Although it's been a couple of years since the release of Ignite's last album Our Darkest Days, the Orange County returned to the UK at the end of May for a handful of live shows band which seemed a good enough excuse to catch up with bassist Brett Rasmussen to see how things are going, albeit that we ended up chatting in a shop doorway to catch some peace, sheltering from the Peterborough rain.  

Brett Rasmussen

So you're still touring then

Brett Rasmussen: Yeah it's been a long one. 

How would you say that the live shows have gone?

BR:  It’s good, the first part of the tour was a five band package, with three bands that are on this and also Terror and Strung Out.  So that was really cool, those shows were really big, like 900 to 1,500 people each night, so it was great, so a bunch of great shows.  And then after the first two weeks Terror and Strung Out went off and did a couple of dates on their own and then we continued on with this three band package and we’ve been everywhere, we’ve played 22 different countries on this tour.  So it’s been good. 

And how has it gone in the UK?  You’ve done two/three dates? 

BR:  We’ve done three so far, yeah it’s been really good.  I mean this has been one of our smallest markets over on this side of the ocean and it’s cool that it’s finally starting to kind of build it up, so it’s good.  It’s gonna be like 500 kids sold out tomorrow night in London, and all of these shows have been like a lot more kids than on our previous headlining trips, so it’s cool. 

Is touring something you can enjoy? 

BR:  Yeah, it’s work. 

You put a lot of live videos of your shows on your website. 

BR:  We try to put up the odd stuff to keep everyone excited about coming out to see us.  Because, you know, that’s where the band generates it’s income is the live shows, so you’ve got to keep the fans excited about coming out to see you, all the different songs you’re playing. 

You recorded a DVD as well?

BR:  We did in Germany, yeah.

Is it just going to be the show or will there be lots of extras with it? 

BR:  I don’t know.  We’re gonna put as much extras as we can on it, but like the focus is the show, Ignite live in Germany.  So it’s not going to be a retrospective DVD of like everything, which I would like to do at some point but that takes a lot of time, actually gathering all the video from fans and going through our old archives and stuff like that.   

When is that supposed to be out? 

BR:  Hopefully in the Fall. 

Live you are playing some acoustic songs. 

BR:  Now we are yeah. 

Is that something new? 

BR:  Well you know what, we put the acoustic song (Live For Better Days) on the album, and we put it near the end because it is a little out of place sometimes on a hard rock record, to do an acoustic song.  But it’s gone over really well, from the response from the CD and then we started playing this song last year but not with acoustic guitars, and this year we decided ‘hey let’s do it exactly how it’s supposed to sound’.  So we actually play two songs acoustically each night and it’s been going great, my favourite part of the set.

The other song being Slowdown? 

BR:  Yeah. 

Where do these songs appear in the set? 

BR:  Kind of a little bit towards the end. 

It is popular with the crowd? 

BR:  Yeah, it’s been going over great. 

You also did a full acoustic show? 

BR:  We have done a few of those, like random ones, we did one at home before we came over here.  You know I would like to do an unplugged tour, I think it would be cool.  Not like a really big extensive tour, but it would be cool to do something like, you know pick ten cities in Europe after a tour, or as a tour on it’s own and play a full unplugged set.   

Is it difficult turning some of the songs into acoustic versions? 

BR:  No, not really because a lot of the songs that we write start on acoustics, you know when you are sitting in your room and you grab your acoustic guitar and you start writing/working on a riff.  So a lot of the material that we have, even the fast punk rock and hardcore stuff, a lot of it just starts as a riff on an acoustic guitar, so it kind of goes back to where it started. 

You have also aired a new song live? 

BR:  We’ve been kind of messing around with… well we were starting to get into writing before we left and we definitely picked one song that we wanted to play each night.  I think it is important to let the fans know that you’re working on new stuff, and especially for us that there’s not going to be a big gap like there was before.  So I think that was an important part of this tour, was to come out and let people know that we’re working on the new stuff and it’s not going to be forever.

Is there much new material in the pipeline? 

BR:  Yeah, we have a bunch of songs in the works.  Not many of them are 100% completed, not even the one that we are playing, well you never know what the changes are going to be like until it is actually on the CD.  You get in with the producer who might hate it, he might hate like ‘this verse is terrible’ or ‘you guys have got to write a better chorus’.  So far we like that song, that song is the closest to being done. 

Do you have any idea of when you are looking at releasing it? 

BR:  We are going to try and record in the Fall or the Winter and have it out by Spring.  Once we turn everything in with the artwork and the masters then they need four months to prep, the label does, to market it properly and everything, so we need to get it done by this year.   

Your songs cover a lot of politics and you get involved with a lot of charities.  Is this an important thing for the band? 

BR:  We work with a lot of organisations.  A lot of that stuff is stuff that Zoli (Teglas, singer) brought to the table from being in this band, because he was really passionate and involved with that stuff 15 years ago before he was in Ignite.  So that’s just part of who he is and it is cool that he brought that element in, because not only does it give a lot of things to write about but it’s cool to be involved in like really really good organisations, like Sea Shepherd or Earth First!, or Doctors Without Borders.  It’s like you know Zoli actually does a lot of research in figuring out if a group is a really worthy group for us to be involved with, donating our time and money, so it’s cool.   

We’ve had the Sea Shepherds come along on this whole European tour, well a good chunk of it, set up their booth, a guy from Sea Shepherds UK (www.seashepherd.org) gets on stage and talks a little bit each night about they’re doing.  So it’s cool, it connects.  You set up the booth sometimes at the back and a lot of times nobody really pays attention to what it is, but you get the guy up on stage to talk about it and people take notice a lot more.  I think it’s cool being involved with organisations like that. 

Moving onto your music, do you class yourselves as a hardcore band with melody?  

BR:  I guess so.  You can categorise it or title it whatever you want, but I don’t know, we’re just going to write.  We’ve always played with punk/rock and hardcore bands so we’ve always been considered a punk/rock and hardcore band and that’s cool.  But we’ve always just written songs that we like, music that we like, and if it gets categorised as punk/rock or hardcore or rock or acoustic I don’t care. 

Do you all have similar influences, you were on the Sick Of It All tribute album last year, are they one of your big influences?

BR:  Those guys were really cool to us from the beginning when we started this band, they took us out on our first real American tour.  We’ve known those guys and played with them many times over the years.   

The influences in this band I think are pretty diverse, we listen to everything.  I think as you get older you start listening to different styles of music, because I remember when I was 15 and 16 the only band in the world to me was Joy Division, I didn’t want to listen to anything else, and that was the only band I listened to.  And I think that as you get older you just broaden your tastes.

So are you also influenced by current music? 

BR:  Everything, anything and everything.  You know like a lot of the stuff that we were listening to from this last record, I remember when we were writing it Thrice had just put a record out and the Foo Fighters put out that double CD and there were a couple of other bands, we were really listening to a lot of Thrice, Foo Fighters and Rise Against.  You don’t “steal” stuff from other artists but you definitely get influenced.  You know I listen to the Foo Fighters CD or Thrice CD and I think ‘what elements of this CD do I think are really good and how can we take from that kind of concept’.  Why is the CD successful?  Why are these songs good?  So you listen to it and you don’t necessarily write in that exact same style.  You are only as good as your last record as far as your career goes. 

Helps to build on things. 

BR:  Yeah, totally.  So we take a lot of influences from everything that we listen to.  Current music, not just like punk and hardcore stuff, just like straight up rock bands too.   

There appears to be a few Ignite side projects.  Are these just for the music that doesn’t fit in with the Ignite sound? 

BR:  Yeah, you know what some of the stuff that we do on the side is just playing with some people that we like.  Because we’ve basically played with the same guys for 15 years so it’s cool to actually work with other artists and stuff, even if it’s not something that’s full time.  I was doing this band called Last Of The Believers with Chris (Chasse, guitarist) who played in Rise Against, I’ve known him since he was in the band Reach The Sky and it was cool that he wanted to get together and collaborate and do some music.  It’s just kind of fun to get together with different guys because I think you get inspired differently, you see how other people work, how other people write songs.  I think it makes you more whole as a musician, to open more doors and to see what else is out there.  But the main focus of all of us is Ignite and the other stuff has typically been pretty much on the side.

And with that Brett takes his leave to finish preparations for thes show. One thing's for certain though if the new album , due next year, is anywhere near as good as Our Darkest Days then there will be at least one great release to look forward to in 2009.

Darren Brushneen