Exclusive Interview: Redshift talk writing and recording “Laws Of Entropy”!

The second part of our creature double feature with Bath based Progressive Metal trio Redshift finds us talking to drummer Jack Camp, guitarist Joshua Boniface and vocalist bassist Liam Fear about their new album “Laws Of Entropy” from a writing and recording perspective. A concept album exploring the journey through life from birth to death that includes an incredible 21 minute cut in “Blue Shift“, its an hour not only well spent but invigorating and inspiring…

How did your previous experiences writing and recording help to smooth the path of the new record? “We learned a lot from Cataclysm because that was the first time we had recorded the DI tracks from home and then went to the studio to reamp everything, so we weren’t sure how that was gonna turn out and then once we knew it worked really well we started adding more textures and being a bit more ambitious with what we were doing our end,  just to help Ben with the mix. We wanted to give him more than he would need.”

How does the writing process of a new track start? Melody, riff or rhythm first? How does it evolve from there before you consider it the finished article? “Usually it’s a riff or Rhythm that we know we can build a song from. One of the reasons it’s good for us to do concept albums is because it does reign us back a bit because we know we need to do certain things for the story to work. The first few songs usually start by being a bit crazier but once we’ve run out of room to do that, we need to think about the flow and what we need for the story.”

The variety within the record is impressive with moments of Jazz Metal infusion, funky bass lines and texture adding synths. Were there any points where you listened back and thought that sometimes less is more and stripped anything back? “For a song like Singularity, we stripped that one right back but at the same time we wanted it to be interesting, so we still played around a little bit in the verses but we wanted to get a lot of mileage out of a simpler idea. A lot of the time though, we do enjoy taking things to the maximum and that’s why some people will always think we’re a terrible band and terrible people.”

If you had the opportunity to work with a guest in the studio next time around, who would you like to work with and why? “A guest solo from Dave Davidson of Revocation would be fun. We’d have to make his solo about 4 minutes long because he’s so good. I honestly don’t think anyone in metal writes better riffs or solos than him at the moment.” 

For us gear nerds out there, can you tell us what you’re using gear wise (pedals, strings, drums etc) to get your sound? “Ohh gear, here we go. Liam used an Ibanez prestige SR5006 bass through an Ashdown evo-IV ABM 600. A roland rd 700nx, Roland fa-06 and a Moog subsequent 37 for all the synth sounds and for guitars it was a Music man Majesty through a JP Mesa and for the drums I used a Yamaha stage custom with Evans hydraulic heads and mainly all Sabian cymbals apart from one which I won’t mention in case it ruins my chances of an endorsement. I think we used Ben’s Black Panther snare and that is pretty much more than anyone wanted to know. I’m sorry.”

What difference would it make to you as a band if you could land an endorsement from a gear manufacturer? “It would obviously be amazing if that were to ever happen, I think we’ll just keep playing the same gear until it does happen. Until then, we’ll keep paying full price to get the sounds we want.”

“Laws of Entropy” by Redshift is out now via Pale Wizard Records with more available over at bandcamp.