Singer Vincent Bennett and guitarist Tom Smith Jr talk us through the two decade and 10 album long career of The Acacia Strain.
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:25 Started the band, we just wanted to be a band.
00:27 It was that we had no outlying goals, it was just play music.
00:31 [MUSIC]
00:36 Local shows were like a thing.
00:39 For pretty much my entire teen years and into my 20s,
00:42 there was a show every single Sunday.
00:45 We wanted to play music.
00:46 We didn't care what it sounded like.
00:47 We didn't really necessarily care if people liked it.
00:49 We just wanted to play it.
00:51 The Internet wasn't really a thing, so regional music was big.
00:55 I took pride in being from where I was from,
00:59 because music there sounded like it was from there.
01:02 [MUSIC]
01:06 We were listening to At The Gates and Throwdown and Every Time I Die, and
01:10 we were listening to all of that, and we were trying to take it all in at once.
01:12 I mean, our first record, if you listen to it, it's fucking terrible.
01:16 Like, it's really not, we're searching for a sound, and we just couldn't find it.
01:21 It translated at the time, but I don't think it aged well.
01:24 [MUSIC]
01:29 It was a sign of the times kind of record,
01:31 where everybody's trying to do crazy Dillinger stuff.
01:35 And we just wanted to do things that all of the bands that surrounded us were kind
01:39 of doing, and we tried to do them all at the same time.
01:43 >> How about the follow up, 3750?
01:45 [MUSIC]
01:50 >> Honestly, still, at that point, I don't think we knew what we were doing.
01:53 I really don't.
01:54 We just wanted to be heavy.
01:57 That was the big thing in 2004.
02:00 You just wanted people to march for your band.
02:01 You didn't care if they liked your music.
02:03 You just wanted people to hit each other.
02:05 >> Nobody leaves here without getting hurt.
02:07 [MUSIC]
02:17 >> A lot of people still ask us to play songs off that record.
02:22 I think we played Car Bomb every single tour, still.
02:26 Last year we played it twice a set as a joke, and people loved it.
02:30 >> So I think 3750 was the first kind of hinting at where the band was going.
02:37 You could hear that the band, and production wise,
02:42 everything was kind of all coming together in a very organic and slow way.
02:47 It was a very transitional record with the sonics of the band and
02:51 the writing.
02:52 To me, the Deadwalk is the baseline of the band.
02:56 >> Yeah. >> And 3750 and
02:58 Life Is Very Long, those are just the baby steps leading up to those.
03:03 [MUSIC]
03:13 >> 2005 was a huge year for us.
03:17 When the Deadwalk came out, it kind of pushed us to the next level, I guess.
03:24 We started touring with hardcore bands where we were the metal band.
03:31 >> Yeah. >> And then we started touring with
03:32 metal bands where we were the hardcore band.
03:36 We just wanted to have fun.
03:37 We still just want to have fun.
03:38 There's no delusions that we're gonna be the next Metallica or anything like that.
03:41 2006 was a weird year for us because we were playing in front of three people
03:46 every day, no one gave a fuck.
03:48 Everyone's like, you should play more stuff off the Deadwalk, man.
03:50 I love that record.
03:51 I'm like, where the fuck were you when we were playing in front of three people?
03:54 [MUSIC]
04:04 >> I mean, how did that feel to kind of break into that Billboard Top 200 for
04:08 the first time?
04:09 >> It was crazy.
04:09 I had a lot of my friends and peers were like, this is your year.
04:14 When we recorded Continent, we kind of wanted to refine even further and
04:19 make it an even heavier record.
04:20 [MUSIC]
04:28 We kind of tried to have fun with it.
04:30 And when we were in the studio, we were recording all these videos and
04:33 trying to make people pay attention to us and putting stuff out on YouTube,
04:36 because that was a thing that was finally available for bands.
04:40 >> Hey guys, I'm just doing vocals right now, so if you wanna watch,
04:44 we could hang out.
04:45 [SOUND] Baby, baby, I love you.
04:50 >> Stop, stop, stop.
04:52 What the fuck is that shit?
04:54 >> What?
04:54 >> You're not even singing on key.
04:56 >> What happened to your brutal?
04:58 >> That's fucking perfect.
04:59 >> Are you Celine Dion's little brother?
05:01 >> Basically, it's not very exciting.
05:03 This album's gonna suck and you're not gonna buy it.
05:07 But I appreciate you watching.
05:08 >> Tom was what, 16, 15 years old when that record came out?
05:13 >> 15, I actually just realized that I still have one of my
05:16 Continent guitar picks from that tour that just says I was 15 when Continent came out.
05:21 [MUSIC]
05:29 >> I don't really see the merit in flooding social media with your brand.
05:35 I was at a band's manager's apartment.
05:39 This man woke up at 5 AM and just went on MySpace,
05:44 just adding people to that band's MySpace for four hours.
05:50 Just adding, just friend requesting for four hours.
05:53 You know how many people that is?
05:54 That was his job to do that.
05:57 And it was the first time I ever saw it.
05:59 I was like, what the fuck are you doing?
06:01 Like, go on tour.
06:03 [MUSIC]
06:11 >> Wormwood is sort of considered the definitive record by the Occult Restraint.
06:17 >> It's probably my favorite thing we've done as a band.
06:20 It's the first record that we have done where I don't mind going back and
06:27 playing those songs.
06:28 >> It's funny because the production on that record is, I think,
06:33 so good because we told Zeus that the label hated the production on Continent.
06:39 And he had to like, he was like, what the, why are you fucking, fuck this shit.
06:44 I'm gonna show them, I'll show them.
06:45 And he just like, he cranked it to 11 and really just like hyper focused.
06:50 [MUSIC]
06:58 >> Even ten years later, I'm still proud of what we did with Wormwood.
07:03 And I still love playing every song off the record.
07:07 And it's really sad that we can't do a ten year tour right now,
07:13 because that's what we had planned.
07:15 We were gonna do a whole ripper, and now we can't.
07:18 [MUSIC]
07:28 >> This is only more than 2012.
07:37 >> We can skip this one.
07:39 We can skip it.
07:39 >> What?
07:40 >> We don't have to talk about this one.
07:41 >> Okay, fine.
07:43 [MUSIC]
07:53 >> Peaking at number 31 on the Billboard 200,
07:58 Coma Witch, that is an insane achievement in any era.
08:04 >> That's the one achievement in this band that I have physical evidence of
08:09 doing something that mattered, I guess.
08:11 It was the worst, one of the worst experiences of my entire life.
08:16 I'm feverish, I'm sweating through a sleeping bag.
08:20 I'm stressed out because I can't record.
08:23 And then I get a phone call from my wife saying she wants a divorce.
08:27 So then all of this other shit is happening.
08:30 So I'm rethinking the lyrics for the record.
08:33 I'm rethinking, do I actually wanna do this ever again?
08:37 Like, it was a fucking, it was a nightmare.
08:40 It was a nightmare.
08:41 Everything just compounding on top of everything else.
08:46 But the outcome is, I think,
08:49 at the time, it was the most ambitious thing we'd ever done.
08:54 I feel like because I had such a terrible time,
08:57 we made such a atmospheric record.
09:03 [MUSIC]
09:13 >> The nerve of you to put a 28 minute long song in this genre of music is,
09:20 has anyone ever done that?
09:25 >> That record is the first one where I felt like I was almost watching a movie.
09:28 Like it really just laid this big playing field of,
09:32 here's this new sound that we've found, and we're gonna go crazy with it.
09:36 [MUSIC]
09:43 >> Grave Bloom to me kind of is a spiritual successor or
09:46 the sequel to Coma Witch, if you will, or an addendum to that record.
09:50 Whole record's about me just quitting the band.
09:53 Like me just saying goodbye and being like, I'm fucking, I'm walking away.
09:56 I'm quitting while we're ahead.
09:58 I was still having a hard time with my life.
10:01 I was going through a lot of changes and a lot of different shit.
10:04 Like I lived with my mom for like 11 months while I was trying to buy a house.
10:09 And I was sick of being on the road.
10:11 And I hadn't even told my band until after,
10:14 I didn't even tell you guys until like September.
10:17 Yeah, after the record was out, after Warped Tour was done.
10:21 And I was like, yeah, I got a job, I quit, I'm done.
10:24 You guys can continue on if you want to, I don't care, it's your band.
10:28 And they decided, no, we'll stop, we'll all be regular people too.
10:33 And then like three months later, I was like, what the fuck am I doing?
10:36 And that's kind of when all of the more positive changes in my life started
10:41 to happen.
10:41 And it's because I saw what life would have been like without it.
10:47 [MUSIC]
10:57 >> We should talk about It Comes in Waves, which I know you guys have called an EP.
11:06 >> I call it a song.
11:07 >> Yeah, it's one song.
11:08 >> That album, that EP, that song, whatever you want to call it,
11:12 sounds so different from anything else you've ever done.
11:17 I think it's a brilliant EP.
11:19 Like you said, with Coma Witch and Grave Bloom,
11:21 they kind of feel like brother and sister.
11:23 I feel like this EP maybe would be the start of the next chapter of what you guys
11:29 go on to do, and I suppose we've got to it now, the new record.
11:32 [MUSIC]
11:42 >> But It Comes in Waves proved to us all that we can do something different.
11:47 We can do what we want.
11:49 We can do something that's atypical of a case of strain and
11:52 people will still like it.
11:53 So just stepping over that threshold kind of changed
11:56 what we think we're allowed, I guess, allowed to do.
12:02 I'm getting older.
12:03 I don't listen to the same music I did when I started this band, and
12:06 neither do the people who listened to this band back then.
12:10 Everybody's got different musical opinions now, and everybody's growing and
12:13 listening to more adult music or whatever you want to call it.
12:16 We're just changing with our fan base, and we're changing with the times, and
12:20 you have to realize that it's not 2002 anymore.
12:24 It's not 2010 anymore.
12:25 2010 might feel like it was yesterday, but it was 10 years ago.
12:28 >> My intention with Slow D.K.
12:31 was that if I was a kid who doubted the band, and I was one of those kids like,
12:37 they need DL, this band isn't the same without DL, that was my answer to it.
12:42 I'm gonna challenge myself to take this sound and make it updated and
12:46 fresh, but still feel like home for the older fans.
12:49 [MUSIC]
12:59 (upbeat music)
13:02 (wind whooshing)