Dinner With Tim Williams and Bloodsimple By Robin Steeley
I got a chance to sit down to dinner with Bloodsimple vocalist Tim Williams, and later on the rest of the band while they were in Portland on tour with Static-X. If you haven’t heard of Bloodsimple you soon will, this East Coast band is made up of former members of Vision of Disorder, Downset, and Medication, and their sound is metal perfection. The band impressed Mudvayne’s Chad Gray so much that he started his own record label just so that he could sign them. All you have to do to find out why is listen to their new album, A Cruel World, and judge for yourself.
Crave: So What’s up guys?
BS: Not much, this is for Crave Magazine? From Vancouver?
Crave: Yeah were close to Portland but we get to avoid the traffic and parking hell. It’s cool you guys are actually here when it’s not raining!
BS: Usually every time I’ve been here it’s been raining, like when I came through with my old band VOD.
Crave: It’s gonna be a good night, there’s already a crowd here. So how’s the Static X tour been?
BS: Well it’s almost over. We’ve got two days left. It’s been very long, and very good. We have had a real positive reaction; the guys from Static are real cool dudes. We’ve been on the road with American Head Charge seven months in a row. They are great dudes! This is their last night. They are going some place else for one show and then home.
Crave: Are you guys going to pull any pranks on them since they are leaving the tour?
BS: I think we’re too burned out from last night to do anything. But you never know!
Crave: Tell me a little about how you ended up hooking up with Mudvayne and the Bullygoat label?
BS: Our drummer Chris was friends with Chad for awhile and we were putting this band together, getting the members together, getting the songs together, he was always talking about it and told Chad, when we get to a certain level I want to give you a demo and see if you can get us some shows. So we gave it to him and Chad was really into it and wanted to help us. He invited us out to the Sanitarium show and then he got us a show, they were doing an off date and we went on right before them in Philly and he saw us play and after he saw us he said you know what, I think I want to start my own record label, do you guys want to be the first band on it?
Crave: So was it like an overnight thing?
BS: It went really fast. From the point he said that to getting the deal was pretty quick actually. Usually that stuff takes forever, but we got in with some good people, Warner Brothers really liked the band and that was it.
Crave: I had never heard of Bloodsimple before, of course I had heard of VOD and Penny sent me your package and I got it yesterday and I have been playing the CD ever since I took it out of the wrapping. I love the melodic element, I love that it doesn't sound commercial at all, its heavy but its got those melodic choruses that make you remember the songs. I think the album is amazing. I love "What if I lost It" and "Straight Hate" What's your favorite track?
BS: I like "Cruel World" a lot, "Falling Backwards" is pretty cool to play live. And then there's "Straight Hate", and scary enough, that's the one that almost wasn't on the record. We wrote that a long time ago and we just thought it was a straight, heavy song you know and then GGGarth heard it and we decided to record it and in the process, the song just became a totally different animal. I think it's funny that the song that almost didn't even make it is our first release, and the first song we did a video for.
Crave: It's the first track and it instantly grabs you. It must be getting a good response.
BS: Everybody has really seemed to like it, it's been positive. This is our third time through the states and each tour we have gotten a better and better reaction. This tour has been over the top, wherever we go, the kids are into it; they sing along, they know the words. four or five months ago, it wasn't like that.
Crave: How was the studio, what was it like working with GGGarth Richardson?
BS: GGGarth is cool man. We went up to Vancouver, we recorded it up there, I like GGGarth a lot, what I like about him the most is that he saw the sound we were going for and he exploited it. He didn't try to tone us down or make us like a radio band in any way. He didn't overproduce it. Most producers are just out for the radio song. It took us a long time, three years to put this record together. We put a lot of time into it.
Crave: What was the biggest influence that drove the music lyrically? Was there any overall thing that was going on at the time right at the time that was pushing the lyrics?
BS: There was a lot going on in my life when I was writing these lyrics. A few close people died and that definitely had an effect on them, the state of the world, all the aggression going on, the war, what I see going on around me, and then there is also just the fictional stuff that I make up.
Crave: If you could tour with any band in the world, who would it be?
BS: I wanna tour with the Deftones. That would be the tour.
Crave: What was the first album you ever owned?
BS: Motley Crue, Shout at the Devil! I got two sisters and all my cousins are girls and it was hard for me to hear any heavy music, there was like this neighbor that would slip me metal records.
Crave: Who has been your biggest inspiration, personally or musically in life?
BS: Layne Staley, definitely Jim Morrison. He was so young when he died.
Crave: What's your favorite city or venue to play?
BS: I like Texas shows a lot. Everywhere the shows are good and kids are cool. Texas is its own little world. San Antonio is where we filmed the video too. They told us NYC or LA and I was like NO, lets do it in Texas on the Mudvayne tour, don't worry it will be crazy. It was a live video; it was cool Chad got up and did a song with us.
Crave: What do you do to prepare for a show; do you have any before show rituals?
BS: We all get together, we stretch out a lot. We used to drink a lot before the shows but this tour I didn't drink once before I played, which really felt good for me but then the last week I have been drinking every day. I'm in the home stretch. My brain is already home. We're so close.
Crave: You had an overwhelming, overnight success almost. What would you tell a band that was just at that point?
BS: Keep your feet on the ground and your head out of the clouds. Realize that this is a business and that people will try to take advantage of you, so make sure you know who is working for you, and make sure they are doing the right things. You can put out the best record in the world and if your team isn't good you're going to go under, I speak from experience about that one.
Crave: Do you guys have any horror stories from the road to tell us?
BS: Not really, but knock on wood it's not over yet. It's been pretty good, nothing too crazy, a couple blow outs on the road, that's about it.
Crave: If you could have a drink with any dead rock star, who would it be?
BS: Jim Morrison. Definitely.
Crave: What is the first concert you ever went to?
BS: Yeah, it's gay and all, but it was INXS. I was just a kid.
Crave: Are there any new bands on the scene we should be looking out for?
BS: Head Automatica is pretty cool, I dig Atreyu, Avenged Sevenfold, Madball is back, which is great, they've got a new record.
Crave: So tell me what's in the future for Bloodsimple, when the tour is over?
BS: We go home thank god, for about two and a half, three weeks, which is fucking great, but then we will be back out on the road again, and we're going to Europe. Then a tour with Life of Agony, Then Soulfly and Throwdown.
Crave: So tell me what's going on with the hidden track at the end of the record? I listened to that and I was like, what the fuck are they doing? It's hysterical.
BS: It was him and some of our dorky friends leaving messages that were recorded and then some of the antics that were going on, the big splash you here is me being thrown into freezing water, by GGGarth. We had such a good time, it was great. We love to have shit like that on our record, it shows the bands personality.
Crave: If you could pick any way to die, what would it be?
BS: That's a weird question. Skydiving, into a sunset over the Pacific Ocean, and just disappearing.
Editor's note: This interview was funner then hell, but I hope the guys forgive me if I got a few things wrong. We were in a busy venue, full of people, with sound check going on in the background. It was one of the hardest interviews I've had to transcribe, but well worth it in the end. These guys are hilarious, and their album is one of my two favorite albums of the entire summer. RS
