BraveWords caught up with legendary Flotsam And Jetsam singer Eric “A.K.” Knutson on the recent 70000 Tons Of Metal cruise to talk about the history of the band and where does the future point to. Aside from promoting their latest slab of searing metal, I Am The Weapon, the band has been focusing their live shows around their first two classic albums, Doomsday For The Deceiver and No Place For Disgrace, a routine that will change the treasured vocalist says.
“It’s going to be our last time doing the old stuff for a while,” A.K. reveals. “We didn’t wanna do it, but promoters are paying extra so…”.
BraveWords: How do those band conversations go when you’re discussing setlists, and quibbling. You’re not being forced to play this stuff, right?
Knutson: “Steve (Conley) is kind of taking control over manning stuff, and it’s working out really good for us. A few festivals ago we really didn’t wanna do it. We were in the middle of writing and somebody said they wanted us to go to Wacken. Steve’s like, ‘No, we’re not gonna do it’. And they said, ‘Well here’s the offer – it pays for flights, it pays for everything, and you get to go to Wacken’. And he’s like, ‘No, not if we’re not going to be making any money, no’. He said the price is (whatever he told them) and they came back a day later and said, ‘Ok’. So, I guess we’re going! So then the next festival, the same thing. He’s like, ‘They offered us what? No, the price is twice that’. And then they were like, ‘Ok’. Ok, I guess we’ll go then.”
BraveWords: That must be the same thing that happened with Summer Breeze Brazil last April, because that was kind of out of the blue too, right?
Knutson: “Same thing. We didn’t really wanna do it – we were in the middle of other stuff, and we gave them a ridiculous price and they said, ‘Great, but we want a special set. We want an old school set’. They did the same thing with the boat. We gave them a price higher than they wanted to pay, and they said, ‘All right, but you’re doing a special set’. And we were like, ‘Great. Cool’. It’s not that special. We do the old stuff all the time, you know?”
BraveWords: Does it get tiring?
Knutson: “The old stuff’s getting tiring. It’s really hard for me to do. I mean I was 18, 19 years old when I sang that stuff in the studio. I’m 60 now. It’s not easy. I really can’t do the screams very well. I gotta eat the microphone to get them to come out, you know? I can still sing everything the same, it’s just a lot more work now. It used to be so easy. I could be drunk and high and partied out and still sing great. Now I have to take care of myself. I have to try really hard.”
BraveWords: (Motioning to drink in hand, laughing) Bullshit.
Knutson: (laughing) “It’s tea. Tennessee tea.”
BraveWords: And you’ve got different fans, people like me, and I’m not dissing the early records, but I wanna hear more from Drift and Cuatro, some of those middle albums. Or just get me High!
Knutson: “The guys in the lineup don’t really want to do that era of the career. But they’re going to have to at some point. I was on all that crap, so eventually I’m gonna go, “No, we’re gonna do two songs from each record’. And then they’re gonna be all, “Shit! Now I gotta learn new stuff!’.”
BraveWords: Is that an issue?
Knutson: “It’s so easy for them, and me, to just be lazy about it. The last four records, pretty much everybody was on, and we kind of know those songs. We wrote those songs, so it’s easier to do those. But I don’t care, Drift, and Cuatro are going to have to come in to play at some point. We each have albums we don’t like very much out of the lineup. Like, Gilbert hates that record, the High record. He can’t stand it. I don’t like Unnatural Selection very much, for real obvious reasons. You know, I was sitting at home and the guys in the lineup called me up and said, ‘Hey, when are you going to be down here?’, and I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ They were like, ‘It’s your day in the studio, we’re doing Unnatural Selection. We’re all done with our parts’. And I’m like, ‘Studio? We’re doing an album?’ I had no clue. So I went down there. I listened to one song, wrote the lyrics for it, kinda hummed the thing, and I said, ‘All right, hit record’. I ran through it a couple of times, then listen to the next song and did the same thing. It was the first time I ever gave that horrible amount of attention to a record. And now that I listen to it I just think, ‘Yeah, it sounds like I did it last minute’. That’s horrible.”
BraveWords: Tell me what is going through your head, creative-wise, when you’re 18 versus creating now. What has changed?
Knutson: “Well for one thing, back then I was singing someone else’s lyrics, for the most part. I still got to come up with my own melodies, always, pretty much, but really I wasn’t doing most of the work, vocally. I was just singing what somebody else wrote. They already had the music parts written, I just had to come up with the melody that fit over them, and it was pretty easy for me, and very lazy for me. And since, I wanna say since Unnatural Selection, I’ve been doing all the writing. All the music writing, all the melody writing, all the where-parts-fit-in, because they’d just give me the music and they don’t say, ‘This is the chorus part, this is the verse part, this is the solo part’, they’d just give me music and say, ‘Here you go’, and I have to make all that crap up on my own, and not only is it much more enjoyable for me, it’s much more rewarding. I think I’ve, over the years, become a much better lyricist than when I started off.”
BraveWords: Blackie (Lawless) said something really interesting last year during one of his interviews, he said the fans get to hear the album from start to finish, but the band doesn’t. It’s the puzzle that’s getting pieced together and then you get to hand it over to people like me. Interesting.
Knutson: “You know when you’ve only built a little corner of the puzzle and you start looking at the other pieces? The corner is no big deal anymore because you’ve already done that, you know? And it’s not a big deal until the whole puzzle is finished and all the pieces are in place, and then you can look at the whole thing and go, ‘Yeah, this is pretty cool’. But each part that you built individually gets a little old hat for you by the time it’s finished. And it’s really not cool until you see the whole thing together.”
BraveWords: As a fan, especially of thrash and speed metal, (Joey) Belladonna told me that it was from Scott (Ian) and Charlie (Benante), “Here’s the music, now you need to sing over it.”
Knutson: “The first two records were (Jason) Newsted basically telling me, ‘This is where these lyrics fit in, this is where these lyrics fit in, this is where these lyrics fit in. Come up with a melody that we all love’. And so that was really my only creative input, the melody line. When The Storm Came Down, Troy Gregory not only wrote all the parts and told me where they fit in, but he also had the melody already written. So all I had to do was copy what he already wrote. Everything after that, I had a lot more input, a lot more creativity, lyrics, everything, and it’s much more fulfilling for me than the first three records.”
BraveWords: Why do the drums sound so strange on When The Storm Comes Down?
Knutson: “Everything sounds weird on that record.”
BraveWords: It’s not a bad record. It’s just the drums really stick out.
Knutson: “Our drummer at the time went to the mix. You don’t ever want to send your drummer to the mix. Never. For When The Storm Comes Down and Cuatro he was at the mix. In Cuatro, you can hear nothing but snare throughout the entire album.”
BraveWords: Why wouldn’t the label say something? Number one, why were they in charge and not you? Number two, why wouldn’t someone at the label go, “Maybe you need to kinda go tweak this a little bit.”?
Knutson: “I’ve never really been in charge of anything in this band, really. Except for on stage, during a performance. That’s the only time I’m in charge.”
BraveWords: Do you want to be?
Knutson: “I don’t know. There’s a lot of crap that goes along with that. I think it would’ve turned me off from the industry if I had to deal with all the business and everything. I think that would have just turned me off to where I didn’t enjoy it anymore. So if the other guys want to do the crap that turns you off from the business, then that’s great. Let them do it.”
BraveWords: So what do you enjoy most of these days?
Knutson: “Singing and writing. You know the album creation part, especially pre-production, is my favourite part of the whole industry. They send me stuff, I put on lyrics, and whatever melody lines pop in my head, and then I go back through it again. Then, I listen to it with no lyrics and melody lines on it, and start all over again, and I work it and work it and work it until I’m happy with it. That’s really my favourite part of the whole thing. I mean, I like it more than touring, I like it more than anything. Touring is fun most of the time, but it’s kind of a pain in the ass too. We’re talking about going to do this Brazil tour and it’s flights to every show, and it’s carting all our equipment and our luggage, and we can’t afford crew to do us that for us so we’re all doing it ourselves. And we’re thinking about it and we’re going through all the aspects of it and were like, ‘Yeah maybe we won’t go do this tour’.”
BraveWords: All the blood test, all the urine samples, all that shit.
Knutson: “Yeah exactly. And that’s just from angry dads of women that we run into!” (Laughs).
BraveWords: “Dude, I love your voice. You know how much I love you guys, so obviously you know you rank up there. But who are the voices growing up that you got inspiration from? Was it (Ronnie James) Dio? Freddie (Mercury)? Was it (Bruce) Dickinson?
Knutson: “Well, before I had ever heard metal, it’s gotta be Freddie (Mercury), Elton John, (Frank) Sinatra. But after metal, it’s gotta be Rob (Halford), Bruce Dickinson, Ronnie James Dio.”
The post FLOTSAM AND JETSAM Singer A.K. Knutson – “I’ve Never Really Been In Charge Of Anything In This Band Except On Stage During A Performance, That’s The Only Time I’m In Charge” appeared first on BraveWords - Where Music Lives.
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“It’s going to be our last time doing the old stuff for a while,” A.K. reveals. “We didn’t wanna do it, but promoters are paying extra so…”.
BraveWords: How do those band conversations go when you’re discussing setlists, and quibbling. You’re not being forced to play this stuff, right?
Knutson: “Steve (Conley) is kind of taking control over manning stuff, and it’s working out really good for us. A few festivals ago we really didn’t wanna do it. We were in the middle of writing and somebody said they wanted us to go to Wacken. Steve’s like, ‘No, we’re not gonna do it’. And they said, ‘Well here’s the offer – it pays for flights, it pays for everything, and you get to go to Wacken’. And he’s like, ‘No, not if we’re not going to be making any money, no’. He said the price is (whatever he told them) and they came back a day later and said, ‘Ok’. So, I guess we’re going! So then the next festival, the same thing. He’s like, ‘They offered us what? No, the price is twice that’. And then they were like, ‘Ok’. Ok, I guess we’ll go then.”
BraveWords: That must be the same thing that happened with Summer Breeze Brazil last April, because that was kind of out of the blue too, right?
Knutson: “Same thing. We didn’t really wanna do it – we were in the middle of other stuff, and we gave them a ridiculous price and they said, ‘Great, but we want a special set. We want an old school set’. They did the same thing with the boat. We gave them a price higher than they wanted to pay, and they said, ‘All right, but you’re doing a special set’. And we were like, ‘Great. Cool’. It’s not that special. We do the old stuff all the time, you know?”
BraveWords: Does it get tiring?
Knutson: “The old stuff’s getting tiring. It’s really hard for me to do. I mean I was 18, 19 years old when I sang that stuff in the studio. I’m 60 now. It’s not easy. I really can’t do the screams very well. I gotta eat the microphone to get them to come out, you know? I can still sing everything the same, it’s just a lot more work now. It used to be so easy. I could be drunk and high and partied out and still sing great. Now I have to take care of myself. I have to try really hard.”
BraveWords: (Motioning to drink in hand, laughing) Bullshit.
Knutson: (laughing) “It’s tea. Tennessee tea.”
BraveWords: And you’ve got different fans, people like me, and I’m not dissing the early records, but I wanna hear more from Drift and Cuatro, some of those middle albums. Or just get me High!
Knutson: “The guys in the lineup don’t really want to do that era of the career. But they’re going to have to at some point. I was on all that crap, so eventually I’m gonna go, “No, we’re gonna do two songs from each record’. And then they’re gonna be all, “Shit! Now I gotta learn new stuff!’.”
BraveWords: Is that an issue?
Knutson: “It’s so easy for them, and me, to just be lazy about it. The last four records, pretty much everybody was on, and we kind of know those songs. We wrote those songs, so it’s easier to do those. But I don’t care, Drift, and Cuatro are going to have to come in to play at some point. We each have albums we don’t like very much out of the lineup. Like, Gilbert hates that record, the High record. He can’t stand it. I don’t like Unnatural Selection very much, for real obvious reasons. You know, I was sitting at home and the guys in the lineup called me up and said, ‘Hey, when are you going to be down here?’, and I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ They were like, ‘It’s your day in the studio, we’re doing Unnatural Selection. We’re all done with our parts’. And I’m like, ‘Studio? We’re doing an album?’ I had no clue. So I went down there. I listened to one song, wrote the lyrics for it, kinda hummed the thing, and I said, ‘All right, hit record’. I ran through it a couple of times, then listen to the next song and did the same thing. It was the first time I ever gave that horrible amount of attention to a record. And now that I listen to it I just think, ‘Yeah, it sounds like I did it last minute’. That’s horrible.”
BraveWords: Tell me what is going through your head, creative-wise, when you’re 18 versus creating now. What has changed?
Knutson: “Well for one thing, back then I was singing someone else’s lyrics, for the most part. I still got to come up with my own melodies, always, pretty much, but really I wasn’t doing most of the work, vocally. I was just singing what somebody else wrote. They already had the music parts written, I just had to come up with the melody that fit over them, and it was pretty easy for me, and very lazy for me. And since, I wanna say since Unnatural Selection, I’ve been doing all the writing. All the music writing, all the melody writing, all the where-parts-fit-in, because they’d just give me the music and they don’t say, ‘This is the chorus part, this is the verse part, this is the solo part’, they’d just give me music and say, ‘Here you go’, and I have to make all that crap up on my own, and not only is it much more enjoyable for me, it’s much more rewarding. I think I’ve, over the years, become a much better lyricist than when I started off.”
BraveWords: Blackie (Lawless) said something really interesting last year during one of his interviews, he said the fans get to hear the album from start to finish, but the band doesn’t. It’s the puzzle that’s getting pieced together and then you get to hand it over to people like me. Interesting.
Knutson: “You know when you’ve only built a little corner of the puzzle and you start looking at the other pieces? The corner is no big deal anymore because you’ve already done that, you know? And it’s not a big deal until the whole puzzle is finished and all the pieces are in place, and then you can look at the whole thing and go, ‘Yeah, this is pretty cool’. But each part that you built individually gets a little old hat for you by the time it’s finished. And it’s really not cool until you see the whole thing together.”
BraveWords: As a fan, especially of thrash and speed metal, (Joey) Belladonna told me that it was from Scott (Ian) and Charlie (Benante), “Here’s the music, now you need to sing over it.”
Knutson: “The first two records were (Jason) Newsted basically telling me, ‘This is where these lyrics fit in, this is where these lyrics fit in, this is where these lyrics fit in. Come up with a melody that we all love’. And so that was really my only creative input, the melody line. When The Storm Came Down, Troy Gregory not only wrote all the parts and told me where they fit in, but he also had the melody already written. So all I had to do was copy what he already wrote. Everything after that, I had a lot more input, a lot more creativity, lyrics, everything, and it’s much more fulfilling for me than the first three records.”
BraveWords: Why do the drums sound so strange on When The Storm Comes Down?
Knutson: “Everything sounds weird on that record.”
BraveWords: It’s not a bad record. It’s just the drums really stick out.
Knutson: “Our drummer at the time went to the mix. You don’t ever want to send your drummer to the mix. Never. For When The Storm Comes Down and Cuatro he was at the mix. In Cuatro, you can hear nothing but snare throughout the entire album.”
BraveWords: Why wouldn’t the label say something? Number one, why were they in charge and not you? Number two, why wouldn’t someone at the label go, “Maybe you need to kinda go tweak this a little bit.”?
Knutson: “I’ve never really been in charge of anything in this band, really. Except for on stage, during a performance. That’s the only time I’m in charge.”
BraveWords: Do you want to be?
Knutson: “I don’t know. There’s a lot of crap that goes along with that. I think it would’ve turned me off from the industry if I had to deal with all the business and everything. I think that would have just turned me off to where I didn’t enjoy it anymore. So if the other guys want to do the crap that turns you off from the business, then that’s great. Let them do it.”
BraveWords: So what do you enjoy most of these days?
Knutson: “Singing and writing. You know the album creation part, especially pre-production, is my favourite part of the whole industry. They send me stuff, I put on lyrics, and whatever melody lines pop in my head, and then I go back through it again. Then, I listen to it with no lyrics and melody lines on it, and start all over again, and I work it and work it and work it until I’m happy with it. That’s really my favourite part of the whole thing. I mean, I like it more than touring, I like it more than anything. Touring is fun most of the time, but it’s kind of a pain in the ass too. We’re talking about going to do this Brazil tour and it’s flights to every show, and it’s carting all our equipment and our luggage, and we can’t afford crew to do us that for us so we’re all doing it ourselves. And we’re thinking about it and we’re going through all the aspects of it and were like, ‘Yeah maybe we won’t go do this tour’.”
BraveWords: All the blood test, all the urine samples, all that shit.
Knutson: “Yeah exactly. And that’s just from angry dads of women that we run into!” (Laughs).
BraveWords: “Dude, I love your voice. You know how much I love you guys, so obviously you know you rank up there. But who are the voices growing up that you got inspiration from? Was it (Ronnie James) Dio? Freddie (Mercury)? Was it (Bruce) Dickinson?
Knutson: “Well, before I had ever heard metal, it’s gotta be Freddie (Mercury), Elton John, (Frank) Sinatra. But after metal, it’s gotta be Rob (Halford), Bruce Dickinson, Ronnie James Dio.”
The post FLOTSAM AND JETSAM Singer A.K. Knutson – “I’ve Never Really Been In Charge Of Anything In This Band Except On Stage During A Performance, That’s The Only Time I’m In Charge” appeared first on BraveWords - Where Music Lives.
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