“Honestly when this year started I was very doubtful the band was even going to keep continuing on,” Williams explains. “We weren’t really talking about it and basically we just wanted to have our family stuff figured out and then move on from there. Keith had a really bad end to the year. Just the band in general though, we were all in a really dark place.”
The darkest moments for Every Time I Die – and in particular Buckley – is now behind them. Buckley’s wife and daughter both survived the ordeal, and in a matter of months the band were back in the studio recording Low Teens.
“The minute we got that first email from Keith that was like ‘Okay guys, what do you want to do?’ We all were pretty excited to get to it. We were just super motivated to write like when we were kids – I think that is where the name Low Teens came from.”
Youth is an ironic theme for the album, considering that ETID is nearing two decades in the business. It is the reflection of Williams’ teenage years that shapes the aggressiveness of Low Teens. The guitarist reveals that in order to compose the record he situates himself in an appropriately nostalgic environment.
“I go down in my basement and I have this shitty little old TV/VCR thing, and I either watch old wrestling videos or old skate videos and I just pick up my guitar and riff. The usual tapes I go to are like Summerslam ’96 or Summerslam ’98, or like old Japanese death match kind of stuff.
“The very first song I wrote for the record was ‘Petal’. I think that set the bar for Low Teens. It was a cool riff and was kind of the benchmark for us to try and beat every time.”
With a writing process like his, it’s no surprise that Williams is an aspiring pro wrestler. The famed guitarist recently lived his boyhood dream, stepping into the ring at an Ohio wrestling event. Videos quickly surfaced online of Williams annihilating a local tag-team with a mean double clothesline. Williams admits that if his body holds up, he will continue to live his lifelong dream.
“I had to look like some indestructible creature, so I really sold the Double Suplex on that,” explains Williams on his recent in-ring action. “Before Every Time I Die were a band I was actually training to become a pro wrestler, but I ended up blowing my knee out. It kind of gave me enough time to write a whole bunch of songs and then Every Time I Die started.”
The classic dirty southern rock tone is a defining feature of Every Time I Die’s sound. For such a gritty tone, one would think Williams and fellow guitarist Jordan Buckley rely on a bunch of distortion and overdrive pedals, however there are just two ingredients in the ETID recipe.
“The biggest thing with Every Time I Die is Marshall,” Williams explains. “I’m not saying that because we are endorsed, but that has just been our sound since we started. Jordan and I have been playing through Marshall 800s since the first day of ETID. I think literally that and maybe a Tube Screamer are our two secret weapons. You give us a Tube Screamer and a Marshall 800 and we can put an Every Time I Die show on.”
With doubt over the band’s existence past 2015, it is fair to assume that Every Time I Die may be nearing the end. Despite admitting that they are now “grown ups,” Williams explains that by playing it smart, they have plenty of years ahead of them.
“I think for one we have to be conscious of children now, as we have two kids involved,” he says. “For the most part though, it’s just ‘go, go, go’. We are obviously are going to have a few ways to tour now. I think one of the ways is to do the East Coast (in the US), then take a break and do the West Coast, instead of doing it in one big swoop. We just have to be smarter about touring. I would say we are kicking pretty strong.”
Low Teens is out now via Epitaph Records. Every Time I Die will be touring Australia with letlive. in January. For more details, head to everytimeidie.net.
