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Ray Mazzola & Janee'

Interview with Ray Mazzola of Full Blown Chaos
Roseland Ballroom 12.27.04 right before Stillborn Fest

Full Blown Chaos is actually one of the first bands I discovered when I started going to local shows in 2001. They blew me away at all the hardcore shows at Temple and L’Amour and I saw them many times opening for such bands as Hatebreed, Superjoint Ritual, Shadows Fall and Sepultura. Since those days they have been signed to Stillborn Records, toured incessantly and put out their first full length album. So when I had the opportunity to interview Ray I was more than ecstatic to do so! Thanks again to Ray for taking time out of his busy day to sit and chat with me for a few! Hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed doing it.. and be sure to check out http://www.fullblownchaos.com to see when this explosive band is coming to a venue near you!

Janee: For all our visitors at bacstagepass.com who don’t know exactly who you are, please state your name, band and position in the band.
Ray: Ray, Full Blown Chaos and vocals.
Janee: Where did you grow up?
Ray: Brooklyn. Brooklyn based, Coney Island born. NY all my life.
Janee: How long have you been singing?
Ray: Probably.. I’d have to say in bands, about 15 years.
Janee: Was there a certain person or occurrence that inspired you to start?
Ray: Um, well inspiration wise I’ve just always liked the music. A big Slayer fan, a big Metallica fan, Testament especially...huge, HUGE influence on me so that kinda shaped where I was heading with music. So I’d have to say that definitely gave me the kick in the ass. Yeah.
*laughs*
Janee: What bands were you in before you joined FBC?
Ray: Wow there’s so many! I’d have to say the most recent bands. There was this one band Force Fed and the one after that was 36 Deadly Fists..
Janee: I remember them from L’Amour!
Ray: Yeah... not to be confused with 36 Crazy Fists.
Janee: When writing a song to whom or what do you look towards for inspiration?
Ray: Um. I just feed off of whatever emotion I’m having that day. You know? I just try.. this is my outlet so to quote Scott.. using quotation fingers this is positive aggression, this is our only outlet so anything that just happens to piss us off during the day.
Janee: FBC has shared the stage with tons of big name bands over the years, do you have one band in particular that you were really excited to tour with?
Ray: Um, actually..that we.. that we have toured with or want to tour with?
Janee: That you have toured with.
Ray: Then I’d have to say.. that we have been big BIG Hatebreed fans, so just being able to be out there..the comradery is just amazing. Its just always been a good time. We just recently got to tour with Slipknot and Sick of It All and that was absolutely phenomenal. I’d always had wanted to tour with them. We’ve toured with a lot of big bands; Superjoint Ritual, Sepultura, Voivod, Strapping Young Lad, Slipknot, Fear Factory...we’ve done a lot of touring. It’s hard to pick one, I’d have to say all of them!
Janee: A lot of bands these days have a particular message they are trying to get out to the public. Is there a certain message that you want to get across to your fans?
Ray: We definitely do. I write all the lyrics..our message. It’s an underlying positive message. This type of music is very aggressive, very angry lyrics, but if you read into them.. like the whole name of the album is “Wake the Demons” a lot of people come up to me and they’re like oh you’re Satan worshipers and stuff. And we’re like No. It’s actually just about trying to unlock the subconscious. Basically to know your full potential. To know what’s inside of you that you can bring out and to push your limits. That’s our message. Like don’t conform to what people say that’s your limit, always go further and to push it.
Janee: Now “Wake the Demons” as you mentioned is your first full length release. Now a lot of people when they hear this record are going to go out and try to find your previously released EP’s. Are they still available to the fans and those who may be looking for them?
Ray: Yeah the EP is still available. We have a self titled EP that was done with the band’s second singer, the singer before me, Joey White. And we re-released that on, our bass player Ed Conroy has a record label, Jailhouse Records and we re-released that there to open up and get it out. So we have that re-release and we have our earlier release on Stillborn “Prophet of Hostility” and that’s still available through Stillborn Records, actually it’s available everywhere because we have distribution.
Janee: Awesome. Now how did Full Blown Chaos hook up with Jamey and Stillborn?
Ray: Uh.. We were all friendly. We used to be friends beforehand and stuff. It’s just the way everything worked out. Sworn Enemy basically kind of, being that we’re such close friends with them, helped us out a bunch of times. Jeff he was 15 at the time, and they needed a drummer for the tour, and being that everyone was friendly and that Sal from Sworn Enemy kinda brought them up..this was before I was in the band..took Jeff out on tour. Being that he was 15 at the time, he totally ditched out of school and just went out on tour. And when they hooked up with Jamey they said hey you should check these guys out. And that was it. They lost their singer and my band was a bunch of slackers so we just did the switch. Ya know? Their singer wasn’t motivated and the rest of my band didn’t want to tour or get serious so we just switched. It worked out.
Janee: Yes it did!
Ray: Yep.
Janee: So what is something FBC wants to do, that they haven’t done already?
Ray: Oh.. There’s a lot. We still haven’t been to Europe yet, we haven’t been to Japan or Australia either. So we’d love to see the world. Yeah definitely that. Just see the world and experience it!
Janee: That’s cool. Could you share with me some of Full Blown Chaos’ plans for the New Year?
Ray: Uh, we have... we’re shooting a video January 2nd up in Massachusetts, there is a new venue up there and we’ll be doing a show and shooting for the Stillborn DVD as well as for our next video, probably Wake the Demons, the title track. After that we just got added on to the Heavyweights of Hardcore 2 tour so that’s going to be us, Diecast Agnostic Front and Hatebreed. That will go for a few weeks then right after that we go into the Walls of Jericho, Bury Your Dead and Premonitions of War tour. That’s another 6 weeks. Then we’re trying to look at sometime in March, either trying to hit up Europe a little something for a week or two or we may have another few weeks with Throwdown. We’re trying to keep as busy as possible.
Janee: Sounds like a plan! All right, now we just have a bunch of random questions that I like to ask for the hell of it.
Ray: Go right ahead.
Janee: If I were to steal your CD player, what CD would I find in it?
Ray: Um.. You’d probably find Human Decline, local boys a great band. You know. It’s one thing that we do. We try and any bands that we played with early on we try to bring up. You know we’re the kids that have our foot in the door and are like “C’mon!” and sneak everyone in!
*laughing*
Janee: Actually that’s a perfect lead into the next question I wanted to ask you. Are there any up and coming local or unsigned bands that you think everyone should check out?
Ray:[first bands name is undistinguishable due to background noise] great band, good friends of ours. I’m just gonna start rattling off names
Janee: okay
Ray: There’s gonna be a lot of them...
Janee: Go right on and name them!
Ray: Okay from NY there’s: Billy Club Sandwich, Human Decline, Vext, Tragic Figure.. they used to be from other bands and then they came together and formed Tragic Figure. Around the whole country: Dry Kill, Scare Tactic, Shattered Realm, Nothing left to Mourn, Death Before Dishonor.. There’s a lot more... Choice of Weapon.. or Weapon of Choice I’m not to sure which they are going with right now. Kiss of Death, they are from PA and there are a lot of other bands out there. There are a ton of great bands out right now, I’m not even going to get into half of them because there are so many!
Janee: Yeah seriously! What was the last concert you went to as a fan and not a performer?
Ray: Wow..... uh... I’d have to say it was here. Slayer, Killswitch Engage, Mastadon. Yeah, we’re just friends with everybody so we had to come out and see them..ya know wherever the Jager bus is that’s where we are. We’re sponsored by it too so.. They feed my addictions.
Janee: Being a frontman yourself, who in your opinion is the perfect epitome of a frontman?
Ray: Mine... I’d have to say...it’s a mix... definitely a mix. My inspirations have been Phil Anselmo of Pantera and Superjoint Ritual and Down. Big influence on me. Max Cavalera big influence, Sal Lococo of Sworn Enemy definitely, he steered me in the right direction. And then there is Billy from Irate. Just awesome band. They are the epitome of evil metal. Nobody can save you.. He catches you, looks you in the eye and that’s it you can’t look away. He’s so powerful. He’s got to be one of my favorite.. All time favorite vocalists, frontmen. And then there is Jamey obviously. Jasta got really...he’s just a powerhouse! Just amazing.
Janee: What is your favorite way to get ready for a show?
Ray: Uh..favorite way to get ready. I pump myself up right before we get on. I’ll be in the crowd just getting feedback. I’ll go right on down to the barricade and address everybody there and I let them know they better have a good time, because if I see that they are just sitting around I’ll pull them out and they’ll get a time out and sit in a corner. *waves to someone down the hall* Hey sexy! That’s my drummer Jeff.
Jeff: Hello! I was trying to do the lurk thing! *laughing*
Ray: Hey girl! *laughs*
Jeff: Right here.. *demonstrates*
*more laughing*
Ray: *getting back to the question* So yeah that’s basically what we do.
Janee: Okay. So after the set, what do you do to come down off the adrenaline?
Ray: I don’t.
Janee: No?
Ray: Nope. I let it ride. I really don’t like not having that feeling. I get up and that’s it. I really don’t start coming down till the show is done and we’re on our way either to the next show or home. I keep it going. To everyone else it’s a give take relationship. We’re giving it out and the crowd gives it back to us amplified. We keep that energy so everyone can have it.
Janee: What’s your favorite song to perform live?
Ray: Favorite song...there’s a couple..
Janee: There’s always a couple.
Ray: Yep. There’s “Wake the Demons” which we force the crowd to participate in...they don’t have a choice. That song, “Sentanced” is one of my favorites cause it’s really personal with the lyrical content and such.. And then there is "Red Tide” which we might not be able to play tonight because our set is short. It’s a song we always dedicate to the troops and it’s just about..you know destruction and we want to help them get through.
Janee: Yeah my brother is in the service and I try to tell him to check out certain songs and bands to get him and his shipmates going and such.
Ray: Awesome! Yeah we get videos, we get videos of people over there fighting, listening to our stuff and wearing our shirts. We definitely support our troops. Not too many bands do it but they should!
Janee: I know!
Ray: We have a lot of friends and family over there. Actually over the holiday a few of our friends died in that place that was attacked, I don’t remember where it was but they were in there. Not the barracks.. they were eating dinner
Janee: The mess hall?
Ray: Yeah the mess hall got attacked and 19 died, and 4 of the people we knew. It’s hard. So we just try and support them. We actually have people come up to us and try and give us their purple hearts and their various medals, and we go no we don’t want these they are yours, and they are like no..take it you helped us. We help them the music and everything. We tried to be a part of USO and go over there, but they said we were a liability. We were like all right. They said there was too much fighting at the moment or something.
Janee: Now most bands do have a few favorite songs to perform, do you have a least favorite?
Ray: No, nope. I don’t have a least favorite at all. I love doing them all.
Janee: Do you have a favorite quote?
Ray: Favorite quote... you know what.. people always say if you want something done do it yourself but if you want something done right, I’ll do it. So that’s one. That and um... it just left my mind
*laughs*
Janee: That always happens!
Ray: It’ll come to me...
Janee: Okay while you think about that.. Is there anything you’d like to say to your fans in closing?
Ray: Uh yeah. The record sales have been doing great, and it’s been great meeting everyone. As soon as we’re done with our set we’re out in the crowd. So come on up to us, give us feedback on the record. There is really something for everyone on it. You have metal, you have hardcore, you have metal core...so keep buying and say hello! Tell us what you want to hear and tell us what you want to hear about! And we’ll find a way to incorporate it!
Janee: Awesome. Well thank you for doing this!
Ray: You’re welcome and thank you very much. It was a pleasure!

I thoroughly enjoyed sitting and chatting with Ray and after the interview as he was walking me to the doors of the venue we were talking about the show that was going to be put on that night and saw some of the people putting the last minute preparations on everything and Ray said that he loved it. Then his favorite quote came back to him. I promised him I’d put it here so here it is:
“If you love what you do for your job, you never work a day of your life” How very true!