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Rock My Monkey: Hello, you are listening to the Rock My Monkey netcast on RockMyMonkey.com. Today we are speaking with Patrick Pintavalle of the band The Absence. How are you doing today, Patrick?
Patrick Pintavalle: Doing good. How about yourself?
Rock My Monkey: I’m doing pretty good. Now, you guys have a cover of Testament’s Into The Pit on this cd. A total classic thrash tune. What original song on here has the chance of becoming a legendary metal classic, the song that fans are going to demand for decades to come?
Patrick Pintavalle: From this album, I don’t know, man. I like them all. I don’t know. Maybe World Divides, because I think that’s what we’re going to shoot a video for. We were going to go with Saving Dawn, but I don’t know, so many fans just told us that World Divides is just the jam. So maybe that, hopefully.
Rock My Monkey: When are you going to be shooting that video?
Patrick Pintavalle: We’re talking with the guy now. We’re trying to shoot before the tour, obviously, with Cannibal Corpse. We leave September 5th, so within the next week or so. It’ll probably will take about a day.
Rock My Monkey: What’s that?
Patrick Pintavalle: The actual shooting of the video should only take about a day, as far as performance goes.
Rock My Monkey: Now, you have guest appearances by guitarists James Murphy, Jonas & Per Nilsson of Scar Symmetry, Santiago Dobles and even guest vocals by Jonas Granvik of Without Grief. Was that pulled off over the internet, or did they actually come into the studio?
Patrick Pintavalle: Some of them were through the internet. Obviously the guys that were overseas. James Murphy came down to the studio. We’ve been friends with him for a while now, since we did a benefit show for him years back, before we were even signed. Santiago also did his part through the internet. Jonas and James were the only ones who did it through the studio, actual live.
Rock My Monkey: Was this all friends you guys have made over the past year, or how did you organize all that?
Patrick Pintavalle: Santiago actually, he has a band called Aghora. He lives down in South Miami. Him and I are both endorsed by a company called Madison for our amplifiers, and that’s how we met, through the NAMM deal over in Anaheim. We played a few shows with his band. I asked him when we were at NAMM, I said, hey, man, you think you’d mind putting a lead on here? We’d like to get you on the cd as kind of paying a tribute to his guitar playing, because he’s an extraordinary guitar player and I don’t think he gets enough exposure. So we figured we’re helping him as he’s helping us.
Rock My Monkey: What was the inspiration behind the album title Riders Of The Plague?
Patrick Pintavalle: The whole meaning of it is the plague is like everything bad that’s happening in your life, and riding it. Pretty much like if you’re plagued, you’re just going to ride it, you’ll deal with it, you know what I mean? That’s Jamie, our singer’s outlook. He could probably explain it a lot better than I could. (laughs)
Rock My Monkey: In November you guys pulled out of a tour with Entombed because of unresolved problems with your booking agent. Was that ever resolved, or have you found a new booking agent?
Patrick Pintavalle: Yeah, we’re in the works of a new booking agent. Seems like they’re hard to come by these days. The strange thing is when we pulled out of that tour, ten minutes later Entombed pulled out, so it was going to get cancelled anyway. So obviously they were having problems as well.
Rock My Monkey: You guys are currently taking photos from fans on your website for future posters. When will those posters come out?
Patrick Pintavalle: I couldn’t give you specific dates. I would say after this tour. The main focus is this tour coming up, so I would say after, sometime in October.
Rock My Monkey: Right now your website is pretty much just the front page where people can upload those photos.
Patrick Pintavalle: They can link to the MySpace.
Rock My Monkey: Right, and then there’s a link to the MySpace.
Patrick Pintavalle: We’re looking for web designers right now. We’ve been looking all the over the place for web designers. We had a guy, and we sent him all the info, and it just seems like nobody can be professional. So we’re still looking for somebody. Anybody out there, give us a contact. Hit us up on MySpace or whatever.
Rock My Monkey: Cool. Cool. We’ll do our best to get the word out.
Patrick Pintavalle: Peter’s in the works of finding somebody. If not, Pete’s a great artist. I mean, he designed a lot of our t-shirts. He designed our logo. If need be, he’ll just design the pages, and then we’ll just have a buddy of ours host them. But right now we’re looking for real web designers. They’re hard to come by for some reason.
Rock My Monkey: What do you think makes The Absence unique in the metal scene? What do you guys offer that no other metal band today does?
Patrick Pintavalle: I think we offer the fans kind of like a more real, more realistic sound, I guess. It seems like everybody else is trying to do some kind of trendy gimmick. We’re not jumping on that wagon. So I think that’s the unique thing about us. Obviously we’re playing a style that was pretty old, what we’re doing. It’s not like we’re inventing the wheel, or anything. We come from the old school. We like old school bands, and all those bands got forgotten about, so maybe it’s coming back around. We don’t offer the cheee, how about that?
Rock My Monkey: What’s that?
Patrick Pintavalle: We don’t offer the cheese.
Rock My Monkey: Sometimes cheese is good! Now, what would you say is the biggest influence on the band? The whole Gothenburg sound, or bands like Testament?
Patrick Pintavalle: Probably more of the European sound. Testament was something that we listened to when we were in high school, probably as we were becoming musicians. Testament’s a band-if you told me now that we were going to cover Into The Pit when I was in 9th grade, I would have laughed at you and said no way, you know what I mean? Because Skolnick is such a ridiculous guitar player. I mean, you could even ask Pete. Pete still can’t believe to this day that he’s playing leads like that, you know what I mean?
Rock My Monkey: What would you say is the most annoying cliché in metal today?
Patrick Pintavalle: The most annoying cliché?
Rock My Monkey: Yeah, the most annoying cliché.
Patrick Pintavalle: The emo metal band, clean vocal cheese thing right now that everyone’s doing.
Rock My Monkey: Not necessarily the clean vocal, but more the whiney vocal?
Patrick Pintavalle: Yes, yeah, because obviously clean vocals are a part of metal. There’s bands that can do it for real. Look at bands like Mercenary. That guy’s vocals are unbelievable. He’s probably the best singer in metal right now, I think.
Rock My Monkey: How do you feel The Absence has progressed since From Your Grave?
Patrick Pintavalle: I think as far as progression goes, it’s still kind of the same. I think the production has progressed, you know what I mean? I think maybe there are some parts where we go off. Maybe the lead sections are a bit longer than they would be if From Your Grave. Other than that, a lot of these songs were written when we did From Your Grave. They just didn’t make the cut. Then we put them on the back burner and said, next album.
Rock My Monkey: You mention the production. Last time, personally I thought Erik Rutan did a phenomenal job on the production. Why didn’t you go with him again, and why’d you go with somebody else?
Patrick Pintavalle: Here’s the thing. We were listening to Scar Symmetry and those albums, and we liked the recordings. We’re good friends with Eric. Eric first of all wouldn’t have been able to take us on because he was so busy. Ever since the year that we did From Your Grave, Eric’s been getting so much business it’s like crazy. I’m not saying it’s because of us. I’m just saying since then he’s been getting so many bands coming in to record with him that he didn’t have time for us. He has opened up another section to his studio. He had a studio A and a studio B. So we talked to him about just going into studio B while he was in A with Through The Eyes Of The Dead and just having Jonas come in. And it worked out.
Rock My Monkey: I heard that someone from the band requested somebody to do one of those interpretation style music videos for YouTube on the song From Your Grave. Who’s idea was that, and does the band have their own YouTube channel yet?
Patrick Pintavalle: No, we don’t have our own YouTube channel. I think we’re working on that now, because what we did is we videotaped a lot of stuff in the studio. We do have a lot of material. It’s just editing. There’s a lot of cutting up to do yet. I think Peter’s on that now. As far as the interpretation thing, we had saw what the guy had did with Job For A Cowboy and some other bands. I just emailed him one day, and he responded the same day, and I said, ‘Hey, man, that’s some funny stuff. Don’t be bashful. Feel free to do one for us.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, cool.’ And he checked us out and he’s like ‘Yeah, you guys are awesome.’ And then he wrote me back and then he did it.
Rock My Monkey: You sold just over 1000 CDs in the first week. Is that, do feel that that’s just the beginning of the snowball at the top of a mountain, or where do you think that’s going to go from here?
Patrick Pintavalle: I sure hope so. That would be great. I mean, when our manager called me and said ‘Hey, congratulations,’ And I was like, ‘For what?’ And then he told me, and I was like, ‘Wow, cool.’ We assumed that we would obviously sell better on this record, because it’s our second record, and obviously businesses only build up, you know what I mean? It’s a good thing. I only hope that it continues to get bigger.
Rock My Monkey: Before I do my final question, is there anything you’d like to say to the fans of The Absence, or the readers of RockMyMonkey.com specifically?
Patrick Pintavalle: Anything I’d like to say-well, for the fans, you rock. If you’re not a fan, go pick up Riders Of The Plague, and you will be.
Rock My Monkey: Okay. I do have one final question. Every year we do choose one final question that we ask every single band, from classic rock legends to the most extreme death metal bands at the end of every interview. Partially to stump people, but also to kind of separate the men from the boys. This year I’m asking people to look into their crystal ball and predict what political figure, world leader, musician, celebrity, anybody well known, anybody world wide famous. Who do you think might die before the end of the year?
Patrick Pintavalle: (laughs) It could be a political figure?
Rock My Monkey: Yeah, absolutely. Anybody world wide famous.
Patrick Pintavalle: Anybody world wide famous who will die before the end of the year?
Rock My Monkey: Yep.
Patrick Pintavalle: Phew. Let’s go with Lindsay Lohan. She’s on a hot streak.
Rock My Monkey: Alright, cool. Good answer. Well, I thank you very much for doing the interview, and anybody that’s listening to the audio version can go to RockMyMonkey.com for the full featured version with clickable links, readable text, and many more wonderful features. And if they can click on the album cover above and below this interview to purchase Riders Of The Plague by The Absence. And I do hope to see you guys up on tour in the Northwest sometime soon. Thank you very much or your time.
Patrick Pintavalle: Check us out with Cannibal Corpse, Black Dahlia Murder, Red Chord, and Goatwhore.
Rock My Monkey: Cool. Cool. Sounds like a good package. Thanks for your time.
Patrick Pintavalle: Thanks for your time. Take care.
