Doomriders Should Be Taken Seriously, Says Nate Newton

When Doomriders released their sophomore album back in September, many fans stood shocked and perplexed as the band seemingly had stepped away from their late-'70s, punk-mixed metal that kept everything tongue-in-cheek fun by screaming about skateboarding and the like. Head 'Rider Nate Newton admitted to Noisecreep that he did have an undeniable fear over what fans and critics would say of the more serious 'Darkness Come Alive.'

"I'm nervous about that with any record I release though," he quickly explained. "People are going to be critical about it. I write the music I want to hear, but at the same time I put a lot of work in it obviously, and my heart. I obviously don't want people to s--- all over it."

Newton continued, "In this particular case though, I was a little bit stressed about what people would think. I kind of ventured outside of my comfort zone as far as vocals go. This record was a different experience for me. On another level I was like, 'F--- it," Newton grinned just happy with the album.

For Newton, writing and playing music (from Jesuit to his main gig as the bassist of Converge) has always been about making the records he sees lacking in the scene. His personal hope is that his albums are as captivating as the records that inspired him to begin playing in the first place. "To me it's a record that I want to hear, and usually I don't want to listen to my band's records once we've recorded them," he said.

Newton attests that the progressions in the band's songs were natural, but he was aware and actually wanted the band to become something more serious, playing music that had more to offer than a heavy riff and a joke with a 'screw off' attitude. The driving force for all of this has been how people have seen the band. "It came from people just coming to our shows and expecting us to be ignorant," Newton pointed out. "I don't know. That's probably a bad way of explaining it. I feel like we got pegged as this dumb party band and I felt there was more to what we did than that."

But as is the case with nearly every artist, each record represents a specific personal time in their existence. "When we recorded 'Black Thunder,' I think I needed a fun record like that. When we were recording 'Darkness Come Alive,' I needed a heavier darker record that I could vent my frustrations in."

Of course there is an oddity -- a pure irony -- in Doomriders trying to be seen as more of a serious band; fans have the complete opposite perception of Converge. "People think we have this persona when we're on stage, but then they meet us, they say, 'You guys are f---ing dorks,'" Newton said.