“I did all of the touring for the last one but this is the first time I’m actually on an album,” says Josh Newton of Every Time I Die’s latest disc, New Junk Aesthetic. Throughout the album, Josh’s freight-train attack helps to support and anchor the band’s heavy riffing. The result is an album that is lean and focused while retaining the band’s brutal sound. The day before leaving for an Australian tour we had the chance to talk to the refreshingly good-natured Newton who laughs easily and does not take his busy schedule for granted - “I feel very fortunate to be doing this - I remember what it’s like to deliver pizza and do construction and this is way better [laughs]!”
You have a busy 2010 ahead of you – you are leaving for Australia tomorrow – what’s after that? We come back from Australia and do a headliner from March through May, some Festivals, all of the Warped Tour, back to Europe after Warped tour and, I think, we’re going to try to fit Japan in there somewhere! So, yeah, it looks good – I love to stay busy.
The new album is very tight sounding – the songs are more streamlined without compromising the band’s sound. It seems like somehow they/we figured out how to write songs. When the band started, the first few records were not really that “song-y”. It was more like parts mashed together and I think that as they’ve progressed the songs just got better. I can’t really tell with the new one because I’m actually involved but it feels like it!
How do you find your space sonically? The band has such a huge guitar sound. There’s a lot going on – especially live. On one side you have an Orange half-stack and a Marshall half-stack and on the other side there are two [Marshall] 800’s. So, there’s a lot of power up there! Basically, I don’t go for a super-low thing, I go for a midrange-y distorted tone, a gnarly thing, which I think also helps to support the guitars but it also still fits in with the drum set. If I had my druthers, there would be nothing in my monitors except for kick and snare [laughs]! Which is kind of what I try to do with my cabinets on either side of the drum set, so I don’t have to hear the guitars [laughs]! Which is kind of what I try to do with my cabinets on either side of the drum set, so I don’t have to hear the guitars [laughs]!
How has your Aguilar gear helped you achieve your tone? Ah, I love it – it’s great! I hadn’t really used it on the last American tour that we did and then we went to Europe and I had two DB 750’s and they just blew my mind! When I came home and got to play my DB 751 again, I was like, “Wow, this is ridiculous”! That combined with the AGRO is perfect.
When I bought the cabinets, I was running them with another head and there was just not enough power. I’m up against a 200-watt guitar head on this side and two, 100-watt heads on the other, so I just needed more power and clarity in the low-end. And that’s where the DB 751 came in and just blew me away.
And you can really dial in the mids with it. The thing is I find that I don’t really have to EQ it. I push the lows a bit and I brighten it up a little bit but it’s voiced perfectly for me – I’m really happy with it and the cabinets are amazing!
You have the DB 810 and DB 412? If there’s room on the stage, I definitely run them both. I would love to put the cabinets next to each other but we end up putting one on each side of the drums. There’s no problem hearing me up there!
How do you hold down the bottom when there are so many riffs flying by at breakneck speeds? It’s weird – I never played in a band where the guitarists played so much of the same thing as each other. Even when I was a guitar player in a band, I didn’t even know what the other guy was playing. And odds are we weren’t even in the same tuning, we just kind of did our own thing. I don’t know though – I guess the hardest part for me is when I should be following them and when I should be doing my own thing.
It’s hard for me to decipher when I’m getting too self-indulgent with my weird part or if I should just be kind of low and following the riff [laughs]. But there are definitely some spots on the new record where I get to stretch out and do some more interesting things.
Every Time I Die has had quite a history of revolving bassists! [Laughs] There have been a few yeah! I think I’m the 11th or something! I got in about 2 ½ years ago.
How did you come to be in the band? We had toured together here and there – I was in another band in 2006 and we did Warped together, and one night Andy was complaining about their present bass player and I said, “Screw him, I’ll do it!” And I was almost kidding around but a year later, they called!
You started on guitar correct? It’s funny, I was a guitar player but I kept getting hired to be a bass player! I played bass for a band called Season to Risk which led to my playing with a band called Reggie and the Full Effect. I toured a bunch with them and I also toured with a band called From Autumn to Ashes, their bass player quit, so they called me and I moved to New York and played with them for a few years. We did the Warped tour and that’s how I met the Every Time I Die guys. Every time something ended, something new kept coming up! So, now I’m just waiting for Queens of the Stone Age to call [laughs]!
Thanks for talking to us today Josh – good luck on the tour!
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