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The Healing Powers Of Time With JONNY DAVY From JOB FOR A COWBOY · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:44
  Yeah, I am Johnny the singer of Job for a Cowboy. This band
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  has been around shockingly are doesn't feel like it for a good twenty years,
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  and after about a ten year hiatus, we're about to come out with their
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  new album called Moon Healer, coming out next month at the end of February.
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  So I am pumped to speak with you know, this individual from the
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  vast expanse of existence where shadows dance on the edge of the abyss, where
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  he emerges a figure of mythical proportions. This is Chris. Chris. It's
• 1:15
  nice to meet you, man. Nice to me. That's probably the nicest
• 1:19
  thing anyone even much more said about me. Thanks for joining us today.
• 1:25
  Yeah, man, good to speak with you. As you said, Job
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  for a Cowboy return with your new album Moon here on February twenty third.
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  So how you feeling, mate, Like, what's this period like for you?
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  Like did you get nervous or do you get anxious? Do you put
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  it to bed? Do you think about what you could have done or should
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  have done? At this point, it's it's in the past and we're uh,
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  we've taken a break from it and in hindsight where we're looking back gulready
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  and seeing what we would have done differently, and already talking about what we
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  want to do for the next record in contrast. So yeah, it's just
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  been a long, long, arduous process, but we're finally here. So
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  tell us a bit more about the album from a musical point of view,
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  might and what you have gone forward it. Yeah, you know, the
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  band has evolved quite a bit since its origins. I mean, we kind
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  of started off as pretty much a cookie cutter death core band, and then
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  we kind of progressed into a more modern death metal and we kind of after
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  a release of Genesis, were kind of been sprinkling, sprinkling and genres,
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  you know, of technical death metal and now even some progressive elements. So
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  you know, I think a lot of people recognize that a band is kind
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  of a cauldron of of an evolution of sound, and that's that's just kind
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  of a model right now. We like the challenge and we're the type of
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  band they just don't want to put out the same record twice, So that's
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  just kind of our mindset with everything. Today you've released the singles that Forever
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  Wrought, the Agony, Seeping Storm, and today I think it once you
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  released Beyond the Chemical Doorways watchers those three songs to represent the album. Did
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  they sum it up nicely? Although just your favorite ones? Yeah, you
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  know that's always a big argument with the band. You know, we usually
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  have a song on the record, we're like, Okay, this is going
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  to be the single, These are gonna be the singles. With this one,
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  it felt a lot harder than it ever was before. We feel like
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  the songs are all pretty strong, and it's one of those things where we
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  kind of like one song one week and another song next week. It's but
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  over. I think these three individual songs definitely encomass the entire record pretty well.
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  And Beyond the Chemical Doorway also I open to the album made and it's
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  an interesting choice, like let's going to almost Middle Eastern style intro before expiring
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  into what fans would expect from me. So it's an interesting way. Side
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  was that to sort of put people off side a little bit to startle for
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  it? No, I mean, honestly don't have a good answer for that.
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  It's just kind of the way it came out. It's just kind of
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  just a I wish I had a good answer for that, But you know,
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  once we Uh, I mean I think we did intend originally we wrote
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  that song that we wanted that to be the opener, So we definitely wrote
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  it and built it from the ground up with that intent. You saw the
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  touched on this before by but Mainhaler is your first album since twenty fourteen Sinata,
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  which was a pretty cool success. So was it tempting to sort of
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  rehash that formula in the way like not on the people privatated towards that album.
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  Was it tempting to sort of try and do the same thing over Well?
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  After we put out Son Eater, the band pretty much took a very
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  strong hiatus. Uh, Real Lives got kind of got put in the forefront.
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  You know, around that time I found I was gonna come a father.
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  That definitely put the brakes in on the band. And you know,
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  we were touring relentlessly NonStop, and at that point we were the type of
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  band that kind of burned the candle at both ends. Were just NonStop,
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  and I think it was a good collection of being very burnt out, a
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  bit sick of each other, a bit sick of being on the road,
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  plus real life getting in the way. So we kind of had ah take
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  a different path. You know, four Khit the road Tony or lead guitar
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  player. He moved to Ireland and got his doctorates in the medical field.
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  He's doing a lot of medical research in Ireland right now. I went back
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  to college and worked on my degree in computer programming and software engineering, so
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  I do a lot of just automation type work today. But uh, I've
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  been rambless so long. I forgot the initial question. Sorry, was attempting
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  to sort of rehash the same same successful formula, right right, I'm sorry,
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  So yeah, so you so, because I just we fell off facer
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  there. If we didn't do any press, we didn't do any touring,
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  it felt like we had some unfinished business after that record, and also just
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  conceptually in the theme of the record, there's just felt like there's so much
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  more on the bone that we could work with that, and we just enjoyed
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  the record so much. I think it was by far our our proudest achievement
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  as a band. Too. To avoid sounding as pretentious as possible, but
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  uh, you know, because of that, we just decided let's just pick
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  up where he left off, and I think it worked out. I mean,
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  we had all this time to look at that record and and consider our
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  weaknesses and our strong points, and we just try to focus more at the
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  things that were good on that record, and we try to bring that out
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  more on this new one. And you both are welcomed by session drama on
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  Navain couple ways and into the band on this album. So what what what
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  the road to the sound? Uh? Navegne Is. I think of an
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  extremely underrated drummer. I mean, he could do it all. He's an
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  amazing guitar player. He's an amazing drummer. He's a producer. I've known
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  him him since the very the very early stages of Jeoffer Cowboy. We we
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  would play a bunch of local shows like I think they did it toward origin.
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  Once we were on the bill band called Into the Moat back in the
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  day from metably there on the bill and then our very first internet not international,
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  but our first full us was with called Decapitation, Misery, Index Animosity,
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  which is Navine's old band, and jov for Cowboy was the opener and
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  those guys really took us under their wing. That really showed us the ropes
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  of pouring and he was just so we just wrote a bunch of demos and
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  gave it to him. He went in to Studentho just played whatever he wanted
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  over it, and we thought it came out amazingly. So that's just kind
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  of the origins with us in Navine Thank Now Mary Nayler is a conceptually based
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  album. Can you run us through that concept and how it sort of waves
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  throughund the record? Yeah? So, uh, I guess you gotta start
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  with Sun Either because it was a collection of songs that it's pretty much a
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  story of a really close front of the band. He lost touch of reality
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  a bit. He abused a lot of hallucinogenic drugs. He'd even he considered
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  he considered himself to be a bit of an alchemist because he would even brew
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  his own drugs at home. He'd be his own guinea pig. He was
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  a bit of a space cadet, and you know, sometimes I think everyone
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  knows that person that could be kind of fun etcterc and just all over the
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  place. But he took it a bit too far, and I think it
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  really put a dark cloud over his life and took a lot of bad directions
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  in life because of it. So Sun Eater was kind of a third person
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  perspective it was kind of viewing on all the choices he made on how that
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  affected his life. And with this new album, Moon Healer, it's more
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  of a first person perspective where I try to put myself in his shoes,
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  look through his eyes on all this beliefs, whether it be religion, politics,
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  the afterlife, could just over the top conspiracies, and you know,
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  it's it's interesting going through that process because you know, he would actually send
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  these very elaborate emails to his very close friends and very close family of of
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  all these topics he was into, and I kind of use those as reference
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  to build the lyrics for this record. So it's it's interesting in hindsight because
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  now I have a much better understanding of this person. I kind of feel
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  like I can see where he's coming from a bit now cool, I'm not.
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  We're trying with the great cover art. Then that's got a five rating,
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  skull in the marine and assortment of other visual riches. Like I was
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  gonna say, it looks like a bad acid trip, but you've just explained
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  that is that's kind of it. You know, you look at a demethyl
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  trip to me, just a lot of stuff like that, and uh,
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  that the artist Tony Uh always forget how to pronounce his last name, Cole
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  or Keel. He did the artwork for stun Eater and Moon Healer, and
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  he's a type of guy that kind of reminds me of this in Vigil who
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  kind of took these hallucinenic drugs maybe a bit too far. Uh. They
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  have a lot of personalities that kind of HARKing into each other. And as
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  soon as I explained all these ideas and theories to him, he knew of
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  all of them. Of course. So the artwork he came back with,
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  which is the first try, was dead on. It was like, oh,
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  this is perfect, it looks it looks great. Now you sort of
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  touch on this briefly before my event, I would one got into a bit
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  more depth with you, Like the band's sound has changed quite markedly over your
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  albums from your two thousand and seven day brig Genesis to mean here, let's
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  say, but we're all those changes planned or preempted or do they sort of
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  all flow on from album to album? I don't you know. I can't
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  say we really planned to. I mean we've definitely had some some lineup changes
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  here and there. I mean we've had essentially the same lineup since the record
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  after Genesis. But no, it's just I think it's just happened in just
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  from like I said earlier, every record that we work on, we like
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  to go back and pick at it, dissect it, and just figure out
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  what we can do better the next time. And I think that's just this
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  has just been a natural progression. Yeah, so we're to say that was
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  more experiment right, or you're still sort of searching a few musical identity In
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  a way, there's definitely a lot of experimentation, you know. It's it's
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  funny with the band, it's I'm the sole original member at this point,
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  and but I wouldn't say, you know, it's it's my way or the
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  highway. With every song, every riff, every piece, it's a democracy,
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  and if if we don't like a section or a riff, we we
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  throw it in the trash bin. So I guess, uh, I guess
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  yeah, we do. We do obviously the door for experimentation and we always
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  embrace it. But it's just it's just always a long process, right all
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  right, Johnny, Well, thanks very much for your time today, mate.
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  Your new album Moon Here that is out Febuary twenty third, and I
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  had listened before the interview. Mane, she's an absolute cracker. Weld an,
• 12:07
  congratulations and look forward to hearing a thank you very much. Sure,
• 12:11
  I appreciate it now, brother, I enjoy the rest of your day.
• 13:11
  That's two minutes, pasure, I say, somebody four guy was thirst long
• 13:33
  job. I'm packing number jamb the love I get my shot the way I'm
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  gonna die, but I'm still making number stout. PRIs my charge. Bless
• 14:01
  a great metal right dies away. I go just the go and my cousins.
• 14:18
  That is my guys, ice bice, I do don't look no h
• 15:00
  I I cann my shadows the girl my words. I said that destroy yourself,
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  your soul. I know that A thing about that side my joy?
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  Why start right? No right, no se ict twice what they got nothing?
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  No cars, no star like that, no man shots by start good
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  guy got on stocks by stop he d no, no, don't I play
• 18:03
  the bars, my boys at the bars and lay my do don't don't