It’s an amazing thing to watch a band pursue their dream and evolve into a full blown powerhouse of extreme praise deserving talent. New Jersey’s God Forbid have more than paid their dues since their formation in 1996 and stand now as one of the most respected and sought after bands in the American Metal scene. Having toured extensively since their inception, God Forbid received their biggest break when they were offered to perform on the 2004 edition of the annual Ozzfest. Having scored rave reviews with their last studio effort, 2004’s Gone Forever, the guys have returned in 2005 with their most complex and inspired work to date. Chapter IV: Constitution of Treason is a seminal concept album that is rich with philosophical insight, political competency and deep-rooted emotion. The real treasure found here, though, is the musical acuity that the band delivers. Profound song structures that are ripe with dual leads and saturated with melodic ingenuity. Recently I had the tremendous pleasure of speaking with guitarist and chief songwriter Doc Coyle about the band’s latest musical direction, their inability to completely fit in with a particular genre, their disdain for the country’s current administration as well as the differences between the war we are currently involved with and those of the past. In addition, he revealed that the increased popularity of Christian music has managed to draw attention away from the mainstream and somewhat hinder the success of other artists. The following interview is quite possibly one of the most well thought out conversations that I have ever had. Doc showcased his intelligence with complete confidence and was right on the money at every twist and turn. His answers were solid through and through and I really enjoyed speaking with him.

OT: So musically speaking, the new CD… it takes the sound of God Forbid to a whole new level, really. My jaw dropped when I heard the thing; I was beside myself.

Doc: Well thank you so much; I really, really appreciate that.

OT: The production’s outstanding, the song structures hold up incredibly well and the writing is, by far, the most intensive material you guys have created thus far. While your last release held a definite ode to the metalcore style I hear a more focused incursion of traditional metal and thrash on this latest recording. What things have played contributing roles to the evolution of God Forbid’s music on this most recent venture?

Doc: I think it’s just kind of what we were feeling, like the same things that may have gotten us off, artistically, on the last record, just wasn’t doin’ it for us this time. We were really tryin’ to challenge ourselves to get a different energy out of the songs. I don’t think these songs are as straight forwardly heavy and definitely not as simple, so it was really one of those things where we were just really tryin’ to push those limits a little bit. It was really about finding things interesting to listen to for ourselves. A lot of that was actually learning how to play simply. One of the problems that we were having on our older albums, like Determination for example, is that it relies too much on speed and tryin’ to put in as many notes as we could and changin’ up different styles. We didn’t know how to just relax, musically, and we’ve learned how to do that now. It’s like, now that we know how to relax let’s push the envelope a little bit more again.

OT: Right, right. Yeah, the melodic aspect on this album is just times ten, man, and it definitely shows. One of the immediate differences on Constitution Of Treason that impressed the hell out of me are the guitar abilities being showcased. I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much dual lead activity come from one album ever before. Both you and Dallas play guitar and it’s interesting that you’re brothers. Do you think it’s possible that because of your kinship and having grown up together playing the same instrument and probably having a lot of the same influences, that this has made a considerable difference in the band’s power to create such masterfully written pieces?

Doc: I think it’s definitely been, especially more like a sense of competition that kind of forced us to get better at an early age without any formal training. There are a lot of great players out there in metal today, but most of those guys, they’ve taken lessons their whole life, they’ve gone to music school and things like that that we’ve never really had the opportunity to do, so we’ve really had to push ourselves and really look up to… We listen to an At The Gates record or a Carcas record and those were our teachers. You just sit there and you learn every Megadeth solo you could, those were who my best teachers were, they were my albums and just doing things like that. Then again, touring and playing with the better bands, that also pushes things. But the thing that’s funny is me and Dallas have completely different styles of playing. I’m definitely the more technical guitar player; I pretty much do all the solos and on the new album, its most of my stuff, even though he has a couple songs that he wrote almost all by himself as well.

OT: Right on, the reason I mention it is I’ve always looked at different bands that are in metal that have siblings within their ranks, take Van Halen, what would it have been like if Alex had played guitar like Eddie or if Vinnie Paul from Pantera had played guitar like Dimebag and you had two guitar players comin’ from the same place, how much more intense would it be? And it just seems like, with you guys, it really shows. It comes across as a strength for you and helps to put you over the top, as opposed to some of your peers that don’t have that added attribute.

Doc: Well, I mean, we are a guitar band and we definitely live and die by the almighty riff and unless that’s done and done well, then we’re not doin’ our job.

OT: So what inspirations led to the decision to write a concept album, where was the idea for this particular story spawned from?

Doc: It really all kind of spawned from the title of the album and the title really had to do with the current vibe in America, like how we felt people were reacting to the state of affairs, and it just really was depressing for us. Bush had gotten re-elected and it seemed there was a glaze over a lot of people’s eyes and it bothered us and it kind of started itself from the title and from that we knew we wanted a dark album. We knew we wanted the songs to really tell stories, in and of themselves, even though there was not a direct ploy to have it be a concept album from the get-go. We had a lot of these themes and subject matters and they seemed to just repeat themselves as guys were writing the lyrics, which means Dallas and Byron were writing most of the lyrics. But it wasn’t until it was all done, like the whole album was recorded and we were done mixing it and we were putting the songs in order that there seemed to be a story there. Once the order of the songs went together, I pretty much wrote the story in maybe like an hour and a half and I was literally writing to the songs in a way that made sense. The actual concept isn’t necessarily literal compared to the songs, but it’s definitely something that can give you a little more insight and have something else to just think about.

OT: Right, right on. Before I ask my next question I wanta interject this ‘cause you mentioned the state of affairs and Bush being re-elected. Y’know, it’s interesting because obviously the people elected him back in to office but the majority of musicians that I interview, with the exception of a few that have been pro-Bush, are not down with this. Why do you think that the entertainment industry, or at least musicians, are more against Bush and the way things are right now?

Doc: Well the artistic community in general, I think this is throughout history, has always had a much more liberal view on things and I just think that’s because we’re fortunate enough to be able to live life in a different way and see things much more optimistically just because we get to create for a living. That’s what we do; we create things. We create something from nothing and then we go out and we perform and we share an extremely positive energy, even though our shows might be crazy, but people are out there having the time of their lives. And that’s what we’re about, that’s what our entire ethic is about. About sharing and creating. So what war is, is the exact opposite of that, it’s about destroying things and killing and ending, it’s the complete opposite. So I think most artists are just pretty much…, it’s like in their gene code to be against that ‘cause it just doesn’t make sense to us. Because we’re fortunate enough to be able to live outside of that realm we can do something that’s cool, to really get to other people. While most people really have menial jobs and that kinda sucks, so maybe they’re not as prone to be able to have that point of view. I don’t know, I think there could be a whole conversation about that alone, I think that’s really interesting.

OT: Right, right absolutely. It’s definitely interesting to me, and I was just talking to some guy I bumped into a few days ago and we were talking about… I was in a music store and he was buying a Bob Dylan record, or something like that and we got to talkin’ about the war and how in the 60’s there were all the war protests for Vietnam and it was a much more intense time than what it is now. I mean this war it seems like not very many people even give a shit about what’s going on.

Doc: You know why? Because they’ve proven to us that we can’t do anything. You can have as many protests as you want and they’re laughing in our faces. They’re taking all of our freedoms of assembly and freedom of speech and they’re taking these things. And it’s like, we did everything, we had movies, we had all this shit to hopefully convince people that this was the right way to go and they still voted for him, so what is a protest gonna do at this point? Something like that where it was like, obviously Vietnam was way more intense than this one, we had thousands and thousands. We’re reaching the thousands now, we’re approaching about two thousand men killed, but we’re not talkin’ about an entire generation being marred. Really Vietnam, that was the end of American Patriotism. We always trusted our government to that point, especially in terms of war; World War I, The Korean War, World War II, all ‘just’ wars. And then they destroyed that with Vietnam and they haven’t earned our trust back yet, but it’s still there some. I don’t know, it’s really crazy, I don’t think you’re ever gonna have a period like that. Because you had the civil rights movement, you had Vietnam, you had drugs, the sexual revolution, there were so many things happening at that time that kind of coalesced together, that kinda created this whole cultural explosion on every single level. Obviously we’re talking more on an artistic level, but I think that totally bleeds into music. It’s probably, in my opinion, the greatest creative explosion in rock music - the late 60’s early 70’s, because of that, because so much was going that had such historical significance.

OT: Absolutely. You know, you mentioned the freedoms that we have and one of those, of course, is the freedom of religion. I remember reading a statistic on line around the time of the election, that one of the major influences to getting Bush re-elected was that he professes to be a Christian and a lot of the voting public would just go for that statistic alone and not necessarily look at anything having to do with the war or anything like that, but because he professed a belief in God. Now what do you think about that? I mean you’re coming from a liberal perspective, actually listening to your albums it seems like you guys kind of touch on some spiritual issues from time to time as well, but what’s your opinion of that?

Doc: Well that’s what the last two songs on the album are exactly about, the incestuous nature of Church and State and how America, believe it or not, really is a theocracy even though they want to kind of pretend that it’s not. In God We Trust on the money, the Pledge of Allegiance, all these things, it’s very underlying but it’s still there. I mean we come from Pilgrims, people who moved here to kind of practice religion on their own and I think that’s why we’re at war with Arab countries ‘cause they’re the exact same way, just with a different religion. I think it’s really sickening and scary, the fact that we can base decisions like this on a personal belief and it shouldn’t have anything to do with government at all, because they’re not related, they’re not. But people base those decisions on things like that, ‘Oh, he’s a good Christian man.’ and that’s a lot of our country. I mean f*cking, The Passion of the Christ didn’t make three hundred fifty million dollars in America for no reason at all. The entire Christian music community, that’s just massive, massive. So I’m thinking, Norma Jean, you know that band right?

OT: Yes.

Doc: They sold twenty thousand records the first week their album came out. (Laughter) You know what I’m sayin’? That’s almost three times as much as we sold, but you wouldn’t think that right, like you wouldn’t even know, like most people wouldn’t even know that. I think they’re a good band, I’m not takin’ anything away from their music but being tapped into that market allows them to have this amazing dedicated fan base. And it goes for a lot of other bands as well, I just have singled them out. But America definitely has a lot of Christian sentiment ingrained in our culture and it’s really f*cked up and once you leave the cities, that’s what it is. I won’t even say the South, ‘cause it’s not just the South, it’s just once you get out of your major metropolis areas, that’s how it is; that’s America and that’s why Bush is in office.

OT: Right. Yeah, I mean mentioning that it shouldn’t have anything to do with government - the argument, of course, for that is because the Christians established the government, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and so forth, and going back to the pilgrims, who escaped the ruling over in England because they wanted to find religious freedom over here, that’s where the tie-in comes from, at least that’s what they try to tie it in with. Not that it should still be that way as much today as it is - I hear what you’re sayin’ on that - but that is their defense and what they’ll have to say about that.

Doc: Seriously, in all those documents, nowhere does it say that they should follow Christian ideals in order to govern, and that’s why those documents are very important and still hold true. It doesn’t talk about Jesus in the Constitution ‘cause it’s not about that. They may have been Christian men, some of them, but above all they were intellectuals and they were forward thinking and I think that’s the most important thing.

OT: Absolutely, absolutely. Now the lyrical content of the album, it’s pretty deep. It’s not something that just anyone can fully grasp, having only read through it once. Do you believe that your fans are genuinely interested in the words enough to explore the depths of what it is that you’re trying to get across?

Doc: That would be ideal, if people did take those things to heart that much. I hate to make it so like, hard and serious, because if you see us hangin’ out we’re not always sittin’ around talkin’ politics, we’re also drinkin’ beers and hangin’ out. It’s just after a concert we want to talk about something real; if people take something away from that, great. We’re not asking the mother f*ckers to sign up for the green card or something - no. We’re definitely not that band, we’re not enforcing any one political ideal, we’re just expressing ourselves and saying things that we think are important. If people choose to look deeper into that, that’s amazing; that would be great and that would really satisfy me. If people would come up and talk about stuff and really have intelligent conversations, I think that’s the most important thing. It’s not about right or wrong, it’s just about being able to talk about things in an intelligent manner.

OT: Sure, yeah, I understand what you’re sayin’ about just hangin’ out, I’ve actually been able to hang with you guys on a couple of occasions afterwards. The last time was at the House of Blues in Hollywood with Machine Head there. And afterwards I walked in and Cory was back behind the bar makin’ drinks and everybody was just kind of chillin’ around and hangin’ out and havin’ a good time.

Doc: And that’s what I think that most bands do, we’re here to have fun but we’re not gonna write songs about clowns and movies - at least not on this album. Next album I’m sure it’s gonna be a lot different lyrically, we’ve touched upon the subject so much on this album and the last album that it’s like we don’t want to become clichéd ‘cause we feel that people are definitely gonna try and put that label on us so we’re gonna go in a completely different direction.

OT: That’s cool, right on. Now touring, it’s probably the most difficult job of a rock musician being that you’re always on the move and playing a completely different city every night. But it’s also very hard to get fans to actually go to a concert these days, in light of the recent gas prices, a lot more people are having trouble getting to shows. They’re having to re-evaluate their financial situation and unfortunately, concerts are one of the first cut backs. Have you been concerned about attendance on this tour?

Doc: So far it’s been very good, it’s been very strong, we’re playin’ to packed houses every night. I will say that I feel we have one of the strongest packages out there right now, as far as from top to bottom. I think people goin’ to pay money on a metal show will definitely get their money’s worth with this one. But it is touring season, a lot of people think summer time is the most busy time for touring but it’s actually Fall and Spring. It’s like October to May, those are where you have everybody going out. So there’s a ton of different tours for people to go to but I definitely think we have one of the best ones. We’re just really happy that we’re out with bands that we like, bands that we look up to, and the show’s a lot of fun.

OT: Let’s see, when I talked to Byron at Ozzfest he informed me that, had that particular tour (Ozzfest) not happened for you guys, the band quite possibly would have called it a day, that you guys were kind of hangin’ by a thread there. How’s the future of God Forbid shaping up now that you’ve been introduced to so many more people, you have a new record to offer them and you’re touring a lot more?

Doc: I don’t think that was necessarily the case where if we didn’t get Ozzfest we would have broken up, it would have just made our ability to appear as we have status, a band that is moving forward in big ways, it would have just made it a lot tougher. It would have shoved us further down amongst the pack of bands. At least by doing Ozzfest we were able to keep our heads above water and show ‘em, ‘Hey we’re still here.’, and it just opened up a lot of doors. Saying that, I think now, because we were able to do all that and really do some great touring on the last album and really promote it and get the band out to a lot more people, I still feel like we’re in the…. kinda like we’re…. The thing is a lot of people still don’t know who we are, but we can still get a lot more exposure and that will be on this album. We’re gonna try and hopefully get some bigger tours with bands that maybe bands in our genre are already touring with. We’d love to go out with System Of A Down, we’d love to go out with Tool we’d love to just start thinking outside of the box instead of going on tour with the same bands that we’ve been going on tour with. Even though we love those bands it’s just that, right now, it’s gonna be a breaking point within this scene where people are just gonna kind of like get tired of the sound and be like, ‘Ok, well how will you hold your own and survive the whole genre shift?’ ‘Cause it is coming, it’s definitely coming.

OT: Unfortunately I have to agree with you on that, I’m hoping metal will hold on, but especially here in the States, things change so quickly.

Doc: Yeah, it’s very true. And we’ve always been one of those bands that it’s like; we’re a little too metal for the hardcore kids and a little too hardcore for the straight up metal heads. We’ve always been kind of in the middle but it’s very strange, our path, because we’ve wanted to represent a lot of things with our music so it’s definitely going to be very interesting. I feel like, musically, we’ve constantly gotten better, put out better albums, become a better live band, so really it’s nothing but positives. We all know what could happen, we’re just really tryin’ to get out there and do whatever we can just to be one of the top bands on the scene.

OT: Right on, man. Well I think you guys managed to get on the Ozzfest at the right time ‘cause this year, I don’t know, it may have marked the last year that Ozzfest is gonna go on with all the chaos that went down with Iron Maiden and so forth. But I’m glad you guys made it on when you did and were able to walk away with a positive reaction and nobody talking about the overshadowing mayhem that took place at this year’s fest.

Doc: That’s why we did it last year because we’re like, ‘You know what? Any year could be the last year.’ So you’ve gotta take the opportunity while it presents itself. But I think it’s gonna happen again and, hopefully, we can end up doing it again because that says a lot, to be able to do Ozzfest more than one year. It really shows that you’re here to stay and that’s what we really wanta do.

OT: Well that’d be great if you guys can get on the main stage and do something like that.

Doc: Hell yes. Hell yes, I agree.

OT: Century Media’s been doing some pretty amazing things. This year I think five or six of the bands were representing Century Media.

Doc: They were definitely well represented this year and that’s good, they’ve built up some good relationships there and hopefully it’ll carry over to next year ‘cause we really wanta do it. Hopefully we can do, like, Sounds of the Underground or something like that. Doin’ those big summer tours, it’s definitely something you need to do ‘cause if you’re not on one of those tours and you try and do another tour, you’re gonna end up gettin’ crushed by the huge festival. So if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

OT: Right on. Well I hope you’re happy with your label, I’m very happy with them.

Doc: No, I think they’ve done a really good job; they’ve definitely made us a priority. We’re just ready to work. Definitely promoting music is not an easy task and everything has to work on all levels: your label, your management, your booking agent definitely has to work on all angles to make things happen.

OT: Right on. Again, the album is just phenomenal.

Doc: Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

OT: I wish the best for you guys and thank you for your time today.

Doc: No problem. Take care, b’bye.

OT: Ok, man.