MetalSucks contributor “Scottydawg” recently sat down with guitarist Tim Millar of Canadian metal band PROTEST THE HERO, whose new album Fortress comes out January 29th on Vagrant Records.

Millar talks about the new album, the writing process, getting caught with weed crossing the US/Canadian border among other topics. An excerpt from the chat follows:

Q: You’re signed with Vagrant Records. How’s the relationship between the label and you guys?

A: "Umm, it’s alright, like we’ve had some issues in the past a bit. It’s been pretty good but there have been some things. They’ve been through some stuff and we’ve been through some stuff. I don’t know if you know, but the other guitar player (Luke Hoskin), he couldn’t get across the border for a little bit."

Q: Oh really? What happened there?

A: "He got caught with weed (laughs). It was weird ’cause he doesn’t even smoke weed. He had some weed in his bag and then it turned into this big nightmare."

Q: What’s wrong with customs? (laughs) You’re a rock band.

A: "The thing was that it was a stupid mistake on our part, which it was, but it’s something that spiraled out of control. It was like point two of a gram and they couldn’t charge him for possession because it was so small. They let us go and we had to pay a fine. Then we tried crossing again and they were like, “no, no, no; you can’t cross this time.” Then right then and there the band wasn’t really comfortable touring as much as Vagrant kinda wanted us to. We’re a fuckin’ band and we do everything together. We don’t feel comfortable leaving someone out of it. That’s when we started writing Fortress. So just right there, they thought we weren’t fulfilling our promises. We said we would do a year of touring on Kezia; which we couldn’t fulfill. So it’s getting better now cause we’re getting play for the new record but just getting over that. I don’t know; feeling that you’re not a priority on the label, which I don’t think we should be, but sometimes it’s shitty thinking you could be treated better. All the industry nonsense and all that stuff."

Q: Yeah I can understand you there. Fortress will be your second album set to be released January 29th, 2008 and you start touring January 24th. How will this album be any different from your first album?

A: "I like to say that we’ve matured a little bit. We’re all proud of Kezia but we know what we can do better and we knew what worked there and what didn’t work; whether it be live or in the studio. We’re able to have better insight as musicians and songwriters, you know? Try to refine the craft a little bit. We’ve been touring a lot; becoming better musicians and better players. So we can do some stuff that we couldn’t do when we recorded Kezia. Hopefully we got better with our instruments, got better as songwriters, and got better as a band. There wasn’t any change, we just wrote music and whatever came out, came out. It’s just the next step for Protest The Hero. We just become older and better at what we do."

Read the full chat transcript here.