Let’s start the interview by introducing yourselves. What’s your name, how old are you, what do you do in the band? When did Saving Grace form, how did you come up with the name and have there been any member changes since the beginning?

xpigx
My name is Vasely (pronounced Vah-see-lee), but you can call me xpigx (the x’s are silent). I turned 22 this year but I’m so fat and tired it feels like I’ve turned 30. I play guitar and write music.

xnickx
I’m Nick, I’m 24, I sing, I write lyrics and give lectures.

xpigx
The idea for Saving Grace came about over a phone call between me and Nick (vocals) back in the end of 2004 when he had briefly moved to the big smoke (Auckland) to be in a relationship which was soon to be over.
We talked about starting a hardcore band with a brutal metal edge and having lyrics about God (which at that stage was something completely new to us). At the time I was doing vocals for a skinhead hardcore band called ’Total F**king Defiance’ and Nick was in ’Mind Bloodshot’. Both of these bands were Gisborne’s first Hardcore bands and the scene basically started out from us playing house-shows and parties.
We had our first jam in Mark’s (original drummer) shed and wrote what were to be the first two tracks of our demo. We played our first show as a three piece with no bassist and we played two and a half tracks under the name of ’xMarky and the Boysx’ which was a joke name until we came up with Saving Grace. I think Nick actually just called me one day with a bunch of names he had in mind. Most of them didn’t really suit, but Saving Grace just made sense. It was a pretty bold name and represented our faith in Christ. We liked how straight up it was and we were also pretty pumped on the fact that it sounds really emo/rock (like a mix of Saves The Day and Three Days Grace) but we play such ugly sounding metalcore, it’s pretty funny.
Bruce Reid from ’Mind Bloodshot’ joined shortly after on bass and we started doing shows across the country and put out a five-track demo which, despite its horrible quality, managed to get into stores all over New Zealand thanks to Global Routes Music, a large New Zealand distributor.

Bruce and Mark played in Saving Grace with us until mid 2006 when they both moved to Wellington to play in a terrible pub covers band called ’3play’ with Matt Jennings (who recorded our demo). They’re still in that band and they get paid like $600 a night for a four-hour set of all the radio’s worst hits from the 80’s until now.
Big Ben joined on drums in 2006 when he moved back home to Gisborne from Auckland. He experienced a pretty radical salvation after years of being in gangs and doing hard drugs... it was pretty awesome. We started writing new music and got this dude Savage to play bass for us, he couldn’t really keep up so he only played with us for one show. Then along came Little Ben who started out with us on the Darkest Hour tour and played with us for over a year. He was an awesome dude to play and tour with and we all miss him, but he moved to Hamilton to pursue photography and be with his lady (check him out at myspace.com/someherophotography, he does photos for New Zealand and international hardcore bands and he’s real good).
That brings us to the line up we have now. Myself, Nick, Big Ben and George (the new kid) who is an amazing bassist and a real fun dude to have in the band, he is also the youngest having just turned 18.
It’s crazy to think that we’re on our fourth bassist already... but this line up is extremely solid.

 

You come from New Zealand, a country that is known for its beautiful landscape. Was the first time you got to see your country’s beauty in a comprehensive way when you watched the Lord Of The Rings trilogy or did you have a chance to get to see it in such a way already before? What would you say is typical for native New Zealand people? What would be the top three things people should know, experience or taste about New Zealand, even if they might never get the chance to visit the country?

xpigx
Dude... as crazy as this may be, I haven’t even seen Lord Of The Rings... I get so much crap for it, too. My wife swears she’s going to make me watch it some time this year, because apparently I’d love it, but I’m not too sure. Plus she is originally from Wellington where it was filmed.
The country is definitely beautiful... I have been here 16 years now (originally born and raised in Minsk, Belarus – former USSR) and I absolutely love it here.
The majority of the people here are really laid back and friendly, although like any country there is a darker side to it also (see the film Once Were Warriors). There are many families who are caught up in cycles of abuse, drugs and poverty, especially in some of the suburbs of Auckland and in Gisborne, our home town. But honestly, the country is great and we are very lucky to have what we have, we are very priviliged with the amount of freedom that most of us here do have. Apparently there are more sheep than people here... but I think that’s mostly down in the South Island.

xnickx
The top three things that people should know about New Zealand would have to be Once Were Warriors, the fact this is NOT a Third World Country and the fact that it is Definitely worth coming here for a holiday to admire and experience its culture and beauty.

 

What does the hardcore and metal scene in New Zealand look like and how did you personally grow up and get in contact with hard music? How is touring like in your area?

xnickx
I got into hard music through my cousin Josh when I was 13, listening to bands like Sepultura, Pantera, Fear Factory and Rage Against The Machine. My musical tastes naturally progressed from reading other bands’ thank you lists and checking them out. As far as Hardcore is concerned, I discovered bands like Earth Crisis and Madball on a skate video called ’Tweekage 2’ and when I was 17 I joined my first band and that’s how I met Vasely, the rest is history.

xpigx
I grew up listening to bands like Slayer and Cannibal Corpse when I was a kid. I got into hardcore as a teenager. Bands like Biohazard, Pro Pain, Madball and Agnostic Front really appealed to me and I’ve been playing in heavy bands for almost ten years now.
The metal and hardcore scenes in New Zealand are almost entirely separate and only sometimes there will be crossover shows with both metal and hardcore bands combined (’Battles In The North’, an annual metal and hardcore fest, is one of them). It wasn’t always like this and things have really changed a lot in the past few years as new trends and lots of kids have come and gone.
I haven’t been to a metal show for a long time now, but hardcore shows and the scenes of different cities have changed drastically in the last year even. The kids who were repping the edge and listening to mosh bands a few months ago are all sold out and listening to stuff like ’Pissed Jeans’ and ’Municipal Waste’. And the turnouts for hardcore shows with actual local ’hardcore’ bands playing have drastically dropped unless there is a thrashy punk hardcore band playing. I’m not really down with it and I don’t have a lot of love for sellouts, especially those that talk crap on the stuff that they were into last year. It’s really stupid in my eyes and makes their convictions seem non-existent. Most of the kids that are hating on mosh bands and sraightedge and are getting rad drinking whiskey outside of the venues, were the kids who hadn’t even heard of hardcore until a couple of years back when they first heard of Parkway Drive ya know? Touring New Zealand is still fun, though, and we have a lot of friends in every city we play, some shows are quite small, some are big, but most of them have a really good vibe and we all love driving up and down New Zealand.

 

Do you surf? If yes, did you ever get a chance to compete with the Aussie guys in Parkway Drive, with whom you’ve played a couple times before? If not, what kind of sports do you excel in? Axe-grinding, throat-abuse, head-walking, moshing and group-hugging shall be ignored in this case. If you don’t do sports other than Saving Grace please list your top three movies along with your favorite quote out of them or the simple reason why you like them best.

 

xpigx
Haha speaking of Parkway Drive, we toured with them in 2005 on their first ever shows outside of Australia and now they are actually one of the world’s biggest metal/hardcore bands.. it’s crazy.
Those dudes have a pretty sweet life and we definitely couldn’t step to them in the surf (or on the bowling lanes for that matter). However, we would clean them up (again) in the sport of playing Street Fighter which is the one sport aside from eating curry that we do excel in. Favorite movies would have to be Next Friday and Friday After Next... don’t get us started on quotes.

 

On your MySpace page you have a graphic with album covers listed under ’influences’. Could you list the artists and album names for those that don’t recognize all of the covers? (from left to right, top to bottom please)

xpigx
Promise of Bloodshed – Hatred Inherit, Earth Crisis – Breed The Killers, Slayer – Seasons In The Abyss, Zao – The Funeral of God, Point of Recognition – Day of Defeat, Martyr AD – On Earth As It Is in Hell, Lamb of God – As The Palaces Burn, Dead To Fall – The Phoenix Throne, Sepultura – Schizophrenia, Cannibal Corpse – Gallery of Suicide, One Must Fall – For Such a Time as This, Bury Your Dead – You Had Me At Hello, Seventh Star – Brood of Vipers, Arkangel – Dead Man Walking.

They are our combined influences from old-school to new-school metal and hardcore. Their influence has shaped our sound today in some way or another... definitely some more than others, but in a round about way those are the main ones.

 

You’re said to be the most confrontational spirit-filled hardcore band from New Zealand. What does the title of your upcoming album "Behind Enemy Lines" mean to you from a philosophical and spiritual point of view? What topics do you write about in the album’s lyrics. Please tell whatever you can or want to share in advance to the album’s release.

xnickx
The title ’Behind Enemy Lines’ deals with the fact that we are essentially in the enemy’s territory. The hardcore and metal scenes in general are, lets just say, a little less than accommodating to our spiritual beliefs and values. So the whole idea behind it is that we are going into the deepest darkest reaches of the world, as far as the spiritual realm is concerned anyways, and we are trying to take a light in there with us. That light being Jesus Christ.
Lyrically.... well, I tend to write about my life and some quite personal issues, nothing I have any hesitance discussing mind you, just things that have closely and deeply effected me, in fact the first song we ever wrote with Saving Grace was about my hesitance and absolute fear of committing my life to Jesus. But ’Behind Enemy Lines’ is a different kettle of fish. The first track ’For So Long...’ is about the amount of people whom I have seen take the gift of salvation, embrace the Lord as their savior, then when they feel things are going well they say ’Thanks God, I can take it from here’ and then walk away from Him. There is also ’The Most Beautiful Promise’ which was divinely inspired, I honestly feel as if the Holy Spirit was writing through me when that song was penned out. That song is about the word that Christ spoke to me in the moment I gave my heart to Him. Every time we play that song I feel His presence. It’s like.... no matter how hard I scream... I just want to scream louder. There is a spoken word bit in the middle of that song that nine times out of ten I can’t merely speak it.... I just have to scream as hard as I can.
One song (’In Your Own Hands’) is about suicide and basically my views on the whole thing. I have struggled with suicide many times in my past, so I felt lead to write this song. Also written in the wake of two local kids’ deaths in my home town of Gisborne. There is a song called ’Just a Second’ which is about sexual addiction. Another about the woes of heartbreak. Another about being yourself. And one straight worship song. I would love to go into graphic detail about all of my lyrics but don’t want to take up the whole zine! Haha. But if anyone has questions about my lyrics, please feel free to email me. (forever-content at hotmail dot com)

 

How would you respond to someone who’s arguing that Christians should not be in hardcore and metal? Have you ever had an experience of dispute regarding that matter that resulted in a real positive outcome in the end or even better was the beginning of a lasting friendship?

xnickx
Haha! Yeah, there have been a few occasions where people have made it clear that Christians aren’t welcome in hardcore. I remember one guy said online “NO JC IN HC”. I had to laugh. But my response is generally something along the lines of ’Oh I see, according to who?”

I guess I kinda went into all that a little in the last question... I’ll happily elaborate though.

We have had quite a bit of negative attention, I guess largely because I try not to water down my message, I have no problem with saying it like it is.... I guess because that’s the Great Commission right? The way I see it, when you’re in a hard scene... you have got to bring it hard. That’s just the way it is, and I really don’t think that I should shut my mouth or hold my tongue just because what I have to say might piss a few people off. Why shouldn’t I have the same freedom that atheist, apathetic or agnostic singers do? Why is it such a bad thing that I want to talk about what I found freedom in? All of the negative things that have ever been said have been either on message boards or behind our backs... but the thing that I haven’t had... is people confronting me face to face about not being welcome in hardcore. Most of that has seemed to fade away over the past year however, though I do get people asking me why I’m a Christian or why I believe in a God that I can’t see or hear or feel. Actually, I had a chance to pray for a kid at one show in my home town, he asked me that very question, ’why do you believe....’ and I pretty much gave him my whole testimony. Then I asked him if he wanted us to pray for him, he said yes and so we did, then Vasely felt the Spirit telling him to invite Him to lay hands on the kid... so he did... and He did. Said kid was standing and very drunk one second and the next he was flat on his back... the next he was upright and completely sober talking about a warm fuzzy feeling in his heart. Praise God. Hahaha! Oh and me and him are still friends... so in short. Yes. I have made some friends through such conversations.

xpigx
We have seen God do some amazing stuff through our band and we have been blessed with many amazing opportunities to witness and talk to kids about Christ.
Just recently after we played a show with Bleeding Through we spent a lot of time with some young girls sharing about our faith and why we do what we do... one of them was only 13 and told us about some very concerning stuff that she was involved in and it was a real privilege to be able to give her our perspective on a few issues and tell her about God’s love for her, when she said she felt that she was ugly and worthless. There are also times when we get to share with Christians who have no idea about our kind of minstry. One time we played a festival and a young girl was so excited that there were bands of our ilk that were bringing a Christian message... she ran to catch us after we were getting off stage and told us how psyched she was. It’s amazing how many people have no idea about Christian metal and hardcore. We do our best to create lasting friendships with people that we meet... it’s one of the biggest blessings that come with being in a band.

Your Myspace page shows that you’re straight-edge. What does being straight-edge mean to you personally? How does it mix with your faith in Jesus Christ? Given that there’s still very much hopelessness going on in this world, what do you think how much should people that follow Christ and are straight-edge really focus on things like veganism and animal rights?

xpigx
Well both Nick and I are straight-edge. I am also vegan and he is vegetarian. All of these things to us are very important and they are a part of who we are and how we live. The most important thing is making sure that we don’t put these things above our faith and our love for the Lord. We all struggle with pridefulness, arrogance and anger, but we are all human and have God to be accountable to. I believe that God honors the fact that we are straight-edge and that we have made a firm decision and a lifetime commitment. We have seen so many Christian kids sell out on straight-edge and claim that they felt it was getting in the way of their faith etc. I don’t really want to comment on that too much, but let’s just say most of these kids also claim that after ’dropping the label’ they are going to remain poison free etc., but in no time at all they are falling back into drugs, alcohol and are eventually further away from God than they were before... not all of them, but most of them.
I think that it is totally possible and also honorable to remain straight-edge, vegan/vegetarian and follow Jesus, because the scriptures tell us to honor our world and our promises... finding a good balance can be hard, but it’s our responsibility. I don’t view straight-edge to be a part of my Christian faith although there are similar morals between the two. I am straight-edge because at a point in my life, where I had reached rock bottom with drugs and alcohol abuse, that was the only option for me. At a later time I fully committed my life to God and became involved in ministry etc., but that isn’t an excuse for me to be a sellout and claim that I did it for God. I have a lot of respect for straight-edge kids who are Christians and know what’s up, not the Christian kids who feel like they need to claim something like ’Drug Free For Christ’ now that they’ve sold out and want another label. Veganism and Animal Rights are also important and are a positive thing, although they are not for everyone. The vital thing for me, is the fact that dominion doesn’t mean domination and God has blessed us with a beautiful world and beautiful creatures to look after. It’s important to realize that it is all a waste of time unless it will benefit mankind in the long run. After all people are more important than animals and veganism and the way we view and treat other creatures also reflects on how we treat other people and will also reflect on the state of the environment and the world we leave behind for our kids and their kids.
There are plenty of other positive things for people to get involved in whether they be edge, vegan or not. The hopelessness of the world will only last as long as our collective apathy and we are all responsible in one way or another for the change or lack of change in the world. Ghandi said ’Be the change you want to see in the world’ and I believe those words to be very powerful... He was a man who admired Christ, but could not stand the hypocrisy and rejection that he experienced from other Christians, which is another thing that we are all going to give an account for at the end of our days.

 

Where, through which label(s) and when will your new album "Behind The Enemy Lines" be released? Who contributed and worked on the album in terms of production, mixing and artwork? How do you personally look at the music scene, the problem with declining album sales and the overall change of mindset of the consumers? What would you like to see change for the future?

xpigx
In New Zealand the album comes out on Deadboy Records through Universal Music. In Australia on Acceptable Risk Records and in the USA on Harvest Earth Records. If things go well we would love to secure a deal for Europe also.
We had the opportunity to work with some amazing people on the record. Firstly Zorran Mendonsa who is undoubtedly New Zealand’s metal guru. This guy is just amazing and we can’t thank him enough for all the work that he has put in. He handled the duties of engineer and producer. We learned SO much recording this album and Zorran was an amazing teacher... there is no one else we would rather do another album with. Hands down.
The artwork for ’Behind Enemy Lines’ was done by Dave Quiggle... who has done record covers for everyone from xDisciplex AD and No Innocent Victim to Bury Your Dead and Atreyu. I’m sure that everyone is familiar with his work both musically and visually. We are all huge fans of Dave’s art and the bands he has played in over the years and it was always a goal and dream of ours to have him do an album cover for Saving Grace. We got in touch with him over a year ago about doing the art for a full-length and he was down for it... We are all totally stoked on how it turned out, he is just an awesome artist and we plan to work together a lot more in the future on stuff like T-Shirt designs and possibly more cover art for future releases.
The album was mastered in California by ’Vile’ guitarist Colin Davis, who has worked with a lot of brutal metal bands like Deeds of Flesh, Disgorge, Skinlab and Origin. We were interested in working with Colin, because our sound has a very brutal, metal edge to it and we knew we could rely on him for a huge, clear final sound... and he definitely delivered the goods.
As for the change of consumer mindset... well it’s always changing. As trends and music related fashion evolves, sales and support for artists who remain firm in what they do will drop. It’s just what happens. The internet and the availability of music digitally has its pros and cons, however I’m not too concerned about any of that crap to be honest... As long as the underground remains underground and the smaller labels are still being supported, then everything is fine by me. If a hundred kids who weren’t going to pay for our album anyway happen to download it and hear the message of Christ then praise God! I think there is solid support in the metal and hardcore community for the bands and the household labels... the only change I really would love to see would be a growth in the sense of pride, community values and DIY ethics of underground music from younger kids that get into hardcore. More people need to make zines and do distros! Christian labels like Harvest Earth are a pretty good example of how people with a strong work ethic and the right networking can stay on their feet and continue releasing quality heavy music with a heavy message despite all of the worrying corporate trends and the ever decreasing popularity of Christianity in the world’s eye.

If you want to say something that we haven’t covered yet, anything that you would want to let people know, please feel free to add it now!

xpigx
We have been extremely blessed to be in a position where our album will be available all across the world, and the support we have received thus far has been nothing short of incredible. It’s crazy to think how far we have come as a band since the beginning... all glory to God. Thank you to everyone who continues to pray for us and gives us encouragement. Please pre-order ’Behind Enemy Lines’ from Harvest Earth Records or pick up a copy when it hits the stores... send us an email, leave us a comment or just simply tell a friend to check us out. We hope to meet you all on tour soon... God Willing.

Thank you guys for the interview and thanks for standing up for Christ. We wish you all the best for the release of "Behind Enemy Lines" and your future touring. May the Spirit of God continue to pervade Saving Grace and your personal lives strongly!

xpigx and xnickx
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us and helping us spread the word.
Blessings in Christ from Gisborne, New Zealand!

 

Post your interview comments on the BandsOnFire MySpace!

Also check out an exclusive new track from the band in our artist feature
and listen to the whole album at this location reading along with the lyrics!

 

from left to right:

George White - bass, Nicholas ’xNickx’ Tautuhi - vocals, Vasely ’xPigx’ Sapunov - guitars, Ben Davidson – drums

 

Saving Grace - [Website] [MySpace]

 

Harvest Earth Records - [Website] [MySpace] [Purevolume]

Deadboy Records - [MySpace] – Acceptable Risk Records - [MySpace]

 

 

Interview by Tobias Tobe Reiss