists on the planet in this canyon and this big sea. The concept is is this person actually on the edge of this cliff holding a magic s\u00e9ance and levitating into the cosmos while directly getting her energy from the Sun as the world around her crumbles? Or is this all a hallucination and none of it is real, and she\u2019s just whacked out on drugs at the edge of a cliff, and about to fall off and die? That\u2019s kind of the concept, this whole perception of the world through the eyes of this person who believe that they\u2019re able to get their energy directly from the sun. They believe that all of the water is being poisoned and all of the food is being poisoned, kind of like this extreme, almost paranoid schizophrenic view of the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach song is about a particular topic through the eyes of this particular person on a journey that doesn\u2019t exactly end well for them. I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever seen American Psycho<\/em> (2000), but at the end of it you\u2019re left not knowing whether or not all of that was a fantasy, or if it really happened. That\u2019s kind of what we wanted to do, so it\u2019s kind of a trippy, almost psychedelic type of… Almost like a The Wall<\/em> (November 1979, Pink Floyd) type of record for us, something totally different. Something totally different from the highly politically charged records that we have previously done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Viewing the artwork, the female character can arguably be interpreted as about to throw the ram\u2019s head into the abyss, which could perhaps be symbolic of a musical change. \u201cThat\u2019s really cool,\u201d the four-stringer commends. \u201cI like that better, and you know what? Maybe I\u2019m gonna stop telling people about what the art means, because your interpretation sounds cooler to me than what ours was (laughs). I think that that\u2019s something about art and music in general, that if the artist always explains what their expressions mean and what they\u2019re about, does it taint your perception of it? That\u2019s a pretty awesome interpretation. Maybe that\u2019s something that just kind of happened subconsciously. We did talk about that, that the ram\u2019s head started out with the Doom<\/em> EP (December 2005) kind of simple. <\/p>\n

\u201cThen there was Genesis<\/em> and it was much more grandiose, and then with Ruination<\/em> (July 2009) it\u2019s falling from the throne, and then with Demonocracy<\/em> the ram\u2019s head is no longer the entire head. It\u2019s actually just a piece, like a headpiece crown sort of a thing on top of Lady Justice, and then with this evolution of it, leaving the head all together. I like the idea of where you\u2019re coming from, that it looks like she\u2019s about to throw it off to signal that we don\u2019t need that any more. That\u2019s awesome. I think that\u2019s great man, and perceptive of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

A good interpretation, but nevertheless not what Job For A Cowboy\u2019s members had in mind. \u201cRight,\u201d Nick responds. \u201cI guess I hadn\u2019t even really thought about that, but if you look at her hand, you can\u2019t tell whether she\u2019s lifting it up and using it to get power, or if she\u2019s pushing it away from her and using the power to throw it over the cliff. I guess that is still up to interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Offering a a definitive interpretation for Sun Eater<\/em>\u2019s artwork is perhaps best left to Tony Kohl, the man responsible for its design. \u201cWe essentially gave him the concept, and he did an incredibly wonderful job with the time that he was given,\u201d the bassist enthuses. \u201cThe original artist Brent Elliot White, he had done Ruination<\/em> and Genesis<\/em>. He completely just ripped us off; we paid him a down payment of like $1,500, but he just stopped replying. He just kept the money, and didn\u2019t give us any artwork. I think we had like a week or two weeks or something to get album art. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe gave Tony the initial concept but we didn\u2019t go into tons of detail with it, so I think that some of it is his interpretation for sure from the initial emails. The overall concept of the character is her being on the edge of a cliff staring at the sun, and kind of having a mix between the third eye type of artwork that he does, and the kind of more ritualistic… I don\u2019t want to say demonic, but that side of his art. It came out really cool though, man. The more I look at it and the more time passes, the more I like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critiqued against past Job For A Cowboy artworks, viewers can look at Sun Eater<\/em>\u2019s artwork longer and discover new details to scrutinise. \u201cI think that\u2019s true,\u201d Nick concurs. \u201cMaybe that\u2019s because there are more micro-details, and it\u2019s standing at a much bigger scene. With the other ones, the character would be ten feet in front of you and the focal point of all of the stuff that\u2019s around them. With this one, you get the whole depth and feel. It goes all the way out to the sun at the end, and you get this much more distant view, kind of like looking further. You get a much further vantage point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Artist Brent Elliot White \u2018ripping off\u2019 Job For A Cowboy is seemingly out of character, when one considers the fact that the man had designed several past artworks for the ensemble. \u201cI don\u2019t know, man,\u201d the rhythmist ponders. \u201cThat just blew us away, dude. I don\u2019t know. I was really looking forward to seeing what he was gonna do with this idea that we gave him. I don\u2019t know. I guess maybe he was having some personal issues in his life or something. I don\u2019t know. I definitely wanna get the money back, though (laughs). That\u2019s not fair (laughs).\u201d<\/p>\n

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Taking Nick\u2019s words to be truthful on the matter, it would be surprising if the artist had solely \u2018ripped off\u2019 Job For A Cowboy, and not several other groups in the process. \u201cI would just say that if I were a band and I was gonna hire him, I would not give him any money until you saw actual art being done \u2013 actual sketches being done \u2013 at this point,\u201d Nick warns. \u201cBefore this record, I would given him a A-plus, 100% review to anybody because I had total trust in him, but now he\u2019s completely violated that trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such happens are a great shame, especially in light of the reputation Brent Elliot White has built over the years, working with a number of high profile clients within the metal realm. \u201cTotally, man,\u201d the four-stringer replies. \u201cHe was one of the top artists in the game. If he pays us the money back then he can get rid of the stealing aspect of it, but as far as we see it right now, he stole it from the band.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weighed against past outings, Sun Eater<\/em> is a more varied affair. \u201cI would say that it\u2019s more dynamic, it has more character, it has more space, more versatility, different textures, much more different tempos, more variety, and \u2013 in a lot of ways \u2013 more variety in the tone, and definitely a stronger I guess you\u2019d almost say a progressive vibe to it,\u201d Nick augments.<\/p>\n

Sun Eater<\/em>\u2019s press release described rhythm guitarist Al as \u2018a driving force behind the band\u2019s sound.\u2019 \u201cAl\u2019s like the glue of the band,\u201d the bassist offers. \u201cHe has really dedicated his life to making Job For A Cowboy work. His house \u2013 it was in Boston, but now it\u2019s in New Hampshire \u2013 has always been the home base of the band. Since everybody\u2019s so spread out, we fly to one place, which is always his house. He keeps the van, and all of the gear, and all that kind of stuff. When it comes time to write, he\u2019s the guy that keeps the iron hot. He\u2019s the guy that keeps pushing, pushing everybody to get the material written. It\u2019s kind of hard being so far apart; you can\u2019t have a weekly practice, or a two or three times a week practice with everybody where you get in the same room. He\u2019s really got to crack the whip, so that\u2019s what he does. He stayed on top of Tony, and they stayed on top of working together, and committed themselves to making this record happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lead axeman Tony felt that he \u2018took a much more melodic approach than Demonocracy<\/em>\u2019 on Sun Eater<\/em>, meanwhile. \u201cI think with him, it was kind of the same thing,\u201d Nick reckons. \u201cAs you mature as a death metal musician you realise that it\u2019s okay to play more melodically, and then it doesn\u2019t have to be so brutal or dark sounding I guess the whole time. The melody itself can bring that out, and so I think that it\u2019s just less riff-oriented. Less of a riff salad, and more about bringing out the individual character of each song. I think he did a really good job of that this time around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony particularly mentioned \u2018focusing on the structuring and the layering that would complement the story.\u2019 \u201cBasically, he would try to emulate,\u201d the rhythmist explains. \u201cThere would be this song about trying to get your energy from the sun, and so he would imagine I guess the scenario in his mind. Maybe he would see this kind of image, and then try to play something that matched that feeling. I guess that\u2019s why a lot of it has that slower, kind of brooding texture to it, because he\u2019s imagining this character\u2019s life and these different circumstances. I think that\u2019s a hard thing to do, and that\u2019s something that was totally subjective \u2013 even for him \u2013 as to why he wrote those particular riffs and melodies for each different concept. That\u2019s something that\u2019s totally different, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick believed that Al \u2018really used a lot of foresight in his revisions during the writing process, creating ample room for\u2019 him \u2018to mood-out the tracks with bass that you can actually hear.\u2019 \u201cThat was really cool this time around,\u201d he praises. \u201cAl and them would be like \u2018Hey, we wanna make sure that there\u2019s room in there, that there\u2019s space in there.\u2019 I think that some of the slower tempos and keeping some of the riffs simpler left me room to be able to have this third \u2013 if you will \u2013 melodic voice that kind of like serves as a sort of counterpoint. Not counterpoint as in the music theory aspect, but just a supplemental melodic voice on the record. He\u2019d have parts, like in-between \u2018Eating The Visions Of God\u2019 and \u2018Sun Of Nihility\u2019, that he knew he wanted to have \u2013 like this bass connection thing, little things like that kind of all over the record. He\u2019d be like \u2018Oh, this would be a good spot for you to go off from the guitars,\u2019 and do your own thing right there. He left tons of room all over the record for me to do that, and I think that that\u2019s a big difference between the last record and this one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evaluating the contribution of each member towards Sun Eater<\/em>, one mustn\u2019t omit frontman Jonny. \u201cJonny kind of stays out of the musical side of it,\u201d the four-stringer notes. \u201cIf something really bothers him, he\u2019ll mention it, but that doesn\u2019t happen very often at all. Jonny\u2019s focal point a 100% is the lyrics to the songs, and so we don\u2019t get any say in that. We let him completely control that. It\u2019s kind of like this mutual respect, like \u2018You guys do the music, and I\u2019m gonna do the lyrics.\u2019 He just slaved away, coming up with what I think are his best lyrics. They\u2019re simpler, and there\u2019s a lot more repetition. I think he really did a great job of writing really catchy vocal lines this time around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonny seems conspicuously absent from Sun Eater<\/em>\u2019s promotional cycle at the time of writing. \u201cI forget the exact thing what he\u2019s training for is, but he works with the old guitar player from Job For A Cowboy \u2013 Bobby (Thompson),\u201d Nick divulges. \u201cHe\u2019s actually still well connected with the band; he\u2019s a great guy, and his parents-in-law own the restaurant \/ coffee shop that Jonny works for. He\u2019s been training for some new position there, or something \u2013 I wanna say head chef or something like that. I\u2019m not sure what the exact position he\u2019s been training for is, but he\u2019s working I wanna say six or seven days a week. He\u2019s just slaving away, so we have stepped up. He was like \u2018Hey, are you cool with doing a lot more press? I just don\u2019t have the time to do it right now\u2019 and all that kind of stuff.\u2019 We\u2019re just waiting for him to wrap up with that job, because we\u2019re all ready to get out and tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As referenced throughout this feature, stepping behind the drumkit was Intronaut sticksman Danny Walker. \u201cWe had a short list of drummers that we knew we wanted that would fit the style of this new music, and Danny was pretty much our first choice,\u201d the bassist recounts. \u201cWe knew we wanted to have somebody have this kind of like tastier style, and he\u2019s one of the tastiest drummers. He can play everything. With the Intronaut stuff, he\u2019s got so much groove and character to his playing, and then I love his handwork. His cymbal work is some of the tastiest stuff that I\u2019ve ever heard, so we knew that we wanted to have somebody like that, who had that dynamic range. It was really easy; we just called him up, and was like \u2018Hey, man. Do you wanna come record this record with us?\u2019 He was like \u2018Yeah,\u2019 and that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previous drummer Jon Rice parted ways with Job For A Cowboy during August 2013. \u201cJon essentially has always been a child of the 70s; he loves 70s rock,\u201d Nick cites. \u201cHe likes Pentagram and stuff like that where it\u2019s a lot more chilled out on the drums, even though he\u2019s an amazing technical drummer, he fills in for bands like 1349, and he\u2019s got a pretty wide musical taste. He really wanted to get into something different, so it worked kind of perfect. When we did the Mayhem tour, there was this band called Scorpion Child. He hit it off really well with those guys, and he\u2019s really good friends with them. We all really dug their music, which is kind of this heavier, Led Zeppelin type of thing. Then actually, he wanted to make that change. He wanted to play a totally different style of music, and so no bad blood. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still really good friends with him. He also fills in for Cephalic Carnage as well (laughs). He\u2019s one of the drummers on the roster, but he\u2019s a great dude, and we\u2019re still friends. We\u2019re stoked. As far as live for Job For A Cowboy, we\u2019re looking to bring Danny Walker out with us to play these Sun Eater<\/em> songs, but we\u2019re not stepping on his band Intronaut\u2019s toes. We have to work the scheduling out around it, but when you see us again, we\u2019re trying really, really hard to make it be Danny Walker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether Danny becomes a permanent fixture behind the drumkit is uncertain. \u201cWe would love to keep it with just Danny Walker, even if that meant having to work around his schedule with Intronaut,\u201d the rhythmist observes. \u201cIntronaut\u2019s got some guys in it that means it can\u2019t be a ten month a year band, because Sacha Dunable\u2019s building guitars. He\u2019s building these awesome guitars for his own guitar company that he\u2019s starting, so there\u2019ll be time for Danny to tour. He was such a creative part and such an important part of the way Sun Eater<\/em> came out that we want him to play the songs with us live.\u201d<\/p>\n

As has been the case since Ruination<\/em>, Job For A Cowboy recorded at Audiohammer Studios in Sanford, Florida with producer Jason Suecof. \u201cVery cool, very low key this time around,\u201d Nick describes. \u201cAnd much faster I think, because of the pre-production work that we did. It was very comfortable. He was very involved in the process. He helps us push ideas along, and he knows how to get the best take out of you, and he knows how to get the best ideas out of you. He\u2019s been working with us for six years now, and it\u2019s kind of the same thing. I don\u2019t think you\u2019d ever see us go with anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Past interviewees have spoken well of Jason, but have often mentioned that the producer isn\u2019t one to mince his words. \u201cHe\u2019s not afraid at all, and he\u2019s a phenomenal musician,\u201d the four-stringer compliments. \u201cHe\u2019s a really, really good musician, so when he tells you that something sucks, he\u2019s probably right (laughs), like 95% of the time. There\u2019s only 5% of the time that you\u2019re like \u2018No, really like this. I\u2019m gonna keep it.\u2019 When you tell him that, if you\u2019re absolutely like \u2018No, this is staying,\u2019 at the end of the day we are paying him, and he works for us. So, he will concede in those areas, but he\u2019s right most of the time. Pretty much all of the time, he\u2019s right about a part (laughs).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Sun Of Nihility\u2019 was earmarked as Sun Eater<\/em>\u2019s inaugural single. \u201cThat\u2019s my favourite song on the record,\u201d Nick discloses. \u201cI took a small piece of one of Tony\u2019s riffs that caught my attention when I was listening back to it, which was originally distorted. As I pulled the distortion off of it, I really liked the flow of it as a clean tone. I started to build layers and layers on top of it with all of these filters and fun things on my computer, and then I wrote this bass line for it. I was really worried that the other guys were gonna be like \u2018What the hell is this?,\u2019 but I sent it back to them all reworked out and everybody loved it. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey were like \u2018This is really cool \u2013 totally different from anything we\u2019ve ever done \u2013 but we really like it.\u2019 That kind of continued to go on through the recording process. Everybody ended up really liking that stuff; the label, our management, and everybody in the band even decided \u2018This is the first thing that we wanna put out for people to hear what we\u2019ve been up to for the last year and a half.\u2019 It represents just how far the band has progressed from the albums of before.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Should a music video be created for one of Sun Eater<\/em>\u2019s compositions, helming the piece will be Michael Panduro, having previously spearheaded the clip for \u2018Tarnished Gluttony\u2019 (from Demonocracy<\/em>). \u201cWe\u2019ve developed a relationship with Michael Panduro,\u201d the bassist reasons. \u201cI hooked him up with Job For A Cowboy, because he had worked with Cephalic Carnage. He did \u2018Ohrwurm\u2019 for us (from August 2010\u2019s Misled By Certainty<\/em>). All of us have collectively decided that for any videos in the future, it\u2019s gonna be Michael Panduro. We love his style. I think it\u2019s because the traditional music video of having the band play in a warehouse with a strobe light and it\u2019s brutal, or you\u2019re in a field or whatever, are so clich\u00e9d and played out and beaten to death that we don\u2019t wanna have anything to do with it, and neither does Michael Panduro. It\u2019s funny, because he lives in Denmark. It opens up things for everybody creatively to be like \u2018What can we make a video about where you don\u2019t have any of the band members in it?,\u2019 and that\u2019s what we\u2019re gonna be going for again. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he\u2019s got a concept in mind for one of the songs that he wants to do. We\u2019re still working out some budget things, because we wanna give him a much bigger budget than he had for \u2018Tarnished Gluttony\u2019. He took what we gave him for that and made this amazing video, so we\u2019re trying to get him as much money as we can \u2013 he\u2019s just phenomenal. That\u2019s the plan, another Michael Panduro video. Pretty much he\u2019s gonna be doing any video you ever see from Job For A Cowboy, and we love that. We\u2019re definitely onboard with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps Brent Elliot White can return Job For A Cowboy the money it paid him, and that can go towards funding a music video. \u201cYeah,\u201d Nick laughs. \u201cA creative solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cephalic Carnage plan to cut a seventh full-length, meanwhile. \u201cNow… Shoot, man… It\u2019s been four years since we put out a record (Misled By Certainty<\/em>), so that\u2019s something that we\u2019ve gotta get going on,\u201d the rhythmist acknowledges. \u201cI\u2019ve got maybe about one or two songs, and so we\u2019re just trying to get a consistent writing schedule going. We went and just played Hell And Heaven Fest with Cephalic down in Mexico, and that was amazing. We were lucky enough to have Danny Walker play drums with us for that as well, so yeah, there are plans for Cephalic to definitely write a new record and get a new record out in 2015. Then hopefully, I can do another Cephalic Carnage and Job For A Cowboy tour. I\u2019ve done two of those, actually; one where Job For A Cowboy was headlining, and then another one where Between The Buried And Me was headlining. It\u2019s super-fun, though. That\u2019s one of my favourite things, is to get to do double duty and bring both of those bands out on the road together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pulling double duty isn\u2019t tiresome for Nick. \u201cNot too bad,\u201d he figures. \u201cWhen we did it, it was still maybe a total of an hour and 40 minutes of playing, but then there was Dan (Briggs, bass) from Between The Buried And Me. Their set was like two hours long, so even though I was playing with two bands, he was still playing longer than me (laughs). I think once you\u2019re up there and warmed up, you can play a lot longer than you think you normally could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sun Eater<\/em> was released on November 7th, 2014 in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, on the 10th in the rest of Europe and subsequently on the 11th in North America, all via Metal Blade Records.<\/p>\n

Interview published in November 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JOB FOR A COWBOY – A Global Shift Anthony Morgan November 2014 Job For A Cowboy live at the San Manuel Amphitheater in San Bernardino, California on June 29th, 2013 American death metal outfit Job For A Cowboy hired Nick Schendzielos during early 2011 to handle bass duties, previous member Brent Riggs having occupied the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1638],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-job-for-a-cowboy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23809"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23869,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23809\/revisions\/23869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}