Wovenwar's Josh Gilbert says he and the other former members of As I Lay Dying were always going to form a new band in the wake of Tim Lambesis' imprisonment.
The bassist admits he was floored by his ex-bandmate’s arrest and eventual jailing for attempting to hire a hitman to murder his wife. But he says writing and playing music is the only thing he is qualified to do.
He tells TeamRock Radio: “We were getting back from an Asian tour. I was going to Atlanta to hang out with my wife. It happened while I was in the air. When I got to my hotel I turned on my phone and I had about 100 text messages.
“It came as a shock – but the year following you hear a whole lot more details and I spoke to Tim a few times.
“We knew what the future of As I Lay Dying was going to be before the trial. When he pled guilty, we knew then. There was nothing in the story we were getting from the media that was false. Ever since we knew there wasn’t any kind of mistake and that was actually what happened, that was probably the turning point.
“Two months later we met up and talked and realised the only thing we can do is write music. We got in a practice space and started jamming.”
The result was their new band Wovenwar, who will release their self-titled debut album at the end of this month. The former members of As I Lay Dying recruited singer Shane Blay to complete the lineup.
Gilbert says: “It still has a lot of the riff influences, but what really sets it apart from what we used to do is the dynamics. We can have a verse that gets quiet and has singing and it can give the song some ups and downs which, I think, makes the heavy parts come across as heavier. That’s something that when you’re doing all screaming you maybe can’t do.
“Shane and Nick have known each other since they were 15. They were in a metal band in Texas around 2001 called Evelynn. I had met him enough to know this guy’s awesome. When Nick brought up seeing what Shane can do with this, we thought it was maybe a little different from where we were going to go direction-wise.
“But we went to the studio and played the demos and within two days we had lyrics and had fully recorded the song All Rise. That was how it started.”
