Page 26 - RockRevoltMagazine-Fall2016

FLAWBy Ace Sims
RockRevolt Magazine recently spoke with
Chris Voltz in regards to the release of Flaw’s
new album Divided We Fall, which released on
August 19th, 2016, and their upcoming tour with
Dope.
Divided We Fall is Flaw’s 4th studio release
since the band’s inception in 1996.
RockRevolt Magazine also had the honor of
getting an advanced copy and hearing the album
before its release.
Divided We Fall reads like a tale of two
different halves. The album starts out hard
and gritty and right in your face. The first track,
“Fed Up”, is an attempt to bring light to the issue
of combat vets who are committing suicide. The
hard hitting vibe of the record does not stop there.
Song after song, Chris Volts hammers through
vocals track by track. Around track six, “Wipe
Away The Dust”, the mood starts to change,
and the album starts to transform into a more
subdued yet powerful version. While the first half
hammers home the message they are trying to get
across, the second half takes a softer approach to
delivering that message. This is a great return for
Flaw, and I highly recommend adding Divided We
Fall to your collection. And now, the interview
with Chris about life in the industry, the changes
in his own life, and all things Divided We Fall.
How are you doing, bud?
I’m doing great; how are you?
I’m doing all right. First off, it’s been twenty
years since you’ve been doing this Flaw thing,
correct?
Oh boy, yeah. Jay and I got together in 1996, so
yeah it’s been twenty years.
How does that feel? It’s been a long time…
Dude, it really has. A lot has happened over
the years. The industry has changed in a lot
of ways, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
When Jay and I started writing together,
everything just clicked so smoothly, and the
chemistry was there as far as the songwriting,
so it’s been one Hell of a ride, man, to say the
least.
Right. One thing I wanted to ask you – as
somebody who has been through the industry
changes – all of the newer bands come out in a
completely different era than you guys started
in. Do you see the pros and cons? Which era do
you prefer – back when you started or the way it
is set up now?
Wow, that’s a really tough question to answer.
There are positives and negatives, ya know, to
both sides of it. When we first got signed, it was
right at the beginning of the whole internet
explosion. And that threw the industry into
turmoil for a while because everybody
was downloading music without buying
it, record labels were losing millions of
dollars due to that. A lot of them basically froze
up their assets. CFOs would say, “Hey freeze
everything because we’re losing millions, and
we don’t know what to do; we can’t figure it
out.” So, there was that whole clusterbomb,
if you want to say. But, like I said, there are
pros and cons. Once the industry and bands
learned how to embrace it and use the internet
for marketing and outreach and sales revenue,
everything started to get back to normal.
Now, it is an invaluable tool. Back in the day,
when we first started, the only way you could
advertise a show or concert was to basically
hound the local radio station and see if they
could give you a couple plugs, walk around
neighborhoods and hang flyers in busy parts
of town….it was really, really involved. I hit the
streets in a grassroots type of advertising. And,
with social media now, you can hop onto four
or five websites and advertise in every city in
America without leaving the comfort of your
own desk. So, there are positives and negatives.
I don’t know if I would necessarily change
anything; we’ve learned how to embrace the
internet. The industry has learned how to
embrace the internet, so we feel it is necessary