The title, obviously borrowed from Nine Inch Nails, has nothing much to do with the novel itself. Throughout the writing process I was listening to Depeche Mode and even now, during redrafting, I need that music desperately in order to access my protagonist’s habits, quirks and entire psychology such as motivation, self-contradiction and unreliability.
It’s funny writing about someone who you’ll never be and after all that’s all you are.
I’ve been working on this novel since 2007 and after all these years I am still trying to trace down the origin of this pursuit that made me venture into something so big – bigger than I’d ever want a dream to be.

In 2007, Nick, my tutor in Prose Fiction, asked us to do a writing exercise illustrating a connection between character and object. He gave us a list of objects, which weren’t ordinary objects, but tainted objects with a history.
I chose the ‘blood-stained plaster’ to pursue a yet to evolve imagination. It was there in the back of my head, slowly bubbling out reaching my mind’s quixotic surface of genuine lies. Although those were only fragmentary images I knew that the energy anticipated was highly influenced by Bret Easton Ellis’ grotesque and sex-induced madness which would lead me towards my own version of a yet undiscovered territory of fragile insanity.

The result of that writing exercise involves an obsessive compulsive doctor who is subject to taking blood samples of herself as well as all her patients. When on a date with a non-patient, she deliberately causes an accident that hospitalises him just because an examination of his blood is essential for future decisions.
I received a full mark for that piece and I had only received a full mark twice at BCUC and I have to admit that I was incredibly proud.

Nick had not only inspired me to that but had also supported me in pursuing my other novel Single, Fused & Separate, which is an undeveloped, science fiction-based novel that I had left untouched since September 2007, after the dissertation deadline. During the course, I was mostly reading science fiction: Asimov, Dick, Siodmak, Cook, Gibson, etc. Nonetheless, I was struggling with the actual destined path of that novel and realised that I was not yet ready to continue it. Despite the lack of identity and conscious progress of that novel I received an acceptable mark for my final dissertation; I was 9 points away from the full mark. With that achievement, I still lacked the motivation to continue a piece that was not about me, but about a labyrinthine future within a Freudian brain. I felt that I was, by no means, ready to sketch out such a deep and difficult maze with that delirious perception of mine. Maybe I could have done it, but there is no point if the writer does not know the fundamental key of the story. It’s never enough to merely write about what interests you, and if you aren’t ready to sacrifice a crucial piece of your mind’s marrow, you might as well take a step back and reconsider what you really want and question your ability.
The story or novel has to be a quintessence of you otherwise it’s nothing. This might make me the most selfish writer you’ve ever known. I mean I am depressed that I never got to become an inventor destined to make the world a more comfortable place for people, or a secret agent – be obsessed with others rather than myself. Assassin was another dream job, because I admired Jean Reno in ‘Leon – The Professional’.

Then my mother bought me a Hello Kitty journal when I was eleven. That changed my life and outweighed all my preconceived ideals about what I really wanted.

After sixteen years of writing and rummaging about in the marrows of my existence, I still feel dumbfounded when looking at myself in the mirror, only recognising sheer detachment as if I was only a prototype of my own reality. It is not interesting.
If I wasn’t made of cells but letters and numbers…
Yes, I believe I am merely made of letters and numbers. This approach simplifies the dealing with feelings and thoughts that you cannot put in order, because flesh and blood deliver no precise expression; heart and brain signal meaning, but they leave YOU to express them – how lame. All this effort that you have to make…

I was aware that if I did nothing, I would end up continuing my life at KFC or in retail where I would live a prolonged death.

So I had another look at ‘The blood-stained plaster’ and something immediately clicked, especially when I remembered Nick saying that the story was worth developing.
Despite the anxiety of embarking on a new novel (after circa 15 unsuccessful attempts), I gave it a go anyway. Three to four years later I had a first finished draft. ‘The blood-stained plaster’ became chapter 9 in the novel.
The first draft felt like a sketch of Ellen Parker’s life, as if she was still in the phase of a foetus, still in development. Now it is all about putting up signposts pointing at where to go from here. Enhancement of motivation and revitalisation of style and grammar need the main focus, as well as the question ‘What does she want?’ – No, ‘What do I want?’

Looking for eternal love and dreading it at the same time due to post-traumatic stress. So before messing it up again, you’d rather not have it at all. The fear shrinks your belief in it and hinders you from giving it a second chance since there are far more creative ways to deal with a desolate heart that still looks good on the outside like Dorian. You prefer fun (= no attachment) to love (= commitment). The obvious thing is that both are transitory, but this is neither the problem nor the question. The major question is ‘What’s easiest to obtain?’

People with narcissistic personality disorder lack empathy with others and thus are difficult to sympathise with.
No matter how often Palahniuk warns us about his despicable and repulsive protagonist in ‘Choke’ or how cynic and nihilistic all of Houellebecq’s characters are in his novels, the authors still manage to make us feel sorry for their fictional characters.
It is so easy to make the reader empathise with Parker from page 1 onwards, but this is not going to happen.
I am still in the middle of creating other useful empathy factors, forming clear judgements, controlling emotions and generate symbolic reflections to manoeuvre the reader into following the fucking plot. If only I cared more about the reader – but at least I have reminders of what needs to be done.

Some (conventional) female readers find Parker entirely unlikeable due to her detachment and outrageous stance towards women. This point will be excluded from my helpful feedback notes and ignored for further consideration. I would be lying if I said the novel wasn’t about sexual repression and female guilt, but more importantly, that piece of criticism made me want to avoid having a close attachment evolving between Parker and any female reader altogether. That was a little act of spite then.
I know very well how the end of the novel will be perceived by certain people and I am looking for more ways to enhance that effect.
It wasn’t until I had watched Lars von Trier’s movie ‘Antichrist’ which helped me in regaining confidence for my attitudes and values.

I believe I know where I am heading with Somewhat Damaged. There’ll be more concentration on Parker’s relationship with objects and the city. About gender and femininity I couldn’t give a damn.
Self-mutilation is common in both genders. The feeling of guilt is universal. If men write about the downfall of man, women will write about the downfall of woman also.

The opening of Somewhat Damaged

So how has the tour been so far? In Germany specifically! Did anything fun happen?

- The few shows in Germany were great. The venues were packed; all the kids were going crazy. It was great to be back there.

And now you’re in the UK where the food is unpleasant…I think I read on Tim’s twitter that he’s not keen on British food. What have you been eating mostly since you’ve been here?

- Oh we actually found a Chipotle here. We have that back at home and usually when you find Chipotle when you are on tour in the States – it’s always a special occasion! I think everyone in the band went there today. Tim got himself four burritos! And yesterday in Norwich we went to Nando’s. So I guess we’ve been eating alright!!!

What are the other bands like? Do you get on well? Their styles are rather different from yours, aren’t they?

- Yeah, personally I think everyone on tour is awesome. We’re sharing a bus with Suicide Silence and we instantly became really good friends and we’re having a good time together. And we’ve known Heaven Shall Burn for years, so it’s been a really fun tour so far.

Every year you guys seem to be touring with amazing bands. So which tour has been the most memorable so far?

- I think every time we tour with Killswitch Engage, Unearth or In Flames. Every time we do tours or festivals together, it’s fun hanging out with those bands. But I guess one of the most memorable tours was when we opened for Killswitch and In Flames years ago back in the US… I remember thinking that it was pivotal moment of our career to start and we were moving on to bigger and better things. And, I think it was in 2006, we played along with Cannibal Corpse, In Flames, The Black Dahlia Murder, Trivium, Machine Head, etc. That tour was probably one of the coolest for us as a headliner, you know, to play after all these amazing bands.

I read in an interview that you no longer wish to headline anymore in future, why is that?

- Well, we’ve kind of grown out of this idea of just to headline all the time whereas there are so many bigger bands out there that we can support. Therefore I think at this point of the career it would be nice to move on to better opportunities and have bigger bands to take us out hopefully. We just got to this point where it is kind of exhausting to always do the same thing and we’ve been doing this for so many years. So we’ll see what options there might be.

People have always classified your music as melodic metalcore and nowadays many metalcore and deathcore bands have taken a step further into pure death or thrash metal. Can you see yourself going this direction? Or do you want to try anything experimental?

- I think we’ve reached the point in our career where we need to make a big step forward, but I’m not sure if going more extreme is that step. There are already enough bands out there doing all that extreme stuff. But, you know, that distinctive melody throughout a lot of our songs is the big heart of our band…I don’t think we’ll ever abandon that. But we’re definitely at a point of our career where we should take another big step.

Your type of metalcore has always been one of the most creative and dynamic. So when ‘The Powerless Rise’ came out, which indeed is heavier than some of the previous albums, what responses did you expect from your fans?

- Well, we obviously wanted them to be satisfied. I don’t think we did anything too unordinary. But for typical As I Lay Dying fans, I think we gave them what they wanted. ‘An Ocean Between Us’ and ‘The Powerless Rise’ are kind of two cohesive albums together; you can put both albums on shuffle and can go back and forth from record to record and still sound cohesive.

You guys have been making music together for ten years now. What kind of struggles have you all experienced as a band (also with members coming and going)? And what’s the most important thing you’ve learnt?

- Just with anything that you are part of, it always comes down with communication. You have to realize that it’s a team essentially. You need to work together, and you need to know what other people’s strengths are and you need to respect each other. Of course you go through your ups and downs and when we have issues on a weekly basis – then this is where good communication gets the problems solved.

In 2007, you had reached the peak of your success with a Grammy nomination. Did that put any kind of pressure on you concerning everything that came afterwards?

- Not really. I mean the Grammy nomination was an honour, in a way, to be acknowledged for the music you’ve created, but at the same time, we never expected anything more than just being nominated. Although it would have been a dream come true to get a Grammy. Though,  I think we don’t create those expectations. Our highest expectations are of ourselves and to push ourselves to become better musicians and become the best band that we can be, you know.

The song ‘parallels’ is very political, but what interests me is, you as a Christian band, also seem to be addressing existentialism, especially in the line ‘there must be more to life than to simply stay alive’. So I was wondering what philosophy is to you.

- That’d be more a question directed to the lyricist of the band, Tim, but well, he has definitely created a lot of strong opinions in a humanitarian way. It’s about how people can make life better for everyone and create a different way of thinking and a new philosophy on life and ultimately how humans should interact with each other.

Also ‘The only constant is change’ is brilliant, too, because it’s so anti-conservative. But what do you say about people who stereotype it all by calling Christians Conservatives? This seems to be a big issue in the United States, right? Do you think conservatism in the US has anything to do with Christianity?

- I think it has kind of been molded that way. The Christian stereotypes in the US have become a joke. They view it as a form of control. Politics and religion are brought in together – that creates a bad taste in my mouth… I think there needs to be a newer way of thinking. A lot has been done in a certain way and viewed in a certain way and I think it’s about time people start thinking for themselves and realize that things can be different. Also, take the song ‘Upside down kingdom’ for example, which is based on an upside down way of thinking. It’s the belief that something new is going to change the world for the better, only if people weren’t so terrified of changes.

–

by Paula Cheung, 2010

Many thanks to Phil www.asilaydying.com

deutsche Version auf Igelmetal.de

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It’s nice to have you guys back in Germany and touring Europe in general. I know the tour has only just begun, but how has it been so far? What are your expectations for this tour?

The first two days have already hinted what the rest of the tour is gonna be like and it’s just gonna be awesome! It’s really fun, as everybody has a positive outlook and everyone seems to see the myriads of having all these different kinds of bands together. Besides, it’s a festival thing, you know, all the bands are good, we all respect each other. The crowd’s been awesome, too, so far. And we’ll see how it unfolds.

What are your plans for 2010? Just touring?

Yeah, just the same old thing. We’re gonna support “Deflorate” and play at as many places as we can. It’s definitely good to be back here, since we’ve been here so many times. Generally it’s exciting for us to see what happens in the world outside the States. Overall, it’s a BUSY-BUSY-schedule for us, for 2010.

Is the European crowd any different compared to the American one?

Well I think it’s all the same really. You still try to get a reaction out of people. Maybe sometimes the people are a little bit more resistant to getting into the moshpit and we always try to win them over, haha. I know deep down at the heart, everybody feels the same and reacts the same. It’s pretty much a universal thing, but of course we’d like to get everyone involved.

With each album that you release, you seem to climb higher up the charts. How do you feel about that?

It’s cool, but that’s not my goal really. I just wanna have our fans who will stick with us. It’s amazing to see how things have grown within the band. This just gets us excited and makes us wanna push it and try harder and harder. Now talking about the new album, we felt a lot of pressure, because “Nocturnal” was definitely a landmark for us. And responding to that pressure was interesting, you know. It’s kinda cool showing up in the charts. I think it’s just a statement about the time…I mean metal is just big right now. You hear it everywhere nowadays. In the States is has gained a lot of popularity. So this is an exciting time for us and we’re happy to be part of it.

People used to associate your music with Metalcore and Deathcore. Do you think that your latest album “Deflorate” has finally put an end to that? Personally I think you sound more like a heavier version of At The Gates.

Yeah, there are so many tags of different genres of metal these days. Well, I think that this album and the last album have particularly done a lot as far as for setting the record straight. There were a lot of pre-conceived ideas about what the band would be like before people have heard it. In a way, though, being called Metalcore or Deathcore or Death Metal, bring everything pretty much in between and this has been a blessing, because we’ve been able to play with all different kinds of bands and fit in all different kinds of avenues. So let’s call it a blessing and curse!

You guys have been on tour with many great bands. Which has been the best so far and why?

Generally we always have a lot of fun on tour. A lot of bands out there I think are cool people. Some are assholes, of course, but for the most part, the younger bands are cool and very appreciative. But it’s hard to say (Pause.).  Well, for me the most fun is playing with a band that I consider as legendary, like Necrophobic for instance. I never even thought that I’d get to see them play. And now here we are on tour with them and get to see them every day! There have been a bunch of bands like that and every time it blows my mind to interact with them, to play with them, to see them…We also played with Suffocation, Napalm Death, Cannibal Corpse a lot of different times. Now I get to coexist with all the bands I used to listen to when I was young. So that’s really cool.

The metalscene has become more popular than ever. What are your thoughts on that? Is the significance of Metal worn out?

I think Metal is always gonna have some significance. It appeals to a certain kind of person, you know. For me, when I was young I didn’t feel like I fit in anywhere. I was kinda like an outcast and a nerd and I even tried to get into sports and stuff that I felt was typical; things that you are supposed to do when you’re a kid. When I found metal it just blew my mind and I told myself “This is what it’s all about!” So I think that’s what it is to all the people; to escape from reality and so on. People will always want that, you know. You need something in life to get you excited about. It’s hard to say why it got more popular right now, it seems more like it’s in cycles, I mean in the mid 90s death metal was at rising and doing really well…in the States in particular. And in Europe, it seems to me, there’s always a huge underground thing going. It’s again a global fixation and seems to go in cycles. I bet there will be a time when it will grow again in the youth culture. But it’s not that Death Metal will ever go away. But hopefully we’ll be able to still exist during that time. That’s the only thing we’re sorta worried about, as Metal is very popular right now. So what is gonna happen to us and all these bands? We just wanna have our fans and keep our fans. I mean look at Cannibal Corpse…, they have existed through a lot different periods, coming and going. That’s kinda our model for success. So we just gotta keep it up, man!

What do you think is the difference between American and Scandinavian Metal? Where do you think the origin is based?

I don’t know. That’s so convoluted. The Americans have been influenced by so much Scandinavian music and kinda re-appropriated the styles and stuff like that. It’s similar to a melting pot over there in the States. As far as the Scandinavian stuff that we’re influenced by, I think a lot of it also comes from Iron Maiden and along with all the other melodic bands like In Flames, At The Gates, Carcass, etc. Other than that, it can all be traced back to Maiden. And that’s British. It’s debatable, but in a way we all come from the same place, you know.

Are there any modern Metal bands that you don’t consider as Metal?

People have their own definition of what Metal is to them, you know. Seems like a good opportunity to slander a band I don’t like, haha, but uh, nah, nothing comes to my head at the moment. It’s just not coming to me right at the second.

Your music deals a lot with decay and atheism. Is it important to you that people understand the themes behind your music the way you do?

Yes and no. But when a song has an emotional wake to me or if I’m expressing my personal viewpoint about humanity or something like in Necropolis for instance…people can understand that song. There are a lot of fantasy-based lyrics, too, but at the end of the day I just wanna entertain people and hopefully get them involved in the music. I really like to write, it’s a fun thing to me to be creative and I really look forward to writing lyrics to all the albums and stuff like that. I’m very appreciative if anybody opens the booklet and takes a look inside.

Lastly, what’s your motto for this tour?

Just have fun and try to kick ass, cos all the other bands kick ass. So we need to keep up, hehe. Another motto is: Don’t drink too much. Just slow down a little bit! Although, it’s very hard, because you’re on the bus with a bunch of other bands! But it’s a huge relief you don’t have to drive, haha. And beer also keeps you warm.

by Paula Cheung

Interview done on behalf of Igelmetal.de