A Dozen Furies Interview

First off, thanks for doing the interview. Now please introduce yourself.

Glad to do it, I'm Mike. :)

How did A Dozen Furies get together, and what's the origin of your name?

We've known each other from previous bands and we all just kinda ended up at the same place at the same time. Joey, Marc, and I pretty much started the band. Shortly after, we picked up Bucky and Keith and off we went. The name came from something I read amongst my travels. We all liked it, so it stuck.

I know you guys get both dirt and hype from being featured on Battle for OzzFest last year - how was that experience and getting signed to Sanctuary Records?

Sure, we get both ends of the attention spectrum. But then again, who doesn't? Getting signed was a big thing for me. It's the first time I've been able to see how things really work with a label. We've got great people behind us.

Going from a local band to main label quickly must've been a mind-blowing experience - along with playing second stage at OzzFest 2005. What was that like?

Ozzfest was amazing. It'll be hard to top some of the shows we played on that tour. Everyone that's toured with Ozzfest says it's like a big family, and they are right. We made some great friends on that tour.

You were recently an opening band for GWAR - how did that come together?

When we were first asked about that tour, we were unsure about it. You kind of know that everyone goes to a GWAR show to see... GWAR. We thought it over and decided, why not? It's GWAR! The tour turned out to be great for us. Everyone on the tour was extremely cool, the crowds were amazing... plus Canada has a lot of hot women...and poutine.

What else do you have planned for the rest of this year?

We finished out the year on the last week of the Jagermeister tour with Disturbed. It was a quick, but tremendous run. It's always great to see the Jäger crew! We took Jan. off and we are back out for a few weeks with Throwdown, The Red Chord, and Still Remains.

If you listen to your Rip the Stars Down EP and compare it to the sound of A Concept From Fire, there's definitely a heavier vibe. How did you come around to deciding you wanted a more chaotic sound?

RTSD was more of a collection of ideas we had just kind of meshed together. The songs on that EP were pretty much among the first few songs we wrote as a band, we weren't sure what direction we wanted to go I guess. I'd say the band just matured into a heavier sound over time. We wanted to write at least a more aggressive record than the EP for sure, so we did.

What was the writing process for the album?

We just finished up a month long tour and had to pretty much immediately jump in the studio when we got home. We had some older songs polished up, as well as quite a bit of new finished and unfinished material when we hit the studio. We had to finish writing a few of the songs in the studio during pre-production.

On to more Mike-oriented questions - when did you begin drumming and who are your biggest influences?

I started when I was in 4th grade. I was pissed because my first drum lesson was on Halloween night and I had a sweet Predator costume I wanted to wear out. I played the snare drum for a few years, my folks didn’t want to spend a ton of cash on a full kit and then me lose interest after a couple of months. I finally got a full drum kit around 2 years later and immediately started a band with my older brother. We just tried to cover stuff from other bands. In high school we got "serious" and got a band together. It's difficult to say who my "biggest" influences are, over the years I’ve been into anything from Green Day, Neurosis, Dredg, The Red Chord, Cryptopsy… anything that makes me want to play is my biggest influence.

What are your top five favorite albums at the moment?

Uhmmmm...
Neurosis - Any album
Misery Signals - Of Malice and the Magnum Heart
Necrophagist - Epitaph
Between the Buried and Me - Alaska
Dredg - Catch Without Arms

What was the first album you ever purchased?

Uhhhh I can't remember the first one I bought my own money, but the first album I owned was Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet. I played the crap out of that record. The first CD I bought was Sepultura - Chaos A.D.

What would your dream tour be?

Right now, I'd love to go out with...
Killswitch Engage
Unearth
Misery Signals

It’d be entirely too much of a pain in the ass to get The Beatles, Nirvana, and Far back together so I won’t mention THAT dream tour.

What question would you like to be asked in an interview that you haven't been asked before?

"Now that you've won the Texas Lottery, what are you going to do with the millions?"

Anything else you would like to add for the fans?

Yea, thanks for the support! Go make a friend buy a record, then you buy one too... even if you already have one. hehe Come to a show and at least say 'hey' to us. sheesh.

We'd like to thank Maggie for submitting this interview and to the A Dozen Furies camp.