Interview with Rob Moshetti and Tim McMurtrie of Full Scale Riot

In speaking to you at first, you were pointing to the traditional hardcore aspects of the band, but there is a lot more texturing and layering to it. Do you think that’s going to go over better than just straight hardcore?

TM: I think people who respect hardcore music and know what our backgrounds are, are going get their spots where they are going to want to rip their heads off and slam to this stuff. Also they are going to hear the well-seasoned musicians that we have become and respect what we can do. When you are listening to Full Scale Riot, even when we are singing and there is hardcore, it’s the words that are hardcore. It’s got a message. It’s about the politics in the world and the times that we are living in.

RM: We are not trying to appeal to any certain market. We are trying to please ourselves at this stage in the game.

TM: It’s not trying to be anything, either you like it or not, but I think for the hardcore fans they are going to see that we are hitting left and right with heavy-ass riffs, and then, we are bringing it to them with crazy screams. He does screams on this thing that make my throat hurt. Then he sings and there’s melody in it, and it makes me want to relax rather than to always just be on the edge of everything.

RM: It’s more dynamic. It has its peaks and valleys.

TM: I always wanted to do this but I never found a right singer. The bottom line is that anyone in any band is under the microscope, especially the singer, so if you don’t bring it right there and then—the microphone ain’t never going to lie when you’re in the studio—and if you don’t crush it then you’re done. I can scream my head off and make razor blades crawl out of my mouth, but I can’t sing to save my life.

RM: We have a good chemistry. So far he has written 98 percent of the material, music and lyrics. He kind of talks through the lyrics on a ruff demo or a rehearsal tape, and still gives me the freedom to do what I do and still actually be an artist rather then just a hired gun. He tells me, ‘This is my idea,’ and then I just take it home with me.

TM: He’ll help me finish the body of a song. He’ll put the bass to it, Rob has played bass in M.O.D, he played guitar, did programming, he has done everything, and I have done a little bit of bass, too. We make it all happen, and Rob Youells is a great drummer. Sometimes ideas will change in the studio and it’s nice to have everybody make it all happen.

RM: He’ll talk his way through the song like the slight melodies up and down. I’ll take it for a week and sit on it, screw around with it here and there, and as long as it doesn’t corrupt his original vision—I respect that because I have my own material that I don’t want corrupted or changed.

TM: This is going to be our first album, we are going to finish up by the end of September and so we want to make it the strongest record that we can.

You mentioned ‘Holy Soldiers,’ that’s a great song, it starts off Black Sabbath-y.

RM: Well, lyrically I didn’t know where Timmy was taking it, so when I started singing, the mellow part in the beginning, the music was emotional to me. It hit me. For me it’s more the feeling of emotion than the actual lyrics. I can write lyrics in five seconds that are meaningful and stuff, but I am more about the emotions. So when I heard the mellow part, I said, ‘I have an idea for harmony stuff, I don’t know if you are looking for harmony? But I think I can really bring something different.’

TM: It’s about politicians living in their lavish hot tub life, while all these people go to war. They just sit there like filthy pigs, like they don’t care and don’t really know what’s going on with the world and how bad it is. They don’t care! It’s exposing the times for what they are.

RM: It’s a modern day ‘War Pigs’ if you want to bring up Sabbath.

TM: It’s like a ‘War Pigs,’ but then it’s saying, ‘I holy solider.’ Meaning like, I’ll stand to fight. I’m going to stand in the end, because you know how even in the Bible the world is going to be taken over and there is going to be a man that comes and he is the Anti-Christ.

RM: Armageddon.

TM: It gives a little vibe of that.