Interview with Dan Brown - (Guitarist) The Amity Affliction

THE AMITY AFFLICTION were finishing up the last date of the UK tour at o2 Academy Islington, London after being on the road for some time now, the quartet have had their fair share of stories to tell from this journey. Dan Brown, guitarist of the band had some time to sit down and answer a few questions about the band.

Hello Dan, so how are you?

“I’m good today, I’ve been a little bit sick but we all got sick. We’ve got today, then we’ve got four shows left back in Europe.”

Have you even played in O2 Islington before?

“No, we haven’t, well I haven't. It looks cool, we just did the meet and greet out there with a few kids and its big and got a cool balcony. We did a sound check before and it sounds good so looking forward to it.”

Who would you want to go on tour with?

“Theres a few I would want to go on tour with, obviously Architects, they're our good friends but there is a few I guess that wouldn't suit our bill. Me and Joel, we’re all hardcore kids, growing up  with that stuff and we’re not really a hardcore band but I guess whatever you want to call it, full of hardcore kids so we’d basically want to be on tour with hardcore bands. One of my favourites are from Belgium I think, Rise And Fall, they’re like an older band but really good. As soon as we have the offers come up, Joel said we could take Rise And Fall, but we can’t because it just wouldn't make sense.”

What are your favourite venues around the UK?

“It’s hard to remember them all, cause its like a whirl wind, The Underworld was a good venue, I really liked that one. There's no barrier and it had all the different levels to it so there was crowds here and there. Paris was cool, last time we were there we played on a boat.”

Things you Love/ hate about the UK?

“Me and Ahren  will always go to get a kababs and chips, that's the main thing, as soon as we get here we want to eat that. It’s usually food. We’ve got an American playing guitar for us now, he's filling in and we get to take him out, we had fish and chips and roast dinners, he doesn’t have that in america. Australia is pretty similar so we just take him around.”

Are you going to get anyone to fill in for Troy Brady?

“There is Kyle who was our guitar tech, he’s a good guy and knows how to play guitar and he's just filling in presently now, he's not a member but he's going to be in that spot the whole time.”

There has been a lot of controversy about the Chasing Ghost album, artwork, what is the meaning?

“Well if you only look at the front cover then you would assume but if you flick through the booklet its actually not, its more of a metaphor, Joel goes with these lyrics, its all about being in the ocean and being cleansed and you come out the other end. We all talk about the album work, but Joel gets the concept. He writes all the lyrics. The answer phone message ain’t real, we wrote the script for it, the guitarist in Deez Nuts said it, and figured he's got a cool accent so we asked him. Because it ties the two songs together. We knew we had a happy song, then the repack after was heavy and if we just went from one to the other it would sound a bit odd so we needed something to tie it together, and him talking about it was brining both the lyrics and meaning.”

How do you feel about having such a large and supporting fanbase?

“Yeah that’s great, its mainly Joel and his lyrics, because he's been through the same thing when younger, and he wants to help and tell people that it’s alright and just stick with it. Everywhere we go we get people saying, oh you helped my friend or you helped me, its weird but its good.”

Would you ever change the sound of your band to fit into Hardcore?

“No, we also like metalcore, we like the stuff we play and its working for us so we wouldn't change, it’s gotten a little bit heavier, Ive started writing songs with Ahren so the sound has changed, just a little bit. But we would never be a hardcore band, we’d loose a lot of fans probably.”

What does 2015 hold?

“We’re full, we’ve got touring and writing new things, there is a lot of stuff we cant announce yet but it is a full year. We will be writing for a new album, it depends when we get it done to record it.”

Goals for the band’s future?

“Keep going the way we are going, as soon as we start going backwards we will start asking ourselves why we doing this, its cool at the moment, it pays us enough to be the only thing we do. When you've got to work a job and do a band its hard, so now our job is our band. It takes a long time though, you’ve just got slug it out. Ahren has been in the band for 10 years now, I’m going on two so I am fairly new but still I was doing other bands for another 8 years before that. You start off as an apprentice like any other job, then eventually things grow if you're doing the  right thing and making the right decisions then.”

Best food here?

“Nandos is better here, Australia cost way more and its a fast food thing. Australia has a better subway. I get the Italian BMT, with mayo and I always get all the salads. Food is cheaper here, but once you do the conversion it costs us a lot. You can’t just eat junk food all the time you do get sick.”

Shows you are looking most forward to?

“We are looking forward to London because its a bigger room and London always cool so, the next one is cologne and its a big one and sold out and last day of tour.

Who is the messiest on tour?

“The plot in you or Napoleon are the messiest, so we know not to annoy each other and just take care of our own stuff otherwise  we have these little fights.”

Any fights break out on tour or rowdy stories?

“We usually get along with most bands nothing major if something happens anyways. We all know how to treat each other and how each other works, some days someone will have an off day and you know just to leave them alone, it’s like living together so you get used to it. We are very close.”

Would just like to thank Dan Brown for giving me 11 minutes to do this short interview and the rest of the Amity guys. Thank you and great show.