Witherfall Interview, We Caught Up With Joseph Michaels & Jake Dreyer To Talk ‘Curse of Autumn’

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Witherfall recently released their third album ‘Curse Of Autumn’, the follow up to 2018’s ‘A Prelude To Sorrow’. We caught up with vocalist Joseph Michaels and guitarist Jake Dreyer over Zoom to talk about the new album.

Hope you two, the rest of the band, and your families have been okay over the course of the pandemic. Obviously it’s been a tough year for everyone, so what have you been up to during the pandemic?

“Well, we finished a record during that time,” Jake Dreyer laughs “recorded, did all the production for it, and now we’re working on a new record so…”

“We did all the videos for the songs as well” Joseph Michael adds.

“Yeah, basically we’ve been trying to stay as busy as possible, You know.” Jake continues. “Besides of course not being able to play shows.”

So the new album ‘Curse Of Autumn’ is out, so how did you feel about releasing the album knowing that it might be a long time before you would be able to play and share it live?

Joseph Michael replies “It’s never been a problem for us, honestly, We haven’t toured that much. We were in other bands, and schedules really didn’t work out in our favour. You know. like me being in Sanctuary, and Jake being previously in Iced Earth and Demons & Wizards. So I think, we’ve only done one extensive tour with Sonata Arctica for the ‘Vintage EP’ and then some stuff in Japan with Camelot, but it’s really no different, you know. As in looking back it’s not what we planned, we definitely had tours planned around this release. In fact, that Evergrey tour that we have scheduled coming up was originally for the early spring around the time of this release, because both of our records were coming out around the same time… So it’s not too much different. We’re still doing the same promos we’ve always done.

So obviously you’re no stranger to longer songs, and this album is no different containing the longest track you’ve put out with ‘… And They All Blew Away’, So what’s your process for writing a song like that?

“No different to the other ones honestly.” Joseph states.

“Yeah, basically it’s just a lot of wine and it just takes a little longer” Jake laughs. “No with how we write everything, it’s pretty much an initial idea that is worth exploring, gets presented, and then a theme kinda comes up and that kind of really opens up the door for the writing process you know. So yeah there’s really no difference between a song like ‘The River’ versus a song like ‘… And They All Blew Away’ on the writing process to it. Again just with something like ‘ … And They All Blew Away’ it was composed over a longer period of time, just because you have to kind of be in that mindset, just to make sure that it’s sticking to that theme. And that song has like 3 different movements to it so. And the way that it was arranged and I guess written was kind of in an abstract way to most people, but to us and witherfall. It’s it’s just Joseph and I, so we know how to navigate through all this fucking chaos, you know, controlled chaos, basically.”

Joseph discuss that idea further saying “Yeah, I mean the songwriting is really organic so we just come up with something, and then we just work to its conclusion. You know we pass different ideas back and forth, and then once we know that we have a song then we just start, you know, building it from the ground up and what ends up happening on the longer songs, is that we just… We know it’s not done so like for instance, the song ‘Nobody Sleeps Here’ from the first record. Like we could have easily just stayed with that, you know, slow swing verse into that crazy triple metre chorus and done that a few times. Had an interlude, a guitar solo, and then out. But it’s… it’s… I mean I don’t know how much this has to do with alcohol, but sometimes there’s just this, like light bulb that just goes off, before the next section you could just do, like the generic thing, some inspiration hits and you just know you have to follow that rabbit down the hole. You know.”

“Yeah, totally.” Jake agrees “I mean, that’s the type of music that we like to create too, shit that takes you on a journey and a rollercoaster ride. At the same time we have songs that we could have probably went down those rabbit holes even more, like a song like ‘Another Face’ probably could have gone even more fucking crazy, but there’s a time when you know how to edit yourself and be like “Look we could go this way.. but would it make sense”

“I don’t even know if we really edit.” Joseph tries to interject.

Jake continues “but does it make sense? You know, it’s like does it make sense to even go down that path? ’cause you could, but when something is done, and Finished, you pretty much know. But at the same time it’s the influences that we like and we listen to a whole bunch of different shit, it’s that… That it’s kind of more interesting, and sometimes to tell a story you have to be like fucking Lewis Carroll.”

“I’d be careful with that word edit though,” Joseph warns. “because most people think edit comes after the fact, and I think what Jake really means is restraint – in that you don’t even put forth a new idea because the song is done. It’s not like there was an 8-minute song in ‘The River’ and then we went in and like tinkered with it, to make it what it is. It’s just. It’s perfect in that form, and we’re done with it. We don’t pick it back up until it’s time to record, and we start looking for the right acoustic guitar tone, or the right amp for the lead, you know, the right microphone for that soft part. You know, stuff like that. Um Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone would agree that we’re good at editing ourselves based on some of the longer counts.” he laughs.

So diving deeper into that, with your songs, what comes first is it the music first or the lyrics?

Without hesitation Joseph Michaels replies “No, it’s all the same time. I mean it’s like, Lennon McCartney were sitting there in the room and one part doesn’t happen without being informed by the part previous, everything has to have a start, so sometimes it’s it’s like a chord progression, and a like a vocal melody. Say like the chorus of ‘Moment of Silence’ or something. Or sometimes songs like ‘The Last Scar’. It’s that first guitar riff you hear that ends up being the verse, and then we’ll talk about it, “I like that. I like that. I like that” and then when we sit down, then we just build it, like “Okay Jake take that riff and modulate up to the 4th of it” and then I’ll do this melody he hears that and he’s like? “What about this for pre-chorus” and I’m like “Okay that’s good” or like “No like change that one note” and we just work like that until like we are comfortable, where we both have the main idea, then we can go off on our own and kind of do all the fine tuning and tinkering. But like all the arrangements get done right in the room together. Melodies and lyrics are not separate. Like it’s 90 percent, ’cause the melody and the feeling behind it are intertwined. It’s not like you’re like “Oh that melody is sad, so I need to write something sad over it.””

Jake adds “Yeah, and like taking ‘ … And They All Blew Away’ again as another example, there’ll be parts where Joseph was saying we’ll take it and work on it ourselves, but we’ll have like this this arc, or basically a storyboard you want to think of it that way then it’s like “Okay, this part is going to be fucking Looney Tunes right here“, and so go work with it and then I’ll like lock myself in a room for fucking days, and not eat, or just constantly drink and then i’ll fucking feel like all fucking frazzled and be like? “What about this” and then like Joseph like “I don’t know what to choose between the two” and he’s like “just combining together” and then you know that just sets it all off. Yeah, I mean, I guess it’s just all organic, though at the same time a lot of the time it’s like it’s that excitement in the room. That’s why we don’t ever share things like we never do file sharing stuff.”

I read that you like to create a theme for each album, so for this one it’s red – great artwork by the way – do you ever have to cut down the tracklist to fit the theme?

“No, no, no. And we don’t even create a theme, it evolves.” Joseph Michaels responds “So like with ‘A Prelude To Sorrow’, we didn’t know we were going to be writing about Adam Sagan, our drummer that died. It just happened. So like we’re writing these songs, and you know, we just started writing and then like ‘Maruduab’s Visitation’ ended up being written, and it’s about his niece that died in this tragic accident and then ‘Moment Of Silence’ was written. And then I’m like all these songs are about Adam, so we know what this records about, what we’re going to write about and then it just kind of evolves that way. Same thing with this record, like it started to get kind of angry and, you know, a little melancholy, but a lot of anger too. And Jake was like “This album is going to be the Red Album.” I’m like “Okay, let’s send it to Christian, and see what he comes up with.” He came up with this weird burnt Sienna orange which really fit with the fall theme of the of the metaphorical side of the lyrics and what not.

“I guess there too, I mean we didn’t have ‘The Other Side of Fear’ completely written, but it was kind of around the time of ‘A Prelude To Sorrow’ and that one” Jake adds to Josephs point.

“But we didn’t write it. [at that time]” Joseph responds.

Jake continues “yeah, we didn’t write it. We kind of we had the ideas and were like this doesn’t really fit.”

“It’s sat up on the shelf, but like we didn’t, it’s not like we completed a song and then chopped it off like we just gave up writing completely on it cause we weren’t going to use it for the record.” Joseph clarifies.

How was it working with Jon Schaffer of Iced Earth on this album?

Jake replies “We used a Schaefer, he was basically just there to be like a drill Sergeant, and get us to really get the best takes, and all the execution that we needed for the record, and you know we also had Jim Morris that used his ears on this too, and Jim is fucking phenomenal. I mean he’s… both of them are legendary guys, and that’s what we wanted for the team, so he was really just there to be able to get the best performances and the best takes out of out of us. When Joseph and I, when we stepped into the studio, because of all the pandemic bullshit in April, it was just Marco [Drummer], and then it was Schaefer, and Jim who couldn’t even fly out for various reasons. And so it was just Joseph and I in there, producing the Marcos drums. But, but befor we even got into that, you know, Joseph and I had all the compositions already there, so it wasn’t like we were like in the studio and be like “Hey Schaeffer, can you help us with this bridge?” that never happened.”

Joseph says “No… We definitely kept our co-producer role, it’s just that when you’re trying to… to actually be in the moment and creating, doing the takes, and creating what ends up on the recording itself. You don’t want to be thinking about it. You don’t want to be thinking about any of the production aspects, or even if what you did is good, like that should be left up to another party so that you can continue like going and moving on. And I mean, this is emotional music and I can tell you first hand as a vocalist, you can get taken out of the moment really quickly trying to analyse something, like it’s good to have some experienced ears there that can take on that role.”

Jake Dreyer: “Yeah, I mean we knew when we were leaving the studio every night – 4:30 in the morning, you know – that we had gotten the best takes for that day, you know, or the best takes for it. And that’s a good feeling. You never want to be like fucking in the car ride back to your hotel, or whatever, and being like “Fuck could have done that better“, you know. That’s a fuckign rabbit hole. You don’t wanna go down.

“Oh yeah we’ve never had that happen” Joseph laughs.

“Yeah totally” says Jake sarcasticly.

“pfft… not us” Joeseph adds.

You’re coming up to eight years of being a band, what would you tell someone thinking about making a band?

“*laughs* Don’t do it.” Jake jokes. “No. I don’t know man. Everyone’s gotta make – this is gonna be a dumb fucking answer – but everyone’s gotta make their own journey in a way, because there’s some bands man it takes 8 months and they’re fucking on a god damn tour bus, you know. So with us, it’s a slow build, but it’s… we’re starting to see all the time that we put into it, it’s making it made a good foundation, you know, it’s not one of those bands that’s like this shot up real quick, and then there is no substance to it because it was just a flash in the pan type thing. But I mean, you gotta fucking put your time in an you gotta, you gotta wanna do this.”

Joseph Michael: “It’s weird ’cause I think that’s really misleading, the fact that on the bio it says we formed in 2013. I mean Jake and I had left this other band – actually we were in the UK when we decided to do this band. We were in Lyme Regis. Drunk on the English Channel. Smoking cigars. *laughs* We were like we need to do our own band, that’s like done properly, you know. That we can control and we can write how we want to write where there’s no rules. There’s no specific genre. And I mean it took us a good six months to write the 1st record like just get going back and forth, and then Jake had other obligations for like tours and what not. And we had a lot of time stolen from us while we were making that first record. I mean, almost two years and we ended up firing this engineer and he was holding our record hostage. And, you know, then, our drummer dies. Before the record releases.” he appears to say in jest. “So like, that’s like three years that you know when we had to find a new new drummer, like if you condense all the time we’ve actually been doing stuff, it’s not… I mean, we didn’t release the first record till what, like 2017?”

“Yeah, that was it’s a release date.” Jake confirms.

Joseph Michael Yeah, and then we’ve had a record every year. I mean, that’s what this record is about. Like this record took all that anger at certain individuals, and the industry in general and and really focused it. It’s an anthemic hate log.

Which band’s inspired you to start making music?

“They’re not metal bands. Yeah, they’re not metal bands, I tell you that much.” Joseph says with some mystic in his voice.

Jake says “I mean like the band that got me into music was Kiss – probably like a fuck ton of other people – but it was looking at Gene Simmons. Just like being a little kid, you know, he looks at superhero, and the demonic one. So that was cool, and I like music too. But then the band made me want to play guitar, was Angus Young, actually a Malcolm Young riff that a minor arpeggiated section of ‘Hells Bells’, that made like the hair on the back of my neck stand up and I was like “Oh my God, I want to make that sound“. Those were definitely the two bands that I remember. You know, Guns N’ Roses too, Slash for like lead guitar playing. And then like you know, as I as Mountain was the one that made me want to really practise. I think those were like ones that pretty much built me up as far as influence young influences, you know.”

Joseph adds “Yeah, I mean, but for Witherfall in general, it’s like Queen, Guns N’ Roses, a little bit of like King Diamond, and Sabotage theatricality, you know, some of the darker like Nevermore stuff, even like Dream Theater like the darker stuff on an album like ‘Awake’. Obviously we both love classical music, and in fact I reckon our songs are more composed than they are like a jam band, you know, like we’re not sitting there like “What do you think of this riff?“”

Jake goes on to say “There’s all sorts of influences too man, ’cause there’s also like, from Joseph and I, we listen to a tonne of other genres too, but also the players that we hired, these guys aren’t like metal guys. Anthony Crawford, grew up in a gospel background, and R&B, and the jazz Fusion, you know, playing with the great Allan Holdsworth. And then for this record two we had Marco Minnemann, and he’s a complete prog guy. And because Joseph and I write and compose the music, we totally let them shine on it and bring in their flavour to it. I mean, that would be just really dumb, if Joseph and I composed all of like the drum parts and are just like “Here Marco play this like note for note“. Like why hire Marco at that point, you know, you got it, use it. So that’s probably why Witherfall has such a unique sound too, because it is like this melting pot of styles.”

What is your favourite song to play?

“Currently off of Curse of Autumn? I like the big epic one, so I like ‘… And They All Blew Away’.” Jake replies

“You’ve never played that song.” Joseph says.

Jake clarifies “No, I mean are you talking about actually performing something live? Cause we haven’t done any of this shit off Curse [of Autumn] yet.”

“Well obviously,” I reply “but just playing in general.”

“Yeah, if I just want to listen to a song, I like ‘… And They All Blew Away’. If it’s playing something live, then ‘Nobody Sleeps Here’ is always fun, ‘Vintage’ is fun if we play it right. So Yeah, those two. Again, the big epic ones.” Jake confirms.

“Yeah, ‘Nobody Sleeps Here’ for me. It’s definitely the most fun song to play live.” Joseph agrees.

Thanks to Joesph and Jake for taking the time to join me to anwser these questions. You can check out our review of Witherfalls latest album ‘Curse of Autumn’ here. Witherfall are set to tour later this year as the special guest on Evergrey’s “Recharging Europe Tour”, which will have Dust In Mind Opening. You can catch the band at one of the following dates:

October 2021
08 – (DE) Oberhausen – Resonanzwerk
09 – (GB) London – 229 venue
10 – (GB) Nottingham – Rescue Rooms
11 – (GB) Bristol – The Fleece
12 – (GB) Manchester – Academy 3
13 – (GB) Newcastle – St Dom’s Social Club
14 – (GB) Glasgow – Cathouse
15 – (IE) Dublin – Voodoo Lounge
16 – (GB) Birmingham – The Asylum 2
17 – (NL) Leiden – Gebr. De Nobel
19 – (DE) Stuttgart – Im Wizemann Club
20 – (DE) Hamburg – Bahnhof Pauli
21 – (DE) Berlin – Columbia Theater
22 – (NL) Eindhoven – Dynamo
23 – (BE) Vosselaar – Biebob
24 – (DE) Mannheim – 7er Club
25 – (DE) Nürnberg – Hirsch
26 – (DE) Lindau – Club Vaudeville
27 – (DE) Munich – Backstage Halle
29 – (DE) Aschaffenburg – Colos-Saal
30 – (DE) Andernach – Live Club
31 – (CH) Luzern – Schüür
November 2021
01 – (FR) Colmar – Le Grillen
02 – (FR) Lyon – CCO Villeurbanne
03 – (ES) Barcelona – Boveda
04 – (ES) Madrid – Shoko
05 – (ES) Pamplona – Totem
06 – (FR) Toulouse – L’Usine
07 – (FR) Paris – Petit Bain