The barnstorming opening track on Escape The Fate's hotly anticipated sophomore slab, This War Is Ours, sufficiently sums up the hard-partying and hard rocking Las Vegas band's attitude, authentically informed by real-life drama. Full Bio
Craig Mabbitt - Vocals
Max Green - Bass
Monte Money - Guitar
Robert Ortiz - Drums
The barnstorming opening track on Escape The Fate's hotly anticipated
sophomore slab, This War Is Ours, sufficiently sums up the
hard-partying and hard rocking Las Vegas band's attitude, authentically
informed by real-life drama. The song is called "We Won't Back Down"
and if ever there was a band who could make that claim, it's this one.
Renewed, reinvigorated and newly energized by a new lead singer and a
take-no-prisoners approach to songwriting, Escape The Fate have
recaptured the hunger that generated their early buzz and have taken
tremendous steps toward becoming a band with longevity, like their
heroes in Motley Crue or Guns N Roses, crafting a sophomore-slump
defying album that is alternately their heaviest and their most melodic
and full of power, passion and depth.
The two years that have passed since the controversial band released
their Epitaph debut, Dying is Your Latest Fashion, was a trainwreck
that threatened to destroy all of the impressive things the young
outfit had accomplished.
Explains Max Green: "Our guitar player walked out in the middle of a
tour, our singer went to rehab twice, then he went to jail, he got
probation. Later we couldn't leave the United States, then we couldn't
leave Nevada. Our singer became a drug addict, our bass player - -
that's me - - became a drug addict. I got cleaned up, we kicked out our
old singer, and a ray from heaven shined down on us with an amazing
opportunity."
That amazing opportunity? The sudden availability of virtuoso
singer Craig Mabbit, who had recently parted ways with Blessthefall. "I
found myself looking for a project or to start something up. I was
going to join a band by the name of A Skylight Drive," Mabbit
recollects. "They gave me the number of somebody to get the recording
of their new album so I could write to it. I wrote the wrong number
down. Instead of calling the guy from the band, I called Escape The
Fate's manager. I was like, 'Yo send me the tracks!' and he was like,
'What tracks?' We had a laugh."
Next thing he knew, Mabbit - - who had befriended Escape The Fate
during Vans Warped Tour and a subsequent Escape The Fate / Blessthefall
tour - - was on a plane to Las Vegas. "We discussed the idea [of my
joining the band]. Both of our bands were on the rise and losing your
frontman is a big deal. But we decided we play music for a reason, who
cares what people think, let's make the kind of music we want to make
the way we want to make it."
"[Playing music] is what Craig lives for, he's got that fire,"
Green beams. "He's an amazing vocalist and he goes nuts on stage. He
just pumps up the volume on everything basically, he just makes
everything better."
Adds Mabbit: "We thought our bands were done. We got so close to
making it and breaking it, and then it all fell apart. We're all very
grateful and excited that we had the opportunity again and that we got
hooked up with each other."
That go-for-broke attitude caused Escape The Fate to rebuild their
band around the best parts of the past together with some
forward-leaning new elements. Becoming a four-piece caused all of the
instrumentalists to step up their game, while Mabbit found himself
outgrowing the "screamo" tag and embracing more of a full vocal range.
The band hit the studio with John Feldman (The Used, Atreyu, Good
Charlotte) and made the kind of record Mabbit has been dreaming about
since he was a kid looking up to his rock n' roll heroes. "Harder Than
You Know," a bona fide larger-than-life spine-tingler of a ballad, is
one of his favorites, while heavy breakdowns continue to inform tracks
like "The Flood." "Something" is built for the radio while "10 Miles
Wide" opens with a classic thrash metal attack and a shriek that would
make Axl proud, backed by death-grunts and a rollicking beat that goes
headfirst into an anthemic chorus sure to get fists pumping worldwide.
While they've attracted a number of fans from the Hot Topic crowd to
worlds of Warped Tour and beyond, in their hearts, Escape The Fate is
more of a tried and true rock n' roll band than any sort of sub-genre
tag. If you want to call them anything, call them exactly that: rock
music.
After a year of drama and speculation following their original singer's
departure, Escape The Hide Bio