Ahead of the release of their highly anticipated fifth studio album, Our Endless War, Phil Bozeman of deathcore veterans Whitechapel speaks to Rock Sins’ Will Stevenson about touring, lyricism and his bands approach to writing music.
Hi Phil, It’s Will here from Rock Sins! What time is it over there?
9:15 AM
Well, I’m sorry I woke you then.
It’s no big deal, haha.
How are you today?
Not bad man yeah, you?
I’m good, thanks. So can you tell us some more about your upcoming album, Our Endless War?
What specifics?
When does it come out, how many tracks, stuff like that.
It’s coming out April 29th, it’s gonna have 14, no sorry, 12 tracks and it was recorded by Mark Lewis at Audio Hammer studios and this is our second album with him and we’re really pleased with it.
That sounds great. Now, the first single is brutal. Why did you choose The Saw Is The Law for the first song people could hear from it?
I mean I would say just because like it represents us and its a really different song for us, and you know the song is uh I don’t know like its kinda like you know it shows a different side of us? It shows that we can actually write something other than just blastbeats, you know?
Yeah, it’s more melodic.
Yeah, mhm.
Does the album have any overall themes or concepts?
The overall theme is just you know is just kinda like looking at war like life. You know just kinda like as human beings just trying to overcome everything and just to overcome life in general pretty much that’s sorta like the basis of it.
Following on from that, where do you get your inspiration from, for your lyrics? And do you have a particular favourite lyric?
Uhm, well the lyrics kinda just come from just personal experience you know just like personal inspiration and you know like it’s not necessarily – its not positive but I guess you could say its positively negative? I just kinda wanted to I guess get a little bit more personal and you know just show that we have emotions and feelings too that we’re not talking about, we’re not always just talking about killing you know crazy messed up stuff like that all the time so basically I just wanted to kinda you know just show people we’re human too you know we have emotions and everything.
Right. So it’s a bit of a change up now on this new album then, it’s quite different?
Yeah, mhm.
Whitechapel have been together now for nearly a decade, how does that feel?
It’s pretty surreal man, time has flown. It’s crazy to say that we’ve been together that long.
Yeah. Looking back at your first album,
I feel like we’ve improved a lot. We’ve toured relentlessly, I mean we’ve toured all over the world. You know, this is our fifth studio album. I mean you know, we’ve put in a lot of hard work and I feel like you know it really shows, how much we’ve dedicated our lives to this.
Speaking of touring, who’s been your favourite band that you’ve toured with?
I mean I wouldn’t necessarily say a favourite but it’s pretty cool to say that we’ve toured with Slipknot.
Yeah yeah, I’d definetly agree with Slipknot. I’ve seen you’ve toured with Slayer too, that must be a big one.
Yeah, yeah we’ve toured with them too.
Do your writing and recording processes change with each album or have you generally done the same things?
Its pretty much been the same ever since “A New Era Of Corruption”, you know we pretty much just demo out all the songs before we go into the studio and we pretty much have done that for I think pretty much every album. Like I say, we write all the music first, then I write the lyrics second. That’s pretty much how we’ve always done it.
So you write the lyrics around the music, the tunes always come first?
Yeah, yeah.
I know you played Bloodstock last year, how was that for you, how did you go down?
That was awesome, that was the one that Slayer headlined? Yeah. Yeah I mean it was awesome, you know probably one of the best festivals we played on the whole tour and you know it was cool to be able to play with Slayer again. It was an early show for us but the crowd came out early they were ready to go.
What’s probably the favourite song you’ve ever written?
Erm, I don’t really have one to be completely honest… it’s kind of a tough one. Probably the last track on the CD, Diggs Road.
And why is that?
Just cause it’s a more personal song.
Some people do view Whitechapel as one of the generic sort of deathcore bands. What would you say to those people?
Just, that’s your own opinion. I feel like we play what we wanna play and if that’s what you think of us then that’s fine. We’re having fun doing what we’re doing and having a good time, we really enjoy it so y’know.
That’s a great answer. When you play live you can really see that fun energy.
Mhm.
Thanks for chatting to us Phil, you’ve been great, that’s about all we’ve got.
Alright! I appreciate it man.
Just one more question: what are your plans for the rest of the year, are you going to do a UK tour at some stage?
Uhm we don’t have anything set in stone for the UK right now, but I’m sure we will in the future.
Brilliant. We’ll definitely catch you when you do come over. Well thank you again for talking to us, I’ll let you get on with your life now, I’m sure you’ve got a busy day ahead.
Ah that’s okay. Thanks man!
Whitechapel’s new album Our Endless War comes out April 29th on Metal Blade Records.
One thought on “An interview with Phil Bozeman of Whitechapel.”