22-02-2010Interviews - Job For A Cowboy

We catch up with death metal outfit Job For A Cowboy guitarist Al Glassman

Politics, Progression, Pot. If I had to pick three words to describe Job For A Cowboy it would be these, yet this alliteration opens up for further introspection of the Glendale Death Metal outfit. Currently on tour with Lamb Of God in a jaunt that sees Job For A Cowboy take in the majority of Europe the band are playing for a new audience and one that is as rabid and demanding as any. That support slot could have become a very unforgiving place had the band not fast become one of Death Metal's premier forces. As we sit on Job For A Cowboys tour bus surrounded by beer bottles and ashtrays filled with stalks and cigarette butt's guitarist Al Glassman once with Despised Icon gives us the run down on the tour alongside new album "Ruination."

"It's been a lot of fun with the crowds. At the end of the day everyone's here to see Lamb Of God and they get the loudest chants but were just excited to get the opportunity to play in front of their fans because it is a different genre and style and it is cool getting to branch to more the straight ahead type metal kids. When I was growing up and we were going to see Pantera, one cool thing about them they would always have Morbid Angel Open up or in Massachusetts they'd always have Anal Cunt. For me as a kid it blew my mind, like oh my god what is this type of music. Lamb of God definitely took on that role, they're bringing out the death metal bands and exposing all these kids to a genre they would have never have known about it's a really cool thing on their part to do." Plaudits for the tour buddies aside watching the band a few hours later and you see that they really have to work hard to keep the fans from turning into a mob worthy of Capone. In the same way as may have been at those Pantera shows with Anal Cunt there was still the odd one or two who didn't seem to get it. Until the end of set that was and then everyone is in agreement that this band are as brutal as any. Then there were those who had heard of the band a few years ago, jumped on the deathcore bandwagon and never gave the band a second chance. They're left feeling quite foolish as the band have stripped away almost all of the breakdowns and replaced it with unrelenting riff after death metal riff. Glassman not a member of the band during the 'Doom' EP and beatdown days reckons it had as much to do with the bands age than trying to jump on what was becoming the next big bandwagon, "When they wrote Doom those guys were sixteen, I mean especially at that age there's a lot of limitations technically as you're playing but as the band progressed musically your going to want to put that into your music. You're not going to want to play breakdown riffs any more when you can do so much more. The band definitely got a bit of flak on the detahcore thing. You're sixteen, you write something different.”
 
Genesis was one of the most anticipated albums with as many wanting the band to fail as those who willed for its success, when it came out in 2007 it quickly became known as a classic in waiting. Concept, fire and spite and a sound found buried deep within made it sit well above its contemporaries. A heavy burden to know that it would all have to be replicated again. "Ruination" was released the back end of 2009 and once again set a new high in the Job For A Cowboy PB bank. "I think the second full lengths always the make or break album. There's definitely a lot of pressure in having it be a great album. It kind of came together naturally, we definitely stressed out hard writing it. We knew we were going to write songs we were happy with but it was a matter of the time limit we had to write them. We had about a two and a half month span to put the album together. As songs just kept coming together and coming together it was just kind of like wow we don't need to worry about this. It was definitely an album we really felt we needed to make, there's a lot of changes the band went through musically and it was a good feeling every time we finished a song we were stoked on." Although as Al lets us know "Ruination" isn't a exactly the same as "Genesis" but shares many of the same themes, "Its not really a concept album. You could put all Johnny's views together but a lot of the songs are written about political and government issues. He's got some strong points of view.  I grew up in the death metal ages singing about kill your mother rape your dog kind of thing and I love those bands but it's good to be in a band where you say something and have a point of view." That point of view is pretty much inspired by the general election of America during the time in which Ruination was conceived but unlike his vocalist Al doesn't divulge too far into it when pushed merely stating "It's mostly losing teams at the moment." That same sense of loss is encapsulated in a cataclysm of sound fit for the most unhallowed of locations.
 
Writing, Al brought a new technicality on board that challenged and pushed the band they also imparted some unusual writing techniques, "When me and Bobby wrote the songs together, to mix up our mindset we'd be like all right we'll listen to nothing but Cannibal Corpse and Aeon tonight. We'll meet up tomorrow and see what we can come up with. We wanna write some more doomier songs we get home from the bar and throw on some Neurosis. Just reset your mind if you're playing fast all day and play slow at the night" and it appears that being the last member to join rank was done so seamlessly "I've known the guys for a long time prior to doing the band so were all close firends. It was like a natural progression to just come into this group. Especially joining right when the album was started, from the beginning on kind of really helped."
 
On tour the band seem to want to live out the lifestyle at least to some extent, when asked what artists have helped shape the band we got a more playful answer, "Behemoths good for teaching you how to hold your liquor. Those guys are fun dudes." Clearly musically these guys only want to be able to do their own thing, sick of comparisons or being misplaced more times than disorganized mess in a broken file-o-fax. Listening to Job For A Cowboy or watching them live is an experience not for the faint hearted and the band appear in a good place to continue after that 'worrying' second album, "I think right now everything's looking up. Its been a solid year of tours. We finished the album and went straight onto the mayhem festival which is the biggest we've ever done alongside Slayer and a lot of really cool bands. I think the new albums progressed a lot, its looking good."
 
You can find out more from the band at http://www.myspace.com/jobforacowboy