Interview: Brittney Slayes
This Fall, Unleash the Archers embarked on the Apex North American tour, with fellow Canadians Striker and Helion Prime out of the U.S. as special guests along the way. When they reached their stop at the Kingsland in Brooklyn, I had the chance to sit down with Unleash The Archers’ frontwoman Brittney Slayes, where we covered a lot of ground, from Apex, influences, and Unleash the Archers’ evolution over time, to playing the upcoming 70,000 Tons of Metal Cruise, and Brittney’s excitement over the band’s recent visit to NASA.
Some of the latest news from the band is the “Ten Thousand Against One” lyric video, Apex was released last year, but what made now the right time to revisit that particular track?
It was just kind of a celebration for the North American tour in support of Apex, we had done Europe but not the States in support of the album, so Napalm was kind of like, “Why don’t we have a little fun and release another single from the record?”, so they actually suggested doing “Ten Thousand Against One”, and they put together a really rad lyric video for it that we’re super proud of. So really, Napalm was just like, “Let’s do something!”, and we’re like, “We’re not going to argue with that!”.
Well, I think it worked out, because it’s awesome. Now, Apex marked the 10th Anniversary for Unleash The Archers, looking back now, how do you feel the band has changed or developed over this time?
Well, it doesn’t feel like ten years, that’s for sure. I feel old now. But, the band has definitely changed a lot, we had a huge lineup change in 2013 where we lost one of our main songwriters, but we brought Andrew on board, and it just kind of created this shift in the whole sound, so we have a much more traditional Heavy Metal sound now, and I’m excited with the direction that we’re going in. I’m always down to change and to grow, and to let the music take its course and just see where we are. Like right now, I’m listening to a lot of Black Metal, so you never know what the next record could hold, right? So having a kind of change in lineup and influences is always a good thing, I think.
Absolutely, changing and developing your influences as well.
Exactly, you don’t want a band that just writes the same record over and over and over again, and I mean, as much as there are some bands that I love where I’m like, “Yes, please continue to write the same record over and over again”, but I always find myself going back to that first version of it. So, you know, you’ve got to try and change it up a little.
You have such a powerful voice and wide vocal range, I really admire you as a singer. At what point did you discover that you could sing in this style? Had you been singing all your life, did you have vocal training?
Well, I’d always been a really big fan of Heavy Metal, since I was eight years old and I was listening to Megadeth, Pantera, Tool, White Zombie, whatever I could get my hands on, or whatever my brother had in his CD player, actually, is what I would listen to. But I’d also been singing since I was very young, like really, really young. There’s a photo of me when I was six or seven, I think, with my Dad’s SM-57, not plugged in, of course, because I didn’t know about those things…and I’m on this weird little stage thing that we had at our house, it was actually the fireplace mantle, but it was my stage. And I’m up there with the microphone at a pretty young age, so I’d always kind of been a musician, I’d always been a singer. But it wasn’t until late high school, when I kind of rediscovered Heavy Metal…you know, I had the early high school *laughs* Britney Spears, S Club 7 time of my life. Got past that, and then got back into Heavy Metal and realized that I wanted to sing Heavy Metal. It wasn’t just about listening to it, it was about it being a bigger part of my life. So when I started dating Scott, he was actually in a different metal band, and I would go to their shows all the time, and I was like, “Wait a minute, I could totally do this!” So when that band broke up, he and I started Unleash The Archers together.
Awesome, so it was always there and you just kind of developed into it, I like that.
Well, at the same time, 3 Inches of Blood was really big, and they had just released Advance and Vanquish, which was their big album for me, and I went and saw a few of their shows and I was like, “Yes, I need to perform live like they do”, and it was a really big click, you know?
And about Apex, a specific track I wanted to ask you about, as a bonus track, you guys covered “Queen of the Reich”, so what led you to choose that particular song to cover?
Well, I love Geoff Tate, he’s a really big influence for me. Actually, in the early years of Unleash The Archers, I was trying to figure out my voice, because I was still very much influenced by classical at the time, you know, I had been a choir singer my whole life, but I didn’t want to be that same symphonic operatic vocal that’s out there, so I was just trying to discover my sound and what I could do differently as a vocalist, and Geoff Tate was a really big influence for me. Listening to how he does that falsetto, it’s kind of like a midrange falsetto, there’s still so much power behind it. So I listened to a lot of Queenrÿche, especially the Best of, which of course, had “Queen of the Reich” on it. When we had the chance to do another bonus track for the Japanese edition of Apex, I was like, “Why don’t we do that song?”, because I love Geoff Tate, and it’s called “Queen of the Reich”, and the whole album is kind of about this badass sorcerer queen, so I think it fits. And the band was down with it.
Since you are a Geoff Tate and Queenrÿche fan, I’m curious to get some of your thoughts on the recent days of Queenrÿche…you know, the split, new singer, Geoff Tate doing his own thing, just your thoughts on what you’ve seen as a fan.
Well, it is unfortunate that they’re not together anymore, but musicians, you’ve got to change and you’ve got to grow and do your own thing, and sometimes people grow apart, and that’s totally fine with me. I think that Todd is doing a killer job, I listened to their new album front to back millions of times, the last Queenrÿche record, it was constantly on in my car, it was so rad and such a great album, and I loved it just as much as I love Operation: Mindcrime. So I’m okay with growth and change.
Another big point of news for Unleash The Archers would be the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise, it was actually just announced that you guys are going to be part of that next year, so how are you feeling looking toward that, and had you been part of that event before?
No, I kind of had this weird secret pact with myself that I would never go until I was playing it, because I’ve got so many friends that are part of it, and are just like, “It’s amazing!”, “Such a rad time, you need to come.” And I was always like “Ugh! I want to so bad”, but I just felt like I would jinx it or something, if I went on the cruise before being an actual artist. So, I’m really excited to be able to finally go, so then maybe now I can go as a fan as well.
There you go, a fan checking everything out, then get on stage yourself.
Exactly! And then not have the stress of having to perform, because I know I’m totally going to be just stomach in knots the whole time. I’m going to try and enjoy myself, but like you can’t enjoy yourself too much, otherwise you — *laughs* I don’t know, it’s going to be a good time.
*laughs* It will be, definitely! There’s a sort of Canadian/US connection happening with this tour, because there’s you and Striker of course, but then you’ve also got Helion Prime, a US band – and this is actually not the first time you’ve been involved with Helion Prime, right?
Right, I did a guest vocal with them on their newest album with them, and then sort of the mastermind behind Helion Prime is Jason, and he has another band called Dire Peril, and I did a song with Dire Peril called “Queen of the Galaxies”. So Jason and I have been friends for a really long time, so when we had this opportunity, Helion Prime was actually my first choice to be the opener of the package. So when he was like, “Yes, we can do it, but we’re not going to have enough time to get our singer on board, but we have Mary Zimmer, who’s willing to do it”, I was just like, “Yes. Just yes. Just please come on the road with us”. The whole tour has been super rad so far, and really great people, so no issues! *laughs*
That’s awesome – now, you also have a new bassist on board for this tour, so can you talk about how he came to be involved with the band?
We actually know Nick from when we toured in 2015 with a band called Crimson Shadows, he was filling in on bass for those guys. So when we knew we needed someone who could spend five weeks in a van with us, he was our first choice because he’s such a rad dude. He’s just a ball of positivity and positive energy, so he was definitely our first pick, we knew that. He’s a guitar player, actually, but he plays a rad bass. He’s just a fill-in, he doesn’t play bass full-time, so it’s kind of a one-off thing, but he was definitely top of the list.
Yeah, you need that kind of positive energy around you when you’re going to go on tour!
For sure, I mean, you’ve got to be careful. Touring is not easy, and it’s not for everyone, and a lot of times, you get a new member, and then you go on a couple of tours, and maybe they learn that the road life isn’t something for them. So, we knew that Nick was well-seasoned.
There you go. Something else I definitely want to ask you about, because I saw it on social media, and now seeing you today has just affirmed it, you guys had a visit to NASA recently – you’re even wearing the T-shirt there —
NASA swag!
Yeah! NASA swag. *laughs* Can you talk to me about that visit?
Oh, it was just the coolest thing ever. A fan actually reached out, who works at NASA, and said, “Hey, I see that you guys are coming through Houston, do you want a tour of NASA?”, and I was like, “Yes! No question!”, like is this real? And he’s like, “You get VIP passes, and we’ll take you behind the scenes and everything”. So yeah, it was pretty incredible. We started in Mission Control, but they were very busy actually, we didn’t know who the special guest was coming the next day, so he was just like, “I’m sorry, we can’t bring you down the floor, but normally we could go and see all those cool desks where people are working and see what they’re doing”, but we couldn’t that day because Ivanka Trump was coming the next day, so we didn’t get to go down and actually see it, but it was really cool just being there and seeing them all. And what’s really neat is that they’re not allowed to leave their desks except for this five minutes of darkness when the ISS is not in communication range, it’s like this really weird dark spot over, I think it’s Southern Europe, or Southeastern Europe, and so they all get up, go get their coffee, get their food, go to the bathroom, and everything, and then they have to be back at their desks in time. So that was really cool to see. And then, we got to go to the actual mockup of the ISS, which was life-size and real, everything except for on the ISS, all their tools are just hanging from the roof, from everywhere because there’s no gravity, right? So you’re just floating, and there is no up and there is no down – but on the real one, we couldn’t really have that. *laughs* So that was super cool, and then what was really neat is when we were standing outside of the Orion capsule, which is going to be replacing the shuttle program, that…everyone was all kind of upset when Obama shut down the shuttle program, but then Trump was like, “We’re going to start something else”, so it’s Orion. And we were looking in and getting to see everything, and there was a whole gallery up top of all the regular tourers, watching us get to be down there in the capsule *laughs*. I felt really bad, but I was also like, “Okay, this is legit. This is really cool”. And then we got to go to the neutral buoyancy lab, which was freaking rad, because there’s actually live astronauts down in there. And what it is, is just the outside is the same, and so it teaches them how to do spacewalks, and how to work on the space station, and Canadarm and all that stuff, so they can run through it before they have to actually go up and go out and be out in space, in that vacuous abyss. So we got to watch them working down there, and it was really neat, and then I have a video, I haven’t posted it yet but, of the actual astronaut emerging out of the water, and then we got to take pictures with him and everything, and it was probably the coolest thing ever, and I totally cried because I was like, “Oh my God, I’m meeting an astronaut, this guy’s going to go into space and see Earth from”…*tearing up* …It’s just the coolest — I love space. *laughs* I fucking want to be an astronaut so bad, but anyways, yeah.
No, I love your enthusiasm for this, it sounds like you’re really into it.
I read a lot of science fiction. *laughs* Just going to be honest.
Nothing wrong with that! I love how excited you are about it.
Dude, NASA is rad! And like, NASA does not get enough love out there in the world, I’ll tell you that much. For everything they’ve done, and the ESA too, the European Space Agency. And even freaking China and Russia, all the work that they do, and how they’ve progressed human life, I mean, think of all the things that exist now, probably because of NASA and all their scientific leaps and stuff that they come up with. So, life as we know it, is the way it is because of how hard those scientists work.
That’s an awesome way of putting it, too. You said you read a lot of sci-fi, what’s the latest thing you’ve been into?
I’m actually in the middle of The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb, it’s fantasy, but probably my favorite science fiction writer is Alastair Reynolds, who is an actual Astrophysicist, so he knows the things that we can and cannot do with current technology. And so he writes very realistic science fiction, so things like faster than light travel is not something that we’ve been able to figure out, or something that we think we’ll be able to figure out in the near future, so he’s come up with ideas for getting super close to that, but not quite. Just super rad books to read when the science is real.
So I guess that fills the downtime in the van then, while you’re traveling around.
It does, yes. *laughs*
Jumping back to today, you’re playing the Kingsland in Brooklyn here tonight, it’s a relatively new venue, intimate vibe, cool place. How are you feeling about tonight?
Oh, I’m pretty stoked. Apparently, there’s a lot of tickets sold, and it’s going to be a hot one, so…I’m fine as long as the crowd is singing along, it’s a good night for me.
And just to wrap things up, can you give your thoughts on the rest of the tour, and what’s on the horizon for Unleash The Archers?
Well, we’re going to do 70,000 Tons in the winter, and release an EP probably, in late spring, and then we’ll take a bit of a breather, and then start writing the next record.
Sounds great. Well, I’m looking forward to the show tonight, thanks for sitting down and talking with me, Brittney.
Thanks for having me.
Keep up with the latest on the band via http://www.unleashthearchers.com