Logan Mader, a legend in his field, producer, mixer, after twelve years helping other musician’s make magic, it was at last time for him to reconnect with the metal guitarist that lurked from within. Lauren Hart, a newcomer with metal flowing through her veins and effervescing off her skin, was referred to Logan for a production deal, but from the moment they met, a brutal surge of creative inspiration unleashed and propelled what was to become the vehicle that put him back on stage. Their debut album The Life I Remember released a few weeks ago on Sept 4th, and it’s a flavor of dark metal that you will want to sink your fangs straight into.
Yes, Once Human has arrived…they have arrived for you!
It’s been 12 years since you actually been involved yourself and the band. You have been produced and you are working in studios and so forth, I was reading through some of the bio, on Once Human, it said Lauren was your awakening.Tell me more about that awakening.
Well, it’s some crazy shit. This music that we’ve been writing is undeniable to me. It got me real excited. It has this crazy intuition and excitement that I haven’t felt for many years; since I haven’t felt since the beginning of Machine Head. I felt something. This is something special and I need to do this. It was like an inner voice telling me that this is my shit. It’s the combination of our musical chemistry, it is Once Human. She and I write all the music together and all the lyrics. She came to me with this really brutal metal. She comes from a more black metal/European style. My inner guitar player, my real passion (as a player) is that kind of music. So, combining that with where she comes from, is what ended up shaping the Once Human sound. Incidentally, it is really brutal and heavy, and dark, often beautiful at times. It allowed me to do the kind of guitar riffs that are really mean and have a lot of attitude, and are really expressive in a rough guitar riffs sense.
It let your inner guitar dark metal just hang out.
Yes. That kind of playing has been dormant in me for many years. I only pick up a guitar when I have to, because I was producing, and mixing, and helping other bands make their music sound good, and that’s great. I love doing that. I will never stop doing that. But, I needed an outlet to express my own music, and it didn’t have a place, until now.
So it’s like the moon rose, and this werewolf guitar playing savage just exploded!
Yeah, exactly like that! (laughs)
You met up with Lauren Hart in the spring of last year and it just took off from there. Per your press release, you had common artistic visions. Would you mind expounding on some of the similarities of your visions?
It’s kind of like what I was just talking about. My natural inclinations plus the music she is passionate about; the music that she loves. The thing that I found intriguing and magnetic about that is that she did not come to LA to become famous and make whatever kind of music it would take to get famous. She didn’t care about that at all. She wanted to do the music that she was passionate about. Incidentally, the kind of music that we are doing is the least profitable genre of music. (laughs) People don’t do it to get rich and famous. They do it because they love it. That was refreshing to me. For me, that was important as well, because I fucking love music. The reason I started playing music in the beginning was not because I have an agenda to become famous and make money. It was because I had a passion for it; a real passion. It’s something that you can’t deny within yourself.
Do you feel you are taking a big leap of faith?
Yeah! It goes back to that intuition thing. It makes me feel that it’s important, and I have to do it, regardless of the results. I’m doing it. I’m actually feeling really good about it. In the beginning, we put out a four songs demo, and I thought, “I’m going to go shop this!” I have a really good relationship with the music business. Throughout history and especially in 2015, a new band can’t just make a demo and go out and get a record deal. It’s so much more involved. You have to prove yourself. You have to, first of all, have a full band together. You have to play shows and build up some kind of a buzz or following. You have to have social media numbers, be interacting with fans. You have to have a solid foundation before a label would even want to consider putting any money into it, because it’s a high risk. There’s not a lot of money going around these days, especially for metal.
So, I thought, “I don’t care about that! I’m going to take my demo into a label and tell them to give me a record deal! I’m playing in this band. I’m back and I’m doing it!” I shopped it to seven labels, and the seventh label said yes.
There you go!
It was slightly discouraging, because I went first to Monte Conner at Nuclearblast. He liked it. He liked it a lot! He was excited about it, and he wanted to sign it, but he couldn’t make the final decision. He took it to his bosses in Germany, and they were like, “Mehh, I don’t think so.”
That surprising because it’s in the line of the kind of stuff that they do.
Yeah. I can’t blame them for taking it for face value and not realizing what it could potentially become. We really didn’t get into our identity in the first four songs that we wrote. It was a little bit scattered. It was a little bit rough. The first five songs on the album sequence are songs that came after I got my record deal.
I did take this project to Century Media, Napalm, Nuclear blast, and I got discouraged. I was almost ready to give up. I was like, “Fuck! This just isn’t going to work.” But, I didn’t give up, and I connected with a guy named Max Vaccaro. I knew of him from way back from Machine Head. I don’t know how long he’s been at it, but he started a label called earMUSIC. It’s a big label in Germany, and they distribute throughout Europe. earMUSIC has a heavy music division, and it’s run by Max Vaccaro. I got my music to him, and he really liked it. He loved Lauren and he was really excited about the fact that I had returned. He felt that since I had not played in so long, that there was some value in the fact that I wanted to come back and play music. So he said, “Let’s do this!” That’s when Lauren and I started writing full time for two months (writing and producing this record.)
It has like 12 tracks! Wow!
Yeah. We wrote every day . We worked like 23 days in a row in the studio. We worked all night, before even taking a day off . We definitely felt that the sound was the a crown jewel. Songs like “Ground Zero”, “You Cunt”, “Pick Your Poison”, “Terminal”, “Demoneyes” , those all came after the record deal. We started to think, “This is great! This is happening now!” We got our excitement back. Our inspiration was high. We also started thinking about live performance; all sorts of heavy shit. I know what kind of stuff works in a live environment. I started thinking more on those terms, when we were writing the songs I just mentioned, the later songs we had written for the album.
09/02 Orlando, FL – Venue 578
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Photos by Keysie Raffucci, RockRevolt Photographer
What song are resonating the best with a live audience ?
We just got off our first tour, opening for Fear Factory in the states, but we are basically playing the album sequence. The first songs that we play live are the first five from the album, in that order. It’s working amazingly. Let me tell you, the first show ever, for this band, was in Flagstaff Arizona. There were about 170 kids, in a small club…and we killed it! They loved it. They started a pit, and there was screaming, and at the end of the set they were chanting Once Human! It was so unexpected! It felt so good, for all of us ! I was so happy to get that response after all the work that’s gone into it and the uncertainty . I love Lauren as a star. I know how to spot a natural real talent. As a producer I’ve developed that ability quite well over the years, and I knew she had “it”. She had never been on stage before. She had never been in front of a crowd, and she fucking killed it. From performing the songs and doing her thing, to in between the songs and interacting with the crowd, she was amazing. She made me so proud! It blows my heart up to see her experiencing this for the first time.
I hate to ask cliché questions, but since this band is so new, and you come from heavy hitting and seasoned bands, how does the name “Once Human” describe the band as a whole?
Well, I hate this question yeah. It’s like, I feel like humanity in a state of decline. If you look at the world as a whole, it’s a mess, and I think we’ve lost a lot of what it was like to be human. It’s the decline of humanity.
I try to be be a very optimistic “glass half full” kind of person. I take it that with Once Human, that now you doing your thing, now you are human again.
I like to be an optimist but when you look at the social system, wars over religion, corruption of innocence, and the entire world around us, we have to protect ourselves the world around us. It’s important to hang on to what really matters.
Personally I think people that the internet has allowed people now to have access to all this information all the time. We are bombarded with information all the time. It was always there, but we didn’t know about it.
Maybe you know, maybe it’s always been like that. As fucked up as it appears right now, but now we’re just aware of it and it’s in our faces. It’s constantly there, 24/7, and it seems worse than it is.
Yeah, it’s always been there, but nobody knew about it, so now it’s more obvious. The Life I Remember came out last week. You worked on some amazing, legendary, heavy hitting albums. How is The Life I Remember going to be the apex of your career?
Well, I am not sure, but I know it’s all been leading up to this! It’s a big moment for me! I haven’t really thought of it like that, but it’s definitely a new beginning to a new chapter in my life and my career. I feel like it’s the beginning of a long period for this band and we are going make it. I will still produce records as much as I always have though.
There you go. Living the dream!
Yeah! I just wanted to play again, so I’m doing it!
ONCE HUMAN – “The Life I Remember” Official Lyric Video
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I was reading about what Lauren had spoken about you, and how you have some contrasting styles. How did that work that month when you were writing together ?
It was really fluid. It was just as carefree as it gets when it comes to being inspired and how we collaborated, but it was different enough to make the other one better, and also similar enough to be on the same page. It’s hard to explain, but its a magical collaborative energy.
Something very organic.
Yeah, really, but completely free-flowing and organic. Not forced.
How did you get Ralph and Damian on board?
Damian has been my studio assistant for a few years now. He is an engineer and he is also a musician and a good friend of mine. He was an easy choice, an obvious choice. He was excited, and totally stoked about all that’s happening. He is really happy about everything that’s going on with the band.
With Ralph, he was one of my favorite metal drummers from around LA. I saw him at the Musicians Institute several years ago and I’ve worked with him on sessions when I was producing a couple of things (a videogame soundtrack -Metal Gear Rising). He was good, but he was not available to be on tour. He wanted to, but when it came down to it, he got this crazy job offer working for Robert Downey JR’s son playing in a band, making crazy money every week. He has a six year future and a lot of other benefits. He couldn’t say no. Especially for 24-year-old drummer in LA, to get a gig like that, it’s unheard of. It’s a one in 1 million kind of a thing..
Yeah. You don’t say no to son of Iron Man.
(laughter) You are right! I was disappointed because he is so good! I was just talking to this guy one day, right at the time when I was like, “Fuck! I need to find somebody to replace Ralph for touring and stuff.” A guy that I had worked with as a producer called me out of the blue and told me, “Logan, I just wanted to let you know that there’s this kid, metal drummer, that blew my mind. He’s so fucking good! I just wanted to put him on your radar, because I know you are doing a lot of production deals. If you ever need a sick metal drummer, call this kid Dillon Trollope.” I literally got this call within days of Ralph telling me that he couldn’t tour with us. I called this kid, he came in, he loved the music and he killed it. He is amazing and he’s on the tour with us now. He will be with us for as long as he wants! He’s great. I also have a second guitar player for live, named Skyler Howren (he’s actually a friend of Ralph’s – he referred him). He’s a great kid. He’s a great player. He’s in it to win it! He’s in it like we all are, investing our time to build this thing into something.
That is amazing!
On the album, I played half of the guitar solos, and for the other half I wanted somebody super shreddy, like a different style. I wanted to do distinct lead guitar style. I used a guy named Bill Hudson , who I’ve worked a lot with in LA. He’s an amazing, sick, shredder guy. He plays in more metal bands than anyone, more than any guitar player in history. If you look them up, he is like a mercenary for hire guitar player. Every month use on tour with a different band. He so good. I knew he wouldn’t be in the band, but I wanted him to play and write his solos for the super shredding fucking awesome solos on the album. So, Skyler, the guitar player that we got for touring (and hopefully for as long as he wants to be in the band), he can play all that shit, and he kills it! That was like the criteria: to play Bill’s solos on the album, and also be a cool dude.
The reason I started playing music in the beginning was not because I have an agenda to become famous and make money. It was because I had a passion for it; a real passion. It’s something that you can’t deny within yourself.
(laughs) So that was his audition! Can you A) Play these, and B) Be a cool dude. And you were on tour with Fear Factory. Was, that a coincidence or a well thought out plan? I know you’ve done some production work with them as well.
Yeah! (laughs) I’ve had a great relationship with Dino for years. We got lucky to be on this tour as main support during the time the album came out. It’s perfect. It couldn’t be better. It was a good first tour. It was better than a lot of new bands could ask and hope for. It was also not too big. It was a lot of small clubs with 200-400 kids every night. It was perfect. IT was a fresh step for us.
Yeah, and a good way to start to start laying foundations. Ok, that is actually my last question, do you have any questions for me?
Hmmm. What is your favorite cake?
My gosh! When I am not low-carbing, I am more of a cheese cake kind of a person, with the raspberry swirl in it. It’s got to have it. It’s the best, hands down! What’s yours?
Someone asked me that in an interview the other day, that’s why I asked! I’m not much of a cake dude, but I like Lava cake – where it’s melted hot chocolate in the middle, with some ice-cream on it.
