Karma: Thanks a lot for doing the interview.

Kris: No problem.

Karma: So I hear that you chose Darkest Hour because it was the least offensive name you could pick at the time.

Kris: Well, it was the least offensive slash least cheesy. They chose it before I joined the band and it was just like they chose like a list of five band names and each person was given a name and they took like the least cheesy and least offensive one out of all of them. 

Karma: Okay, so what other names were in the running that you heard of?

Kris: I don’t remember and I don’t think any of the other guys actually remember because it was so long ago. 

Kris: Great. It’s really amazing, it’s like tons of kids at every show. It’s energetic, they like the new songs, they want us to play the new songs. We’re having a really good time. We’re on tour with pretty good guys, all the bands have been really super nice to us.

Karma: Who is your favorite act on the bill?

Kris: I don’t have one because they have very different personalities you know. Musically, I would have to probably say I don’t listen to this kind of music. I listen to just more forward straight metal; I don’t listen to any hardcore at all so none of the bands appeal to me musically. But as people, they all generally nice guys so it’s still fun to be on tour with them.

Karma: So, what bands do you listen to?

Kris: I listen to bands like Dream Theater, more progressive metal stuff and then a lot of straight like Norwegian, progressive bands and black metal bands like Aeternus, Mayhem, and Emperor and stuff like that.   

Kris: Awesome. It’s going amazing. We’d hoped it would do less that what it’s actually been doing for us. So it’s really nice to see it being this positive and this amazing after thinking it would be good but we never thought it would be this great, so we’re just completely happy with it. We always play, so far we’ve always had to play old songs because at the shows the kids would always yell, “Play this, play this, play that…” all other songs. We’d always want to play new material and they’d never hear songs off our last record because honestly it wasn’t the best thing we could’ve done and now…

Karma: What was wrong with it?

Kris: Well I had just joined the band and we didn’t write it in a very good process. We all just came in a room and nobody brought any music to the room when we  got together to practice. We just kind of made it up on the spot and we’re not that kind of band. This time we around brought music into the room that we’ve had and we’ve been playing around with it almost two or three years. So, it’s a very more thought out record and the producer had a lot to do with the change.

Karma: Really why was the last album thrown together in such a hodge-podge fashion? 

Kris: Well for me personally I had just joined and at my try out we actually wrote two songs on the last record.

Karma: Wow!

Kris: Yeah, and I had known the drummer for a very long time since we were kids. I was in a band with him before Darkest Hour but I didn’t know the other guys at all. I didn’t want to step on anybody’s toes when I came in and say, “Here’s all this music that I wrote, let's use this.” I kind of stayed in the background and the other guys kind of also did that too I think. I think they did that more to like overpressure me at the same time. So, it’s kind of just a new lineup. It was also the first time the bass player, Paul, had written anything for the band too. It was just a new… and that was like the beginning for the band. So this is almost like our first record, because it is the first time that we solidly as a lineup gotten together and written stuff.

Karma: Suffice it to say you're very happy with the album?

Kris: Oh yeah, completely.

Karma: That’s great. So, what were some motivating factors behind the creation of this album?

Kris: Wanting to do something that we’ve always wanted to do but never really have. I mean, we’ve always wanted to be more of a metal band than anything else but we never really had the guts to just sit back and let our metal like influences and everything come into it. We’ve always just said, “Oh this song sounds too metal, or not fast enough, we need to it this way.” This time we just sat back and didn’t say, “This song should be slow or this one should be six minutes long.” We just wrote it and we were ourselves.

Karma: That's awesome, must be liberating too.

Kris: Yeah, I think it shows too because this album has personality whereas the other one didn’t have that much personality because we forced the personality.

Karma: Okay, well the song “With A Thousand Words…” Which word is the no-no?

Kris: Oh, that’s tough. For me personally, it’s "With A Thousand Words To Say But One"… Man that’s a tough question because we took that title from a quote that Mike had found on the internet and had this whole thing. We went back and tried to find the actual quote or poem or whatever it was from and we couldn’t find it. So we don’t actually know what it’s supposed to be. For me I’d just have to say music because music has been my life since I was a tiny little kid. I started playing drums when I was three. So my life has been music.

Karma: What’s your favorite song off Undoing Ruin?

Kris: Personally, I like the acoustic song "Pathos" just because I, we wanted to have a little acoustic interlude and I really wanted to write something spectacular and awesome for it. I sat and wrote probably thirty different little acoustic interludes and they all were okay but none of them really struck us as "Yeah that should be the one!" Then I took a riff from one the songs that happened before the acoustic and the song that happens after the acoustic and kind of improvised and used… Like I went to music school, and I used some of that schooling to mask those riffs so you can’t really tell that that’s there but when you listen to the record as it flows, you know it subconsciously filling your mind and I worked it that way. I did it in like ten or fifteen minutes and I was so surprised with the outcome that I would say it’s my favorite just from being surprised at what came out of it more than anything.

Karma: I love the website. Who came up with the idea to have different styles, like the "Undoing Ruin", "Hidden Hands" themes?

Kris: That’s actually Mike Murphy, the guy that’s doing it, our webmaster and he’s our old merch guy. He went to school and graduated college doing graphic design and tons of computer stuff. He’s really good at picking up ideas like that. I mean, we just kind of left it to him and said, "Hey we want the new website to tie into the new album". I had no idea he was gonna do all these different things he could do. They called and said, "Hey the new websites up" and I went and checked it out, and I was like, "This is awesome!" [Wide smile crosses his countenance]. If your personal favorite is this record then you can, or is you have a slow computer you can click text only. I thought it was a really good idea.

Karma: Speaking of the website, why does Paul have “monkeyball" [now it's been changed to "monkey bowling”] as a title? [We both laugh]

Karma: Okay, understood. [Laughs] So what’s up with the red glove?

Kris: That’s one of those times where you take pictures and you never think that the one that you don’t want to get used, is the one that they’re gonna use. That was an on the spot moment where he just took his glove because we were in Europe, in Italy and it was freezing and raining and we had to carry all of our stuff so he just had these gloves that he got and he put on. As a joke, he just did this. [Mimics Paul as he puts his hand up] And of course it gets used for everything, you know. [Laughs]

Karma: [Laughing] You mentioned recording in Sweden, it must have been amazing to work with Tomas Lindberg since At The Gates is one of your influences. [off Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation – title track].

Kris: Oh yeah. Well he’s actually a good friend of the band. He put us up at his house for a while and he’s the one that actually got us into the studio [Fredman] because they rarely take bands because they are so busy and they rarely take American bands. I think we were the second American band to ever record there and he kind of used his pull from being At The Gates to get us in the studio. I mean he is an all around nice guy and he is one of the most influential metal singers but he also has a punk and hardcore heart.

Karma: It must have been equally amazing to work with Fredrik Nordström.

Kris: Yeah, it was really weird and it didn’t hit us at the time what we were doing because he’s a straight worker, he goes in Monday through Friday 9-5 that’s it. Then you track yourself after he leaves. We weren’t there goin’, “Oh my God we’re here with Fredrik Nordström! We’re here at Fredman and all of the legendary and our influences and favorite albums were recorded.” I think it was about a day or two after we got home and I was talking to our drummer, Ryan [Parrish] and I was like, “We just recorded at Studio Fredman with Fredrik Nordström, man that’s amazing!” [Smiles] It didn’t really hit us till afterwards. Now that we think about it we’re like man we should’ve took more advantage of it while we were there. Yeah and we have some good memories of him and us being a bunch of nutballs.

Karma: Okay, well since we covered your influences, you were saying that you weren't really into any of the bands that are in your genre, who are some of your main influences right now.

Kris: Well Devin Townsend is one of my main influences, I think he’s one of the greatest songwriters but his voice, to me, is like so superb and he uses his voice for such melodies. I kind of tried to take his vocal stuff and do it on guitar for the new record you know like transfer one of my favorite singers to a guitar. He is definitely somebody I listen to everyday. Lately, I really been into this band called Muse, from England I dunno if you’ve heard of them.    

Karma: I’ve heard of them.

Kris: They’re like a Radiohead meets Queens of The Stone Age kind of band and I just think they’re amazing. This one guy writes all their stuff, he’s an amazing songwriter.

Karma: I've gotta listen to them some day soon, you're the second band to mention them.

Kris: …we do listen to other stuff besides metal but we don’t like to talk about it. We gotta have an image. [Laughs] We listen to everything though.

Karma: Okay, something a little unrelated but how do you feel about Music Choice putting your business out on front street about members of the band being jailed in Oklahoma on marijuana possession?

Kris: Well, that’s what we want people to know that stuff like this happens to people all the time and that is was just a stupid and majorly fucked up situation. It was right before I joined and they were on tour and they got pulled over for I think it was a cracked windshield and the cop found a crushed empty beer can underneath the mattress or something like that. A long time ago nobody was drinking in the van or anything, instead of just throwing trash on the highway, they'd just throw it the van. It gave them cause to search. They searched found like a small bong that John [Henry] had and they said it was paraphernalia and there was residue in it. No, I think they said it was actually marijuana in it and it obviously wasn’t.

You know, you get all this beer at a show and at the end there’s a bunch left over, you don’t want to throw it away you just take it with you. So they got illegally transporting alcohol across state lines and they handcuffed them all, threw them on the ground then in jail and it was like six thousand dollars to bail them out.

Karma: [Look of shock crosses my countenance] WOW!

Kris: They called John’s mom and she wired the money.  It was just a really stupid situation that could’ve easily been avoided.

Karma: True but…

Kris: The cops were major dickheads about it they could’ve not been that way. I mean, they threw them on the ground and handcuffed them like lying on the ground all five of them you know whereas they could’ve been like you have to take a seat but they were complete dick to them.

Karma: That’s terrible.

Kris: Yeah we just want people to know that and it is a good story to bring kids into the scene about it like people talk and you want people to talk about your band and if you’re boring and have no interesting stories, nobody’s gonna talk. [Smiles]

Karma: [Laughs]

Kris: So why not tell all the interesting shit that always happens to you. We have run-ins with the cops all the time, we have bad luck.

Karma: Well I hope your bad tour karma can come to a halt.

Kris: Well actually, I hope it continues because it keeps a buzz about the band. We just had two problems with the cops a couple of months ago. Our video shoot got shut down by the cops because we were underneath an overpass and we had fire and barrels. Were doing a major video shoot to put on MTV and that gets shut down. The day before that we were taking band photos for Victory and we were underneath an overpass in DC, five or six cop cars showed up and because we were underneath an overpass which is considered a soft terrorist target so we just choose the wrong places too do things I guess. [Chuckles]

Karma: [Laughs] Okay, well if you could collaborate with anyone else going forward, whom would you like to work with?

Kris: Well I guess there are two different answers to that because one of them would be who would I want to collaborate with just for my own personal benefit and that would be John Petrucci of Dream Theater because he’s such a big influence on guitar. But as for like making a genuinely really nice record, I’d like to collaborate with Devin again because he did such an awesome job for us and I love the guy and he’s such an influence. I’d choose him a second time.  

Karma: That's understood! Well here's a quick Speed Round of Questions.

Kris: Okay.

Karma: Evolution or creation?

Kris: I’d say evolution.

Karma: What’s the one language you want to learn?

Kris: The one I already did learn Norwegian.

Karma: Wow, do you have a completely irrational fear?

Kris: All the time. I’m always afraid my biggest fear or at least on tour is that…I mean we party a lot and I drink a ton on tour, sometimes I get really drunk and do the stupidest shit that I get up in the morning and think oh my God I did that. I actually tried doing this once and it’s my biggest fear that it’s gonna happen that we’re gonna be driving down the road and I’m gonna think we’re stopped and I’m gonna get out and try to go to the bathroom and open the door and fall out going like eighty miles down the highway. One time I thought we were stopped and I was like in a dead stupor drunk sleep and I woke up and tried opening the door and everybody was like, “No no what are you doing?!” I’m afraid they’re going to be asleep one day and not notice and that’s it you know.

Karma: Childproof the locks!

Kris: [Laughs] Yeah! So it’s actually a rational fear but it’s so stupid it has to be irrational.

Karma: Since you’re on tour, what’s in your fridge at home?

Kris: At home right now? Nothing actually because I don’t live anywhere right now. Our lease was up a month before tour so I was like I’m not gonna renew my lease to go on tour and pay six hundred bucks a month when I’m not here so I got a storage space and all my shit is there. [Laughs]

Karma: If not music then what?

Kris: You know I have no idea. I constantly think about this, I guess to go back to irrational fears is what am I gonna do after this because I have no training in anything. I can’t build an engine and work as a mechanic, I can’t… The only think I’ve done is go to music school but I quit music school to do the band so I don’t have a degree in that if I wanted to teach. So music, I guess, it sounds metal to say it but I guess it’s kind of true, music or death because after this I’m gonna try to keep doing it till I die. It’s the only thing I know how to really actually do.  

Karma: What would your bandmates do if it weren’t for the band?

Kris: Well, Mike has a college degree in social work, so when he’s done he can always do social work so for Mike it’s actually music or his fiancée has a really good job. So for Mike it’s music or sitting on your ass and letting your fiancée pay for everything. [We all laugh hysterically]

Karma: And for the rest?

Kris: We all love music so much that this is all we want to do. I’m sure that if tomorrow the band broke up for some ridiculous stupid reason we would all be back in it finding other bands because for us it’s gonna be music or death.

Karma: Ok so what is your favorite song lyric?

Kris: From a band called Ulver from Norway. Do you know who they are?

Karma: Yes, I have.

Kris: From the song called “Gnosis” from the Metamorphosis CD and it says “Not knowing how to express myself without using Pagan words".

Karma: Okay. Righty or south paw?

Kris: Righty. I wish I could be a south paw.

Karma: Favorite place to be in the world to be.

Kris: I have two that are evenly tied and that’s Budapest, Hungary and Zagreb, Croatia.

Karma: Which Darkest Hour song would sum up your life in a nutshell?

Kris: Probably the instrumental off Hidden Hands because it’s really long but it actually doesn’t seem as long as it is. It’s got everything in it from mellow acoustic parts to mellow piano parts to heavy parts to fast solos and it just ranges the gamut from everything that a metal song could have. But it’s still metal and that’s kind of like my life. I’ve gone through so much of this turmoil that at the same time there’s happy parts to the song. Sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m sad. It seems like I’ve been alive for fifty years but sometimes it seems I’ve only been alive for two and I been metal my whole life and that song is still metal so that’s my song. [Smiles]

Karma: Guilty pleasure song/CD/artist.

Kris: Avril Lavigne. She’s hot and if you take her songs and you could do them with different instrumentation they’d be awesome metal songs just because they’re done with pop orchestration and sounds.

Karma: You're not the first person to say this to me. I know there was talk of someone doing some covers of hers…

Kris: …Somebody has, have you heard of Counterforce?

Karma: No, I am not familiar with them.

Kris: Counterforce has a record called Pop Divas Go Metal. This guy got all the original vocals from Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mya...he took all the vocal tracks to the studio and did metal versions with the original vocals. Awesome!

Karma: Okay, sounds interesting. Things I cannot live without.

Kris: My guitar, the Internet, beer.

Karma: If you could commission a band to cover a Darkest Hour song, which song would you chose and who would cover it?

Kris: Dream Theatre to do the instrumental on our last album.

Karma: If you could date any celebrity past or present, time and age whom would it be?

Kris: Avril Lavigne, oh actually not Avril Lavigne Eliza Dushku.

Karma: Whom would you ask these Speed Round Questions of?

Kris: In a band or just in general?

Karma: In general.

Kris: I would probably say Eliza Dushku because she’s really hot so that’s why I’d want to date her but I don’t know too much about her. So I could ask her this and see if we you know connect.

Karma: Thanks Kris!

Kris: [Smiles] Thank you.