MONDAY Q&A 4/1/19
Q: ‘Un-Natural Disaster’ was one of my favorite songs off your album. I might even like remixed version in the video better! Can you tell me a bit of the backstory on the song and the making of the video?
A: Thank you! When we first started working on the song for ‘FBIC’, I thought it might be a bit out of place on the album, but once we started adding the textured guitars around the heavy drop-D riff, I think it really came together and was cohesive with the rest of the album. Dug Pinnick and I had talked at NAMM over some ‘beverages’ about him being part of BIC and working on a song together. We discussed the literal concept behind ‘beauty in chaos’ … which led us to talking about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. He has a similar experience with Hurricane Harvey when he lived in Texas. Michael Rozon and I had worked on the music, and I thought it seemed to be right for Dug’s voice and bass. We had a drum machine pattern doing, and had several really going drummers try to cop the vibe, but it wasn’t until I reached out to Pete (Parada, The Offspring) that it came together. I’ve known Pete for a long time, and he simply slammed and nailed the drum track at his own studio. We had sort of a breakdown thing going that it seemed something vocally should happen. I reached out to Ernie and Vince from Body Count to see if they thought Ice-T would be up to do it. Thankfully he liked the track and made the time to do when Body Count was in the studio. I think Ice’s part really hammers the song home. When we started looking at doing the ‘remix record’ (beauty re-envisioned), this song felt like it could be pushed even further. Statik did a cool twisted remix of the song. I know that I wanted to have some of my friends add guitar to the next BIC record, so why not start that with a BANG here. I asked Zakk if he would replace my original solo (which was one of my best from the record imo!) Zakk not only made the time before leaving for tour to come by our studio and record, but also the time to be in the video the day he returned!
As for as the new video, once we found the ‘rain room’, the concept was set. Dug and I actually are wet in that! We had to figure out how to tie the other guys into it, since they couldn’t all be out here. I don’t think I could have got Ice-T in the rain room anyway ☺ Pete filmed himself in his studio … and Vicente made his parts work on the TV, which is actually in the rain room too. We filmed Zakk doing his guitar hero solo in Schecter’s photo room, and I finally met Ice in person at a show, and he graciously knocked his part out backstage. Director Vicente Cordero, who did our other 3 videos, did a great job of tying this all together in a cohesive story line. Being from New Orleans and knowing what happened, the ‘faith and hope’ on my guitar was something special to me. Hope this gives you a bit of the story behind …
