RockMyMonkey.com has issued an interview with CHIMAIRA guitarist Rob Arnold, conducted by Mark Carras. The following is an excerpt:

Q: How do you think Chimera has progressed as musicians and as songwriters since your self-titled release?

A: "Well, every album cycle, every year and a half, two years, whatever you do between records, is certainly a big growing period for the band, and for the members individually, how we play together, how we gel together, and then just on our own how we become better musicians. Just, I’m a better guitar player than I was a year and a half ago. Matt’s a better guitar player and so on and so on. And also, as you get older and you play more together, and you realize and become more educated about music and about songwriting, that’s where things just really start to happen. When you realize it is more about the song than about how bad ass the riffs are, or how bad ass the drums are. You need to make something interesting that’s both memorable and provocative and heavy in our industry. We can look back at our prior releases and see the progression in our songwriting capabilities over the years. And I think that’s just a natural progression. But there’s a lot more with this record, as well, with the way it came out. It all comes down to just the weight of RoadRunner being lifted off our shoulders, and now signing with Ferret, and just feeling good about that. Also about getting Andols Herrick, our original drummer back into the band, which was the piece that was missing for the last two years while he was gone. He brought the family vibe back to the band, and just really raised the spirits of us all. We just knew then the door was open with those two elements in place, the label and Andols coming back, that the sky was the limit and we could just have a good time with things, and not worry about the business, and not worry about how long our songs are, how heavy or how light they are, if there’s radio or this or that. We just had a good time and made a good record. I think that those contributing factors to that just made it all really come together as well as it did."

Read the full interview at this location. Listen to the interview here.