Blood, Whore, and Morgan Freeman. An interview with Chris Howorth from In This Moment.

In This Moment is a band that combines music, art, fashion, and beauty to create something out of the ordinary. They are a band that is no stranger to most people in the rock and metal world. They’ve played some of the biggest tours out there, and are about to have their dues paid in full. With the recent release of their album Blood, In This moment is poised to take the next step in their long fought battle. Armed with killer tunes and a lovely lady out front, In This Moment is set to finally become a juggernaut of a rock band. If you enjoy the heavier side of things, pick up a copy of Blood. You can thank me later.

Stream the entire Chris Howorth interview below:
[ca_audio url=”http://www.unsungmelody.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Chris-Howorth-from-In-This-Moment-interview.mp3″ width=”500″ height=”27″ css_class=”codeart-google-mp3-player”]

Today, I’m excited to welcome Chris Howorth to the Unsung Melody family. Chris is the guitarist, and also a founding member of In This Moment. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, and welcome to the family. We’ll jump right in, as I know you are on the road. I recently reviewed your new album Blood on our site, so most know I’m quite the fan of it. It’s your guys’ fourth album on Century Media. I hear it had a pretty good debut on the charts for you guys. Has it continued to impress for you guys?

Absolutely man. When we finished the album, we knew it was our best. We knew it was good. We also got a new management group too, at the beginning of this cycle. We knew that was going to help and be good for us too. We had all these numbers in our head of what we wanted to get, we’ve always had that though. Every album, we’ve always felt has been our best, and we’re like this is going to happen, and this is what we’re going to get. This time it finally happened, so it definitely felt great. Yes, it’s continuing to sell, and it’s continuing to climb the charts and radio. It’s just super exciting.

Blood is also the title of the first single. You released a pretty cool video for it recently. It features Maria as a bit of an evil queen with all of the cool camera tricks and has a really creepy cool vibe to it. Tell us a bit about the concept and who you guys worked with on that one.

We worked with a director named Robert Kley. That video is pretty much like Maria’s little brainchild. She had the idea. The concept I guess, is kind of based around the song. It’s the inner struggle that everyone has with good and bad. How one day you feel good about yourself, the next you feel bad. You know? The ups and downs, trying to keep yourself right. That’s what the video is about. Maria had all these artistic visions in her head. She always scours the web for just artistic type films and clips. She found this new director online. Basically, this guy does a lot of fashion type videos and things of that nature for models. He hasn’t really done a lot of work with bands, but Maria thought this guy was going to be the one, and she was right. Everyone loves the video and it came out great. It’s more of like artistic shots mixed together, you know there’s not really a treatment or a story. It’s more of a statement.

Like I mentioned, I’ve reviewed the album for the site, and most know I’m a fan of the album. I gotta say, Whore is an absolutely amazing song. The simplistic nature of the groove, with Maria stealing the show vocally, is a perfect match. For me, I hope that the song can be a single at some point. Did you guys have a good feeling about this song when you wrote it?

Yes man. I mean, we all feel the same way. Maria and I, our producer Kevin; We all feel like Whore is the best song on the album. It’s gotta be huge. It just seems so right. When we wrote the song, we had this little guitar jangle. Maria skit-skatted some vocal ideas over it and it just came together so fast. It was like the third or fourth song we did. We had done Blood and a song called From the Ashes, like two or three months before we even started working on the album. We went in with Kevin to kind of show management people, and everybody what we were doing. Then, when we went to do the album itself, Whore was the first song we started on, and it just came instantly. We thought instantly, this is great. We thought, ‘We’ve got Blood, we’ve got this song. This is going to be great.” I’m glad you like it man.

It’s an awesome song. Just the groove itself is just, I don’t know, there’s something about it. It’s just so simple, then Maria just takes it over the top. It’s a great mix. Obviously you guys feel that is going to be something special for you guys too, but what’s the next single off of Blood? Is Whore possibly on the agenda, or are you leaning more like Adrenalize?

Well, you know it’s weird. Everyone feels that Whore is the best choice, it’s the best song, and it’s going to be big. That’s with everyone involved with us, including our management team, just everyone who we work with thinks that, but everyone is a little concerned about the title, and it being a little risqué for certain stations. Some people are pitching Adrenalize, but we’re sticking to our guns and I’m pretty sure Whore is going to be the second single off of this album.

I kind of had that concern myself. I thought, well maybe the subject matter is a little rough, but it’s music. It’s art, so people are just going to have to get over it.

That’s going to make it more interesting, and more of a thing. Ohhh, the name is risqué, and people are not wanting to play it because of the name. You know, that might just make people like it more.

Revolver recently named Maria the hottest chick in metal. That’s a bit of a personal award, but at the same time it can only help the band as well. How important do you think something like that is to the band itself?

Well, it’s awesome. We love press, and any press is good press. Maria is not taking it all serious, and thinking “I’m the hottest chick in metal, bow to me.” It’s just kind of a fun, cool thing. It’s a double edged sword, because we’re stoked that she is getting the attention because people think she’s pretty, because she is. Also, it’s press, and it’s in magazines and such, but we also want people to recognize the band as a band. In the fact that we’re writing songs. It’s song, and music, and substance. It’s not just some hot chick in front of a bunch of dudes that have no talent. We want people to take us seriously too. So, it kind of goes both ways. Where it’s really awesome, and it’s great to have that publicity, but also we don’t want people to lose sight of the fact that we write good songs, and we’re a band. Maria feels the same way about that too. She’s stoked on it, but she also wants to be taken seriously for her vocals, her songs.

The band itself has a new dirty sort of zombie look. Image has long been an important part of this bands style. What’s the story behind the new look?

I like that description man. We were thinking like Gravediggers. Basically, when we finished the album, we had a lot of changes happen in the band right before we went in to record the album. We lost a couple of our members that had been with us since the beginning. Our management changed. Just everything was different. Going in, we just felt like this album was really intense and really dark and really cool. We’d been doing the same thing over and over, let’s just step it up. I’m a huge KISS fan, and Motley Crue, and Ratt, and all these 80’s bands that had a lot of image. Alice Cooper is another. We just felt like we should take it up a notch. We didn’t really have a plan for what we were going to do, we just kind of started doing it and it started coming together. You can tell, by looking at the pictures that are on the album, and then seeing us live, we’re stepping it up and learning more about what we want to do everyday. We just felt like, let’s make it more of a show, more of an event. Instead of just four dudes in their jeans and t-shirts, with the hot chick dancing around in the dress. (laughter) We wanted to make this something to remember and we wanted people to go home thinking, ‘Wow, that was cool! We love it too. Because, like I said before, we love all those bands like KISS that are theatrical and larger than life. That’s something we say a lot when we talk about what we are trying to do. We want to make it seem larger than life, so people look at us and go, ‘Wow, that’s something cool. Who is that?” So far, everyone has taken to it great. The fans are loving it, there’s always haters that are gonna rag on ya for stuff and talk smack, but we started to realize too, that the more people are talking smack about you, the more popular the band is becoming. You get the good with the bad.

Like we mentioned earlier, the band changed management, as well as some members between albums this time around. How has the change to In De Goot been for you guys so far?

It’s been amazing. We were kind of concerned at first because our manager dropped us, then the two guys left and we had no one really for a while. We were just plugging ahead, writing music. It wasn’t until we did the song Blood, and the song From the Ashes with Kevin that everybody took notice and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I want you guys.” Everyone kind of thought Blood was going to be something special. So, it helped us get management in place really quickly. As far as In De Goot is concerned, I mean, Bill is one of the kings of the business. He’s well respected. His track record is beyond reproach. We’re already seeing it. Getting the right team in place prior to this album coming out. Then having the song at radio stations, and people are playing it, and giving it a chance. As opposed to some of our older albums, it’s all related to our affiliation with In De Goot. It’s just been great man. They know what they’re doing, and we love it.

I love seeing creative ways to reach fans. You guys streamed the album a full week ahead of the release on Xbox. It seems everyone is a gamer nowadays. Was that an idea you guys came up with, or were you approached about that?

It actually came from our record label, Century Media. I’m a huge gamer. I’m on Xbox Live nonstop when I’m not on tour. So, when we first heard about it, I told Maria, I said, this is amazing. We have to do this. It’s like 150 million subscribers. Everyone is on that thing all the time, if you’re a gamer, and most people are. It was just a random thing that happened this time, but it was just another right place, right time element that helped make this record kind of happen.

Alright, I always end on a random question. So, here goes yours; VH1 comes to you guys about doing a Behind The Music show. Who narrates it, and why?

Morgan Freeman. Because he is awesome, and he has that great voice. I don’t know it just gets you going. Him or Sigourney Weaver, I’m not sure. (laughter)

I appreciate your time Chris. The site and myself, wish you and the band nothing but the best. Hopefully, we can get caught up at a show sometime soon.

Keep up with In This Moment below:
Official Site
Facebook
Twitter

Preview or purchase Blood below:

Check out the video to Blood from In This Moment below: