Striker interview with guitarist Tim Brown
– How was it recording your album Stand In The Fire?
Recording Stand in the Fire was great, since we did it ourselves at home. It was really amazing to work on the songs in our own time, however we wanted to. It gave us a lot of flexibility to experiment with things and try out wacky ideas, some worked and some didn’t but in the end I think it made the album a lot stronger. Recording at a studio can be nerve racking because you are always on the clock but this was really laid back.
– How did you go abouts to making the artwork for this album?
We contacted a bunch of people and eventually settled on Coki Greenway to do the album art! We are really happy with it, we wanted that old school Manowar vibe and I think he really nailed it
– When writing a song, is there such a thing as investing too much time?
Probably not! I don’t think any song is every truly “done”, only every “done enough”. There’s always something to tinker with or improve, and that drive and ability to always make the songs better is what separates the good songs from the great songs.
– Do you have any tours coming up in the near future?
We just finished a huge tour in Europe with Primal Fear and Brainstorm which was fucking awesome! In a few days we fly to Mexico for a short tour there, and then in April we begin with the western Canadian portion of our North American tour. The US portion of that tour is May 13-June 6, and then we head straight to Eastern Canada to rip it up for our buddies on the other coast. After that we planning another European tour in the Fall and an American tour in the winter! Hopefully we can fit Japan or Australia in there somehow!
– Could you describe what goes on in a day in your life as a musician on tour?
Wake up early to sit in a van for 5 to 10 hours. Then quickly load in, sound check, play, hustle merch, and then load out and head to the hotel. Rinse & repeat for a month and you’ve got yourself a tour! A lot of people think touring is more like a vacation, but they are dead wrong. It’s a ton of work and we all bust our asses 24/7. There’s always some crazy bullshit that needs to be dealt with on a daily basis, and then of course you have to manage your band outside of the tour which can be tough. Basically imagine being sick, tired, hungry, and hungover everyday and that’s pretty close.
– Making videos must be a lot of work and still fun to do. How do you look at it?
Making videos is really important these days since YouTube and other social media is so prevalent. One good music video could go viral and your band explodes overnight. It happens to bands all the time and you really have to make sure you have a strong presence. Videos also really help project what your band is about and let people get a look into what your personalities are like a little more. For our music videos, we want to make a tv series or movie one day out of keg monster saga, so fingers crossed for that!
– In your opinion, which album would be essential to have if someone were stranded on a deserted island?
That’s a tough one! But if you have some Barry White or something maybe you can find a nice mermaid girlfriend?
– Where do you see music in general going in 100 years from now?
Music now is more popular and prevalent than ever. People music collections are thousands of times bigger now than they ever could have been in the past. Everyone has a music player in their smartphone, their computer, everywhere you go has music these days. People are consuming music now more than ever before, the only difference is that now people can get it for free, which in many cases screws the artist over and prevents them from making more music.
I think the music industry is going through a period of change right now, and after people figure out how to integrate the internet and digital services in to the industry in a way that properly compensates artists we will have a new golden age of music that will see some really exciting stuff happen. The best music comes from an artist that can fully commit themselves their craft, and that’s near impossible to do when you have to work 40 hours a week at a random job somewhere to support yourself as an artist.
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