Whitechapel: Phil Bozeman (vocals), Zach Householder (guitar), Brandon Zackey (Drums), Gabe Crisp (Bass), Alex Wade (guitar), Ben Savage (lead guitar).
Whitechapel: Whitechapel started in 2006. We started just like any other band as a local band and we played a lot of local gigs around Knoxville, Tennessee. The metal scene there was pretty decent. It wasn't massive or anything, but it was definitely better than some podunk town. Knoxville’s a solid city, so we were lucky in that sense. We’d have probably 100 to 200 people coming out to local shows at a time, which made it a great place for us to gain our footing and put in the groundwork as a new, up-and-coming band. These days, we’re kind of considered old heads in the game, not as old as some bands, but definitely older than a lot of newer ones. We really came up during the MySpace era, and honestly, that platform kind of catapulted our career. It was the first time people could really discover music online in a major way. We started in 2006 and put out a couple of singles and EPs on MySpace, and by 2007 just a year after forming we were already touring. We started hitting the road by going out with friends’ bands, bands we had met when they came through Knoxville. They brought us out on our first tours, which was wild. We’d show up to cities across the country, and people already knew who we were just from MySpace and the internet. Before social media, it was tough for bands to get the word out about their music. So that early online presence was a huge tool for us and definitely helped launch our career in a unique way. Then at the end of 2007, after catching the attention of a few different labels and reviewing some offers, we ended up signing with Metal Blade Records, who we're still with today. It's really cool to be able to say we’ve stayed with the same label all these years. A lot of bands jump around, but we’ve been able to build a long-standing relationship with them, which has meant a lot to us.
Whitechapel: Yeah, you know, there are definitely a lot of bands we look up to, starting with the godfathers of metal, like Metallica. It's plain and simple: without Metallica, a lot of metal bands, including us, probably wouldn’t exist. Our guitar player, Zach, is a huge Metallica fan. As for more modern style bands, we draw a lot of influence from Gojira, Mastodon, and Slipknot. And then there are the more underground, death-metal-leaning bands like Cannibal Corpse, Exhumed, and Impaled. I could go on forever, there are just so many bands that have helped shape our sound. Meshuggah is a big one for us, too. We’re definitely a band that grew up influenced by a lot of the older metal legends, but we also came up in a time when modern heavy bands were really evolving the genre. So I’d say our style is a mix, it has a very modern sound, but it’s rooted in the influence of those classic, foundational bands as well.
Whitechapel: California always treats us great. We love playing Southern California, but honestly, Northern California is awesome too. Sacramento is a really strong market for us. Santa Ana’s great. LA is pretty good and always kind of a weird in the best way crowd, and they love metal, so we definitely enjoy playing there. Texas is great too. They love their metal down there, so we always do really well in that state.
Whitechapel: Denver. It’s always cool when a city surprises you like that when you don’t necessarily expect a huge response, and then they just blow you away. It’s an incredible feeling!
Whitechapel: Yeah, it kind of depends on the day and whether we’re headlining or supporting another band. If we’re headlining, we’ve got to get in a little earlier to get everything set up and do soundcheck. So on headline days, we usually load in around 9 or 10 a.m., and we're sound-checking by around 1 p.m. After that, depending on the tour, we might have a VIP meet and greet, usually only when we’re headlining. Those typically happen around 5 p.m., after all the other bands have had time to set up and soundcheck. From about 5 until showtime, we’re just kind of hanging out, either chilling on the bus, playing some video games, or maybe checking out some local food spots near the venue. Then we play the show, pack everything up, load it on the bus, and hit the road to do it all over again the next day. All the fun happens all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Whitechapel: I can’t say we’ve played every festival we’ve ever wanted to, but we’ve definitely hit a lot of them, especially over in Europe. There are so many killer metal festivals over there. One festival I think would be really cool to play is Bonnaroo. They’ve started booking more heavy bands lately, which is awesome. And it's not even that far from us, it’s about three hours away. We’re based in Knoxville, in East Tennessee, and Bonnaroo is closer to Nashville, in Middle Tennessee. Bands like Knocked Loose and other heavy acts have played there now, so I think it’d be really cool to be able to say we played Bonnaroo. I mean, it’s a major Tennessee festival, and we’re a Tennessee band so that would be a full-circle kind of moment.
One venue we have played but would love to play again, maybe in a bigger way is Red Rocks, just outside of Denver. I don’t know if we’d ever headline there, that’s a big task but it would still be amazing to go back and play a bigger slot. We played there during the Rockstar Mayhem Festival one year. We opened up the stage, which was a really cool experience just to be on that legendary stage at all. It was also special because my parents were visiting Colorado at the time, just doing some hiking and sightseeing and they stopped by Red Rocks for a tour. Even though they didn’t catch our set, they saw our name on one of the plaques at the venue from when we played, and that just blew my dad’s mind. Seeing “Whitechapel” on a plaque at Red Rocks, it really hit him. I mean, sure, we played at noon and opened the show, but we played there. That’s a dream venue for a lot of bands, and it’s one we’re proud to have checked off the list.
Whitechapel: Yeah, so we're very hands-on with the merch, it's 100% handled by us. Props to our team, but to be honest, we have a specific vision for how everything should look, and our manager isn’t going to fully grasp or execute that the way we can. Even down to selecting the garment blanks, we’re involved. We kind of treat it like a clothing line with how we approach it. For example, we might get a design made and think, “This would look really cool on a tattered, vintage-style, stonewashed shirt,” or something along those lines. We don’t just throw designs on basic, cheap blanks, we really want the quality to be there. Merch isn’t cheap these days, especially on bigger tours where you have to price-match with headliners. So sometimes we’re charging fans more than we would if we were headlining ourselves, and if that’s the case, we want to make sure what they’re getting is worth it.
The designs should be sick, the garments should feel high-quality. I never want someone to pick up a shirt and say, “This feels cheap.” If we're going to sell a product, it should be something we’re proud of. It’s mostly handled by me and our other guitar player, Ben Savage. Everyone else in the band kind of steps back from that side of things. You really don’t need six different opinions on a design, it’s easier to keep that streamlined. I personally love it. It’s fun for me to work with different designers. I’ve got a list of about 20 that I keep on call. When I have a specific idea, I’ll think about which designer is best suited for that concept. I’ll shoot them an email, lay out the idea and the color scheme, and they’ll send back a few mockups. Then I’ll give feedback, what to tweak, what to change, until it’s exactly what we want. Once it’s locked in, we send it to our merch company and they handle the rest.
Whitechapel: We’ll always do a tour shirt, people want that. They want the dates on the back so they can remember the show they went to. Then we’ll typically do about three alternate shirts without dates, just different designs to give fans some variety. We’re a metal band, so of course we sell a ton of black shirts. But we always try to throw in at least one white or gray option just to mix things up. And we almost always include a long sleeve, because that’s super popular in the metal scene, tons of bands do them, and they sell well. So, merch wise, it's usually four shirts, a long sleeve, and always a hoodie, that’s kind of the big-ticket item. Hoodies are the most expensive item on the table, and people always go for them, especially in colder markets.
We also put a lot of focus on media. We always bring vinyl, because that’s a huge seller now, people are really into collecting records. And we take it one step further: we actually rip the plastic off every vinyl and sign them with Sharpies on the front, so fans can buy a signed vinyl straight from the table. That way they don’t have to track us down after the show. Our merch guy always huffs and puffs about it, though he’s got to lay out all the vinyls before we soundcheck. We’ll come in and see like 30 vinyls lined up on the bar, and we’ll just go down the row with a Sharpie and knock them all out real quick. We also carry CDs, stickers, patches, and some smaller items. I was really into that kind of stuff myself, so we try to have a good mix of trinkets. Pins are super popular now, and patches are big in the metal scene, especially for fans who have vests covered in different band logos. We try not to overload the table with too much stuff, but we definitely like to offer a wide variety so there’s something for everyone.
Whitechapel: We just released our new album Hymns and Dissonance back in March, and we just wrapped up the headlining tour for it, which was amazing. It was about 90% sold out. Almost every single show! It’s kind of wild to think that 19 years into the band, we’re still able to pull that off, but here we are.
Coming up, we’ve got a couple of big festival dates. We’re playing Sonic Temple in Ohio, and then Welcome to Rockville next week in Florida, both are going to be really cool. After that, we’re heading over to Europe in June for a full summer festival run, which we’re stoked about. Then we’re taking a bit of time off before coming back for another U.S. headlining tour later this fall. That one hasn’t been announced yet, but keep your eyes peeled, it’s coming soon!
Whitechapel: We’ve been using atVenu forever, and honestly, in our entire career, no one’s ever told us that we were number one in sales, so when we heard that, we were kind of blown away. It was really cool. I hit up our manager and he was like, “Wow, that’s awesome.” So thank you, this means a lot to us.
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