All Things Metal recently conducted an interview with former MEGADETH and current ACT OF DEFIANCE guitarist Chris Broderick and drummer Shawn Drover. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).
On their decision to leave MEGADETH in November 2014:
Broderick: “It’s two different stories for the both of us. My story is one… It was simply… Before I actually left, I was very contemplative of when and if the time was going to occur when I did leave, and it was something that had been weighing on my mind for a while. And when I heard Shawn had quit, and I called him and talked to him and just got his lay of the land of it, I knew he was right in the time that he left. Because Dave [Mustaine, MEGADETH mainman] was calling us to make a new CD and my heart wasn’t in it to go in the studio and lay down tracks on another CD. So I agreed with Shawn — I thought the time was right — so I left the band at that moment. Then, shortly after that, we were talking again, and we were kind of musing about releasing material that we had had and stuff like that, and from there, it quickly blossomed into, ‘Hey, let’s just put together a full-blown band.’ Not just do another project where we get together and record a CD and go our own ways. We wanted something where the fans could identify with us and get to know us and really come out and meet them.”
Drover: “For me, I wanted to make heavier music. I wanted to express my own musical ideas, and I wanted to express myself the way that I wanted to do it, which is creating heavier music. And there were other factors too. I really don’t wanna get into all that. The bottom line is, we [MEGADETH] were taking a year off — the management came in and told us we were gonna take a year off — and I didn’t really wanna take a year off. And I thought, if there was ever a time to leave, that would be the time, with that huge of a break. So I would never wanna do anything… put MEGADETH in a bind where… I would never leave in the middle of a tour, in the middle of recording. I just thought, if there was ever a time for me to go off and do my own thing, that would have been the time, so I made that decision.”
On playing smaller venues with ACT OF DEFIANCE compared to the bigger places and festivals that MEGADETH is accustomed to playing:
Broderick: “For me, the obvious pull of a huge festival — like, twenty thousand, thirty thousand, [or] the [first] ‘Big Four’ [show] that had over a hundred thousand — it’s just unbelievable energy; you know, energy that you can’t even see the crowd anymore, but you can hear them, [that] kind of a thing. But for these shows, it’s like playing your friend’s backyard barbecue and hanging out with your best friends. It’s such a different vibe, and they’re both cool in their own respect.”
Drover: “For me, as long as the band has a good night and the people who are at the show dig it, that’s what matters to me. Again, I’ve played Yankee Stadium, I’ve played… every venue, we’ve played ‘em all. Stadiums, amphitheaters, hockey arenas, theaters, clubs… We’ve played clubs with MEGADETH over in Europe many times. Granted, of course, they were packed, but… The criteria for me, and what made me the happiest was, did the band have a good night? And, did the crowd really dig it? And that obviously applies with this. And the bonus, certainly for me, is this is our music; this is something that Chris and I created. And to see the feedback and people saying how much they like these songs, that’s very gratifying to me, because I’ve never really had that in my career, to where it’s our music, something that we created from scratch.”
Broderick: “And the thing I’m most excited about is, this tour, we’re really starting to see people singing our lyrics. That, to me, is… that’s like the ultimate compliment.”
In addition to Drover and Broderick, ACT OF DEFIANCE features ex-SCAR THE MARTYR singer Henry Derek Bonner and SHADOWS FALL’s Matt Bachand (bass).
ACT OF DEFIANCE’s debut album, “Birth And The Burial”, was released on August 21, 2015 via Metal Blade Records. The CD recording was split between three studios in three different states: Broderick handled vocal and guitar production at his own Ill-Fated Studio in Los Angeles, Chris “Zeuss” Harris (ROB ZOMBIE, REVOCATION, MUNICIPAL WASTE) worked with Drover tracking the drums in Dexter’s Lab in Milford, Connecticut, while Bachand laid down his bass at ManShark, in Southampton, Massachusetts.
Source: Blabbermouth
