Creating, Not Imitating: A Conversation With August Burns Red's Jake Luhrs
August Burns Red have contested time and even the metalcore genre itself when it comes to delivering amazing music with every release. With each album, they have redefined the genre, resetting the precedent for what it takes to make a successful full-length. For me, Constellations was an album that forever changed the way I actively listened to metalcore, so when the opportunity was generously granted to me to speak with vocalist Jake Luhrs about their new studio album Guardians, words can't express how thankful I was for such an opportunity.
When listening to Luhrs perform, whether it’s on stage or one of their albums, it's easy to get lost in all the talent and prestige he has bought over the past 15 years. Once you start talking to Luhrs however, you start to see how laid back he is. Under a mellifluous personality lies a person with so much passion for the art he creates. August Burns Red is more than just a band to Luhrs. He spoke honestly on how the band has evolved and changed throughout their illustrious career.
"Wow, that's honestly a great question." Luhrs pauses. "I would say the unity of the band. The fact that we as people have grown and gone through a lot. It's kind of like a marriage almost. We have been able to stick with it for 15 years. August Burns Red isn't just a band to me. It's my entire life, my career. It's bought me so many different avenues. It's given me so much authority and opportunities outside of music. I've been able to encourage people, my fans, create a non-profit organization for mental health, the ability to have the things in my life I desire. It's bought me so much, but above all, It's bought me a family. My band and our fans."
“I would say a major change over the years would be just understanding each other I think. Letting go of egos and pride.” Luhrs continues. “One of the reasons why we are still a band and have been so successful is that we are willing to have grace and understanding for one another. That has been a great and powerful tool for us. Because we couldn't tour six months out of the year or write an album without it. You have five very unique and great artistic individuals. So it's hard to be vulnerable sometimes with your art and be humble enough to make those changes that need to be made when the time calls for it. So with grace and understanding, this band has been able to progress in ways that most bands have not been able to."
While a sense of decorum and understanding of one another has taken this band to amazing heights, releases from 2007's Messengers and onward have proven that the band can flawlessly keep their content fresh, yet still appeal to fans that have been there since the beginning.
"I think we have always understood the boundaries within ourselves to stay within," Luhrs replies. “But yet we understand the "walls" we want to break down. We've written countless albums and we know what songs are the most popular off of every single record. So we know what our fans truly enjoy as far as the root of what ABR is right? So we have kept to those roots. As an artist, we never want to be at a standstill, we never want to stop moving or growing. The moment we do that is the moment I should stop being a musician. So we want to break the barriers to that. We don't want to write the same material or the same songs, though we try to challenge ourselves with progressing and pushing our abilities. That's why we haven't gone out and wrote an album that sounds nothing like us. We are not trying to change genres or anything like that. We like who we are and have worked very hard to get there. I think that is how we have been able to remain at our core, August Burns Red."
While these other albums continue to be a testament to August Burns Red's infinite sense of creativity, Guardians is highlighting their star-studded careers and is showing that they are anything less than static and formulaic. Still atmospheric and aggressive as ever, Guardians combines some creative theatric vibes, as well as some impressive melodic/progressive guitar lines and thrashy percussive elements. Throughout this musical magnum opus, the band has managed to tread some pretty complex instrumental waters, while still delivering the high-quality lyrical and vocal presence we have come to expect from them over the years. But compared to other writing efforts, Guardians was a bit different.
"I would say the biggest change for the writing of this album Guardians is that everyone was incorporated with the writing process," Luhrs says. "For example, Matt and Brent wrote all the lyrics. Brent also helped me with vocal patterns and production, alongside Grant McFarland, who's my vocal producer. So this was another area where the band's length of understanding towards one another was being tested. So for me to be like, “Brent come be apart of this process”, it's very intimate and personal for me. I think all of our records were striving toward a collective effort, and with Guardians, everyone was just very hands-on.”
Guardians is a progressive enterprise for the modern era. With stand out songs, such as "Paramount", "Lighthouse", "Ties That Bind", "Bloodletter", and "Empty Heaven", each climbs a creative mountain from being heavy and aggressive to a spectacle of purely technical and melodic beauty. Luhrs shared a fond memory of a track that resonated with him off the record that he spoke candidly of.
"I remember Carson and Grant pulled J.B. and Dustin aside and they had a conversation about the direction of the album. They wanted to know where it was going and what was being written. I'm pretty sure Grant or Carson said to J.B. and Dustin, "Hey look, I want you to write the heaviest ABR song you've ever written on this record". They accepted the challenge. There is a track on the album called "Bloodletter". This is about someone just kind-of taking advantage and using you and you saying "I'm not going to let you do this to me anymore. You stabbed me in the back and that's okay. I'm not going to do that to you, but we are done.”
Luhrs continues, "It's about taking the high road and recognizing this person is a leech. So I thought the lyrics were very fitting for this song. I have different levels of screaming, so for this particular track, I had to really get low vocally and breathy. It needed to sound evil and dark, like a demon. It came out really well. It was very hard to track. I have no idea how I'm going to perform this live,” he laughs. “I hope people are like "Uh, It's good, But I don't want to see it." Which I doubt, because I think everyone will want to see this live. But again, this was just one of those moments where you have been doing this for so long and what we were doing was great, but how could we make it better? That was one of those answers."
Though Jake Luhrs is a member of one of the most revolutionary bands currently in the industry today, he doesn't look towards the industry itself for inspiration. "For me, I was listening to a lot of different varieties of music during the production of Guardians. Like Carrie Underwood, Justin Timberlake, Justin Beiber, and I listened to some worship music. I tried to stay away from the metal for the most part," Luhrs laughs.
He continues, "I did listen to Holy Hell from Architects, and I loved it. I also listened to the latest Parkway Drive record just to kind of tap into the understanding of my peers, but not for inspiration. I salute both of those bands, we have toured with them. I love them and they are great. But for me, it's not my job to imitate, it's my job to create. So, I try to look for things that look nothing like me and sound nothing like me, so that I can perhaps learn and grow myself. A big part of being a frontman is having an identity. To me, I want to be a frontman that is professional and emotional. There is power in music when it makes you feel something. If you can't feel something from a song, then it's a crappy song or there is a lack of communication and understanding somewhere, so my job is to make someone feel something and build a connection with our music."
When it comes to connecting to a song, it's a very collective writing process for the band, but ultimately Luhrs picks the ones that connect with him the most. Overall, Guardians shines as a beacon of hope to those going through a rough time, especially now more than ever. Luhrs expressed his passionate message about their latest record and what he wanted others to take from it.
""Paramount" was a song of hope for the hopeless. Brent had written this song. "Lighthouse" is a song based on everyone's critical understanding of organized religion and compassion towards those in need. Let's take action here instead of just talking about it. Let's help those that are hurting. A lot of the lyrical content is a personal experience and being human and hurt. Or even doing something the wrong way, it's all just personal experiences and situations," Luhrs responds. “Like "Defender", that's talking about someone coming to defend you. Someone is willing to help you, love you, and protect you. Matt was going through a hard time where he was getting attacked by people for making decisions that he felt were necessary for him to make. A few of us stood there beside him, and that's what the song is about really. That was in a time of need where he was broken and hurting and needed someone to protect him…/This is all real-life shit.”
“We are talking about us living through difficult times and sharing that hope and brokenness with others,” Luhrs continues. “We titled the album Guardians. We are telling people you have the opportunity to love people, you have the opportunity to fight for people, to bring justice, and to love the unloved, and to break your conditions of love. You can do the right thing and protect one another. Even with what's going on right now, people need people.”
Luhrs as the frontman is a musical genius, and a person that cares about his band and fans. Outside of the music, Jake Luhrs is a passionate man who feels as much for the world as he does for his band and the music they create. In many ways, they have become our guardians during this very difficult time, using their powerfully raw and impactful messages to make the world a better place, while also providing an exciting album along the way. You can listen to Guardians this Friday, April 3rd.