After arriving at the venue and having finished the interview with the typically friendly Canadian guitarist of PROTEST THE HERO, Tim Millar, I was feeling pretty good about the show. The support acts: PALM READER, THE CONTORTIONIST and SAFETY FIRE had brought with them an impressive amount of merch and fans were all too eager to get their hands on it, myself included. As a venue, Mo Club works fairly well due to the fact that it is literally a converted warehouse, meaning the acoustics are quite free and there's plenty of space without getting too hot. Its location, hidden in the middle of an area of car dealerships, didn't seem to confuse fans who had packed out the room by the time the headlining band started. If there was one good way to start the show, PALM READER did it. Rarely have I seen a live band with as much energy and raw aggression, as the guitarists jumped and spun their way around the stage like nobody's business. They climbed onto the drums and swung off of the ceiling, giving the crowd all they had and encouraging them to get closer at every opportunity. A horseshoe shape formed in the audience as no one wanted to be the first to touch the barrier this early into this set, and consequently the crowd as a whole were mostly static as a result of unfortunate warm-up-band-syndrome. It's a shame that on the first day of them joining the tour the English 5-piece had an experience like this, but it's not an uncommon thing to see for a support band.
 

The largely static crowd remained for the majority of THE CONTORTIONIST's set, however this could partly be attributed to their strangely out-of-place musical style. They entered with far less energy than the previous band, with a much more melancholy sound. Throughout the set the musicians looked like they were concentrating hard on getting the notes right, without perhaps giving the crowd the energy they needed to keep the momentum of the night going.
 

Speaking of momentum, this was something the band struggled to maintain even throughout their own set as a result of their music genre differing so much from the other bands. Each very long song made use of longer, sustained notes with little payoff at the end, staggering the rhythm of the song too much for my personal taste, as well as that of the audience evidently. Other than a dedicated few at the front, most seemed largely bemused by the lead singer's odd, Captain Jack Sparrow-style dancing which was strangely reminiscent of Kate Bush. In his defense, the music was difficult to move to due to its unpredictability, leaving many audience members to begin moving to a rhythm before being left behind by a shift in drumbeat and eventually giving up, instead simply standing still. The music itself was good, it just seemed like an odd choice to precede a band like PROTEST THE HERO, or even the following support.
 

SAFETY FIRE entered with style, to a marching band sound with trumpets and drums that immediately set them apart from the other bands, and showed they were light-hearted and here to have fun. Of the support bands for the night, they were arguably the most similar to the headlining act and perhaps this is why they were on directly before them. They continued their fun personality throughout the set, with the guitarist pretending to machine-gun the audience at one point with his instrument.
 

They made it known that they'd only had a week to prepare for the tour and had printed out their own merch t-shirts, after replacing the original support band THE FACELESS at the last minute. They demonstrated their skill throughout their set, with the two guitarists actually having a conversation amongst themselves mid-song at one point. Their heavier sound was aided by some great vocals, which ranged from clean, to wailing to screaming. The audience seemed to appreciate this support the most, as well, with far more movement visible than during the last two. How much of this was down to the higher levels of alcohol I couldn't say.
 

SAFETY FIRE had the venue nice and warmed up by the time PROTEST THE HERO arrived onstage, to much cheering and rejoicing. The audience, much bigger at this point, all moved closer as one as soon as they realised what was happening. When the smoke machine had settled and the first notes were played, there was a collective feeling of relief as the audience finally heard what they had come here for. The light display behind the stage was fantastic and was timed expertly to the drumbeat for the majority of the songs, which was just about audible underneath the audience singing along to every chorus. Rody's vocals were once again on top form, as were the guitars which duelled and shredded their way brilliantly to the end of the set.
 

By the middle of the "Hair Trigger" a mosh pit had formed which started out fairly small and had grown considerably by the final scheduled song, to the extent where security were walking through it just to discourage people from running into it. Apart from this, Rody kept the crowd entertained between songs by making very friendly conversation with them as if they'd known each other all their lives. He told anecdotes about his drunken antics at previous performances, as well as his opinion of ALICE COOPER and his interesting experience of touring with DRAGONFORCE recently. He also managed to spontaneously "write" a riff which the band then performed and jammed to, which he described as PROTEST THE HERO's best riff.
 

Once the set was over and the encore had finished, there was the inevitable sense that not everybody wanted to go home, and a few optimists tried a second encore, with no success. Still, for the modest entry fee it was a good night for all involved with all four bands for the most part delivering. Here's hoping for a UK festival date or two next year!

Setlist:

1. Sequoia Throne
2. Underbite
3. Clarity
4. Drumhead Trial
5. Sex Tapes
6. Hair-Trigger
7. Termites
8. No Stars Over Bethlehem
10. Blindfolds Aside
11. Bone Marrow
12. Plato's Tripartite
13. (Encore) Bloodmeat

Interview with Tim Millar - Protest The Hero

So Tim, first question: who influenced you as a musician and got you thinking about learning the guitar and playing in a band?

Yeah, to start with guitar I guess it was just a lot of punk rock and punk bands. So I'm a big fan of PROPAGANDHI, NOFX, NO USE FOR A NAME, so the two record labels I loved were Fatrec and Epitas and I listened to a lot of the bands off there. They were the first bands I listened to and that was the first thing I gravitated to kind of for playing guitar and learning stuff.

What got you into the guitar then, specifically?

I played piano for a long time, then when I turned like 12 or 13 I thought piano wasn't "cool", and something about the guitar just had a "cool" element whereas I felt kind of geeky playing piano. I guess it was different and it was a challenge; it was something my dad used to play so he had a guitar kicking around and showed me a few chords.

But you still use the piano in some of PROTEST THE HERO's material?

Yeah, so back then I was just kind of being a teenager and thinking "this isn't cool", but now I'm thankful that I actually learned to play piano and I'm lucky to kind of still have that.

So is there anyone now who inspires you, as a band but as an individual as well?

Yeah, I guess you're always looking for new inspiration but there's a lot of great guitar players out there I look up to, John Gilbert being one of them, and John Petrucci, who I got to see live with DREAM THEATER for the first time at Sonisphere. So yeah it was kind of awesome that even though we were opening the stage it was cool to see that you're on the same stage as DREAM THEATER. It was nice to see that guy, like, flawlessly play and not miss a note. So yeah. Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci, Ron Jarzombeck, those are a couple of guitar players I definitely look up to.

And when you do go on tour are there any differences you notice between audiences around the world? Yeah, I mean I can't be like "this place is that", in general you have rowdier shows and high-energy shows, and sometimes you have quieter shows or whatever but I can't be like "the UK is like this, and mainland Europe is like this". In general though the last time we were in the UK they were great shows and it's great to be back here with fun shows and fun people. We have a good time.

I know you mentioned DREAM THEATER before; are there any other bands that you enjoy touring with, or have any memories of?

Yeah I guess we're in this peculiar place now, 'cause we've been doing a lot of headlining and bringing other bands out, so we don't always get the chance to go on tour with other bands that we look up to, we haven't had that opportunity for a long time. When we were kinda coming up we toured with DRAGONFORCE, which was kind of an interesting tour, it was their first North American tour. So that was an interesting time, and we also toured with PROPAGANDHI, which was pretty cool, in the UK. So that was a fun tour.

Do you think that Mike, the new drummer still feels like the new guy or has he settled in a bit more and become a fully-fledged member?

I think from his perspective he feels all settled in, but from mine, Rody and Luke's perspectives he's still the new guy. We can still come down on him, give him shit, play pranks on him, and unless he continues to be in the band long after we're gone he'll never catch up to us. So he'll always be the new guy.

Poor guy. (Laughs) Yeah, I know, but he's great, it's been great having him. We love having him, he's been a great addition and it's nice to feel like this is the new make-up of the band. For the first couple of tours it felt new and different and now it just seems like this is always the way it was or, at least, in this new chapter he's definitely a permanent guy.

So speaking of which, Volition has been out for over a year now and I believe it was funded by fans through Indiegogo? Do you think your future albums will be funded in a similar way?

I always say that crowd-funding is an option a band should consider. So when it does come time for us to get funding for the next record, if we need it or if we have a cool idea, or if we think that's the best route to go after exercising option B, C and D, then the way we look at it is "okay, if we go in this way this is how much money we can get, this is what studio we can record in." You kind of pick your path and you look at it, and if that looks like it has the most potential we'll go that way but if we can find other ways to fund our record and it's easier for us then we can go that way as well. It really just comes down to the circumstances.

The technicality of the instruments and the production seem more polished than previous albums; would you say that Volition on the whole sounds more professional and arranged?

Yeah there's a couple of reasons for that but I'd say that definitely going into Volition, we were trying to view the songs and become better song writers so there's a lot of embedded structure. I find in general that we kind of pick some structures and copy them over the same record but use them in a different way, so there're probably two or three songs that have the exact same song structure. I think that was definitely something that we were trying to do, and what might have been a criticism of our music in the past is that there's so much coming at you, but nothing ever comes back. Sometimes for us it was a challenge to come back to things because we'd get so far away from where we started that if you put something from earlier in the song in there it would sound unnatural. That's something we had to work at. I think the polished sound came from the fact that we worked with a different producer, and he's very tight and wants everything to be exactly perfect, where our previous producer liked the more raw sounding stuff. So it's just a different approach.

Are there any songs from it that are your personal favourites or that audiences seem to respond to most when you play them live?

Definitely for me, "Mists" is a standout because we do get a good response when we play it and it's nice to have a song that's meaningful to an area of Canada. It keeps us Canadian singing about a Canadian province and we'll encounter Newfoundlanders all over the world just from this song. So it's created this interesting reaction, and I always find it interesting when you see a German crowd singing along to "Yes, I be a Newfoundlander", it's just weird to see a bunch of Germans singing about Newfoundland! So it's created this interesting thing to watch.

And do you think you'll be playing at any UK festivals next year? (fingers crossed) It's hard to say, yeah, it really comes down to how the year plays out. Ideally this is gonna be our last tour for a little while just so we can focus on writing, but in the past when we've shut everything down to focus entirely on writing it hasn't really worked out so it's good to do chunks of writing then get away from it for a bit and do a tour. So it's not out of the question, it just comes down to how things go on or end when we're at home.

Is there any advice that you'd give to someone looking to start a band now?

(Chuckles) Yeah, I feel like I'm so removed from what it would be like to start a band just because when this band started that was 15 years ago, so I feel like it was a different world and a different environment. But I still think it comes down to practicing together and taking time to learn your instrument, get good at it and play and practice as much as possible. I don't think that will ever be out of the equation; a lot of people think "oh, we need to do this" and "we need to do that" and "if we can catch our break then we'll do this". Especially if it's younger teenagers starting a band then I'd say go and play and learn, really just devote the time to your instrument while you have it because the older you get it gets so much harder when life gets in the way and you have to work at two jobs, or go to school and work a job, or whatever. So put the time in when you can!

You said you were going to get back to writing; what's the future for the band? Are you going to continue with the same progressive style you have now or are you going to reach out to new audiences?

We never really go into writing with a direction in mind; it's more like "I have this idea, let's jam on this". I wouldn't imagine it getting too far away from previous records, but having Mike in the band as a new writer might bring some changes. We never go in there thinking "Okay, we gotta write a record catering to this audience." It's just "these are riffs, how can we fit these together into a song that we're all proud of."

One more question Tim: what's the secret to a majestic beard?

(Laughs) The best way to grow a good beard is to not shave. So it sounds like it's easy but firstly I guess there's a little bit of what you can actually grow, but there's a lot of social pressure to shave as your beard gets longer and longer. Friends and family, your girlfriend, you start getting jabbed at or looked at weird. So just focus on the not shaving. Other than that, I don't think you can take Vitamin E or whatever to stimulate hair growth, I don't think there's anything to speed up the process, but yeah, just let it go. Not trimming anything is good too, a lot of people like to specifically grow a specific type of facial hair but if you want a big-ass beard you just let everything grow out. And don't shave the neck; I hate it when people shave their neck it drives me mad- I know it gets itchy but that's how you get that third dimension! Some people just have a straight-down beard, whereas if you have the neck then you get this bulky-ass looking beard.

That was definitely the most important question! Well thanks very much, it's been an absolute pleasure!

No problem!