Wage War know you can't please 'em all. That's not the point, either.
From their metalcore beginnings through to the genre-obliterating approach they've brought to their heavy-then-poppy-then-extra-heavy new STIGMA album, the Florida-bred quintet are continually pushing their sonic landscape through multiple extremes. Indeed, the bandmates love their increasingly experimental spirit. Some fans… might not.
STIGMA notably follows the smash success of "MANIC," the metal-chunky, but also R&B-twitched and industrial-stitched title track to the band's 2021 breakthrough album. The song has since been streamed more than 30 million times on Spotify alone. It's a landmark track, but most of Wage War were a little weirded out by the song when guitarist-vocalist Cody Quistad first brought it their way.
After letting their guards down and trusting their bandmate's instincts, though, the group — rounded out by vocalist Briton Bond, guitarist Seth Blake, bassist Chris Gaylord and drummer Stephen Kluesener — realized how damn fun it was to work outside their usual confines.
That only emboldened Wage War to get weirder with STIGMA, where heart-tugging hard rock ("MAGNETIC," "BLUR") collides against Rammstein-and-Powerman 5000-worshipping dance-metal ("Self Sacrifice" "IN MY BLOOD"), Nashville-twangy mutations ("HELLBENT"), and a balls-heavy salute to both Nineties Western cinema and prime Pantera ("TOMBSTONE").
As the band only continues to grow, that means more and more people are gravitating towards Wage War's cross-referential wonderwall. It also means the haters — like a person on Instagram who said they instantly "barfed" all over their phone when Wage War's mechano-edged "NAIL5" single dropped earlier in the spring — are also multiplying.
"For a while, we existed in a place where there was never a negative comment, ever," Quistad explains. "And I think as your band gets bigger, and as more people have opinions on your music, the louder those things get online. It's been interesting to watch comment sections run back and forth.
"I think if we're not doing something that's at least a little bit scary or a little bit on the edge, then we're not doing ourselves any justice," he continues of steering Wage War through, paradoxically, their most poppy and punishing era yet. "I [also] know that we have never been prouder of a record. I truly believe that people are going to love it."
From the new album's cinematic touchstones, to its sickest riffs, to the way Wage War are currently blazing up stages, Quistad and vocalist Briton Bond walk us through the artistic freedom of their STIGMA.
There are some vicious battle anthems on here, like "TOMBSTONE." Where's that coming from
BRITON BOND That's a nod to one of our favorite movies.
CODY QUISTAD Yeah, Tombstone. It's really hard when you're writing heavy music to not write aggressive lyrics behind it. We're pretty chill guys, overall, but I think we like to use semi-violent imagery to convey points. "TOMBSTONE" is basically about smoking a dude at the O.K. Corral, and walking out of a saloon, like, "We got a problem here?" It's that vibe — obviously not in that joking of a manner.
I have a TV [above] my computer monitor, and when we were working on "TOMBSTONE" over here, we kept watching this Western over and over again. The song isn't about the movie, but the imagery that we chose is very much based off of showdowns in the West, and stuff like that. I think there's probably some more themes like that in "NAIL5" and "SELF SACRIFICE" — both have aggressive tendencies.
With Briton's mosh call ahead of the outro — "You tell 'em I'm coming, and hell's coming with me" — that's a direct line from the movie. Have you heard back from Kurt Russell on that?
QUISTAD We have. Our booking company represents Kurt Russell, as well, so as soon as our booking agent heard this, he marched it down to Kurt Russell's agent's office, and he was like, "Hey, do you think Kurt would ever be in this video?"
Apparently, Kurt listened to the song. He thought it was awesome! I think the exact words were, "This is one of the coolest odes to this movie I've ever seen, but it's too heavy for my image." So, we wrote a song, but it was too heavy for Wyatt Earp from Tombstone.
Maybe you should do some kind of a Calypso-infused song next, really bring him on-board with the Captain Ron vibes.
QUISTAD We're strictly a Kurt Russell band from now on. [Laughs]
How about "SELF SACRIFICE?" Lyrically, people are sinking their teeth into other people into that one. Was that inspired by a vampire film?
BOND Did we turn on Blade for that one, Cody?
QUISTAD You know how people are really into mood boards these days? They'll say, "This is where I see myself," and there'll be pictures of aesthetics or whatever. I feel like for us, when we were writing songs, we weren't necessarily writing the songs about the movie, but it certainly helped further dive into the vibe. I feel like we're pretty big vibe guys. Yeah, Blade was for that one. We used The Matrix for one of the other songs that was real club-thumpy.
It was just a unique way for us to pull inspiration. I have these lights in my room that change color — I changed them to green when we were watching The Matrix. I changed them to red when we were watching Blade, because of the opening scene with the blood everywhere. It's a little ridiculous, but we had fun.
STIGMA has got a lot of different vibes, though the heaviness of "TOMBSTONE" — especially that intense, squealy breakdown at the end — makes it one of the most extreme songs on the record…
QUISTAD I feel like we made a very calculated choice on this record to make 10 entirely different songs, which is what made picking singles so incredibly difficult. There are heavy moments. There's industrial moments. There's melodic moments. There's country moments. There's all these different things, and it's all styles of music that we love and wanted to do our thing to. The entire idea behind STIGMA is that we wanted to make a record that transcends genre. At this point, we're the band that has an acoustic record [but] also has a six-minute breakdown on their first record.
For "TOMBSTONE," specifically, we were just like, "Hey, let's write an absolute ass-beater." Briton got up there and did his thing on the mic. Riff-wise — and this goes throughout the whole album — we really tried to pull from the early inspirations for us — Metallica, Slayer, Pantera — and bring them into 2024.
We literally called the last riff on the song "The Pantera Riff." That was something Seth was playing in soundcheck for the last two years. We'd start jamming on it a little bit during soundcheck, but nothing really came out of it. Then we were getting to the end of this song, and it's like, "You know what? We're hitting them with a riff." So, we did the tempo change into the beatdown.
As you said, you've made a record that speaks to wildly different aspects of Wage War's interests. Are you ever nervous about making those giant steps?
BOND A little nervous, but I think we're more excited than anything [to be] pushing the boundaries.
QUISTAD When we put out "MANIC," that was a really big turning point for us.
I had sent that demo to the boys and they were like, "What is this?" And I was like, "This is a Wage War song!" They were like, "…I don't know about that." Anyways, we put out the song, and it's been our top streamer since the day it came out. That was such a different song for us. After that, we gave permission to ourselves to not be afraid of chasing down something unique.
You mentioned the country side of this record. What was it like working with artists from that world, like Devin Dawson and Mitchell Tenpenny?
QUISTAD I've lived in Nashville for the last couple years, and I've always been really into country music. Really, we all have. I think we just got to a point when we were touring in the van where it was like, "Can we please listen to anything other than just metal?" Because we're getting our heads kicked in every night — and then we've got to drive all night — country fell into our driving playlist. I think a lot of people can be turned off because of the twang, which is fine, but I truly believe that country music has the best songwriting in the world.
It's amazing storytelling. There's a lot of lyrical wordplay. And there's something about the way a country chorus falls on the beat that makes it so inherently catchy. I think people have caught onto it with previous [Wage War] records and been like, "This kind of sounds like a country chorus." I wanted to take that a step further and actually write with people that do that thing.
So yeah, I wrote "HELLBENT" with Mitchell Tenpenny, and I wrote "BLUR" with Devin Dawson and Kyle Fishman, who is a producer in the country space. The cool thing about all three of those guys is that Devin and Kyle used to be in Molotov Solution, which is a deathcore band, and Mitchell also used to be in metal bands, growing up. They're in country, and they love metal — I'm in metal, and I love country.
On the idea of being drawn to each other — and we're possibly getting too literal with "MAGNETIC," here — how's the working relationship between you two at the moment?
BOND I had a blast, especially working with our producer, Drew Fulk. He pulls me out of my comfort zone and makes me try new things. And with me and Cody, it's a fire and ice kind of vibe, or sweet and spicy. On "MAGNETIC," we play off of each other really well.
Speaking of fire, it looks like pyro was a huge part of your recent sets at the Welcome to Rockville and Louder than Life festivals. Is that new for you?
BOND Anytime we can do it, we will do it. We're big fans of Rammstein and Disturbed, and all those guys have crazy fire shows. So, every time we're outside, we're like, "Can we do fire?"
QUISTAD It's another way to really stand out and deliver a show. And a lot of times, if it's daytime, you can't even see the [stage] lights anyways. We always try to make sure we give our all, especially in a festival scenario. You're playing for a bunch of new people, and sometimes it's the biggest crowds you're ever going to play for. Why not leave them with the best impression, to have them be, like, "Yo, did you see that band that had fire?"
Was there anything that you had to learn about navigating a stage with pyro blasting all around you?
BOND I think they mark it off with tape, like, "Don't stand in this area!" I'm usually up on the risers, and I'm like, "I'm going to catch on fire if I step any more to the left or right."
QUISTAD It's scary, for sure… [but] as long as you don't die, you're good.
This interview has been edited and condensed for flow and clarity.
