Well with that in mind, and as with how you defined Hatebreed as a crossover band, have you thought of Hatebreed as more of a metal or a hardcore band?
I don’t. I think of it as a crossover band. It’s a mix between the two. People can sit and argue metal and hardcore all day. People can tell you what’s too metal for the hardcore scene and too hardcore for the metal scene. But the beauty of being the big fish in a small pond, as well as a small fish in a big pond, is that we’re able to be a universal band like Motorhead is. We’ve toured with Five Finger Death Punch, we’ve toured with Napalm Death, we’ve toured with Dropkick Murphys, we’ve toured with Motorhead, and we’ve toured with Slipknot. It’s great for us. Now we’ve grabbed fans from all these genres and bring everybody along for the ride and try to preach unity. And that’s really what Hatebreed is. At the end of the day, it’s not really about metal or hardcore. It’s about unifying heavy music because at the end of the day, for us, that’s what it all is. When we were younger going to shows, you had mixed crowds of skin heads, and punk rockers, and metal heads all at shows together. That’s got lost along the way and what we try to do is bring people together, for sure. That’s pretty much how it’s been since day one.
Shifting gears a little, The Divinity Of Purpose marks Hatebreed’s first album with Razor & Tie. What was it exactly about them that influenced you to sign with Razor & Tie, at least in the States [note: Hatebreed are signed to Nuclear Blast in Europe]?
We were working with John Franck when he was with eOne. He went over to Razor and Tie and it just seemed like they were going to get behind the record better than eOne would have. I’ll tell you what, we’ve done more press for this record than I can remember with any album.
Really?
Oh yeah, absolutely! It’s been interview after interview, and it’s been great. It’s been an abundance [of press] to say the least. We’re proud of it and all the feedback and the magazine covers that we’ve got now, just everything that’s been going on with the album has been awesome. Dealing with Nuclear Blast for the first time in Europe as well, that’s been great too. We have no complaints so far and hopefully the relationship stays that way.
Did the band ever consider the DIY route when choosing a new label home, considering how loyal of a fanbase Hatebreed has?
I don’t think so. I mean, we do our thing and try to get our music out there as much as possible. We’ll play with any band. We’ll go on a big tour with a band like Five Finger Death Punch that goes in arenas and then we’ll purposely go back into smaller cities that aren’t seeing the bands come through as much. We feel these people deserve music just as much as everybody else does. So it does have a DIY feel to it. Obviously the shows are smaller when we’re playing places like Joliet, IL, and tonight [1/31] we’re in Flagstaff, AZ and Flint, MI was the start of the tour. We continue to do what we do at our level and hopefully higher. But we don’t change the people we are. We haven’t changed anything about that. We’re still the same guys making the same music.
