These are the five greatest hardcore and metal breakdowns according to Drain guitarist Cody Chavez
First impressions aren’t everything, but they’re definitely something. When our Zoom call whirrs into life, Drain guitarist Cody Chavez opens with a peppy, ‘What’s up, man?’, his long hair pulled back beneath a baseball cap. The frame just catches the sharp edges of the Metallica logo splattered across his sleeveless tee. Chavez has a rep as the metal guy in one of hardcore’s most exciting bands and here he is: the metal guy in one of hardcore’s most exciting bands. “Usually people start out as metalhead and they turn into a straight up hardcore kid, or maybe they’re a hardcore kid and they go straight up metalhead,” he says. “Why can’t you be both?”
READ MORE: “We’ve gone from a jack-o’-lantern to a plastic pumpkin:” Creeper on the best horror-themed albums
“A lot of my favorite guitarists, like Michael [Gibbons] from Leeway or Sob from Merauder, were metal-hardcore guys,” he continues. “They had long hair but they were playing in hardcore bands. So I figured, ‘Well, they could do it, why can’t I?’ From hardcore, I love all my groove parts and breakdowns. And then, of course, I love throwing in my little thrash licks and my glam metal influence, a lot of melodic stuff. I have always looked at music and guitars as: why not throw your whole personality into it?”
On Drain’s forthcoming third LP …Is Your Friend, Chavez pulls that off with gnarly brio, studding straight-up ragers such as Living In A Memory with pinch harmonics while threading galloping, hooky leads between vocalist Sammy Ciaramitaro’s gobby screams.
It feels like the most fully-realised version of himself as a guitarist that he’s managed to put to tape, amping up the complexity of his playing without losing the windmilling energy of the San Jose-Santa Cruz hardcore scene the band have helped to bring to international prominence since their 2020 record California Cursed became a pandemic breakout.
Image: Atiba Jefferson
“We’re a bunch of friends having fun,” Chavez says. “The same way that we would jam in a practice spot is the same way that we would jam to 2,000 people, you know what I mean? There’s not really much science behind it.”
What is behind it is hundreds and hundreds of shows. Since touring became a thing again, that’s pretty much all Drain have done, with venues increasing in size each time they crisscross the US. When we talk, they have just pulled up in Atlanta, having made the overnight drive from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The show there popped off, Chavez says. So too did their set at Furnace Fest in Birmingham, Alabama, where Ciaramitaro whipped up an enormous circle pit during Army of One with a cry of, “No weak shit!” There’s a great dynamic between the singer and his bandmates, with his pogoing energy keeping things punk while they thrash and whirl, drummer Tim Flegal pushing the pace. “Sammy is going crazy,” Chavez says. “He’s diving into the crowd. Tim’s going crazy. I’m doing my thing, ripping some solos, ripping some riffs.”
…Is Your Friend does a great job of capturing this energy. It is pit-primed mayhem from buzzer to buzzer. Drain don’t assemble new stuff on the road, preferring to pool ideas as a trio in their rehearsal space as they always have done, but there’s clearly a lot of muscle memory at work. With a rotating cast of live bassists joining them — the latest is Greg Cerwonka of Chula Vista crossover-thrashers Take Offense, formerly Turnstile’s touring guitarist — it’s down to Ciaramitaro to handle that during writing and, for the first time here, on record. “He really killed it, man,” Chavez says. “He wrote some basslines, I threw my sauce on there. He really came through.”
Image: Atiba Jefferson
When it came time to capture the songs in the studio, Drain turned to Jon Markson, who mixed 2023’s Living Proof. Over the past decade, the New Jersey-based producer, engineer and Such Gold bassist has distinguished himself as someone who can make punk bands sound colossal without sanding down their rough edges, giving genuine heft to records by Drug Church and One Step Closer. In tandem with Chavez, here he has cooked up some filthy, febrile sounds that also feel detailed and organic. “I was looking to take an ‘80s metal guitar tone and modernise it,” Chavez says. “I didn’t know exactly how to execute it, but he was like, ‘I got you.’ We used a Peavey Butcher, a Diezel Herbert 3, and then in front of it to get the bright texture we used a Jazz Chorus. That was a really cool thing that I didn’t expect him to pull out.”
Guitar-wise, Chavez is a Jackson head, using his Dinky for most of the leads while turning to his Virtuoso for any down-picking parts. “Anytime I have something chugging, like Hetfield, I use that,” he says. On the road, meanwhile, he’s been playing around with an MXR Rockman X100, a pedal modelled after the headphone amp created by Tom Scholz that he’d initially wanted to take into the studio as he chased something glittery. “They were all sold out at the time,” he says. “But I ended up getting one right before this tour at a Guitar Center near me. I just have a digital delay and chorus, very simple, but Greg helped me pair it with all that stuff. Straight up, all my leads now sound like Boston. It sounds unique — even though you recognise it as the Boston sound, I can’t name any bands in our scene who are using it like that.”
When Scholz dreamed up the Rockman way back when, he probably didn’t envisage its honeyed voice running headlong into breakdowns like the ones that lurch into view during …Is Your Friend highlights Until Next Time or Stealing Happiness From Tomorrow, but life is funny. When you give Drain a chance to do something nuts, they’re going to take it. To understand where that impulse comes from a little better, here are five mosh parts that make Chavez want to cause some damage. In observance of proper protocol, they were generally expressed in terms of DA-NA-DA-NA-JUN-JUN-JUN before further analysis.
Leeway – Unexpected (Born to Expire, 1989)
“I really love Leeway for how good their songwriting is and having that metal sound to them while still being a hardcore band. I relate to that a lot because of what we do in Drain. What they did in the ‘80s is similar to what we’re doing now in our own way. In terms of that song, I love how you think it’s gonna go somewhere else. It starts off with a melodic, kind of glammy, heavy metal riff, then it just goes into straight thrash for a long time. It stops, and then you hear that hi-hat. It’s such a perfect song — cool riffs, fast part going into a mosh part. I don’t care who you are, that pit part — I think it’s just 3-2-1-open — how could you not start moshing to that?”
Dark Angel – Psychosexuality (Time Does Not Heal, 1991)
“Some people consider them a straight thrash band. Other people consider them early death-thrash because it’s more extreme, a lot faster and with heavier parts. Sammy is a big fan of that record, too. I feel like we were listening to it a lot for California Cursed and that influenced tracks on there. It still does, man. Psychosexuality goes into the breakdown and you’re like, ‘Holy shit!’ It goes from that to the riff and the same kind of beat. It’s awesome, dude. It’s an incredible metal track with a pit part.”
No Warning – Over My Shoulder (Ill Blood, 2002)
“The pit part at the end is incredible. I played drums for this band Gardens, and we covered that a couple times. Half of it would probably be nostalgia, thinking of when I was younger, listening to Ill Blood, having a good time with my friends, in a car, going to a show. It’s just: fast part, boom, straight into a mosh part. It’s such a simple riff, but it’s so effective and hard-hitting. I gotta give a shout out to Jordan [Posner], who’s a guitarist I look up to. He’s a good friend of mine. He plays in Terror as well, and we’ve toured with them a bunch. But he is also one of the masterminds behind No Warning. It’s an honour to know him and know that he did all that shit on those records.”
Kreator – Betrayer (Extreme Aggression, 1989)
“Kreator is not a band you would hardcore dance to at all, but the breakdown in that song sounds like it could be in a hardcore song. It is fucking dope. The riffs are fucking amazing. As a kid discovering hardcore, already knowing metal, I’d listen to thrash bands and be like, ‘I could see this in a hardcore context.’ Sepultura’s Dead Embryonic Cells, you know? There are pit parts all over that record [Arise]. When I joined Drain and started writing some of the newer music, I was like, ‘Fuck, I want to do that on my own.’ That type of stuff influenced me greatly.”
Ceremony – Eraser Making Its Way Its Only Job (Still Nothing Moves You, 2008)
“It’s just so primitive. It gets me every time. What sets Ceremony pit parts apart from other hardcore bands is that there’s a lot of emotion in it. Sometimes it’s the melody. It’s just a different experience from a heavy hardcore band, or something more straightforward. For lack of a better term, there’s a lot of feeling. Ceremony will always be my favourite hardcore band. They really shaped how I view a lot of things. I discovered them when I was 17-18, when I was playing in my old band. They’re just incredible, man. I love that band to death. I gotta throw this in as a bonus — my favourite ‘80s hardcore/crossover band is Crumbsuckers. Jimmie’s Dream, off the second album Beast on My Back, the riffs and the pit part in that are incredible.”
Drain’s ‘…Is Your Friend’ is out on November 7 through Epitaph.
The post These are the five greatest hardcore and metal breakdowns according to Drain guitarist Cody Chavez appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
