Shadows Fall Guitarists, Ex-Drummer Form Dead of Night — Song Stream

Shadows Fall guitarists Matt Bachand and Jon Donais, aka Johnny Rock 'n' Roll, have teamed up with Derek Kerswill -- who sat behind the Shads' kit about a decade ago and most recently drummed for Unearth -- for a new project they call Dead of Night. The band exists with the support of the rest of their mates, who understand the need for creative options.

"Everyone else in Shadows Fall also has side projects -- Burning Human, Death Ray Vision -- so doing something fresh and interesting is what keeps the dynamic of Shadows Fall from getting stale," Bachand told Noisecreep. "At the end of the day, we are all artists and we need to express our other interests aside from Shadows Fall."

Listen to 'Shades of Grey'

In Dead of Night, Bachand -- who has done some of the clean vocals in Shadows Fall -- will do "some singing, but nothing is recorded yet on the demos. We have a lot of harmonies going on so expect a lot of my vocals to come through."

Dead of Night differ from Shadows Fall in that it's a bit more radio friendly and has more -- dare we say? -- mass appeal. Their influences certainly are eclectic regardless. "It's something we have always wanted to do really but the songs just don't fit the Shadows Fall formula," Bachand said. "It's no secret that we are big rock music fans and this band is a result of that. We are trying to get in the zone of Alice in Chains, Skid Row, Shinedown and other bands that we are fans of."

'Shades of Grey' is one of the band's demos, and it's certainly one that'll kick around your skull for a bit once you hear it. Noisecreep would like you to check it out now. "That is one if the first songs we have written for the project actually," Bachand said. "I don't think there is really any difference in the creative process really for any of the material we have thus far.

"We all live close enough together where we can get in the same room and 'vibe' out a song, but [vocalist Jason Witte] lives 3,000 miles away, which makes that a bit more difficult. But with the Internet and digital recording, it has been very easy to bounce ideas off each other vocally as well."

Lyrically, the song deals with "darker subject matter than some of our other material, that being addiction and the inability to let go of what you clearly know will end you."