Don't try and put Every Time I Die into a music genre — the band won't fit anywhere. And its members make sure to do that on purpose.
The difference between ETID and most mainstream hardcore metal bands is that it doesn't try to create a certain sound. These guys Buffalo, N.Y. continues to make signature in-your-face, heavy-as-hell sound and sell-out shows because they love what they're doing.
Guitarist Andy Williams said the problem that holds most bands back is that they try to fit a category and only make that music.
"With us it's like, ‘Alright, cool man, we're just a sick band and that's that,'" Williams said. "We'll play with a punk band and we'll slay ‘em. We'll play with a rock band and we'll slay ‘em, it doesn't matter. We can play with a metal band and knock them off the stage. You have to think like a lion ... and make sure that you're king of the hill."
The band's sixth studio album, Ex Lives, was released March 6 and Williams said it is ETID's best yet.
"I think we nailed it on this one. I think the last two were good ... they just didn't have the sheen the new one has. They weren't as polished. [Ex Lives] best exemplifies what the band is going for. I think we finally achieved it."
Their new drummer Ryan ‘Legs' Leger helped to set this album apart because he didn't play it safe when creating his sound.
"We have Legs now and Legs is just a beast," Williams said. "He plays like an octopus, like he has eight arms. It sounds like 40 drummers instead of one."
With the new addition to the lineup, ETID pushed creative boundaries with the single "Revival Mode." Williams says it's one of the weirdest song's they've ever written being so simple and different.
"When people hear the whole record as a whole, they're like ‘Oh my God, OK this makes total sense' because we wrote it specifically to open up a gap in the record. Everything is in-your-face the whole time and then this song is laid back and like, it lets the record breathe," Williams said.
Former ETID bassist Stephen Micciche didn't record with the band, but is joining ETID on tours and making the band's dynamic the best it's ever been, according to Williams.
The guys are now in their 30s and have known each other for more 15 years, but with Micciche, he said it feels like they're touring back when they were kids.
"It feels really fresh," Williams said. "Steve didn't play on the record at all and he's more hyped on it than we are. I honestly think that with him coming back to the band, I think it was like, you know the king's throne had been absent and when he came back he was like, ‘This is where I was supposed to sit so f*** everyone else, and this is my job.' He came back like a lion."
The guys just ended their own headlining tour this week and are joining Devil Wears Prada for the Dead Throne Tour 2012 for two months, then traveling to Europe and then heading straight to Warped Tour all summer.
Being on the road for almost a year can be tough and Williams said it's going to be different leaving his new puppy and girlfriend at home, but he is not over touring.
"It is crazy, but whatever I don't know how I would do anything else," he said.
