Originally published in ‘zine issue #1, 1991
Jim Adams, the guitarist for Defiance, was hanging out downstairs at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., near where they sell the tour shirts, in October of 1990. And I said, “Hey, man, let’s do an interview.” I wasn’t prepared or anything, but we did it anyway.
Soon he and the rest of Defiance would be on stage opening for Vio-Lence, and I had never heard Defiance before, so I was wondering what music category the band would put itself in.
“Um, I would just say pretty much thrash metal. We’re trying to become more intricate. We’re trying to become more complicated [and] keep it interesting. I’m really into, like, the Voivod thing, the really out-there shit.”
D.U.: As in the diminished chords?
“Yeah, right. We do that in one of our songs which was inspired by Dimension Hatröss. The stuff on the new album, we do that more. Not like how Piggy [from Voivod] plays it, but just the use of minor or flat fifth chords and whatnot.”
Another thing I wasn’t aware of was the band’s lyrical content.
“I’d like to say environmentally conscious. We talk about the Stockton Massacre where the guy went in with the automatic weapons and was killing off kids in the playground. That’s the song with the diminished chord thing in it. ‘Void Terra Firma’ is really about, y’know, the destruction of the ozone and the killing of the rain forests, leaving us with no air, thus we don’t exist, type of deal.”
I asked Jim what was going on with Defiance at the time.
“We’re touring for both albums.* What we do is we split our set up so we’re doing about half and half, a little bit more off the new one, because we have a new vocalist now.† Jeff Waters, [Annihilator’s] guitar player, produced our first album.”
This was a short interview, but sweet. Defiance, which has been doing this since October 1985, is pretty happening, and hopefully everybody will pick up both albums, ‘cause the material sounded good live! ■
*Void Terra Firma and Product of Society
†Steev “Dez” Esquivel, formerly of Laughing Dead
