Utter Trash--Summer Dying

Summer’s Time

An interview with Kerry Cripe of Summer Dying

By Bob Ignizio

Although melodic death metal band Summer Dying (Kerry Cripe – vocals, Bob Bryant – bass, Ben Harris – drums, Briant Daniel – lead guitar, Tony Oliver – lead & rythym guitar) hails from Lansing, Michigan they shouldn’t be unfamiliar to Cleveland thrashers. The band has made several forays into our neck of the woods, usually sharing a bill with the now sadly departed Somnus. That’s how I first became aware of the band and their killer live show. With a new CD set for release soon and a 2 ½ week tour scheduled to follow (including an Ohio stop on April 15^th at Midgard Comics in Columbus) it seemed like as good a time as any to get the lowdown from lead vocalist Kerry Cripe about what’s going on with his band.

“March 29^th is the CD release party, that’s here in Lansing. We’re playing with Dead to Fall and Premonitions of War, both major bands. It should be a good time.” Kerry says. “The new album’s called ‘One Last Taste of Temptation.’ It’s more dynamic and the songs aren’t as long as on the first album, ‘Beyond the Darkness Within’. On that album the songs were all six minutes plus. This time we have some songs that are as short as three minutes. Some of them are more straight to the point, more brutal. Not brutal in an Amercian death metal way, it’s still melodic. But it’s fast, it’s punchy, it’s in your face. There are a lot more breakdowns. Some people would maybe say it’s a little more hardcore sounding. I’d just have to say we’re a little more diverse this time around.”

Although Kerry cites Opeth and At the Gates as primary influences he says, “different influences are flowing constantly through the band. Our new stuff sounds a lot different from the stuff on ‘Beyond the Darkness Within.’ Some people would call it death metal, but I think we’re just a melodic metal band. We do have death metal influences, mainly Swedish death metal.” Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Summer Dying’s sound is their vocal interplay. Kerry explains, “Somber and Mind Collision – the two bands that Summer Dying came out of – were both into doing that vocal interplay. When Summer Dying formed we just wanted to have as many vocal layers as possible, just trade off and everyone have their own part. More vocal interplay makes things more interesting, more dynamic. Especially for live shows.”

Although original guitarist Tim Lydon wrote most of the band’s music at first, since his departure a year ago drummer Ben Harris has taken up the slack. “Ben also plays guitar and he writes most of the music now. He worked with Tony and Tony started writing some songs. Briant writes all his leads. I write all the lyrics, and Bob writes back-ups to what I write,” says Kerry. As for his lyrics Kerry says, “This album is kind of a concept album. It’s mainly about suicide and depression. On our last album Bob, our bass player, wrote most of the lyrics. His lyrics were about relationships and depression. It’s kind of been a concept for us, and that’s kind of where the name came from. Both the bands we were in before died around the Summer time. We’re not all that unhappy. It’s just that it’s best to write about it instead of sulking in our anger and misery. To write about it, perform it, feel it. You can feel the music when it’s something you know. If I was writing about something I didn’t know about I wouldn’t feel it like I do.”

Some of the song titles on the new album include “One Last Taste of Temptation”, “Trials of Life”, “Story for Eternity”, and “Eternal Sleep”. “We’re still working on titles for a few of the songs. We wrote ten songs for this and we had to go right into the studio because we’ve got a tour coming up in April. About 50% of it has been played out. Some of those songs were written back when the first album was recorded, but we didn’t have them tight enough to record at that time. We decided to wait until they matured. ‘Trials of Life’, ‘Holding On’, and ‘Story for Eternity’ have been around just as long as the older material. ‘One Last Taste of Temptation’ is a great crowd pleaser here in Lansing. It’s got a breakdown that makes the kids go crazy,” says Kerry.

As with their first CD, Summer Dying are handling the release of ‘One Last Taste of Temptation’ themselves. Kerry says, “Lumberjack distroed 15 copies of the first CD. We’re going to see if they’ll take some more of those and maybe some of the new CD. But as of now it’s self released, we’re financing everything ourselves. We’ll sell it at the stores in Lansing, online, and at the shows. IF the right opportunity comes along we’re looking for licensing, not really to be signed per se. We’d like someone to distro our CD and give us some tours. It’s what we love to do; it’s our passion, our love. We don’t want anyone telling us how to do it.”

Without the muscle of a label to help in promotions, Summer Dying have gone the old fashioned route of spreading the word through touring. Kerry says, “We started off with little weekend things in Ohio and Indiana. Those went alright and the more we played out the more our name got out. So it kept picking up more and more. We do really well in Kentucky. I don’t know what it is about Kentucky, but Louisville loves us and we love them. There’s a few other places, like Indianappolis we do ok. We played the Milwauke Metal fest the last couple of years, which was great. We did a 2 ½ week tour with Bestiary. We had some bad shows and some good shows, but it was a great time. Coming up in April we’re going to be doing a tour for the new album.”

With the success Summer Dying have achieved so far through the word of mouth generated by touring and the ability of the internet to spread information Kerry doesn’t see his band in any rush to change the way they do business. Already the band have won an online poll for best unsigned metal act, and ‘Beyond the Darkness Within’ ranked 9 out of 10 in Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles unsigned albums of the year for 2002.

When I asked Kerry where he’d like to see Summer Dying a year from now, he said “Hopefully on tour, hopefully putting out more albums. Playing live is our passion, it’s what we love to do. I feel so at home on stage. We don’t necessarily want to be signed, but hopefully have more national attention.” Considering how poorly the big record companies have adapted to doing business in the information age so far, Summer Dying might just have the right idea.