Without Mercy guitarist DJ Temple is a cheerful man for someone in a death metal band.
“ I get to play guitar for a living, so why am I bitching,” chuckled Temple from Calgary, where the veteran Vancouver based death metal band is about to start a huge 19 show in 27 day tour all the way out to Quebec and back, which stops by Attainable Records, Wednesday, June 8 where they will be playing with Evansville, Indiana death metal band Aegeon, Montreal’s Depths of Hatred, Port Coquitlam ’s God Said Kill and local metal band the Avulsion.
They are touring in support of their EP Mouchido (One More Time) which they re-recorded and re-released with new lead singer Alex Friis who joins Temple, bassist Ryan Loewen and drummer Matt Helie.
“ We wanted to release a new album this year. We had to re record the CD to avoid legal problems. And we wanted to feature our singer. He adds a whole new dynamic to the band,” he said.
“ We’re naming our tour the One More Time Tour,” he said adding while they have almost written a whole new CD with Friis, they haven’t recorded it yet.
“ Every time we want to record we keep getting offered a new tour. We were going to record in October, but we ’re touring the U.S then,” he said.
“ I love any tour. I love touring the U.S. and I love touring Canada,” he said adding they are writing new music in between tour dates.
Friis is fitting in perfectly.
“ We knew him from the scene and when our singer left we called him up and we asked him to join and Bob’s your uncle,” he said.
“ He adds a whole new dynamic with vocal range and has more of an extreme metal background. And he adds the Native and First Nations dynamic because he is a First Nations so that allows us a lot of material we can draw from lyrically,” he said.
He noted the EP draws a lot from Japanese culture.
“That’s my background because I’ve been doing martial arts for many years. We usually explore the day to day things that are happening to us — things that are real,” he said.
“We have a couple of new songs that are about urban legends or folklore of the Ojibway people,” he continued.
Without Mercy also have a two songs featured on the new Rock Band game.
Without Mercy was just in Lethbridge in April 18 with Kalmah/ Vesperia/ Reverend Kill ,Without Mercy and the Avulsion.
“We play Lethbridge a lot. Those kids there are nuts and that’s great. Last time we played with some bigger bands, but we had a lot of ticket holders who told us there were there to see us,” he said.
They have been playing live for 10 years and were playing for another four years before that.
“There’s nothing like being on stage. That 45 minutes, there’s nothing like it,” he said adding they will be playing the new Ep plus a new song and a new cover.
“I don’t want to tell you what it is, because I want to surprise you,” he said.
“We also have a cool lighting box, new merch and the new CD,” he said.
“And stay away from our lead singer, he’s terrifying,” he laughed.
He is pleasantly surprised with the success of the CD.
“We had high hopes for it, so we were pleasantly surprised by it,” he said.
They are releasing videos for the new songs as well.
“ We just put up one in April and it already has 12,000 hits,” he said.
Temple comes from a classical music background, but was drawn to death metal.
“When I first heard it, it just screamed to me. There is a lot of talent in the scene,” he said adding he wanted to play music that allowed him to incorporate his classical music chops.
“I had a teacher who told me something that I turned into a meme — ‘classical music is just death metal without electricity.’ Just listen to some Chopin, dude,” he said.
“ I’m all about the metal. I just play classical music for myself,” he said.
They have also been featured on metal music/ gear website “Gear Gods.”
“ That was great. We’re sitting at the big boys table now,” he enthused.
He also does guitar clinics while he is on tour.
“ I’m doing one here in Calgary. I was going to do one in Lethbridge, but I don’t think it will happen. I’m going to try to book more when we’re out east.
“ I’ve owned my own music school for 14 years, so when the promoter here asked if I wanted to do a clinic. I said yes. I like to hear myself talk,” he laughed.
“ I’m pretty stupid about the music business. I had to figure it out, so I’ll talk about my discoveries,” he said.
The all ages death metal show, is at Attainable Records, June 8 featuring Evansville, Illinois metal band Aegeon , Montreal death metal band Depths of Hatred, Vancouver death metal band Without Mercy, Port Coquitlam death metal band God Said Kill and local metal band the Avulsion. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., with the music beginning at 6 p.m. Tickets are $20.
