Tonight I had the chance to speak with Mat from Montreal heavy metal band WDNFRA, a young and talented group who have just released their first album titled “Break Out”.

Thank you very much! People are reacting great because it’s the first time we are releasing something with a professional sound. Thanks to Pierre for that! I’ve been receiving lots of email from people I didn’t know since we released the songs and it’s very positive.

I would describe my music as a little return to the 80’s Heavy Metal, but with a modern touch as well. We don’t limit ourselves when we write music, in some songs you can hear blast beats and heavy breakdowns while some other songs can simply go with a nice smooth melody, just like in “Inner Pain” or “Joyful Fails”. So yeah, overall I’d say we play Heavy Metal with a bunch of things added, haha.

It stands for Why Does Nobody Fuckin Rocks Anymore, referring to the fact that legends aren’t being made anymore, but we sure plan on changing that! And I think it’s an original name, when you type it on Google, everything that comes out refers to us!

Well when WDNFRA started we were only 3. Me, my brother Fred on drums, and Jo on base and I use to write 95% of everything, including the lyrics. Since Boud joined the band, a year after the beginning, we started writing more together, but there are several songs on the album that are still 100% by me but Boud helped a lot for the structures, putting the riffs at the right place and all, and he did write all the solos for all the songs, except that small part in ”Freak” haha.

So yeah, you can expect that on the 2nd album, Boud will collaborate even more and it will help define our sound. He’s the one who wrote entirely (but the lyrics) “Joyful Fails”, and I think this kind of song really adds to the whole WDNFRA. He also helped a lot for the middle parts in ”Inner Pain”.

Well honestly, French being my first language, I like to write in English as if I was someone else, so I travel through random ideas and come up with the WDNFRA lyrics, but the fact that they are mostly ”negative” does reflects a part of my life, especially when I was younger, of being this kid with almost no friends who used to change school and country every 6 months, but that’s another story, haha!

Yeah it does, and that’s part of Heavy Metal I guess, I choose music instead of drugs or shit like that!

Metallica, just like 90% of the bands out there I think haha! It’s them who ”told me” to took that guitar, and being left-handed I was influence by Kurt Cobain too, felt exciting to be part of the left-handed group just like him, Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney and stuff… it motivated me in a way , it made me felt special, cause you don’t choose to be a left-handed player.

So yeah, besides that many bands later on influenced me when I started a band. Stuff like Sepultura, Pantera, (two bands with two brothers, just like us haha) and many other things, like Alice In Chains. So much love and respect for Layne Staley, really motivated me to became a singer even if I’m not nearly good as he was.

Well we’ve been really apart from the scene when we started, we were a thrash metal band trying to make something in a scene that was 90% death metal, hardcore, and things like that. What I do appreciate is that there are a few thrash metal bands making their way along with us and it makes it easier for all of us, we really like to support each other, we don’t like the competitive things like so many out there do. We were at the beginning, but then realised it wasn’t worth it to try to beat another band or something. We have a race only against ourselves. We don’t have to be better than other bands to go far, we have to be better than ourselves everyday I think. Eternal Judgment, Venomenon, Protocol, these are all thrash bands from Montreal and its Area that are heading the same direction and I’m really glad to be ahead of that new thrash metal wave that is coming. I do think that in a couple of years they’ll be way many and that it’ll make a comeback. Deathcore and shit like that is due to finish you know!

Yeah exactly! Straight to the point metal! Doesn’t have to be extremely violent to be extremely good, put a bunch of everything and it’ll make a good, new song, that won’t sound the same as the band next door cause it’ll come from you, from your everyday feeling. I think too many bands limits themselves to be ”the most brutal band out there” it pisses me off. What’s next? A real pig squealing on stage? Come on!

But that of course doesn’t go to all bands haha, a lot won’t recognize themselves in this so I’m not worrying!

I think it is, without Myspace we would never have our USA tour, it’s how I met my friends from Red Castle Army, and then Savage Machiine and because of that we have a 25 gigs tour coming, all by the magic of internet. I think it’s why we’ll go further than any Quebec metal bands of the 90’s. They had way less resources than we do nowadays, and because of them, the door is big open, and we’ll take our chance!

To add to this, I would also like to say that what I like about Myspace is the fact you can actually get in touch with your fans, in a quick easy way. Back in the days you had to write letters and stuff, which probably was exciting, but it would take way more time to get your music heard.

It is working well, but we are very at the limit right now, with that album release, the tour coming up, having to take care of our website, the merch, the sales, our CD release gig, it gives us less time to practice and write music so as soon as we’ll have the CD in our hands, (around Christmas) I’ll consider looking for a manager at least, and I will send press kits to the big industries and see what happens!

I think we are a very motivated band, we’re young, talented, and most of all it’s what we want to do so I think we’ll be able to work something out for 2010, it’s a great year to come for WDNFRA!

We thought about it yeah, but one thing at a time, especially right now haha, I mean financially talking we are in a ”hole” even if the pre-sale is doing great, the album costed a good amount of money so we need to pay back before thinking of a second tour!

I think it’ll depend on how the USA one goes, but I’m pretty confident it’s gonna be great, Savage Machiine are nice guys and they work really hard on that tour just as we are.

Hey thanks a lot Leanne, only my 2nd interview so far, but lots more to come in the next few weeks! It was fun spending time talking to you, and I’m sure I’ll be a little less nervous in the next ones haha!

And I’d like to say thanks to all our fans that are supporting us since the beginning, and I’m looking forward to see you on tour! Please visit our www.WDNFRA.com for more info about everything! Keep rockin, thx again!

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