Enterprise Earth Interview // April 1, 2019
Andrew: Hey Dan, thanks for taking the time to talk with me today. Go ahead and introduce yourself.
Dan: Hey guys, I’m Dan Watson and I’m the vocalist of Enterprise Earth.
Andrew: So Dan, Enterprise Earth is getting ready to release its new album ‘Luciferous’. You’ve been playing it at a couple shows, what has the reaction been like so far?
Dan: We’re opening our set with a new song called “Failsafe Fallacy” and it’s different than what we’ve released so far, the intro is a little more melodic. It’s an epic song so the crowd is a little confused at first but they’re definitely into it by the end.
Andrew: What’s it like opening with a new song? Sometimes it works out really well for the band and sometimes the audience seems lost.
Dan: Yeah, they’re lost haha. It’s funny because I watch their faces and they’re so shocked but by the end they’re like fuck yeah.
Andrew: I listened to ‘Luciferous’ a week ago and wrote the review, but I didn’t have the lyrics. Is it like ‘Embodiment’ where it tells an overarching story or what’s going on?
Dan: ‘Luciferous’ is more personal for me. It’s symbolic of what I was going through as I was writing the lyrics. I was trying to be happy and trying to be content, but my past pain was preventing me from being happy. I kept digging up past trauma instead of burying it. It was like there were these safety mechanisms in the past that I used to suppress the pain. They kept me from fully opening up. So ‘Luciferous’ is me going through and digging up everything I’ve suppressed throughout my life and facing my inner demons. I wanted to move forward and let go of the expectations society has on me, expectations that I’m something that I’m not. Constantly comparing myself to others or feeling like I’m not being my authentic self and trying to fit into society a certain way.
Andrew: So it’s outside of music too, you’re talking about the expectations of the world and not just music fans.
Dan: Yeah.
Andrew: The lyrics in “Sleep Is For The Dead” seem like they’re being told from the perspective of the character on the album art…
Dan: That’s the thing, that character symbolizes me. The album artwork is very symbolic. We wanted something that portrayed the lyrics and what the album means. The main character is the Hermit from tarot cards. He symbolizes looking inside yourself and focusing on introspection to find the answers. Also, there’s a lunar eclipse in the background and that symbolizes a dark place which we relate to introspection too. The character is going within himself and he’s being stalked by the demons. He also has a light and luciferous means “to bring light” or knowledge so the artwork tells the concept of this character facing the demons within himself as he carries his inner light. The six pointed star [in the lantern’s light] also represents the merging of upper and lower vibrations so it’s like reality and the subconscious being tied together.
Andrew: Every time we talk I come in thinking it’s one way and then it turns out everything is ten times deeper.
Dan: Yeah, there’s a lot going on here. I’m going to explain everything on social media with in-depth posts so people can delve deeper into it if they want to.
Andrew: Since we’re on the album artwork I’m going to jump ahead a little. The artwork reminds me of older death metal album covers. I think this album has quite a few death metal influences, where did those come from?
Dan: A lot of those come from Gabe, our new guitarist. He helped us write a lot of the content for ‘Luciferous’. We didn’t want to do the same thing again [that we did on ‘Embodiment], we wanted him to do what he does best and write something he wants to write, not just copy what we used to do. We are both influenced by a lot of the same bands and we were on the same page from the start. We were also more open to trying different things and were able to criticize the new direction to each other as we tested things out. Overall, we just wanted to write a record we were happy with. I didn’t want to try to show off vocally, I just wanted to write songs that would make people stop and say, wow this is a damn good song.
Andrew: I feel like you see that a lot with newer deathcore bands, trying to show off and force crazy vocals to fit in places they don’t. I felt like ‘Luciferous’ didn’t have any gimmicks, it’s solid all the way through. When you were writing it, did you have a vision for what you wanted it to be or did it just become what it is while you were writing…
Dan: It definitely just became. That’s how I like writing records. When you try too hard to sound a certain way from the beginning it doesn’t come out how you hope. Like what you were saying about the artwork with the death metal riffs and other influences, it’s kind of like another chapter for us on a journey towards a more mature sound.
Andrew: “There Is No Tomorrow” is the last track. It’s eight and a half minutes long and is an epic close to the album. How did you come up with such a long song that features an interlude as well as a short section of clean singing?
Dan: Well, the cleans are Gabe’s. He wrote the song and we knew it was long, but that’s actually how a lot of the songs we write are in the beginning. The difficult part is chopping parts out or breaking it up into two songs. But we didn’t want to do that with this one.
Andrew: That one, to me, feels like you’re the guy on the artwork going through the crazy landscape in the darkness.
Dan: And there’s all sorts of twists and turns and peaks and valleys. It’s like an adventure.
Andrew: This is kind of a tangent, but have you heard Whitechapel’s new album?
Dan: I’ve heard the singles.
Andrew: I think the way you guys brought the cleans in for that short section was done really well.
Dan: I actually dig Phil’s voice. For me, Phil sounds like Corey Taylor (Slipknot) doing a Maynard Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle) impression. I like it a lot.
Andrew: While we were talking before we started recording, you mentioned that your feelings about ‘Luciferous’ have changed over time. How do you feel about it now?
Dan: We’ve been sitting on the finished record for six months now. When I was recording it, I was listening to the songs every day so after that I didn’t want to hear them ever again. I actually didn’t like the record and thought it was bad. But then I would revisit it again and think that it rocked. I went back and forth between liking and hating it so many times that now I don’t know what to think. The fans seem to like it so that’ all I can really ask for, unless they’re just being nice to me haha.
Andrew: I think it’s your best work yet and people are going to be excited about it. People who have negative opinions always make them known so it’s good you aren’t seeing any of that yet.
Dan: Oh yeah, every record we release, there’s someone who says our last one was better. And that person hating on ‘Luciferous’ right now is going to go back and say it was the best thing ever once we release something new. Somehow the last record we put out is always better than what we just put out.
Andrew: Do you enjoy playing the new songs live?
Dan: Playing them live is a blast. I enjoy them way more than the older ones. I’m so tired of playing the older songs, except for “Shallow Breath”, I still like that one.
Andrew: What’s your favorite one to play?
Dan: Probably “Sleep Is For The Dead”. It’s creepy and it puts me in my vibes. I like “We Are Immortal” too because of the vocal patterns and pitches I use.
Andrew: What should fans expect from Enterprise Earth in the future? Have you found the sound you want the band to have?
Dan: I get bored easily. ‘Embodiment’, [our last album], wasn’t enough of a progression for me to be super stoked on it. You can expect a lot more of the ‘Luciferous’ style in the future but we also want to keep pushing the boundaries and seeing what we can do. We don’t want to have the same sound forever. I love The Black Dahlia Murder, and props to them for sticking to their formula and killing it, but I wouldn’t be stoked if my band did that. I would probably end up singing the lyrics to one song accidentally over another.
Andrew: Enterprise Earth is touring for the next three months, are there any other future plans you can discuss?
Dan: We have some big things on the horizon, but mostly I’m excited to be off for a couple months.
Andrew: That’s pretty much all I have Dan, is there anything you want to say to the fans listening?
Dan: Thank you for being a fan of Enterprise Earth. Check out ‘Luciferous’ and give it a couple listens if you don’t like it right away.
Andrew: Actually Dan, one more question. I think the fans who might complain about your new sound are fans of the older version of deathcore, like the 2012 era. What do you think of the new era of deathcore (bands like yours, Angelmaker, A Night In Texas, etc.)?
Dan: Deathcore has had such a bad name for a while now and people think it’s a bunch of scene kids playing breakdowns with death metal riffs, but seeing how hard we work now and our level of mastery, I think we get a lot more respect now. Deathcore has evolved a lot and its reputation is finally improving.
Andrew: Yeah, in the beginning it was just a bunch of chugs. It’s crazy how far the genre has come in ten years, especially in the last three years. I don’t think anybody saw this coming.
Dan: I feel like the people who are saying deathcore is dead, those people are dead to deathcore.
Andrew: Those people are truly living in like 2008 deathcore. That’s why I’m looking to you guys to revive the heavy metal scene.
Dan: We’re working on it, but the fans have to do their part too and support the bands.
Andrew: Thanks so much for your time Dan, I really appreciate it.
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