Almost an entire year after its first single, “I’m Not Right,” hit airwaves and started making major noise for Tetrarch, the band’s sophomore album, “Unstable” (April 30, 2021, Napalm Records; read Live Metal’s review), is upon us. It’s a powerful musical statement highlighted by the lead work of trailblazing shredder Diamond Rowe (the first Black female metal guitarist to be featured in major publications) and the dynamic vocal attack of frontman Josh Fore. The band hasn’t been shy about stating its big goals, and this record looks to be a major step toward achieving them. Two days before its release, Live Metal’s Greg Maki spoke to Fore about all things Tetrarch and “Unstable.”
LIVE METAL: The line I’ve been seeing attached to your band is “the new hope for metal and hard rock.” I don’t know where that came from, but does that put any extra pressure on you? Or was that just something cooked up by the marketing people and you don’t think about that?
JOSH FORE: It’s definitely pressure. It’s definitely something that we have seen out there, and a lot of places—I don’t know where they saw it exactly—have started to pick up on it and say it, and so yes, it’s a lot of pressure. But I think Tetrarch, as a band, we’ve never been shy to let the world know our goals are to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, metal/hard rock band in the world, and we work hard every single day, trying to work our way to make that a reality. So, while it is pressure, it’s pressure that we would love to live up to, because that’s something we’ve always had and has appealed to us, if that makes sense.
Because of everything that’s been going on in the world, it’s been kind of a long road, but now the new album, your second album, comes out this Friday, “Unstable.” I’m sure you’re really excited about that. Has it been hard to sit on it for so long while waiting for the release?
Oh absolutely. We spent pretty much all of 2019 writing this album. We only played a couple festivals in 2019, and we basically went and recorded the album from about October through January. So about four months we spent in Colorado recording the album with our producer, Dave Otero, and we’ve actually had the mixed, mastered, final product for the album, as everyone will hear it in two days, sitting on our computer since January of 2020. So it’s been insane to think that it’s been almost a year and a half before this thing finally is completely out to the world.
But I think that we did a good job as a band through the pandemic of just trying to be strategic. There was no way to know when a good time to put songs out was, but we tried our best to—especially with our first single, “I’m Not Right.” We put that out there in May of 2020, and we had planned to put the album out in 2020, probably in June, July or something like that. As we watched “I’m Not Right” start to take off, especially in the metal community and then even sort of cross over into some of the more active rock/hard rock side of things, we really were able to take a step back and plan out the next year. That song kind of carried us for about eight or nine months, which is pretty crazy for one song. But we’ve tried to do everything we can to stay busy, and we don’t want to feel sorry for ourselves, because we know that everyone is in a bad situation right now around the world, and a lot of people are in a whole lot worse situation. If my biggest worry is when we put a song out, I’m doing pretty good. This thing is affecting so many lives and families all across the world. So we tried to not get too down on ourselves or anything like that and take it day by day, and so far, I think we made the most out of this last year that we possibly could.
Yeah, it seems to me the way the singles have been spaced out, it’s kind of worked to your advantage. It seems like the anticipation has just been building and building for this new album and people seem really excited for it to come out and to hear the whole thing now.
Right. Yeah, I agree. And it works both ways. There’s some people that are like, “Would this band just put this album out. We’re tired of hearing about it.” But there’s so many fans that have been along with us on this journey and just been really stoked when we’ve had a new song or a new video, and we feel like they have kind of taken this journey with us. I feel like our fan base kind of feels a part of the story that’s happening with Tetrarch. So I think it’s been a mixture of people that are like just put the thing out and people that are like this is really cool watching this band kind of growing in front of them, I guess.
Since the album’s been done for so long and you haven’t been able to play shows, aside from doing interviews and things like that, how have you been filling the time during the pandemic?
We’re musicians, so we’re always writing, we’re always playing. We are still a band that likes to practice. Even when there’s no shows, we’ll get together at least a few times a week and just kind of jam around with each other, play the new stuff, keep the spirits up and all that. And then other than that, a lot of TV and a lot of golf. I got obsessed with golf over this last year, so it’s a good way to get outside and get some exercise.
Did you find any new music, any bands that you got into, new or old, during this time?
It’s almost like I went backwards in music, in terms of going back to the things I listened to growing up as a kid. I don’t think I was necessarily seeking out as much new music because I wasn’t surrounded by it as much. I wasn’t surrounded by new bands on tours. I wasn’t in my car a ton that we just randomly put on the radio, even if it’s a pop station. I don’t even know what’s going on in that realm right now. I kind of went back to my favorites, back to those bands I grew up loving and listening to, playlists I made, and I think it’s been a kind of a nice break to go back to my roots.
What were some of those bands?
For me, my two all-time favorite bands—this one’s cliched as a metal band—but Metallica is my number one. And then Green Day is my other, equally tied with Metallica for the bands that inspired me. So those were my two main ones, but obviously I love Linkin Park, Disturbed, stuff like that. I listen to a little bit of everything, but more of those what some people might call mainstream metal bands. I like to think of them more as crossover metal/hard rock bands. Those are kind of my thing.
When did Napalm Records come into the picture, and why do you decide to go with them for this album?
We’ve never been afraid to do things on our own, and I think it’s always worked to our benefit as a band. And we had actually planned to put this album out independently. We actually put “I’m Not Right” out independently. We did have offers and a lot of interest from different labels over the past few years and especially after “I’m Not Right.” But we just were waiting for what felt like the right partner. We didn’t want to give up our creativity and what we’ve worked so hard to build. We just felt like Napalm saw the vision that we did and that together, they made a good partner to tackle our goals and really become a worldly band together.
Going back a couple years to when you were writing this album, did you have any clear goals for things you wanted to do with it, or were you just kind of writing and seeing where it took you?
I would say the goal we had with it was just to do what was best for each song and make the best collection of songs that we could out of all the demos and everything we had. Our debut album, “Freak,” we’d been a band for a long time before that. We were really thrashy and metalcore, and “Freak” was around the same time we moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles together and it was like a fresh start. We didn’t rebrand ourselves or try to go make a different sound, but it just naturally happened where with “Freak” we started to experiment with some different kind of guitar parts, different tunings, different vocal styles for me, things like that, and “Freak” turned out really cool. There were so many different types of songs that we’d never done before, and it was really starting to connect with the audience that we wanted.
So “Unstable,” we wanted to take the best parts of “Freak” and put them on steroids. We wanted every song to be super strong. We wanted the catchy parts to be as catchy as they could be. We wanted the heavy parts to be as heavy as they could be. We didn’t want to settle on anything. We wanted the lyrics to feel right and hit right. So our goal was just to take what we had done and grow on it and really say this is who Tetrarch is, this is our sound and kind of show glimpses of where maybe we’re going in the future.
Your lyrics go to some very personal and sometimes dark places. Do you have a central message that you’re trying to get across?
It’s interesting. I think that I like to write about real emotions and real-life experiences. There will be some songs that might be coming from me, from first person in my own life, and there might be some from people that I’m close with—family, friends, people like that—what I’m seeing them go through. I feel like I am able to kind of draw everybody’s experiences together and express maybe what someone else isn’t able to express themselves but maybe that I see going on in their life and, also, as well as anything that I’m going through personally or anything like that. So we just wanted to write a record that was very personal. The lyrics are easy to understand but also able to be applied to people’s lives however they need that song. A song like “I’m Not Right” starts with the very first line “Looking in the mirror and I hate myself”—we all have those moments where some days you just wake up and you look at yourself and you’re just like what am I doing, you don’t like the situation that you’re stuck in—whether someone hates their job, they hate a relationship they’re in, they hate how they’re feeling—and it’s a song about doing anything and everything to scratch and claw and get out of those situations. So there’s a lot of dark in there, but if people look, I think they can find a lot of hope, as well.
Yeah, I think so. A theme I see coming up a few times is cutting out negativity and negative people from your life. Is that something you’ve had to deal with a lot?
Yeah, absolutely, especially when you’re a band as long as we have been and started as a local band in Atlanta, Georgia. We’ve heard the word “no” so many times. We’ve heard from some industry people that we’re not heavy enough, we’re not catchy enough, so who are we going to appeal to? We’ve heard all kinds of stuff like that. We’ve always had to push that negative noise out of our head and keep going and keep grinding and keep being true to who we were, to where it’s been to this point to where it’s paid off.
We actually toyed with calling the album “Negative Noise.” That for the longest time was going to be the album name, and it fit really well because it was that kind of theme of ridding yourself of negativity and toxicness. But the song “Unstable,” when we wrote it and gave it a title, and we started listening to the album as a whole, and we were just like “Unstable” really seems to fit with this vibe, kind of right on that brink of volatility.
I think one of my favorite songs on the album—and to me, it seems like one of the more important ones because of the message—is “Pushed Down.” It’s kind of a we’re-all-in-this-together type of thing. How important is it to you to put a message like that out there for people?
It’s very important, because we always want to remind listeners that even though we all go through experiences personally by ourselves, there is a greater community out there in the metal/hard rock realm. Especially with Tetrarch, we’re like the most mixed bag in terms of personalities and people in this band. We’re from all walks of life, and that’s what we want to bring into metal and hard rock, and to say there’s a place for you, and if you want to come with Tetrarch, we’re that band for you. So it’s very important for us to have a song like that, because that’s how we feel, it’s what we’re pretty strong about, and it’s cool that people are recognizing that from it. It kind of expands on our song “Freak.” Everyone’s a little weird, but that’s cool, come be it with us.
As you were saying earlier, this is your second album, but you’ve been doing this for a while. I was reading that the origins of the band actually go back to when you were in middle school and met Diamond. How did you meet?
Yeah, so we actually met in the seventh grade, I believe. That’s a funny story that I love to tell, that I was kind of leaning back in my chair, relaxing back against the table behind me, the desk behind me, and all of a sudden I feel someone yank this desk out and I almost go falling on my head backwards. I turn around and Diamond, I’m looking at her like, “Who are you? Why did you do that? I don’t even know who you are.” And she says that it was one of those things where she was like, “I don’t know why, I just felt like I needed to meet him and talk to him.” And we quickly found out that she was getting into more rock music and I was already listening to Metallica, things like that. Then she started getting into guitar, and yeah, we just ended up jamming together with a couple friends from school.
We knew quickly that this was something that we loved and we would love to try and do, and we just we treated it pretty serious since we were like 14 years old. We played covers for a little while, but we knew we wanted to write our own music, and we started doing that. We played the school talent shows. We played little local shows on the weekend when our parents were driving us in their vehicles. We did everything, every step of being in a band, and I think that is part of what makes our bond so strong and why we never have quit and never even thought about it, because I always had somebody there with me that’s been through everything that I have, as well. It’s very nice to have that and be able to lean on each other when one is up or when one is down. It’s definitely been a journey. I’m super lucky to have her, and yeah, we definitely go way back.
When did you become aware that she was going to be a trailblazer in metal and hard rock?
We knew pretty quickly that it was different. I think it took until we started to get more out playing some bigger shows and stuff that it really started to hit. When people after shows wanted to run over and talk to her and just be like, “This is really cool what you’re doing. This is so different.” She’ll be the first one to tell you she never set out to be someone different. She’ll say she just wanted to play guitar like her guitar heroes, like Kirk Hammett and Slash and Dimebag Darrell. She just wanted to do that, look cool playing guitar and sound good, be able to shred. All the other stuff was a natural progression, and as we’ve grown you realize wow, this is really different, this is really cool, and it is inspiring so many people.
So it’s been a really natural thing. She never set out for it. She kind of shied away from it for a long time because we didn’t want to be like, “Look at us, we’re different. This is a gimmick.” Because it’s not. She, first and foremost, can outplay anybody and stand up there on stage next to anyone and probably look more badass than them. It’s kind of like icing on the cake that people are really starting to notice it becoming a thing.
You said you made the move to Los Angeles before you made “Freak.” Why did you decide to make that move? It used to be you had to be in Los Angeles or New York, but with technology now, that’s not necessarily the case. So how has it worked out for you out there?
I think we felt kind of stuck or like we were spinning our wheels in Georgia. We were comfortable. We weren’t really progressing the way we wanted to. I think we came out here to L.A. for the NAMM music show or conference, and while we were here, Diamond was like, “Hey, would y’all want to move to L.A.?” We were like, “Hmm, never thought about it. We could do that, something new and fresh.” We weren’t trying to come here to be discovered. We didn’t have the delusion of walking into a bar and playing one night and some record label guy being like, “This is the greatest thing I’ve seen. I want to sign them and make them superstars.” It was none of that. We just wanted to get out of our comfort zone, move to a creative city. That’s the one thing here: It’s very inspiring. There’s so many people doing all kinds of things, from people wanting to act, to play music, to start businesses, to pretty much anything. It’s very active, and people are always trying to do things here. So it’s very motivating. And it’s really easy to find people if you need a music video director or photographer or anything like that. They’re just one Instagram message or text away, and they’re here in like five minutes. So it’s super cool, just a creative vibe. I think we moved at the right time, and it just forced us out of our comfort zone and to be like, “If we’re gonna do this, we’ve gotta do this. We’ve gotta make it happen.”
I saw there were just a couple of shows announced for late July. Can we expect more tour announcements coming for later in the year?
Yeah, absolutely. We’re just waiting for the green light to know that everything’s safe and we can really go the way we want to. But yeah, our year is filling up fast and then especially 2022. So you can definitely expect to see us on the road, and we can’t wait, because as much fun as we have making albums, we consider ourselves a live band first and foremost. We feel like that’s the strongest suit of our band, and we just cannot wait to get out there and feel that energy of a crowd again.
Have you gotten vaccinated?
I’ve had my first one. I get my second one May 3, I think.
I’ve gotten my first one, too. The second one’s coming up in a couple of weeks.
I’ll be happy to have that and a little bit more peace of mind. It’s a little closer to getting back to some normalcy.
I know you’re very focused on the new album right now, but now that you’re with Napalm Records, is there any chance of doing a re-release, a physical re-release, of “Freak,” like on vinyl or anything? I’m sure a lot of people would like to get their hands on that.
You know, I have not thought about doing it on vinyl, but that’s a pretty good idea. We’ve toyed around with that before, but it’s never really conversations we’ve had because we’ve just been so focused on “Unstable.” But we look to tour for a good few years on this album, so who knows, maybe during that touring cycle we might do something cool like that and redo something with “Freak,” introduce it to a new audience that might have missed out on it the first time.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Just thank you. Thank you for having me and listening to me to talk about Tetrarch. We’re just excited to get this album out in two days—it’s so soon, almost like a day and a half now. I can’t believe it. It’s kind of surreal that it’s really here.
Are you going to do anything to celebrate the release?
We’re like we’ve gotta do something, but we’re so boring that I feel like we’re probably just gonna get some pizza and come over to the house and hang out. Nothing crazy. We’re not the craziest band out there.
LINKS:
Buy “Unstable”
www.tetrarchmusic.com
www.facebook.com/tetrarchmusic
www.twitter.com/tetrarch
www.instagram.com/tetrarchmusic
label.napalmrecords.com/tetrarch
