Hatebreed's Jamey Jasta

Thu 11th Mar, 2010 in Features

Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta sounds a little bit tired – and when he explains that he’s just played a show at London’s Brixton Academy, that’s not surprising. As for how it went, he’s casually says, ‘Oh you know, raging lunatics everywhere.’ All in a day’s work for these guys.

Jamey is, predictably enthusiastic about the upcoming shows with The Black Procession tour – featuring Machine Head, Hatebreed, Bleeding Through, and Emmure – which will wind its way through Australia in March. He is, on the other hand, not too keen to share any stories from past Australian tours, so I wheedle until he reveals the reason that his memories of the Big Day Out tour of 2005 are a little dim. ‘The whole tour I was so drunk I don’t really remember all that much of it,’ he says. ‘I do remember partying with Le Tigre a lot. It’s going to be on their DVD, I just got a release form I have to sign.’ As for the rest of the tour? ‘Flying around to every show, meeting people from The Donnas and Slipknot – that was a trip, that was just fun.’

After the Australian leg, Hatebreed are going back to the US for the Mayhem festival, a massive tour of 26 dates across the US continent. With Korn and Rob Zombie headlining the main stage, Hatebreed will be sharing the Jagermeister stage with Chimaira, Shadows Fall and Winds of Plague. Jamey thinks the massive summer festival concept is a good one.

‘We’ve done six Ozzfests – those were incredible. We did the main stage, with Avenged Sevenfold, with Slipknot, we did it with Down one year. We headlined it on our own one year. It’s a good tradition, the summer tradition, and we’re gonna keep carrying the torch this year with Zombie, and Korn, and Lamb of God. It’s gonna be massive.’

Hatebreed certainly seem to spend a lot of time on the road, but Jamey is philosophical about the strains of the touring life. ‘You just slowly lose your mind, into an abyss of insanity. It’s the other 23 hours of the day that drive me crazy – the hour on stage is like amazing, and fulfilling, and pure, and the rest of it is bullshit.’

Hatebreed’s recently released sixth studio album is a self-titled effort. The writing and recording process this time around was largely the same as it has been for previous albums. ‘I do the majority of it [the writing],’ Jamey says. ‘ Chris [Beatty, bass player] contributes some as well, and then it was really effortless showing Wayne [Lozinak, new guitarist] the new material, he just picked it up so that was good. We had a lot of songs to choose from and it was a pretty seamless transition … as far as having all the songs meld together so it sounds like a full album.’

Jamey appears to be a mad keen Twitterer, using the social medium to really engage and interact with fans through both his own JameyJasta account and an official Hatebreed account, rather than just broadcasting notifications like some other bands do. He sees the online arena as a vital way of reaching audiences.

‘It’s important for us because people think we’re like cave men running around the globe beating each other up. But really we’re trying to be a forward thinking, smart, aggressive band, trying to do things right for the fans. They wanna know what time we play, they wanna know what time the doors open, they wanna know how much shirts are, they wanna know who the opening band is. This is a great way to just get the information right to the fans.’

Hardcore music is often associated with neo-Nazi and other extremist hate groups, much to the distaste of those bands who don’t share those viewpoints. I recently came across an article on neo-Nazi skinhead tattoos, and was surprised to see a photograph of an individual with swastikas and other hate symbols, as well as a prominent Hatebreed tattoo. Jamey says that on the whole, however, it’s not a big problem for the band.

‘Some people just miss the mark. Some people just don’t get it. I don’t know how you can misconstrue lyrics like “we must unlearn the predjudice, we must learn the lies” – I mean that’s pretty obvious what we’re talking about, it’s anti-racist. So for a guy to be a fan is one thing, but then to have other twisted politics, that’s another thing. We don’t have politics like that, but you can’t pick and choose your fans. There are people who are very ravenous supporters of the band.’

Jamey laughs at the suggestion that people who make otherwise unfortunate lifestyle choices can still have good taste in music. ‘I dunno, we don’t really see a lot of that at our shows, you know. There was a demonstration in Dresden Germany, with the Nazis, but they didn’t come to the show and they know that their presence isn’t welcome.’

When he’s not on the road with Hatebreed, Jamey has a lot of other projects to keep him out of trouble – the Kingdom of Sorrow and Icepick musical projects; his own record label, Stillborn Records; and the Hatewear clothing label. The frontman insists however that Hatebreed is still his top priority, and that he’s been doing ‘less of everything’ because they are so busy touring.

‘I do have a new Kingdom of Sorrow album coming out in June, and the clothing line is doing better than ever – we’re just happy to sell on the web,’ he says. As for the record label, Jamey asserts that ‘even with all the downloading and everybody stealing … it’s still fun to help a smaller band and I’ll still do it.’ He does have two signings in the pipeline, but won’t reveal anything about the new talent. ‘I can’t talk about them until they’re signed with the attorneys, because I made the mistake in the past of saying bands that I was interested in and then other labels, bigger labels, scoop ‘em up. I gotta be careful about that. But I will have new things out later in the year.’

But first, he has some business to attend to down under. ‘We’re just so excited to come back, back to the warm weather, everything is going to be great!’ he gushes. ‘Thanks to everybody for their undying support for us, especially in the last three years when we haven’t been [to Australia]. The anticipation is building and it’s all because the fans are being really stoked on this tour. We appreciate it!’