Jamey Jasta is currently on Tour to celebrate 25 years of Hatebreed. We met him at their Show in Vienna and talked about music, his career, side projects, the past and the future.
Here are 12 things you might not know about Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta.
Let's go!
We’re already at the second part of the tour. The shows in America were awesome. We’re teaming up with all these amazing bands like "Terror" and "Obituary", just to name a few. We’ve also sold the most tickets within the last 10 years. So, everything’s great!
Definitely. There’s been some things. Even on this run. For example, getting to headline "Motocultor Festival" in France. That was something we did 10 years ago when they started out as a small festival. To go back and headline now is just amazing. But we’re also still setting goals. We’ve never played Madison Square Garden. It would be great to manifest that into reality somehow.
Oh yeah. We played at a Skatepark (laughs). I think it was with Earthcrisis. We did 4 Songs, because that’s all we had back in the day. We even played some of them twice.
The major difference is, that there is way more subgenres and not as much crossover. Hatebreed used to be mostly a crossover band. We played with everybody from Six Feet Under, Machinehead to Integrity. In Europe it’s much more unified than it is in the States. But they will get there. We just need to do more diverse tours, where we play with all different styles of bands.
Probably "In Ashes They Shall Reap". Or at our last show we opened with "Proven". That’s just a fun song to get the energy going. Our biggest song is actually our single "Looking Down the Barrel of Today". That’s most fresh in people’s minds so they get the most excited about that.
If I had to start over again, I’d probably want to either emulate or join one of my favorite bands. Cause that’s what you would do when you were young. You look up to all these bands and you want to be like them. I think sometimes when you get older you lose some of that magic. Some time ago we did a show called "Ozzfest". Ozzie from Black Sabbath had to cancel. Rob Halford did the show for him. It was amazing. No offense to Ozzie. It was just really cool to see something different. So, if I had to start over and for example, Sepultura asked me if I wanted to join them, it would be fun to try it out and sing all the songs I love.
Well sometimes people really like a backstory. A guy I just had on my podcast, Tommy Vext. He sings for Bad Wolves. His story is pretty interesting. He has a twin brother who tried to kill him. He told me that he remembers him being a little kid coming to his shows. He has been in a lot of bands and started fresh each time and now has multiple radio hits in America. It is still possible to start fresh and have success. But you have to have a story that’s compelling and good songs of course.
I’d say, get more sleep, brush your teeth (laughs) and buy a building in Brooklyn. Back in the day you could buy them for around 15 grand. Now they sell for 5 to 10 million. We used to play there. People were scared to go to the shows in this area.
Not really, I had a good run of negative. When you’re young and you feel like everything’s against you, being positive is like a coping mechanism. Like once the van broke down. The label won’t pay to get it fixed. You don’t have any money. You’re stuck. You can’t get to the next town. You’re hitchhiking. You’re sitting in the back of someone’s pickup truck. You’re begging people to send you money from home, just to live your crazy dream and they go, “You guys are crazy. Why don’t you get a real job? Why don’t you stop this?” So, everything I've ever said in a song. I’m just saying it to me. So that I don’t give up. It just so happens that people heard it and they go, “This is great I wanna listen to this because I don’t wanna give up.”
What I’m doing now is just trying to find time to be alone. Like yesterday has just been our travel day. Got to the hotel, did the podcast and sent it in.
Yeah, it’s a lot of work. But it’s worth it! Because you know, I was a young parent. Most people who are having kids now are in their late 30s and early 40s. My daughter is an adult. All I wanted was to have the world be a better place for her than when I was growing up. Now she has her own life and career. So, I don’t have to kill myself with work like I used to. You wanna continue working hard but you don’t wanna do it at the cost of your health.
Oh yeah there’s a lot. So many people write me every day saying, get King Diamond, James Hetfield, Lizzie from Halestorm, get Slash, etc… But there are also many people I’d like to invite, that aren’t even into music. Like David Hasselhoff. That would be so fun (laughs).
Yeah, I’m almost done with the record. I did a song with Frankie from Emmure. It came out awesome. I also did a Song with Howard Jones again! We had such a great time. This one’s even better than the last one. I just need to finalize everything. I talked about that with Devin Townsend. I said, you’re never really finished. You just have to say, “Okay it’s done!” and put it out there. Then it belongs to the world. That’s what I have to do.
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