Rock-is-Life.com recently hooked up with guitarist Ken Susi for a brief interview. The following is an excerpt from the conversation:

RIL: If I were to go out and buy your new album III: In The Eyes Of Fire, what songs should I pay attention to and why?

KS: "I think their all pretty damn good; I would say check out our record as a whole. But, you know if you’re a guitar player I think you’d get a lot out of a song like 'Sanctity Of Brothers'. If you like heavy stuff, you’ll get a lot of stuff out of 'Giles' or 'Bled Dry'. So there’s a lot of stuff in there that is different and new as far as the theme goes, I think personally."

RIL: How was the writing process for the new record? Was it difficult or did everything seem to flow smoothly?

KS: "We spent about three and a half months recording this record, and it was fairly difficult. The problem was that there’s a lot of bullshit out there in the world now, like there’s a lot of metal bands that are just trying to use click tracks and use protocols and use all these things to try to just manipulate their sound and make their record perfect, and we wanted to make a real organic record. We were the first band this year to step out and not use any of that and do everything live and really put the record out as the band sounds. So, writing the record we wanted to write a live record and it was a lot of fighting to go along with it, because we wanted to make sure everything was perfect and everything hit hard. And, it’s not like The Oncoming Storm where it’s all processed and perfect and lined up perfectly; it’s just a modern day thrash record. And were the first band to step out and do something organic and thrash metal so far this year."

RIL: What advice would you give to kids who are out trying to start a band of their own?

KS: "Be original. Don’t copy people. I think the problem with music nowadays, everybody’s trying to cookie-cut everything and trying to sound like, if KILLSWITCH ENGAGE is hot, people want to sound like Killswitch Engage; If Unearth is hot, people want to sound like Unearth, AS I LAY DYING...if any of these bands are hot, people want to try and sound like those bands. The point is; you didn’t dream the same dreams, you didn’t drink the same water, you didn’t fuckin’ grow up in the same house hold as these bands. You need to fucking get your own shit together if you're going to make a mark in this world, you have to be original and fuel it from where you come from and what you do.

And that’s the only way; honest music makes it."

To read the entire interview go to this location.