Rob Barker talked to Jonny Davy, vocalist for rising death metal stars, Job For a Cowboy before they took the stage
in Newcastle on the second date of their tour with the mighty Lamb of God, covering everything from The President of
The Dominican Republic to urine.
So, how’s the tour going so far?
It’s only day 2, I mean the first days are always kinda weird, getting the first day jitters out, but I can only hope
for better from here on out from this point. I mean I always love it here (in England), I mean we haven’t been here in
a long time, I think it’s been over a year so we’re excited to come back but I think we’ve progressed a lot as a band in that time.
What’s it like being on the road with Lamb of God?
Well we’ve toured with them in the US before, we were on tour with them, GWAR and The Red Chord. They’re cool guys tour with
I mean I can’t complain by any means, they’re all legit, laid back, down to earth guys. There're no egos or
anything at all so really it’s just awesome.
You’re touring with Behemoth after this, in April, what kind of reception are you expecting compared to this tour?
Lamb of God’s fans, they’re not really elitist or anything, they’re not really picky with their metal so it always
kind of works out. Behemoth fans are a little different, obviously they’re a little more picky with their metal,
but we’ve never had anything bad happen touring with them. We’ve toured with them a lot before, and we know those
guys really well, they’re just fun guys to tour with and we can’t wait to see them and hang out with them.
The internet is pretty much responsible for launching JFAC, but it seems there’s just as many detractors online as
there are fans, do you think the internet has been a help overall?
I feel like we’ve kind of paid our dues after the last like, 5 years touring pretty much non stop around the world.
I hope it evens it out, we obviously gained most of our attention in the beginning from the internet, I mean we were
really underdeveloped when we got noticed. We were 15 or 16 when we started writing that Doom EP and we started
touring around the same age so I hope it evened out.
Most bands are only starting to pick up their instruments at that age but you were already playing shows…
Our first tour was around the same age, I think we were 16 or 17. On our first full US tour we were with Misery
Index, Cattle Decapitation and Animosity. We played a lot of bars but because we were so young we had to play
and sit in the van so we were always the opening band.
You’ve been through quite a few lineup changes, are you settled now?
We’ve been through 5 or 6 band members and I’m the only original member right now, but I even consider
Brent (Riggs) an original member. I kind of feel like when we wrote our demo, that was a totally different
band and we broke up and formed a new band, so I don’t really consider our band really started until the Doom EP.
You pretty much seem to tour nonstop and record in your off time, would you say that the intensive schedule has
been a help for writing?
It’s kind of changing lately, I guess we write the majority in our off time and when we have to write a record
we take 3 or 4 months off just to completely finish the record as a group and do some writing on tour, but it
seems to be working so far.
Your sound early on, especially on the Doom EP had a definite hardcore / deathcore sound, what prompted you to
move away from that?
Just being young and maturing and progressing as musicians, and even through member changes, we just kind of
wanted to do something a little more straightforward and aggressive sounding. I think the majority of it comes
from getting older, we’re definitely not the kind of band that (wants) to keep putting out the same record
over and over like so many extreme metal bands do.
Your lyrics are a bit more political than most death metal bands, what influences that?
I think touring with Misery Index helped, their lyrics are really political and Jason (Netherton, vocals) is
a really smart, intelligent guy when it comes to politics. I’ve been a big Napalm Death fan for forever and
my great grandfather was the President of the Dominican Republic at one point. I actually lived there for a
few years and my family over there used to make me go to protests and rallies holding signs with me not knowing
what was going on. But y’know, when we wrote Ruination it was during the US political election campaign and I
think it just triggered me in wanting to write in a more political route.
I just wanted to try staying away from the general obvious, gore and murder lyrics.
Not necessarily on this tour since it’s only been going for a day, but have you had any embarrassing moments on tour?
Nothing’s gone horribly wrong, there’s been a lot of peeing incidents in the past tours, like I’ve pee’d on a
couple guys, blacked out drunk, pee’d in people’s bunks, pretty much just urinating. Our album should have
been called Urination instead of Ruination.
What are your plans for the next few months?
This summer we’re back to the European festival runs, we’ve got the Behemoth tour, a mini American tour then
we’ll take some time off then go to Europe for the festivals. We’ll probably start working on the new record
in the next few months, there’s a little bit written but we’re not stressing out about it by any means.
