SoCalMusicToday.com’s Chris Loomis recently caught up with vocalist Marcos Leal from the emerging thrash titans from South Texas Shattered Sun. Leal discusses the bands influences, their new album Hope Within Hatred as well as what it’s like to have Testament’s Chuck Billy as their manager. Shattered Sun is also hitting the road with Exodus and Testament starting in early April as part of the Dark Roots of Thrash II Tour. Everything Shattered Sun can be found at https://www.facebook.com/ShatteredSunBand and http://www.breakingbandsllc.com/shattered-sun.html.
Hello Marcos – Thanks for taking the time to speak with SoCalMusicToday.com today. For those people who are not familiar with Shattered Sun can you recap who Shattered Sun is?
We’re a band from South Texas, a bunch of small town guys that stumbled onto this amazing musical path we have been given trying to make a name for ourselves. Somehow all the stars lined up with these opportunities and we are just real excited.
How would you describe the musical style of Shattered Sun?
A big melting pot of all types of music. We have so much influence from bands like Metallica, Testament, Pantera, Queensryche and we also grew up during the new metal movement with bands like Slipknot, Korn and Killswitch Engage. Being from a small town all we ever wanted to do was be like our idols so we just took all the musical styles we were into and threw them into one bucket.
One big thing about us and I think it’s something that is kind of forgotten nowadays . . . is back in the day with like Metallica, Megadeth and Queensryche – they just wrote really great songs – both musically and lyrically. Songs that had the element to stand the test of time and that is real important to us – we just want to write really great songs. A lot of influences from a lot of different bands, once the new album comes out people will definitely hear those influences.
People are always intrigued by how a band came up with its name. Who and how did the name Shattered Sun come about?
Our founding member and guitar player Daniel, he was a really big Unearth fan as we all were at the time (and still are). We were throwing around names and he stumbled onto the Unearth song “Shattered by the Sun” and Shattered Sun came out of that and it has stuck since then. A pretty simple story . . . I know people expect the big elaborate story but it really is as simple as that.
Shattered Sun’s debut full length album Hope Within Hatred will be released on April 21 on Victory Records. What can fans expect on the album from start to finish?
A very diverse album, like I said earlier it’s a big melting pot of all our influences. There’s some real brutal heavy stuff on there and we also have a ballad. We even did a cover of Testament’s “Return to Serenity” so it’s a real well rounded album. When we were writing it that is exactly what we wanted, something that shows what we are all about. We are a heavy band but we can also do a ballad, we thrash it out, we can riff it out and we also have some monster choruses. We pretty much accomplished everything we wanted.
We feel we wrote an album with no fillers and no time killers. Not only did we want every song to be a potential single but every song from start to finish a great memorable song.
What is the meaning behind the album title Hope Within Hatred?
One of my things growing up – I always had a big thing with the stereo type – especially down here (South Texas) – that if you are screaming you must be summoning Satan. It’s a stereotype I was always kind of pissed off about. So with this album I wanted to write a positive message, I wanted to empower fans. So the title Hope Within Hatred is all about having hope in humanity, having hope in the people. Obviously it’s very hard to avoid the negative in this world nowadays but it’s also very easy for people to forget the positive things and all the hope. Every single song is kind of a message tied into that message of hope. It’s something I wanted to do when we started writing; I wanted to do something a little different. I wanted to send a message instead of egging on all the negativity out there and around us 24/7.
The album cover is kind of like a vision of an apocalyptic Times Square. What was the meaning and inspiration for the album cover?
The great thing is Victory Records didn’t tie our hands on the cover, I had that idea since the album first started taking shape – I had that vision in my head. When I told them about it they said sounds great – let’s pick an artist and let’s run with it.
So that image came straight outta my head to the artist to what it is now. It’s one guy standing alone or you don’t know if there are 500,000 people behind him – you can interpret it as he is alone or with others. It’s a very versatile album cover and it’s awesome to see that vision come to life.You guys have incorporated keyboards into your music. How do you believe that enhances your sound?
Again it goes back to our influences, it was around 2011 and all the bands had these big bass booms and we wanted to do it too so we brought in our drummers brother with the idea that he would stand at the soundboard and knowing the songs just hit those big booms and it went to hey we can do samples too. The way we look at it is that it’s kind of the cherry on top of the music.
We didn’t purposely intend to have a keyboard player it just kind of happened. It’s just funny that it ended up being our drummer’s brother. I think it’s taken our music to the next level and singled us out a bit taking us away from the more normal style of metal band.
Shattered Sun is managed by Breaking Bands LLC which is owned by Adrenaline PR CEO Maria Ferrero, Megaforce Records founder Jon Zazula and Testament’s Chuck Billy. How did you guys meet up with such a legendary group of industry professionals?
It was kind of fate. To sum it up we got involved with Maria through one of the worst experiences a local band could go through. We got screwed over a lot of money for a national tour and through that we formed a great friendship for the headlining band of that tour which was Spineshank. Myself and their guitar player Mike became good friends and he kind of informed me there was some financial information that didn’t add up and some numbers were off and at the time we were so angry but he told us there was nothing we could do and the lesson learned was to not pay people in cash.
So when we finished the rough cuts for the album I sent them over to Mike and he said “Hey I know this girl Maria who owns Adrenaline PR – maybe we can get you guys a PR deal”. So Mike sent over the tracks to Maria. Now we did not know at the time she was involved with the creation of Breaking Bands. Once Maria heard the songs she called us up and said I love these songs and on the spot said fuck the PR deal do you guys want a manager? And we were like yeah that would be great and she said she was going to get her business partners on the phone so later in the day we were on the phone with none-other than Chuck Billy and Jon Zazula and they immediately wanted to fly down to Texas. The following week they flew down, we met with them then immediately signed with them.
Honestly it didn’t really hit us until a couple months later when we were sitting with Chuck and realized they had signed us and Exodus first before they went public with Breaking Bands which when they did resulted in over 100,000 submissions from bands. So kind of realizing we beat everybody to the punch was surreal. So the stars aligned and it took something really fucked up to get us on this path. In hindsight, I wouldn’t do any of this differently, as then this wouldn’t have happened. Just a crazy, crazy story.
Shattered Sun is going out on tour with Testament and Exodus starting in April. How does it feel knowing you will share the same stage with two of thrash-metal’s biggest bands and what does Shattered Sun hope to accomplish on this tour?
It’s just a huge opportunity for us. We truly had to fight for this and earn it. It wasn’t just given to us because Chuck is our manager. We are just real excited to be out with these veterans – they have been doing this for 25+ years and who better for a young band to learn from than these guys. We are ready to get up there and make a name for ourselves and rock out.
On the topic of Chuck Billy, what is the best advice he has given you in regards to the music business?
To always keep writing. Since the first day we met Chuck he has taken on that mentor role to the fullest. He is always there for vocal advice, anything we need he is always there. He has stressed to us that just because this album is done and ready to come out – don’t stop writing. Always keep writing to get a leg up on the next album.
This is our first time going out on the road for this long so I was a little worried about my voice, so Chuck gave me some awesome warm-up ideas, a voice routine. He is just the man, I mean how do you not take his advice as he has been doing this for so long. It’s just great having him there for us and who better to go out on your first big tour with than your manage and mentor.
How many songs from the new album can we expect to hear live?
We have a six song set on this tour and all six will be from the Hope Within Hatred album.
What else is on the horizon in 2015 for Shattered Sun?
We are going to do this tour then head back to Texas and do a few CD release shows then the River City Rock Fest in San Antonio which will have us opening for Linkin Park, Halestorm and Volbeat. We just locked up some big tours after that for the rest of the year but I can’t announce them yet. So yeah we will pretty much be on the road into 2016.
Marcos, thank you again for taking the time to speak with SoCalMusicToday.com and best of luck to Shattered Sun with the new album and upcoming tour. I look forward to seeing you in LA.
Thank You – I also appreciate your time as well. Have a great day.
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