{"id":1016,"date":"2010-07-23T11:02:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-23T18:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/?p=1016"},"modified":"2014-08-01T21:43:22","modified_gmt":"2014-08-02T04:43:22","slug":"shadows-fall-jason-bittner-mayhem-fest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/?p=1016","title":{"rendered":"Shadows Fall- Jason Bittner- Mayhem Fest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interview: Jason Bittner, Drummer, Shadows Fall<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Venue: Mayhem Fest 2010 Cincinnati, OH<\/strong><\/p>\n

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By: Amy Harris<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Date: 7\/21\/2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Shadows Fall<\/strong>\u00a0is a heavy metal\u00a0band from\u00a0Springfield,\u00a0Massachusetts, formed in 1995. Although the band has experienced several line-up changes, for most of its recording career Shadows Fall has been composed of\u00a0Brian Fair\u00a0(vocals), Jonathan Donais (lead guitar),\u00a0Matt Bachand\u00a0(guitar), Paul Romanko (bass), and\u00a0Jason Bittner(drums).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shadows Fall have released six studio albums, two compilation albums, and one DVD. Shadows Fall’s first two studio albums featured\u00a0David Germain\u00a0playing drums, but in 2002 Bittner joined the band full time. In February 2008, the band was a\u00a0Grammy Award\u00a0nominee in the category\u00a0Best Metal Performance\u00a0for the song “Redemption” off the album Threads of Life.<\/p>\n

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We caught up with Jason\u00a0backstage at Mayhem Fest in Cincinnati to discuss what got him into drumming and why he loves doing what he does.<\/p>\n

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Amy: <\/strong>First of all, I have to say the drums are amazing. I love \u201cStill I Rise\u201d because of the beginning and the drums.<\/p>\n

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Jason: <\/strong>That the song actually wouldn\u2019t have existed if it weren\u2019t for the drum part to be quite honest with you.<\/p>\n

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Amy<\/strong>: Well I thought it was the whole song at first then the lyrics came on well into it.<\/p>\n

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Jason<\/strong>: We were at practice one day and the beginning of that song was inspired from this beat that I did for this drum solo for the modern drum festival DVD 5 years ago. It was just something that morphed out of that and we just started kind of jamming on it and two hours later we had a song.<\/p>\n

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Amy<\/strong>: What\u2019s been your most fulfilling career moment, I know you\u2019ve been nominated for a Grammy.<\/p>\n

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Jason<\/strong>: Two Grammy nominations actually. Well there\u2019s been a few to be honest with you. The Grammy nominations are great, don\u2019t get me wrong, but both years were against Slayer and Slipknot. We were like, we\u2019re not going to win, come on. To be nominated is an honor. To happen twice is, you know, a double honor. As far as the biggest career moment for me, one of them just happened a couple weeks ago. We played in front of a hundred thousand people in Bogota, Columbia and it was just insane. There were just people everywhere and you couldn\u2019t see where it ended. Another one was when I filled in for Charlie Benante in Anthrax in 2006. That was pretty cool too.<\/p>\n

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Amy<\/strong>: I know you started drumming really early, what was the name of your first band?<\/p>\n

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Jason<\/strong>: My first band? Gladiator<\/p>\n

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Amy<\/strong>: How old were you, like eight?<\/p>\n

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Jason<\/strong>: No, no actually I think I was like fourteen. That was the first real band I had where it was more than just me and a guitar player. I don\u2019t count it as a band until it\u2019s like a full band.<\/p>\n

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Jason<\/strong>: We even had a gig at one point. I had a gig with my friends, it was me and two trumpet players believe it or not. I know, what kind of gig is that? Drums and trumpet players. But we did like a junior high dance, just the three of us. We were playing stage band songs from middle school, but just the drums and trumpet parts.<\/p>\n

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Amy<\/strong>: Were your parents supportive when you were growing up of the music?<\/p>\n

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Jason<\/strong>: Yeah. My parents split up when I was young, and I lived with my mom. But God rest her soul, she never complained about the drums. She was really supportive.<\/p>\n

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Amy<\/strong>: Yeah that\u2019s always interesting in a small compact space, like in a house. I also read that you do drum clinics. I find it really cool that you go out and try to teach kids how to do this, who may be aspiring to do it. Why did you get into doing that and what advice do you give them?<\/p>\n

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Jason<\/strong>: Well for me it\u2019s always been a thing, even when I was a kid when I started going to drum clinics myself when I was thirteen or fourteen years old, I always gravitated to that. I always enjoyed going to them. I thought some day if I\u2019m ever in this position I want to do this myself. Once our career started taking off and I was making a name for myself, I put it out there to the company and said that I wanted to start doing clinics. So here we are six years later, and I\u2019m still doing them. They\u2019re fun, they\u2019re demanding of me because number one, all eyes are on you. There\u2019s nobody else. I\u2019m not playing with the band. If I make a mistake or something, there\u2019s no one to cover it up. You\u2019re going to see and hear it. But for me I like doing it because it gives me a chance to go out, gives me a chance to play different music, gives me a chance to play songs that aren\u2019t in the confines of Shadows Fall and it is not limited to metal.\u00a0 It just gives me a chance to share the knowledge that I have of drumming and how I do what I do. I\u2019m there to educate, it\u2019s not there to be a, \u201cHey look at me I\u2019m showing off\u201d kind of thing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Amy<\/strong>: I didn\u2019t know if you were going to show up show up today with long hair or short hair, you\u2019re kind of switching it up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jason<\/strong>: Its long. It\u2019s long and a mess right now. I don\u2019t know how long it\u2019s going to stay long. I keep threatening to buzz it all off by the end of the summer, but who knows.<\/p>\n

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Amy<\/strong>: Are you taking a poll on whether to keep it?<\/p>\n

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Jason<\/strong>: You know how many twelve year old kids will be shouting at me, \u201cDon\u2019t do it because you won\u2019t be heavy metal anymore.\u201d I was heavy metal before you were even a gleam in your father\u2019s eye, you know? Hair does not make you metal or non metal.<\/p>\n

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Amy<\/strong>: Who is your dream band to play with?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jason<\/strong>: I would obviously pick my favorite band, Rush<\/strong>, but then again I would have to fill Neil\u2019s shoes and I can\u2019t do that, but that would be fun just to play with them. Maiden would be a dream gig definately. Metallica wouldn\u2019t be too shabby either.<\/p>\n

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Amy<\/strong>: If you weren\u2019t a musician, what do you think you would be doing?<\/p>\n

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Jason<\/strong>: I would probably still be working computer operations for the state of New York like I was before I left to do this full time.<\/p>\n

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Amy<\/strong>: It\u2019s not a bad gig<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jason<\/strong>: No it\u2019s not a bad gig. I would be 15 years from retirement or so. Not in this job!<\/p>\n

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Amy<\/strong>: You wouldn\u2019t trade it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jason<\/strong>: No I wouldn\u2019t be half as happy as I am now.<\/p>\n

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Amy<\/strong>: So what\u2019s up next for you guys?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jason<\/strong>: I don\u2019t really know to be quite honest with you. We have an offer to do a festival in China in October which we are hopefully going to do and work in some of the other territories we have been to, like go back to Japan again, go back to Korea, the Philippines again and maybe do some of the markets like Indonesia, Malaysia that we have had offers for but we haven\u2019t had the chance to do yet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interview: Jason Bittner, Drummer, Shadows Fall   Venue: Mayhem Fest 2010 Cincinnati, OH   By: Amy Harris   Date: 7\/21\/2010   Shadows Fall\u00a0is a heavy metal\u00a0band from\u00a0Springfield,\u00a0Massachusetts, formed in 1995. Although the band has experienced several line-up changes, for most of its recording career Shadows Fall has been composed of\u00a0Brian Fair\u00a0(vocals), Jonathan Donais (lead guitar),\u00a0Matt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[125,134],"tags":[245,160,244,246,1617,1620,247,248,250,1594,249],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1016"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3742,"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions\/3742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefirst3songs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}