An Expansion of Boundaries

An Interview with Kyle Shutt & Bryan Richie of the Sword

By: George Archibald & Josh Drespling

Since their inception in 2003, Austin, TX natives The Sword have been redefining the meaning of metal. Fresh off the release of their acoustic version of High Country entitled Low Country, The Sword are picking up with a tour with legendary rockers Opeth. Low Country was an expansion on what  a song could really be. They took the lyrics that vocalist John D. Cronise, laid down for High Country, and went back into the studio to create new arrangements with a different approach to the songwriting process. Empire Extreme was fortunate to speak with bassist Bryan Richie and guitarist Kyle Shutt, to discuss touring and the new album.

EE: We didn’t realize this was the first day of the tour for you guys till management told us earlier. Anyway you guys put out an acoustic album out, which is kind of an odd thing especially for a band that is as heavy as you guys. What was the direction and reasoning behind putting out such an album? I know it started with one song then became another and another.

TS: You pretty much just answered your own question there. The record company always wants bonus tracks and material. It’s almost like writing a record is not good enough, can’t you write some filler bullshit we can give away for free. We don’t write filler bullshit. We are not capable of writing filler bullshit. So it’s always been a struggle for us to come up with things that we can use for what we call “bonus rock.” We had thought to do the songs, ‘Empty Temples’ and ‘Seriously Mysterious’, and time got away from us. We were finishing the records, and when you finish a record you have four months of what they call ‘set-up.’ It’s awful, it’s a horrible time because you’ve done this record and it’s in the can. You’re in limbo, no one has heard this yet and you start to question the work. You start to get in weird head spaces.

The Sword – Low Country

EE: Were you out on the road at that time, or sitting at home?

TS: No, sitting at home. It would be completely superfluous to be out on the road at that time, because then you would have to do it again when the record comes out. So you just sit. A lot of bands make that mistake. ‘Don’t ever go on tour before your album comes out.’ I know you want to, really bad. Just don’t think, ‘oh we’ll do a two-month tour prior to it comes out.’ NO, you need to have the album at the show. So people can buy it right there ready to go. It’s a rookie mistake.

So back to the album, it came about on our downtime. JD went back to Ashville, and the three of us were still in Austin. We just kind of pounded it out. We had JD’s vocal tracks from the sessions, so that is what we used as our guide and wrote new music over those tracks.

EE: We heard there are some lingering tracks out there still yet to be released?

TS: The ‘Agartha’ version and another, that was where we were like ok this is getting a little out of whack. (Brian) I did a version of ‘Silver Petals’ that sounded like Torch. We thought we would do all the heavy songs acoustic and try to do some of the quieter songs heavy. It came out to mixed results. We did a raw heavy take on that super slow jam ‘Turned to Dust’, and it’s going to be a part of our friend Sandy Carson’s photography book of live concert photography. It’s all like pictures of the crowds and it’s going to include a flexi 7 inch to go with the book. This is because a photo of our crowd is in the book.

The Sword – High Country

EE: With Low Country and High Country the band has gone through a bit of a sound change. Has  this been a natural progression for the band with that change or was it thought out. The sound is still heavy but less palm muting, a bit more refined.

TS: It’s just dudes being dudes. We have always made the albums the way we wanted to hear them. There are no rules, just as long as it sounds good. I think a lot of people forget that we are making records that will have a potential legacy. Where you can look at everything, and see where it all fits in our discography. This album sounds like this and that album like this, you know. People act like those first two records don’t exist anymore. Like we deleted them or something. You can listen to them any time.

EE: I was reading today while refreshing up on the band and it was a quote from when your first album came out. You guys wrote this album, and people were asking you about it, and the response was, “It’s metal, and we are pushing the definition of what metal is.” I thought that was a really cool quote. I think people sometimes get hung up on the categorization of music and forget that this is for pleasure.

TS: When we started it out it was all Nu Metal and screaming vocals, and double kick drums. We were like the only metal band (American band at the period, there were many European bands doing it still) that kind of like, would sing.

Tears of Fire Hot Sauce

EE: You have put out a couple beers and a hot sauce. Can you tell us about the hot sauce first then about the beers?

TS: It’s super-hot! Super delicious! It’s made with ghost peppers. It was featured on Travel Channel’s No Reservations with Anthony Bordain. Like any good thing it starts as a joke. A guy from our record label at the time was like, ‘You should do a hot sauce.’ So we were like ok. It’s really our own recipe, not some stock sauce that we throw a label on and sell. It’s our own unique hot sauce and you can get here at the merch table for $10.00 or at Tearsofjoysauces.com.

EE: And the beers, one is made in Texas and the other in Maryland?

TS: We did two with Real Ale in Texas. The one is an English Pale, and the other is an Oatmeal Stout. The ones in Maryland we actually don’t have as much to do with from the recipe angle. They are all very fantastic beers. If we do something we make sure it is something that we are actually going to use or enjoy. We are not going to actually be like you know, Kiss. I love Kiss don’t get me wrong, but maybe we don’t have sell everything. I don’t think we need to make a Sword umbrella, I don’t know how many people would need one.

Kyle Shutt of The Sword live in Pittsburgh PA

EE: Back to Low Country, I know on the song ‘Early Snow’, the band utilized a horns section. You also use variety of other unconventional instruments on the album. What was the idea behind incorporating these instruments on this album; other than just saying, ok we are just going to do live percussion and acoustic guitars and bass.

TS: I think mainly this is because we wanted to break up the monotony of doing just the same thing on each song. After we did a few versions, it was all starting to sound the same. We wanted to spice up the mix. I think it’s a good companion piece because it’s not every song, but more like just little tidbits that hint on the kinds of songs we wrote on High Country. It was my initial idea going in, was that these are not rock songs, or metal songs; they are just songs.

EE: Over the last few days I was listening to both High Country and Low Country going back and forth, comparing one version to the other.

TS: (Kyle) One kid commented, ‘play both versions of Seriously Mysterious, if you play them on top of each other with the timing right they sync up.’ I was like, ‘That’s so rad I want to do that!’ Everything is the same tempo, so you could technically do that. If you wanted to DJ your own acoustic Sword mashup it is possible with the two different versions.

John D. Cronise of The Sword, Live in Pittsburgh, PA

EE: I like the Low Country versions a lot. It brings real warmth to the songs, with these new arrangements.

TS: When we started really doing the album that was the thing that really stuck out the most to me. It was like here is Seriously Mysterious this song that is tongue in cheek a little bit, in the sense that we were doing it. The whole title was a joke that I(Kyle) made, and then JD ended up writing a song called that and I was like, ‘oh Jesus, I have to watch what I say around him.’ His demo for it was kind of synth pop. One of my favorite bands Electric Six.  They do all their albums very differently and the one album they did was all synthesizers, no drums, no guitars, all synths; and I really appreciated that approach to writing and I thought maybe we could try that maybe for one song. My rule was no guitars, no drums, all programmed. Then we got through it and one day in the studio I was like, ‘I think I hear a guitar part.’ So that’s why I just did a little solo in there. It just kind of did itself.

(Brian) Upon doing the acoustic version of that song, it was what really kind of brought, for me really how great of a track that actually was. Then from that moment, that was how I viewed the acoustic record. How can we take these songs (You know, we are a band about riffs) and how do you take the focus off of us, and push it right onto JD with his vocals, with the song that he created? It’s not like the lyrics are on the nose, it takes a little bit of thought, and half of it is creating this atmosphere for all of that. With a lot of the stuff I did for Low Country, would be like making a big part then taking it all away and then trying to figure out how best can I do this. The bass stuff is all synthesizer. I didn’t want to use an acoustic bass or an electric bass, it was kind of fitting with what we were doing with the album. It shall be keyboard based, fuck it why not. I felt by doing this it added to the atmosphere of the album. It also added to the nontraditional instrumentation of the record. Some of the percussion tracks Jimmy did were the slapping on the back of a guitar.

EE: I did hear that on the album. At first I was wondering was hearing bongos, but you can distinctly hear that warms of the wood on those strikes.

TS: We wanted to add elements like acoustic reggae stuff. Like folk with the beating on the guitar. Kind of like camp fire tunes and stuff like that.

EE: So where do you go from there?

TS: Well, that’s the cool thing we can now do whatever the fuck we want to do. That door has been opened. We’ve done opened it up completely. Now nothing is out of the question. We could do um… a record full of disco ballets and people would still talk shit.

You can catch The Sword out on tour now with Opeth as they are moving through the United States. Also Low Country was released on September 23^rd, be sure to give it a good listen. For more information on the band check out theswordofficial.com, or their Facebook for updates. EE wants to thank the band for this opportunity to speak with them and wishes them well while on tour. Thank you guys it was awesome!!

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George Archibald

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