I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here: the future of metal is in good hands. It’s easy to get down about the state of music these days, particularly if you turn on any Top 40 station and hear whatever indistinguishable pop song or mumbly indie rock track is currently ripping up the airwaves. Don’t get me wrong, the music industry as a whole is not on the best of footing but metal is alive, thriving, and looking like there’s no brakes on the train. Bands like Enforced are a large part of why this is true.
Formed in 2016, Enforced has quickly become a rising star in the larger metal world and particularly within the crossover genre. The band’s 2019 album At the Walls burst the band onto the scene and helped the band to earn a wider following. When follow-up Kill Grid came out in 2020, it cemented the band as a force to be reckoned with. Now, coming off a tour with Exhumed and the Decibel Tour playing with Municipal Waste and Obituary, Enforced has a good head of steam behind them as they look to spend 2022 playing Maryland Deathfest, traversing Europe, and opening for At the Gates. Vocalist Knox Colby recently took some time over Zoom to chat with me about his band, gaining confidence on stage, and his goals for the future of the band.
What got you into metal in the first place?
Knox: I’ve always kind of been into it. My dad was in the Coast Guard growing up, and still is, but growing up we were stationed in Minneapolis, Minnesota and that’s right around when I turned five or six. That’s the time when you start getting those formative years and start remembering things. I have an older brother, he was about seven, and he was starting to listen to the radio. They had a big syndicated radio called Dee Snider in the Morning that just played metal nonstop. Newer metal of the time, hair metal, glam metal; I’m getting Metallica and W.A.S.P. and Def Leppard, Korn, Limp Bizkit when they first started, grunge and all that. I’ve always kind of grown up with it. It’s been ever present and I’ve always been into it.
How did you get into crossover specifically then?
Knox: Through hardcore. As I got older. 12 or 13 is when I started going to hardcore shows because I liked the aggression, the exertion, the physical expression and movement and the violence. At the time, around 2001, 2002, [it was] a really violent time, especially in Virginia Beach. It was notoriously violent and I just fed off it. So, combining that type of hardcore-punk aggression with metal, that is crossover in my expression. It’s got the best of both worlds.
What are some of your favorite hardcore bands?
Knox: Bad Brains, Cro-Mags is a huge one. Honestly, some local ones from the time; Tarpit, Victim, Fire & Ice was a big one growing up, Iron Boots too. I never really put two and two together and I always thought it was hyper regional or this was “our little thing,” never realizing or putting the pieces together that it was an international thing; hardcore is everywhere. I thought “these are the only bands I know so these are the only bands that really around, which is super small-minded and idiotic. Regardless, I still listen to all those bands today. Municipal Waste is another one. Wasted Time is another great band. It’s an exhaustive list.
How weird was it to grow up listening to Municipal Waste and then find yourself on tour with them earlier this year on the Decibel Tour?
Knox: Fucking crazy. It’s so strange because they’re a bit older than I am, so when Waste ‘Em All and Hazardous Mutation came out I was like “This is the greatest band ever!” and 12 or 13 years later we’re on tour together and really good friends! Life is weird. Life is cool though! I never thought that would happen!
That had to be a real dream-come-true moment for you.
Knox: I can’t speak for everyone, I’m sure it was, but that was a bucket list thing that I’d always wanted to do; especially as a kid when I was starting my first punk/hardcore bands. I was thinking “If I get to play one show with Municipal Waste it’s gonna be the coolest thing I’ll ever do!” Achievement unlocked! Twelve-year old me was freaking out but 31-year-old me was like, “You’ve gotta keep it cool. Don’t be that dude.”
You’re just like, play it cool, play it cool, don’t embarrass yourself in front of the Waste.
Knox: Right, play it cool, play it cool. I have a great memory of that tour; I think it was Rochester, and there was really shitty weather. It was raining really bad and cold. We finished loading in and doing soundcheck, just hanging in the green room with Gatecreeper and Tony (Foresta) texts me saying, “You want to grab a bite to eat at this place, like two blocks away?” I say “Yeah, sure!” I went outside in the bad winter weather to their bus and we shuffled off to their random spot. We just got some food real fast, talked music and life, then ran back. It’s such a small, minor story. Some will find it silly but I thought it was really cool and was a genuine moment / highlight for me as a fan but also as a friend. Again, nothing I ever thought would happen. Love you, Tony. LONG LIVE WASTE!
How did that tour come about?
Knox: I don’t have a fucking clue. We got asked last year. We had gotten asked to do a tour with Exhumed, Creeping Death and Bewitcher, which we obviously said yes to. I think two or three months after that offer we were asked by Decibel if we wanted to go on the Decibel Tour. We were really excited; “What in the world? Yeah, duh!” So they said, “Ok, great, but don’t tell anybody, until we announce.” It was finally ok to talk about halfway through that Exhumed tour, so the whole time we were touring and making friends, I had this bomb in the back of my head screaming, “TELL THEM ABOUT THE DECIBEL TOUR!” Finally, Decibel said, “Here’s the flyer, we’re going to announce the dates tomorrow.” Thank God, dude!
That time between knowing you have something cool lined up and being able to tell people really sucks.
Knox: I know, it’s the worst. I’ll tell my family and close friends so they know where I’ll be, but other than that, I’m pretty good about keeping it close but it’s nerve wracking. I want to tell everyone but there’s just no point. It’s all meant to be presented and announced a certain way and if I blow the beans, I ruin the entire thing. I’ve learned to shut up, which is important as a vocalist.
What was the first band you played in then?
Knox: I won’t count it but the first band I was in was me and my brother and this neighborhood kid in Minneapolis. We started a band called Broken Arrow. We only had one song. I can’t even remember how it goes. I played “drum.” I only had one, a snare. I just hit the snare hard, so I won’t count that. My first one was this Nintendo-core band, Breakdance Kickboxer. Then, almost immediately after that began, was a hardcore band called Brainwhack. Throughout high school, there was maybe seven to nine guys who wanted to play music; we would rotate positions and start different bands all the time. There were probably seven bands going on all at once throughout high school: Breakdance Kickboxer, Brainwhack, Think Tank, Atomic City, Dangerfield, Mr. Grim, too, but we only played one show though. I’m definitely missing something, but there was a lot of music, shows, experimenting and learning from freshman year to senior year. That’s all we were doing and wanted to do. If we weren’t in school, we were tooling around with some project or idea.
How did Enforced get started?
Knox: In college, I was in this band Vicegrip and we played around Richmond fairly often, not a crazy amount but a good amount. I think everybody in Enforced knew me from that. We had never met prior to Enforced starting, but our original drummer, Isaac, I knew from working together at a grocery store. We went to see Crowbar one night with a few friends. He said to me, “Hey, some friends and I are starting a band, if you want to try and do vocals, write some lyrics. We’d love for you to do vocals.” I was like, “Oh, fuck yeah, cool. I’ll try it.” At that time, I hadn’t been in a band for five or six years. I didn’t know if I was really down to do it again, ya know? I had gotten older and just didn’t think that it’d be something I’d get much out of – oh how stupid and wrong I was! I think just playing locally (was) the initial idea; be a band and play shows: simple. I didn’t really know if I wanted to even do that again, but the minute I got back into the groove of writing, practicing, recording and playing live, then I felt so much better. That was January of 2017.
How’d you guys come up with the name?
Knox: By committee. I can’t remember all the band names, but I think it was the one that everyone hated the least and everyone could agree on. It’s kind of generic, but it’s not over-the-top. It’s not offensive, it’s not stupid. It’s generic, but for a crossover band it fits well. We got our friend Dave England to draw up the logo and we were just like, “Yeah, that works!…Well that’s done!” There was the typical “band name” argument for it about a week, but in the end we all agreed that it fit the best.
You guys have more or less had a pretty consistent lineup throughout that time. What makes you all work so well together?
Knox: Sans two member changes. We all have a pretty strong work ethic, I would say. I think it was the Sacred Reich tour that we did in 2018 or ’19, I think we saw that the band had legs and we should focus on it more than we ever should or had (laughs). Besides demo tapes, I think we had two T-shirts and that was all that we brought for that tour. I feel like such a schmuck now in retrospect (laughs), but hey we just didn’t know. We had put a lot of pressure on ourselves, or maybe just me, to do well during that tour because we were playing in front of bigger crowds, 500-900 people a night. I never expected to do any of that and I was shocked that the crowds were so supportive. Maybe we should keep doing what we’re doing but focus on it more? Practice more, tour more, really focusing on trying to do this well and really push ourselves to try something that none of us were knowledgeable about doing. The hard work and diligence is apparent, in the songs and at the shows.
What was it like to record that first LP, At the Walls?
Knox: The LP consists of the original demo, the Retaliation EP, both of which were on self-released cassettes. I think we had maybe 150 demo tapes and maybe 200 EP tapes and that was it. We only bought them in boxes of 50 at a time. By the time we played a show, they would be gone. We thought it wasn’t beneficial to never have tapes available and it didn’t make any sense to keep doing it. We figured it would be awesome to do a collections LP but also add new songs that we’re working on so it’d be worthwhile for the very few who already had the actual demo and EP tapes. I think we may have made CDs for the Sacred Reich tour. We started asking around and putting out feelers to see who was interested in doing anything like that. We got a few bites but WAR (Records) and Andrew Kline felt like a good fit. I don’t know what he said but he’s been awesome to work with. He’s always been very supportive and really, really cool. In my experience, a person who has never put together and put out an LP before, Andrew and WAR really cleared up any confusion or questions. Thanks Andrew!
We were on tour (the previous year) with Strife and Restraining Order, and we talked with Andrew a lot about potentially putting out At the Walls. We did it and the record did well! As a cherry on top, we got Dwid (Hellion) to help with the artwork and provide vocals on a track! Collaborating with Dwid on the artwork was really cool and his vocals on a track was another bucket list moment. As a fan, I never expected that to happen. The LP opened so many avenues and doors for us: having a solid, physical release. I know it changed my parents’ opinion on the whole thing. When I was like, “This is it, look at it. It’s an actual record. It’s not a tape, it’s not something I put together myself, it went to a factory. It was pressed.” I was slinging out copies to family members left and right. “This is what I do now.”
You’re just like, guys, it’s real. It’s not a phase.
Knox: Yeah, all the “Oh it’s just a hobby, it’s just a phase” kind of thing so many parents or relatives say. If this is a phase, it’s a pretty long 18-year phase, so I think they started looking at it from a different perspective. It’s not a phase if I never broke from it, it’s just me. After putting out an actual LP on an actual label and touring with it and supporting it and stuff like that they were more accepting and responsive of it. If we can continue touring, playing, and I can do this for a living, then that’s what I’m going to do. At first the family shrugged. “Oh, ok, we’ll see how that goes.” After Kill Grid came out that all stopped. We’ve been touring and playing, Kill Grid has shown a lot of growth in the band and in the fanbase, I’m so excited that this is kind of what I do now. I have a full-time job now, but hopefully by next year I’m full-time doing Enforced forever.
That has to be an exciting position to be in.
Lee: It’s scary and it’s new. I’ve been doing property management, maintenance, and apartment maintenance as a profession since I turned 22. I’m about to hit the ten-year mark on that. I thought I’d seen everything by this point, but touring and trying be a full-time band is a whole other beast. I’m not the smartest rat in the race, but the business and behind-the-scenes of keeping a band running and going, to keep the machine running, is a big learning curve for me. That’s new and scary and different! I’m slowly figuring out how to pull my weight and play my part. I still have the training wheels on though, thankfully (laughs).
How bad did the COVID lockdowns hurt the band? You at least got to tour on At the Walls.
Knox: Yeah, right before lockdown. That U.S. tour with Red Death was awesome. We got back from tour in February and started recording (Kill Grid) the day that lockdown started. Lockdown day was when we started recording drums. I think we recorded it off and on with people’s comfort levels, taking about two months to do guitars, bass and vocals, which took about three weeks because I kept losing my voice and blacking out. I was trying to do something stronger than At the Walls material and I didn’t know how to, so I kept fainting. We would do maybe 25 minutes of recording then I was done, I couldn’t see. That was until about May of 2020 and then the rest of the time, Century (Media) was pretty cool about giving us a little bit of extra time because the whole world shut down; (the) release date became open-ended.
Kill Grid was originally due to come out in July of 2020, then pushed to October of 2020, then pushed to March of 2021. With an extra few months of planning, it gave us plenty of time to really work on it. That all went into producing and mastering, album art, what singles we would pick, sequencing, post-production and all this shit, then making music videos. Stuff that we were able to be more creative with.
We had done a music video before that was really cool, “Skinned Alive.” It only took two evenings to record. The “Malignance” video was so different from that, being compiled old tour footage that we had from an old camcorder. We recorded a quick live setting and mixed it with the tour footage and made a music video out of it. Then the “UXO” video was an old friend from middle school who directed and produced it all. He’s done a bunch of music videos for a few bands now, and I’m grateful for the time and attention he gave us. Thank you Jasce. The point being, since we couldn’t play and the release date was so far away, we had a lot of time to prepare and play around.
Since that was your first time actually writing for an album, since At the Walls was more of a compilation album, was that a very different process?
Knox: Totally. At the Walls technically took two years to compile. Kill Grid probably took two years as well, but it was all new or unreleased. We were working on “Hemorrhage” when At the Walls came out, it just didn’t work anywhere. It didn’t fit or make any sense. It sounds too different from all that stuff. We had always been writing more tracks, even though At the Walls was coming out. We never stopped writing or anything; we’re always working on new ideas.
You guys have never really had a normal album cycle then.
Knox: I don’t know what that’s like (laughs). I don’t know what that feels like. In most of my older bands, since we were all cheap and broke, (so) we’d go into a studio with everything completely written totally and airtight. We’d be in and out in two days, day-and-a-half maybe. We didn’t have the money or time or capacity for it. That’s not how Enforced has ever operated (laughs). It’s still so strange to me. Having set studio time, I don’t know what that’s like. Writing songs in the studio would be weird to me.
Kill Grid was your debut for Century Media. What has their support meant for the band?
Knox: They’ve been supportive. They’ve been really cool. They’ve given us a lot of background and inside knowledge on how a bigger label runs and functions. Us being complete idiots, we had so many questions at the beginning. I know I said, “I don’t know what any of these words mean. I don’t know what you’re talking about” probably 284 times. It was completely foreign to me at the time so I was just like, “Can I ask you the dumbest questions possible because I am a fool?” After working out the initial kinks, it has been pretty seamless. There haven’t been any hiccups really. They’ve been nice.
How did it feel to have that final product of Kill Grid in your hands?
Knox: Oooh, ecstatic! I put that thing on really late at night when everyone was asleep. I’ve got one of those shitty three-in-one record players that’s also a tape player and it can probably burn CDs, it’s a hunk of shit but I dropped the needle on it and “The Doctrine” started and I started getting super emotional. I was like, “Knox, it’s done!” It’s the biggest thing that I’ve ever done. It feels legit! I feel legit!
We all received all of the colorways and I threw those out to family members like the rings of power from Lord of the Rings. I was like, “You have the green one, you have earned the green one. Guard this with your fucking life. You get the clear one.” That was the end of any doubt for my family. That was a huge stepping stone and a giant leap forward, at least for me, personally. I was already accepted by my peers, but I wasn’t accepted by my family for doing what I was doing. Having Kill Grid act as a huge trash compacter to the leers and jeers made a huge impact on my life. People became far more supportive all of the sudden (laughs). My mom has a copy of the Decibel magazine I’m on that she keeps in her purse. She shows strangers or anyone! It’s really cool how supportive she has become overnight. Not overnight, but more recently. She’s saying, “Oh my god Knoxy, you’re our little rockstar!” I’m like, “No, but I’m glad you think that!”
Decibel Magazine is her version of pulling out baby photos then.
Knox: Yeah, pretty much. She showed me her desk. She’s got snippets from magazines and newspapers and stuff. She’ll print random off Instagram. It’s mad cute. She’s super cool. I can’t hate that, it’s nice to have a supportive mother.
People in general really dug that record though, and rightfully so. I imagine that reaction had to be very encouraging.
Knox: It was shocking. I didn’t know what to expect, being a new band on Century. I know how a lot of old metal guys can be it comes to new metal bands. I thought, “ Oh God, I’m gonna get the business. They’re gonna hate it and say it’s derivative or this just sucks.” The day it came out, all of our copies, as well as the copies at our local record store (Vinyl Conflict) sold within the first day. I was like, holy shit! It immediately became something that I hadn’t experienced. An enthusiastic audience? Never. I never expected that people would be enthusiastic about what I’m doing, or supportive. The album sales and all the interviews I’ve been able to do and all the cool people I’ve been able to meet, I can’t complain. I don’t know why, but it’s still shocking that people want to talk about it to me. Even when you emailed I was like, “Oh, someone wants to talk? Yeah, sure, awesome! I’m always down to talk.” Once we got closer to the Exhumed tour was when I got mad nervous. I didn’t know what people expected or hoped to see. I was nervous that everyone would hate us, which is so silly. I’m glad I was wrong. That tour went great and the Decibel one went fantastic and the machine is up and running again. The momentum is back, which I love.
Yeah how nice was it to finally return to live shows after all the lockdowns?
Knox: Fucking sick. I love performing. I have a lot of anger and pent-up aggression and just express myself and vent while we are playing. By the time we are done, I’m completely exhausted and feel relaxed. Mentally and physically, I’m in a good place. I need it and I like it. When we are on tour is the happiest I can be because I’m getting it out every night. I’m on cloud nine. I’m like Buddha up on stage. I don’t have a care and I’m not mad anymore or at anyone. Then it’s over and the next day I get shitty again, but I have another chance to vent and perform for people. It’s a vicious cycle but it’s been a blast playing live again.
Sounds like stage time is your therapy time then.
Knox: Pretty much. It definitely is therapy. Prior to the gig I always get nervous, get butterflies, and kind of antsy but the minute we get on stage it’s melts away. I put so much pressure on and then the minute we start playing it all gone and I feel so good. You can ride that high for the rest of the day.
You have a really strong stage presence up there. You’re really intense and get the crowd really whipped up with circle pits and –
Knox: You think so?
Yeah I think so, at least from what I saw on the Decibel tour (laughs)!
Knox: Ok cool. That’s really nice to hear. I’m not kidding or looking for compliments. I look at live videos like football tape, studying myself thinking, “You look like a fucking dork.” I hate the way I move. If the mic is in one hand, I don’t know what to do with my other arm. It just falls and I’m walking around with it dead. I just look stupid to me. I’ve got to figure something out but you’re like “You rule” so maybe I’m just being hypercritical, which is par for the course.
I don’t know, to me it feels like a very strong stage presence. Is that something you’ve developed over time through experience and replaying shows in your head?
Knox: That’s why I’ve been hypercritical about it. Just like, “Next time, when this happens, don’t do that! You look stupid. And this banter? Never say that again. No one thought that was funny.” I’ve always tried to hone it to some degree because I don’t think I’m good at it. I’m on stage, especially that Decibel Tour, playing in front of 1,500 people and everyone asking more to talk more during breaks and to interact with the audience more, I’m like, “I don’t know what to say to 1,500 people, dude. You say something!” It’s something I do have to work on. I’d hate to have some type of script, but I’ve got to sharpen where I’m dull.
Yeah that’s one of those weird little things that you take for granted. You work on the lyric writing, you work on the music, you work on the artwork and all that and then you just get on stage and think, “Fuck, I guess I gotta make some chit chat.”
Knox: Yeah, “How’s everybody doing tonight?” No one likes that so I started doing the “Can I get a hell yeah?” like Stone Cold (Steve Austin) used to do. “Can I get a hell yeah?” and everyone says “Hell yeah.” Then “Oh, you guys sound like bullshit. Can I get a hell yeah?” and everyone yells “hell yeah” again. “That’s what I like to hear. Can I get a hell fucking yeah?” and everyone yells “HELL FUCKING YEAH!” I’d like to start a song off that but everyone is still tuning so it’s like, cool, I got everyone revved up and now I just gotta say “Who’s ready for Municipal Waste?”….Everyone! Everyone wants to see Municipal Waste. It’s a dumb fucking question (laughs). Who’s ready for Obituary? Everyone! Hurry up and get the fuck off the stage asshole (laughs). I gotta think of something better to say because that’s just the most amateur thing to say.
I don’t know if you know the band Obscene but their vocalist, Kyle Shaw, does the Stone Cold beer bash on stage. You could just take everything from Stone Cold if you want, it seems to work for everyone.
Knox: Yeah, pretty much. No one would hate it. People would like that. I don’t want to steal more than I already have.
What’s your lyric writing process like?
Knox: I do a lot of research. I graduated with a degree in Asian history; with that comes a lot of world history, both ancient and modern. I use the research methods that I learned to kind of constantly follow really obscure threads to very specific instances or patterns that keep coming up over and over in world history, and try (to) find a basic overarching theme and write an abstract about it. Everyone could relate to it because it’s all buried in the psyche of every human being throughout time. Human history is cyclical a lot of the time, so the old relates to the new. “We’ve been through this before,” but it reads like psycho garbage or a note the Zodiac left because it can get cryptic. Other ones, like “UXO,” are pretty on-the-nose about what it’s about. It’s about bombing Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. “At the Walls” is about the First Crusade, from this text about how everyone was so starved and malnourished and dehydrated that they started having all these visions and hallucinations of saints that deluded and deceived and drove them to horrific violence. I’m constantly trying to find the mundane or minutiae from anything. You find the humanity there. It’s a long process, it doesn’t happen overnight.
There’s definitely no lack of dark shit in history or even current events for a band making aggressive music to use.
Knox: There’s so many history-focused bands. There’s so much to take from and you can only figure it all out if you read all of it; you’ve got plenty of content to make your point (whatever it may be). I try to make it more modern, if that makes sense. Like, hey, you can relate to something that happened 700 years ago. We’ve got the same brain as people from 10,000 years ago. You’re going to act or react the same as the ancient Sumers did. Like, here’s what happened to them, you’d probably have done this in this situation too. It’s a constant cycle because we’re collectively focused on the time we exist on Earth. After a few generations, the cycle begins again. The notion of Samsara, is very closely linked to that phenomenon, in my opinion.
You’ve got the Maryland Deathfest coming up with a stacked lineup. How pumped are you for that show?
Knox: Extremely, extremely fucking psyched. I’ve always wanted to go but every time it comes up, some other bullshit comes up and I’m never able to go. I’ve never been and it sucks but it’s great that the first time I’ve ever been able to go, I’m playing. We’re playing in the parking lot with Cavalera Conspiracy, one of my heroes and we’re also playing with Triptykon. Tom G. Warrior is a fucking huge hero of mine so I’m knocking off bucket list items left and right by playing in a parking lot in Baltimore. I can’t wait to play that. It’s only a couple weeks away and I’m already jonesing.
Then later in the year you’ve got the At the Gates tour, which is another stacked lineup.
Knox: That’s one that we couldn’t talk about for. It’s really awesome because they asked us to do it, and we’re literally supposed to come home from Europe the day that we start in Denver. We’re going to be in Europe all of June and half of July and then most of August, supposedly getting home on the 20th. At the Gates asked us if we wanted to play this tour, but the soonest we could do it would be Denver. I was surprised that they were cool with it! That’s gonna be really awesome; we’re also playing the Tattoo the Earth festival with fucking Anthrax and Hatebreed on my birthday. That’s my 32nd birthday. That’s the best birthday present ever. I can’t complain about a damn thing.
Have you guys started work on the new album?
Knox: Yeah, it’s almost done. Haven’t started recording because we’re leaving for Europe in a couple weeks so there’s kind of no point.
Nice, how’s that going?
Knox: It’s pretty much almost written and I’ve got lyrics for most of the songs. It’s on its way. The artwork is done, though. It’s grotesque. It’s not meant to be pretty, it’s a hard look into the mirror, culturally. Different from Kill Grid, or maybe a more magnified focus into that album cover. I don’t know, you tell me when you see it.
Right on. I mean, you’ve gotta make an impression.
Knox: Oh I think it’ll make an impression. It made an impression on me. I got the first sketches back and I was like “That’s one of the most fucked up things I’ve seen in a really long time.” It just really bummed me out. We got it during that tour, the Decibel Tour and for two days I was in a funk. I can’t unsee it. It’s kind of scarring my brain. It’s miserable.
How much direction did you give the artist?
Knox: I gave him all my notes and I was like, “Hey, the last album was all about anger and violence. I don’t want to talk about that anymore so let’s go with misery because that seems to be the vibe right now. Everyone’s just fucking miserable.” He was like “Ok man, just send me lyrics and whatever notes you’ve got. I probably won’t start sketching it for months.” We had this email chain that’s just me blabbering on for email after email after email and he’d always ask for more. While we were on tour, he sent me the sketch and I was like, “Is that’s how I sound; how I come off?” The answer, I’ve found, is “Yes” for better or worse. In my own head, that’s how everything looks. I took it personally. I can’t wait for the next album to come out. I’m just jazzed and amped for the future.
You guys shooting for later this year or early next year for that one?
Knox: It’s probably gonna be early next year. If we can record it all September, just get it done, no bullshit in September…it’ll still be early next year so about two years time from Kill Grid.
You’ve already crossed off a ton of goals it sounds like. What are you still aiming for?
Knox: We’ve done a lot that I’ve wanted to do. Touring Asia would be my personal number one. I’d love to play Japan, I’d love to play southeast Asia, I’d love to play Taiwan. Love, love, love to do that. Love to tour Australia and New Zealand. Our European tour is coming up but it’s mostly western Europe. I’d love to hit a good and proper east and west, full, true European tour rather than just western dates exclusively. I’d like to work with Ice-T at some point, that’d be cool. I don’t know why; I just think the dude is cool as fuck. Igor or Max Cavalera would be awesome, too. A South American tour would be bonkers. Anything that is probable, I’ll do. I’m pretty easygoing. We’ll see what the future holds. There’s a lot of doors to walk through.
Lastly, what kind of hobbies and interests do you have when you’re not touring or recording?
Knox: Cars. I work on my car a lot. For no reason at all it just shit the bed in January right before we went on tour and I hadn’t even had it a full two years, so I’ve been slowly rebuilding it and replacing sensors and valves and all this engine work and shit. I’m getting more comfortable being under the hood of the car. Our tour van always needs something and I’m no longer afraid of diving under that.
I bought a car, just a fun old antique car, over the pandemic and I never got to drive it because the minute I tried to drive it, the engine blew. I spent a lot of time and money trying to figure that one out. It was an early ’80s LaBaron. I never found out what the malfunction was but I was able to sell it so whatever. It looked cool but I never got to drive it.
Reading as well; I like to read. I read stoic philosophy a lot. I agree with most of it; not all of it, but it’s nice to be able to delineate the difference and not just be like, “Yes, I agree with everything this person’s saying.” Video games too; I really like PC games. We lost power for a few days and WIFI for longer, so I couldn’t access my Steam Library. Luckily, I was able to find my old games from the ’90s I still had CD-ROMs of! I’ve been deep diving into the old CD-ROM games from the early and mid ’90s. There’s always something to do between clocking in and clocking out or touring and recording. You have to find the inspiration where you can get it.
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