Beartooth gets ‘Aggressive’

Hardcore punk band Beartooth have released their highly anticipated sophomore studio album Aggressive. Former Attack Attack! vocalist and founding member Caleb Shomo caught up with Metal On Loud for an in-depth look into the new album.

Your brand new studio album Aggressive was just released. How are you feeling about the record from the initial feedback?

I feel great about it. I’m really excited. We were seeing our pre-order numbers and they were really cool. I think a lot of people are excited about it. I’m a little bit anxy to see what happens these first weeks and to see how people take it. 

I know you have experience in the music scene through your years with Attack Attack!, but it really feels like you guys were shot out of a cannon beginning in 2014. You guys were everywhere! Does it feel that way to you at all? That Beartooth has achieved a great amount of success in a relatively short amount of time?

Yeah, this whole ride has been very crazy. It happened really fast. We’re stoked and we’re just going to go along for the ride and see what happens.

I know when you were with Attack Attack! you were kind of working on some stuff on the side, which ended up really being the basis of what turned into Beartooth. How did it all come to life?

I had been writing these songs for fun and to keep my head on straight when I was at the end of Attack Attack! When it started it just kind of happened like a snowball. I had some friends that I’ve known from being in the music business saying ‘hey you should do something with this, we think it has potential and if you want to do it we’ll help you out.’ So the manager comes on, the booking agent comes on and then the labels started coming through and next thing you know a year later we have a record out and we’re touring the world. It happened very quick, but we’re very excited about it.

It certainly is a bit of a different sound from your work in Attack Attack! Not strictly metalcore, but a mix of several influences I think. A bit of punk and angst stuff. Did it feel different for you than the past work you’ve done? It must comes from your influences. 

For me it’s something that’s way more personal, and it’s music that I really love. That’s the biggest thing. In Attack Attack! when you start something when you’re 14, and I wasn’t an original member of the band. I came on afer the band had already been going. It was fun, but towards the end I just wanted to do something else musically. Now we Beartooth I’m just having a blast, and it’s nice to be making music that I personally love and I’m having a great time touring on it.

I understand you got the chance to tour with Slipknot last year. That must have been an amazing experience. 

Yeah that was unbelievable. I mean the fact that we got to tour with Slipknot in general doesn’t seem real. They were just the coolest dudes, very accommodating. That was our first arena tour that we’ve ever done, so that was pretty wild. It was the best experience, one of the best I’ve ever had in my life. We’d love to do it again any time. 

You guys are going to be touring pretty extensively in support of this new album. Is there anything else you guys would like to take on or accomplish moving forward?

We just want to tour more around the world and hit more places that we’ve never been before. Other than that we just want to play as many shows as we can and get the record out there.