"We wanted to really do this with no bullshit..."

New York hardcore band Sworn Enemy is starting this year off with a bang! The new album The Beginning Of The End released off Abacus Records is a tribute to the old thrash bands with a mix of the newer hardcore that dominates the airwaves. Produced by Tim Lambesis of As I Lay Dying and mixed by metal’s best, Zeuss [The Red Chord, Shadows Fall], this album has the makings as one of the surprises of the year. In this interview, Paul Antignai talks about working with Tim and Jamey Jasta, some of the bands influences, as well as how they handle a member’s departure. I appreciate Paul being so gracious to talk with me even though he was under the weather. Read on to find out what he had to say.

Sharita: Hello?

Paul: Hi, is this Sharita?

Sharita: Yes it is, are you Lorenzo?

Paul: No, you have the drummer Paul.

Sharita: Oh Ok, hi Paul thanks for talking with me.

Paul: No problem, sorry I’m a little under the weather.

Sharita: Oh that’s ok; I won’t keep you long I just wanted to talk to you about what’s going on with Sworn Enemy. First of all, how was the concert the other night here (in Chicago)?

Paul: It was the best show of the whole tour.

Sharita: Really?

Paul: It’s was lot’s of people goin’ crazy, Anthrax blew it up and the crowd was singing louder than Joey Belladonna, it was insane. Probably the best show of the whole tour so far, for everybody, this was it.

Sharita: That’s awesome. So, it has to be a dream come true to tour with a band like Anthrax…

Paul: Yeah it sure is.

Sharita: Tell me how this came about?

Paul: I dunno, it’s all business I mean, we [have] a new record comin’ out, we’re goin’ out on tour, you know what I’m sayin’. Our people talked to their people, we got our advertisements together and went out on tour, and mostly all business you know?

Sharita: Right.

Paul: I mean two New York Bands, you know and that’s pretty much it.

Sharita: Ok, well I wanted to ask you about the bands bio, and you mentioned your influences being the old school thrash bands like D.R.I., which I’m into as well. By the way, it mentioned that you toured with D.R.I. when was that?

Paul: We did a whole national tour with D.R.I., it was one of the first tours we did, our first national tour. We hit every, shitty city in this whole country, it was insane. Some shows were shot, some great, and was the beginning. D.R.I. was a great band.

Sharita: Indeed. I would say D.R.I. and Prong were two of my favorites. Are there any others that Sworn Enemy or you yourself look up to?

Paul: Yeah, all the old New York hardcore bands like CroMags, Agnostic Front, all the old metal like Slayer and Metallica, just everything that everybody else likes; all the great metal that ever came out. For me, all my heroes are the old New York hardcore almost punk rock type bands because that was just my background but everybody’s different in the band. Like Lorenzo [Antonucci], he loves fuckin…Anthrax is probably his favorite band so this is a dream come true for him. Sal, he loves CroMags, he personally loves stuff like that, all hardcore and metal.

Sharita: Great: So, let’s talk about the new album. I went to your website and listened to a couple of tracks and I see The Beginning Of The End was produced by Tim Lambesis of As I Lay Dying and mixed by Zeuss, so you have some pretty big names there.

Paul: Well it’s just a natural progression because the last record I think was a little simpler and this one is a total 360. We just wanted it to be a great fuckin, hardcore album and do something that would blow people’s minds. We wanted to really do this with no bullshit. So, we got a great producer in Tim and a great engineer named Pete Russell, who lives in San Diego. I’m really proud of it, I think it’s gonna do good.

Sharita: Yeah, it sounds great so far. The songs on the website sound great; do you know what they are?

Paul: I think one of them is “All That I Have”, and I believe the other one is “I’m Here Today”.

Sharita: Ok, so who does most of the writing, would you say Sal or is it a group effort?

Paul: Well he, [Sal] does eighty percent of the lyrics. We all come together for some of the songs, Lorenzo writes some lyrics too, but for the most part, we all sit down and write the music, you know? Lorenzo comes up with a riff, I come up with a beat that at goes along with the riff, then we change it around and we mesh it. So when Sal brings us the Lyrics, the songs are pretty much all together, you know.

Sharita: Alright, what was the big difference, if any, when working with Tim as opposed to Jamey on the last record?

Paul: Well, Tim has a lot more to say about it, he had a lot more input. Jamey’s a great guy I love him, I have nothing bad to say about him but Tim was a little more involved. Like during the writing process he would changes songs around, he was just more involved; he didn’t just put us in a room and said go play. He gave his two cents and made things a lot better which at first I didn’t think it was going to be like that, but after I walked up to him he had a lot of great ideas, so he was just a really good producer.

Sharita: So how did that come about? Did he approach you or did you approach him?

Paul: Well we’re friends and we were just bullshitting on the phone and we called just to say, “what’s up” or whatever, and the subject came up. It was kinda like, “Yeah we’ll do the record.” Then it just happened to be in San Diego and it just kind of worked it’s way from there, nobody convinced anybody, it just kind of evolved into that. 

Sharita: Ok, who did the cover for the new album?

Paul: Yeah, we call him Dirty Ray, he’s from New Jersey, and he’s the guitar player from Agents of Man.

Sharita: It’s a great cover, very deep. I’m really excited about the new album and I’m sure it will do well for you guys. I have a couple of more questions but I don’t want to keep you since you’re not well today.

Paul: Oh that’s ok, no problem.

Sharita: I wanted to ask you about the last line-up change you had, what happened the last time you guys went on tour with Mastodon?

Paul: Oh I remember that tour. Yeah, our guitar player just left, he wanted to get married didn’t want to tour. We had our old merch guy that played bass play guitar and our other merch guy played bass cause we figured we didn’t want to look for anybody to learn the songs so we just moved them up. Yeah we always get merch guys that could play so if anybody quits we could just fuckin’ move them in. (Laughs)

Sharita: (Chuckles) That’s a good way of looking at it then you don’t have put anything in the paper about looking for new members.

Paul: Exactly.

Sharita: So, did that put a little strain on the band or on the writing process when members kept leaving the band?

Paul: No not at all, Lorenzo and I write the all music for everything.

Sharita: Oh, ok.

Paul: It had no bearing on the music process whatsoever.

Sharita: Well, the best of luck to you and the band, I hope you have great success with the new album and thanks for taking the time to talk with me even while you’re sick.

Paul: Thanks and no problem Sharita. Bye now.

Thanks to Paul and to Adrenaline for setting it up. 

• Click here for photos from tonight's show