Jeff Paulick– Bass/Vocals for Lazarus A.D.

1. How did Lazarus A.D. land a deal with Metal Blade Records?

JEFF: First we got on the Earache compilation in 07 and we started getting label interest from that. We knew someone at Metal Blade and some friends new people at the label so that helped everything to come together. Actually Metal Blade was one of the last labels to show interest in us. We’ve been treated very well by Metal Blade. We signed at the end of July last year.

2. What’s the history of the band and how long have you been working on your debut “The Onslaught”?

JEFF: We actually recorded the album in 07, only printed up a thousand copies, released it ourselves, tried to get it to labels. When we signed to Metal Blade they put a spit shine on it, remixed it with new artwork. Some of those songs we recorded in 06, ‘Last Breath’ and ‘Who I Really Am’ Dan and I recorded when we were only in high school. I’ve known Dan since the fourth grade, we’ve known Ryan for years. These songs are all fairly new, the last song we wrote was in 2007.

3. Were you playing thrash music before you started Lazarus A.D.?

JEFF: No, not really, I was in more of a melodic death metal band before and the main guy in it was really controlling that.

4. Is it hard composing thrash metal?

JEFF: Actually its not. We don’t sit down and say “let’s write thrash music”. Whatever comes, comes, we like groove and melody, we want to make sure your gonna like the songs both live and on the record. There is no formula for what we are doing. Dan is the main songwriter and he just has a sixth sense for writing this stuff. Some songs come together so smoothly, others Dan is like “yeah…that can be better, that riff is not good enough”. I think all these songs came out really well.

5. Do you like playing this style of Heavy Metal better than the Melodic Death Metal?

JEFF: Yeah, I’m big on the European sounds of melodic death like Children of Bodom and In Flames, but this is definitely much more fun live, plus I get to sing in this band, I didn’t get to sing in my previous band. But I think with Lazarus your gonna hear some more melody in our music but not to the extent of Iron Maiden.

6. Your sound and style in highly influenced by the pioneers of thrash and the stylings of Metallica, Testament, and Kreator. Who do you site as being most influential to your music?

JEFF: Definitely Metallica, and Testament, plus Pantera. I thought those three did it the right way because their songs always stuck in my head. That’s why we latch onto those the most.

7. Who designed the band’s logo and the artwork for “The Onslaught”?

JEFF: Colin Marks did the artwork, he just did the new Whitechapel album. He does nice work. As far as the logo it was just a friend of our manipulating the letters in Photoshop, it was just Lazarus before, and he did all of our artwork before.

8. What were your thoughts and expectations for the Amon Amarth tour? How was the reception from their crowd?

JEFF: We really didn’t know what to expect but we knew right off the bat we were getting on a tour with a well known band that can draw a lot of people. The turn outs were better than I expected early because we go on first. Early there were a lot of kids in the venue, I mean it was amazing some nights it was packed for us. Amon Amarth were great to us, SkeletonWitch and Goatwhore were really cool, it worked very well.

This tour though with Testament has been just awesome. It took a little while to get comfortable with Amon Amarth, Skeleton, and Goatwhore, but the Testament guys have been great. To see those guys watching our show is just awesome. I mean Skolnick and Peterson are my idols, I worshipped these guys as a kid. Like the first day meeting the Testament and Unearth guys was instant bonding and it makes the tour just so much easier.

9. Have you observed there is a resurgence of thrash metal and what bands do you like from this current wave?

JEFF: Yeah… we get that a lot people rope us into the rest of the bands. I’m not into it too much I think a lot of those bands are too much of a throw back. A lot of em are very talented but I’m really curious to see now where they go with their second, third, and if there is a fourth effort, you know. Havok are one of my favorites, awesome dudes. Bonded By Blood are cool, so are Warbringer.

10. Tell us about the video for ‘Thou Shall Not Fear’ and are there plans to shoot another?

JEFF: The video was done at the Rave, a place in Wisconsin, right before we left for the Amon Amarth tour. It was fun, the guys who did it did a great job for such a low budget. I mean I know people who spent more money than we did and got shit. Our video looks great. We are gonna work with those two guys again for the next video. I would like to do a video for ‘Last Breath’ or ‘Absolute Power’ because that one is a little different.

11. Plans for the rest of the year into 2010?

JEFF: Tour, tour, tour, man. We have to ride out this cycle as long as we can. We are goin out with Woe of Tyrants and Bison in July, then we have some bigger stuff planned hopefully for the fall. We also plan on getting to Europe hopefully before the end of the year. We want to get to Europe because they knew about us when we just started even before “The Onslaught” came out. We were lucky, with exposure our record got on the speed pass so a lot of great opportunities have come our way early. I know we have a quality record and a lot of people wanting to work with us, and we are keeping up paying our dues on the road, rotating drivers on the bus. Its not easy being on the road, getting a few hours sleep after a show, spending ten hours on the road in between gigs, but we are doing it. These are great opportunities and we have to deliver.

Official website: http://www.myspace.com/lazarus1