Metal Monday: Wake Of Redemption Looking To Shake The Earth

posted in: Exclusive Interviews • Rock

Mainstream metal gets a really bad rap more often than it likely deserves. Perhaps this reputation rests on the fact that mainstream metal boosts catchier songwriting, features hooks and is more visible than their underground counterparts. At any rate, there is plenty of worthwhile mainstream metal amongst the riff raff, and OurStage metal band Wake Of Redemption is doing their best to show everyone just that. Don’t be mistaken, Wake of Redemption aren’t just wishy washy pop music that pretends to be metal; they’re pure metal.

On January 29, Wake of Redemption is unleashing their full-force attack on the world: Earthshaker. Listening to the three tracks the band has posted to their OurStage profile, we’re pretty excited and we think you should be too. Earthshaker promises to be a fresh take on a few different mainstream metal styles, all packaged into one cohesive-sounding album. To get some backstory on the album’s recording process, which the band did with Jamie King (Between the Buried and Me, He Is Legend, etc.) at his studio in North Carolina, we got in touch with guitarist/vocalist Nick who gave us a lot of insight into some of the decision-making and a description of some of the things that you’ll hear on the album:

“At our first couple of meetings with Jamie, we tracked all of the drums and discussed the overall scope of the project. After some editing, Jamie sent the drum tracks to me. To save money, we ended up tracking all of the guitars at my house but made sure to get a clean ‘dry’ signal of all the guitars and bass while tracking. This gave Jamie the ability to ‘re-amp’ our guitar signals later and run them through some top-end gear he has in his studio. What you actually hear on the album is a blend of our guitar amps and the amps that he re-amped our dry signals through. After guitars and bass were finished, we went back into the studio with Jamie to record vocals and mix the album. Due to his unrelenting schedule and our decision to track guitars, the entire process took nearly a year, but we also saved an enormous amount of money and were able to really concentrate on getting as good of performances as possible rather than watching the clock (especially while tracking guitar).”

What label is Earthshaker coming out on, you ask? Well, the simple answer is “none” but it’s not quite that simple. Much like the recording process, the deliberation about how to release the album took quite some time. Once again, we decided to have Nick clarify by explaining how the band came to the conclusion to ultimately self-release the album:

“After a ton of research and thinking, we are self-releasing the album. We’ve actually been on the fence about it for months (I got the masters back for the album in May!) but finally made the decision and feel very good about it…Early on, we were pretty determined to push this album to as many labels as possible to try to get label distribution. But, we all started reading and talking to people in the industry and it became clear how little money bands make when they first sign to labels. Most of us are at a point where we cannot afford to live the typical early-band life with no income because of family and other obligations, so we started researching the alternatives. I believe that the music industry as a whole is in the midst of a dramatic shift, especially where music distribution is concerned. For around $40, we were able to get our music on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon through a music aggregator, bypassing the need to sign our lives away to a major label for access to the most important distribution chain in the industry. For every album we sell digitally, we will see over 60% of the profit (vs. a maximum of 10% we would receive in royalties were we on a major label). There may come a time when we need major label support, specifically for promotion, but, for now, we are excited about the fact that we are totally debt-free and are at the point where we can sit back, melt faces and hopefully make a little money (which we will inevitably re-invest in the band).”

In the player below, you can listen to a few songs from the upcoming album, as well as download “Oh, Yeah!” (but only for a limited time, so don’t wait). Make sure you buy the album when it drops on the 29th, and see these guys live if they’re playing near you. Wake of Redemption do not disappoint.

Sorry, you missed out on the download! Make sure you grab the album when it drops!