Interview with For The Love Of Suffering

How would you classify your music. ?

We are a 90's metal band.....

What do you class as a 90's Metal band. ?

Machine Head, Fear Factory- aggressive in your face metal with power, groove and attitude.

Do you all have day jobs and if so what do you do. ?

Yes, Jamie works on landscaping, Scott works with his dad as a carpenter, Shannon cleans carpets, Eric works as a RV tech, and myself, I do child care -not mine- ( gives me lots of time to do band business ).....

How did you get into childminding, it seems a strange job to do for a musician ?

For some reason kids love me, my girlfriend's sister has a baby and when she started to go back to work she needed someone to do child care and I said that I would do it for a while and it's been about 7 months and it's a full time job now.

Why did you start playing your instruments. ?

Well, Jamie, Eric, and Shannon came from Alaska with their old band and changed guitarists. Scott answered an add and I was added last to complete things. things have just clicked and we have been gaining respect and fans every since......

What are your musical backgrounds ?

We all come from a wide backgrounds, Scott is the youngest and listens to a lot of Sepultura, Slayer, and Pantera, while Jamie likes a lot of rap type bands like Beastie boys, Stuck Mojo, Rage Against The Machine. Eric and Shannon listen to bands like Death angel ,Napalm Death, I'm the oldest and grew up listening to the bands from the 80's, Dokken, Loudness, Lizzy Borden. all of which richen the music we write.....

What kind of music do you like to listen to when your not playing ?

We tend to listen to a lot of new music Coal Chamber, Fear Factory, Pantera, Korn, Nevermore, Tool. but the strangest thing is probably Tom Leykis ( a talk radio personality ).....

Who thought of the name For The Love Of Suffering and how did you choose it?

Jamie came up with the idea, it came from a song title from an old band, we thought about it and kicked the name around for awhile and thought about some others, but for the love of suffering stuck out, as unique and original. We have had a lot of positive responce on the name from fans and other bands.....

Which are your personal favorite songs and why ?

Probably IN THE FACE and TRADITION because they are the newest and the direction we as a band are heading. we have other songs that we are almost finished writing that show more of the diversity and direction. we write 3 or 4 songs at a time and when we come to section we haven't quite figured out we change to another song and work on that one. this way we have a couple of songs finished about the same time.....

Do you play many gigs and if so where ?

We play 3 to 5 times a month, mostly in and round Seattle and Tacoma. we have opened for some national acts, Exodus, Skinlab, Nevermore, Meat Wagon, The Accused. We are looking forward to many more.....

What is your view of the music scene in Seattle ?

The scene is wide, a lot of experimental, but a lot of the older metal bands are coming back, I feel that the metal scene is growing stronger and we will keep trying to bring back the respect we lost due to bands like Forced Entry, Bitter End, and Panic leaving us high and dry.....

You say you lost respect due to bands like Forced Entry, Bitter End, and Panic. They are bands i have never heard of and what did they do to lose respect for Metal ?

They are all bands from the early 90's. they were all signed to independant labels and had success on MTV's Headbangers ball and the reason you haven't heard of them is because they didn't tour and let bands like Mud Honey, Nirvana, My Sisters Machine bring the grunge label to Seattle. We had a killer metal movement and they just dropped out of it.

Was it important to you all to get away from the Grunge (Nirvana)scene ?

Grunge is and has been dead in Seattle for years, the media has left the grunge name tag on Seattle. We with other good metal bands are bringing metal back to the for front.....

What bands would you say have had most influence on you ?

Directly and indirectly I think the sounds and attitudes of bands like Machine Head, Fear Factory, and Stuck Mojo.....

What kind of response have you had to your first release 'Not Affected By Pain' and how well is it selling ?

The response has been just great, very positive feedback from our fans and the music industry and with fan-zines and magazine reviews like the one in Stormbringer we are getting our name out to places we had not thought about, Japan, Singapore, the Philipines, all thru Europe and the UK. the sales are better than we thought they would be, we have gone through half of the first order.....

What are your plans for the future ?

We hope to sign with a good label, tour, record, and promote the metal movement. Europe is one place we really want to tour, we hear the metal scene is killer and the bands get a lot of respect.....

You say you want to tour Europe would the UK be included ?

Sorry, we tend to think of the UK as part of Europe, and group everything together.

Have you written any more songs since releasing 'Not Affected By Pain' ?

We have about 6 new songs and another 4 or 5 that didn't make it on the CD.....

Any last words or remarks ?

DON'T LET THE MEDIA OR THE INDUSTRY TELL YOU WHAT TO LISTEN TO OR WHAT IS POPULAR!!

SUPPORT LOCAL/UNDERGROUND METAL.

F.T.L.O.S HOMEPAGE : http://www.seattlemusicweb.com/ftlos.htm