Iwrestledabearonce is a five-piece metalcore band that doesn’t care what anyone thinks.  They’re fronted by wild-woman Krysta Cameron, and I can honestly say they put on one of the better shows out there.  I sat down with some of the band member, and boy did I have a good time.

Tanner Fisher:  Hey guys, how’s it going?  Could you pass the mic around and say your name and what you play?

MM: I am Mikey [Montgomery], and I play bass.

KC: My name is Krysta [Cameron], and I sing.

JG: I’m John [Ganey], and I play the guitar.

TF:  How’s the tour been going, you know with Dillinger Escape Plan and Animals as Leaders.  Tell me about it.

MM:  I’ve been hanging out a lot with Tosin [Animals as Leaders] over there.  We’ve been hitting up a lot of clubs together. 

JG:  The tour’s been good.  The Animals as Leaders guys are amazing.  This is our first tour with Dillinger, so yeah, it’s been really good.  It’s an older crowd, and we’re used to a younger crowd, you know, the whole scene crowd.

MM: Yeah, the tours been great, but we’ve definitely had the most fun with Animals as Leaders.  I think they’re secretly gay for us. [laughs]

TF: Krysta, you’re a beast on stage.  Do you think that you and some of the others are making it more acceptable for chicks in metal?

KC:  Yeah, I mean I’m kind of more of a dude, like I don’t really use my body or my looks to get us further.  There are other bands out there that are female fronted and they focus on that to further themselves in the game, but we don’t do that. 

TF:  How many guys confess their love to you on a nightly basis?

KC:  By guys, do you mean 15 year old boys and lesbians? 

TF:  [laughs] yes precisely.

KC:  That’s about it.  I never have guys that think I’m good looking. They’re always like 15.

MM:  I wish more 15 year old girls would confess their love for our band.

KC:  I think they do, it’s just that they’re little girls.

TF:  It never gets awkward, because they’re just little kids…[laughs] OK.  So you guys are obviously a fun band. What do you guys do to kill the time?

MM: Today, Krysta and I flew a kite.  That’s a true story.  Sometimes we get hammered drunk, I don’t know, just lame stuff.

KC:  Sometimes, we tell ghost stories, our drummer Mike [Martin] farts a lot.  He farts to pass the time and he shows his ass in public.

TF: So when you’re on tour travelling, what’s worse, guy’s B.O. or girl’s B.O.?

JG:  Honestly, it’s weird… none of us really smell.  I think we cover it up pretty well. 

MM: There’s obviously an overall smell at times, but most of the time we’re good.  Recently, I bought a new package of socks that I’ve never tried before, and my feet are starting to smell, and my feet have never smelled that bad.  Everyone’s like “Mikey, what did you do, did you take your shoes off? Oh God!”

KC: Well your feet smell really bad.

MM: Well when everyone wears their Tom’s, their feet smell horrible.  It’s mostly Steve [Bradley, drummer].  He smells like a corpse when he wears his Tom’s. 

KC: Well he is a corpse. He’s Dracula, the undead.

TF:  What up-and-coming bands are you digging right now?

MM:  Well…[laughs] Animals as Leaders. 

JG:  Yeah, for sure.  That’s definitely the heaviest band I’m listening to right now.  Most heavy bands now…I don’t know…I’m just kind of over the heavy stuff right now. 

MM: Everything is just a generic copy of another band.  Nothing right now seems too interesting.

KC:  Back in the day, it was more interesting.

JG:  Yeah like Korn and the Deftones…

KC:  Even like a couple of years ago, you know with Glassjaw and Thursday.  Thursday just put out a new album, and I think it’s absolutely amazing, but I don’t think it’s getting enough street cred, because now kids are like “Who’s Thursday? Put on some Attack Attack!”

MM:  I really dig the new Deftones song.  I can’t wait for them to come back.

TF:  You guys don’t seem to care what people think.  I mean, you put a country hoedown in the middle of a song, and you put Scary Movie 2 sound clip in your stuff.  Tell me though, what is the reasoning for the vocal harmonizing that you do?  I love it, but it’s definitely an interesting choice.

KC:  Well we’re into a lot of different styles of music, and some of my influences are Thom Yorke, and Bjork.  I do all of the crazy, spacey vocal stuff, and on the album, we didn’t use too many effects…Mikey did all of the backup vocals on the album, and he helped with the harmonizing, but live, I use a HG Helicon effect, which has a reverb and a lay on it for the clean singing, because we have so many samples that are epic and spacey.  Because of this, dry vocals sound ehh, but when you add some wetness to it, it’s a slippery slope…of goodness.

MM:  She doesn’t use effects on the screaming though.

KC:  Some people think I do use effects on the screams, but those are all me.

TF:  Prior to It’s All Happening, you guys weren’t a full band, and you used a drum machine.  Now that you have a full band, is it easier to bounce ideas off of each other?  Is there a difference in terms of songwriting?

KC:  Well Steven and John have always been the songwriters for the band.  They were in a band together before this band, so they’re super comfortable together.  On It’s All Happening, it was kind of a cluster-fuck, because we had no time in the studio, no time to write and record.  I’m surprised everything turned out as good as it did.  We’re happy with what we did, but on the next album we do I think it’s going to be a little more jazzy, right?

JG:  Yeah I think we kind of want to mix it up.  Don’t get me wrong, the changes aren’t going to be drastic, but there are going to be more elements, more genres than before.

TF: You haven’t started the writing, but the thought process is there?

JG:  Well we don’t have much yet, but have a song and maybe a half, but it’ll be soon…I hope.

TF:  After this tour, what are your immediate plans?

JG:  After this tour, we are going straight to Europe. 

MM: We’re actually dropping off this tour early to go and do that. I think tomorrow is our last day. Then we fly out to Paris. Paris.

KC: Yeah, with The Chariot. We love those guys.  It’s awesome to play with bands that you like.

MM:  It’s a bonus to have a band that you are about to tour with that actually wants to come out and meet you beforehand, just because they are cool dudes…unlike some bands…some tours you don’t feel much love.

TF:  Well that’s all I have for you guys.  Good luck tonight, and good luck in the future. It was nice meeting you guys.

KC:  Well thank you.