Well Sean, how’s this new european tour going on?
It's great. We've had a lot of fun. We played a bunch of shows with The Black Dahlia Murder, Blindsight. We did a couple shows with the Angel Crew. They were great. We did some shows with Korn on the Download Festival. That was really fun. So it's been going really good.

You’re going to release a new record called “Supremacy”. How would you define this new record compared with the others ?
Uh, it's a little more mature, it's like a next level but not different. It's not that any of our albums were'nt focused, but it's more like... pummeling, more mature sounding. It's a great record. It's brutal as hell. It's very thrash and hardcore. It’s like 50/50. It's really good. I'm really happy with it.

Why did you choose this name “Supremacy”?
It has to do with Jamey's lyrical stance on the record, supremacy of self, self supremacy, supremacy of being. Becoming the best that you could possibly become. I think thats what it means.

You also have a new guitar player, Frank "3 Gun" Novinec (Ex-Terror, Ringworm). Why did you want to have him in Hatebreed ?
Well we decided we wanted a second guitar player again, to help bring the songs out better live. Have them be more like they’re supposed to be on the records. We wanted to be able to write again and be comfortable with parts knowing that they would be carried through live properly . So we deciced to get another guitar player again after being a four piece for four years. The only guy we considered was Frank. He's been one of our best friends for years and we were huge fans of Integrity and Ringworm. He was in Terror at the time and we asked him if he wanted to join the band and he said “Yeah!”. So were lucky to get him. He fits perfectly. No auditions or anything, we were just like "Hey! Want to get into the band?" and he was like "Yeah all right. Good". (Laughs)

Did you recorded the guitar parts alone on “Supremacy”?
Yeah, I did the last three records. Even “Perserverance” I did it all myself. We worked out a system where it's really efficient. It works out really well for the record. We were already recording when Frank joined the band. We were already done writing it. So he did'nt play in the record.

This time you took a lot of time in the recording proccess...
I think we waited a little longer between “ The Rise Of Brutality” and “Perserverance”. I think it was like two years yeah, so we had it. Gotta go to bed sometimes. (Laughs). We just took...I don't know, we toured I mean we're always working so it ain't like, you know? We’re always busy. Now we're on a new label, we're on Roadrunner now so there was a little buisness that had to be handled with that. So it took us a little longer but.. yeah, there you go. (Laughs).

You just did a tour to celebrate ten years of hatebreed. Whats your feeling on your career with the band?
Oh, it's great! Are you kidding me? We're proud of it. It's amazing, I think it's awesome, the band's been together for ten years and hopefully ten, twenty more. You know? We'll see. It's going good so we don't have any plans on stopping. We're proud to have a ten year legacy behind us already. You know it's going by so quickly. It's awesome.

Do you have any strange or funny stories to tell us about your career?
I don't know. it's just awesome! I guess the most recent thing is getting to play the Download Festival. That was amazing! This was our second time and we played the main stage. That was pretty cool, but I mean theres so many great things that have happened, we could be here all day. I mean, it's just like a blessing to be able to do this for a living and to play music to our fans and our friends. We have fun on tour every day you know? But nothing that jumps out on me right now so.

Some years before you were opening for bands like Madball and Agnostic Front. Now it's them that open for you. How do you feel about that?
Well Madball are really great friends of ours you know? Me and Hoya are like, and Freddy all of the guys. Rig was in Hatebreed for a while. They’re super close friends of ours. I mean it's a little wierd like having a band like Madball or Agnostic Front play before you, but you know, it's how it is. They’re cool with it so as long as their cool with it, we're cool with it. But it's definitly wierd you know? Cause they’re bands that, I mean Agnostic Front was one of my favroite bands growing up. So for some of our heroes to be taking the stage before us, it was a little wierd at first but everything’s cool.

There are some people that criticize the band, how would you explain this strange state of mind?
On what, people hating us? They’re just people who have nothing to do with their time, they’re bored. What are they doing? Tell them do to something with all that energy they put forth to talk shit about people and to say what we could do better. They could be doing something better for their family or their life I'm sure. So it's just hallow, that shit's just funny to us. We've been here for ten years and we're still here and still the same, so I say fuck you to them, suck my dick! (Laughs).

Whats your feeling about the hardcore scene in general?
Worldwilde? I think it's awesome! I think it's bigger than it's ever been. Theres more bands now than there ever has been. It's a huge worldwide thing, it's amazing. Theres tons and tons of bands now. Theres a lotta young kids really into it. I think it's at it's strongest point now that it's ever been. The shows are going great. Like I said theres so many young bands coming out and it's awesome you know? Everybody really into it and supportive. There are a lot of young kids into it that are hopefully going to carry the torch for the next 20 years. So i think that its going really good i think that it is the best that it has ever been.

Can you name us some bands that you really like?
Like in general? Im bad because im old. I still listen to the stuff that i grew up listening to. Jamey is the one into the new stuff. Out of all the new bands and stuff im not too prone to what is going on. all the bands that im into are the obvious like Cromags, Madball, Agnostic Front Slayer, Entombed. Im old im a mess. (Laugh) Terror is great. I used to be in 100 Demons they are really great.
There’s a bunch of bands coming out like Pale Horse, they ‘re great. There’s a lot of really good young bands that have a really good hardcore “ethic”, playing in small places, in little bars. There’s a lot of really good bands out there, but you know I’m so busy doing what I do and I don’t pay attention to the details…

What is for you the meaning of “Hardcore” ?
What I’ve been doing for the past 20 years, I guess. It’s just community and friendship, and heaviest music, good music. But all my friends and everybody I’ve been hanging around with since I was about 13 have come from that world and that scene, so it’s my community and my friends and my family, more or less. No matter what, regardless with the music, the music is great obviously and I love it as a movement, as a scene. It’s what I do every single day of my life. When I’m home or on tour, I’m hanging out with the same guys and going on the shows since I was a little kid so, I guess it’s my life, yes.

And you have a side-project called “House Of Blow”, could you tell us more about it ?
Me and Daryl (- Palumbo - Glassjaw, Head Automatica) are very close friends, we met when we were on tour when Hatebreed toured with Glassjaw few years ago, we did the Ozzfest together. Me and Daryl were both huge hiphop fans since we were little kids and we realized that we both made beats and do electronic music and stuff and it was like our secrets you know. After years of hanging out, we eventually decided to do a project together. It’s very weird, some people says it look likes some kind of dance music, almost like electronic production. I think the best way to say is that it crosses Portishead along with Wu-Tang Clan. All the music is electronic , we play guitar and bass on it, drums are made with a synthesizer , so it’s definitely a lot different from what we’re known for doing. We’re just doing for fun, we do not have any plan on releasing anything yet, we’re still writing and having fun with it. We are both so busy with what we do but it’s like an escape for us to do something different musically. Hopefully ‘til the end of the year there will be a Ep or something, once we get the time to sit down for like 2 weeks straight because right now it’s 2 days here, 2 days there and that during 6 month. And hopefully people will like it and if they don’t we have some fun anyway!

You also appeared as guest on many records like Throwdown, Necro, Danny Diablo... What’s the most important thing for you to decide to do or not to do a guest appearance ?
I’m pretty open, if it’s a friend of mine or a band I really dig, or a bunch of friends of mine that want me like Throwdown. But as long as it is something that is fun and it’s, you know, a good band, more or less if someone if I’m friend of them or someone that we toured with or someone just asks me to do something for them. As the Necro family just came to connect , we found out that he knew about Hatebreed and he found out we knew about him, we just connected and I went to the studio, he wanted a death metal and I did a death metal stuff, and that was it. For Throwdown, I did some picks live and that was it, just fun. So it’s not something crazy, I haven’t done too much crazy stuff yet, maybe in the next year. For the most of them all I want to do is some picks live, or leads like on the Icepick record, just stuff for friends, no money involved.

Hatebreed became a big band without making radio oriented singles or love songs... For me, Hatebreed could be seen as a band like Slayer. Was it the same for you ?
Well, we’re kind of models ourselves after them in a way because they never compromised and they evolved constantly pulling out what they were known for doing and in that aspect this is what we want to do too, just keeping out the same music and not disappointing our fans but in the same time not be afraid to reach out and get new people this is why we do things. Music never changes, we don’t compromise our music we don’t compromise anything when it comes to what we stand for and what we believe. A band like Korn took us on tour and it was great because it was good exposure for us and we also might recruit kids into hardcore maybe they wouldn’t find it before.
Comparing us to Slayer, clearly our eyes were pretty accurate cause we’ve liked to be around for 20 years doing the same brutal stuff , some of us are in Hatebreed from the beginnings, we never tried to change, we just stayed brutal. You’d rather ask the fans who come to see us, we have our fans, we have our hardcore scene. For people who’re getting to us it’s cool, and now for us to stretch out and do tour where we can reach people is cool, but our music will never compromised. Yeah we’re like Slayer in that way and Slayer is my favourite band. (Laugh)

So it was good for you to have Kerry King on “Perseverance” …
Yes it was great, you’re kidding me ??? ridiculous, crazy… Posters were on my walls. It was really an honour and we toured with Slayer and became friends with them… it was mindblowing !! It’s the same with Roger, Freddy, or John from the Cro-Mags, we got to meet all these guys and become friends. It’s just mindblowing! We’re still like little kids you know when we see them. Everytime I say “Hi! I’m Sean!”, and they’re like “Yeah we know!” (Laugh)

Do you have any DVD plan with Hatebreed ?
We have plan for ever, we have so much footage but we don’t have the time to really concentrate on it, we have so much stuff !! It’s like euh… our whole career of videotape, pretty much you know. Everything from the first line-up, everything from 1997 up. So when the DVD gets down, it will be like amazing, we will have time to make what we really want to do and not only make money, something worth of our fans’ money. We want to make a nice 2-DVD set, like “Hatebreed through the years” and a live show and another set of 2 or 3 DVD set. So when we’ll get the time to do it and to put it the right way, it will be out; we don’t want to rush something out there and just to have it up, it’s not fair. It’s better to take our time.

Sob from Merauder died a few month ago, I imagine that you knew him...
... Yeah he was a good friend...

... don’t you have a funny story to tell us about him ?
Oh there are tones ! Sob was just great, Rest In Peace! He was just a great person. There’s too many stories about Sob. He was such a good guy, a good friend, he was awesome. But I don’t know, any stories in particular. This guy was a nut, he was awesome! (Laughs) No real personal stories that I want to get into but he was just a great guy, a big influence for us. Merauder’s so legendary ! It’s just a shame that he passed away, it sucks. We lost a lot of friends during the last few years but everybody dies, it’s cycle life... God bless Sob, Rest In Peace.

Still linked with Merauder, we heard that you maybe wanted to release a cover songs record in which will feature “Life Is Pain”...
Yeah we got tones of stuff recorded, we recorded a whole bunch of covers, we just kind finished “Life Is Pain”, we did some Madball, Negative Approach, Cro-Mags, Agnostic Front, D.R.I, tones of great stuff. Stuff that have influences us when we were little kids, Metallica, Sepultura... So it’s gona be really good, but we have to type it up. We didn’t expect to record it, it was just for fun and the songs just kept comin’. We kept the integrity of the songs perfect, but it’s our guitar sound, our tuning, and Jamey singing but we played them the right way as we’re all nuts about it. It’ll be good but we don’t know when we’ll release it.

Pivot's Questionnary :

What is your favourite word? I don’t know ! (Laugh) I don’t think about it! Well, “Fuck”
What is your least favourite word? I don’t know! I don’t think I have one. I have no idea, I really don’t think I have a least favourite word.
What turns you on creatively? Pot! (Marijuana) (Laugh)
What turns you on spiritually? Marijuana
What turns you on emotionally? Life
What turns you off? Bad breath! (Laugh) Ignorance, Unfocused, Negativity, Stupidity
What is your favourite bad word? “Fuck”
What sound do you love? My guitar through Marshall stacks (Laugh)
What sound do you hate? The sound of constructions in the morning... when I’m on the job side... (Laugh)
What is your favourite place on earth? Home, Waterbury, Connecticut
And the one you hate? Home, Waterbury, Connecticut (Laugh)
Which person influenced you the most during your life? My brother and my mother
Who were your heroes when you were a kid? My brother, Randy Roads, Angus Young, Run DMC, Slayer...
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Nothing!
What profession would you not like to do? Roofer! I already did it and it sucks! I don’t want to go back! (Laugh)
If Heaven exists, what would you like God to say when you will arrive at the Pearly Gates ? “Come on in! You’re welcome!”

Interview Laureline, O.S & Manu
Translation Nick Kryla/Gaëtan/Manu

HATEBREED est en concert à Paris le 20 novembre 2006

Une vidéo du concert de Selesta : I Will Be Heard