Currently on tour with Kittie in support of their debut album, “Generation Why?” Chicago thrashers Diamond Plate have been beyond hard at work. The young band is honing their skills on the road and is building toward being a national act in the future. Between gigs, lead guitarist Konrad Kupiec was able to give Reviewfix.com a few words about Diamond Plate, touring and more.
Review Fix: How old were you when you started playing guitar?
Konrad Kupiec: I’ve been playing guitar for about seven and a half years. I started when I was 11 years old. I’m 19 now.
Review Fix: Did you take lessons or are you self- taught?
Kupiec: I took guitar lessons fro the first few years and for the past few years I’ve been self taught.
Review Fix: What kind of gear do you use?
Kupiec: Right now I’m playing ESP guitars. I have the Jeff Hanneman model and a few LTD others. As far as amps, I’m working with the Engel Powerball. Engel is definitely the best amp I’ve ever played with.
Review Fix: What’s your favorite piece of gear?
Kupiec: I would definitely say the ESP guitar because I’m so used to playing it. It’s definitely my favorite.
Review Fix: What would be your dream gear?
Kupiec: I would stick with ESP as far as I can so, I pretty much have my dream gear. Just looking for that ESP endorsement deal.
Review Fix: Diamond Plate is known for being a very young band. How old were you when you guys started?
Kupiec: When I joined the band, it was when we were all about 14-15 years old in 2007 I believe.
Review Fix: What was it like to take the leap to get signed and how did it come about?
Kupiec: Earache has actually had their eyes on us for about three years when we had our first recording “the mountains of madness EP.” They’ve been watching us to see how we promote ourselves. It wasn’t until last summer that the head guy over at Earache, Digby Pearson emailed us and expressed how they wanted to work with us. It was one of the most gratifying things we could ever ask for and to get that kind of recognition from a label we all really respect. It’s all really mind-blowing. So far, it’s been really amazing working with them. They’re an amazing bunch of people and them helping further our careers is something we’ve always dreamed about.
Review Fix: Some of the older songs are a little slower and have new parts added to them on the album. What made you guys decide to change them up?
Kupiec: I guess that came about because the EPs were recorded in my basement and we didn’t play to a click track and we were just playing what we felt at the time. We were all nervous because we were all 15-16 so the speed is a natural thing. I guess this time we focused more on the songs themselves since we really had time to work on our musicianship to where we could really focus on the songs and make everything as tight and as focused from the get go. This is the way we’ve always wanted the songs to sound.
Review Fix: You said you recorded the EPs in your basement. Were they recorded live or tracked separately?
Kupiec: When we did the EPs I think we tracked everything separately. When Jim was playing drums, we were obviously playing along in the room, but then we just layered guitars and bass and vocals over that. It definitely had that live energy and feel to it, but we tracked them separately. That’s also how we did the album and you can hear it for sure.
Review Fix: A lot of the songs are a bit slower than what you are known for and have grooves as well as sludge elements incorporated in them. Some may call it more of a “mainstream†thrash album. Why did you choose to do this?
Kupiec: I definitely wouldn’t call it mainstream because its still pretty heavy and aggressive. We’ve always been a band where we play what we feel. We never did anything to go into a kind of market or anything or any sort of style. It’s just kind of us expressing ourselves the only way we can. We want to write songs that are different from anything that we’ve ever done. This is more just to push ourselves in a different directions and the album has its fast elements and slow elements and take the listener on a journey, as opposed to being a straight 20 0mph album with no breaks. The album needs flow to it. It was just us pushing ourselves as musicians.
Review Fix: Are you worried about losing any older fans over this?
Kupiec: It never really crossed our minds. Like I said, we just write the music that we do and whoever likes it likes it and whoever doesn’t, doesn’t and were totally fine with that. At the end of the day, we couldn’t be prouder of what we put on the album and the reaction has been positive from old fans and new fans alike. I’d say were definitely okay with just putting the music out there for people to listen to and if they dig it, they dig it and that’s great.
Review Fix: You recently acquired a second guitarist. Why did you make this decision after carrying on as a three-piece for so long?
Kupiec: We just sat down and did a little self analysis of our weaknesses and stuff and one thing that was a big weakness was not having that extra wall of sound live. On the EPs I obviously wrote for two guitars and I would always layer a lot and try to make it really heavy and full, but when we would be playing live, there was just something missing. We just needed that extra guitar for live purposes. Mario, unfortunately, didn’t play on the record at all. Everything on the record was recorded by me guitar wise, but he’s definitely going to be a big part of the second album and every album after that.
Review Fix: A lot of Diamond Plate’s lyrics are about society and current problems in it. Why do you choose these topics and not horror movies, comic books and other geeky things that thrash is mostly known for?
Kupiec: I guess our main goal with the lyrics is to stay relevant and the only way to do that is to keep up with whats going on in the world. What people are constantly thinking about and there’s just so much fucked up shit in the world that it provides and endless source of inspiration and gives us that realism that we’re going for. People can relate to the music and I think that’s the most important part of every style of music.
Review Fix: Who came up with the title concept, the cover concept and why?
Kupiec: The album title and the cover concept was something I thought of. What we were going for with the title was again to make it relevant to not only whats going on the world, but to people our age. Were all 18 and 19 years old. The only way to make it real is to make it about people our age and just the fact that most people our age don’t strive for greatness the way that past generations have seemed to do. It seems that everyone our age is okay with being mediocre and just getting by without wanting to strive and make it more. That’s our statement against people our age. For the cover, I wanted to make something really iconic; just one image that sums up what the album is about and what everything in it is about. The cover is a real picture, it’s not a painting or anything graphically designed. It’s a real TV that we smashed. The picture was taken by Gene Ambo, which is a legendary photographer, who has done everything including Exodus’s “Fabulous Disaster†and just a ton of stuff. In a way, we want the album cover to match the music, 100 percent real and honest and true and I think we’ve accomplished both.
Review Fix: You have your first two big tours coming up. You guys are currently on the road with Kittie and will soon be touring with Warbringer, Lazarus AD and Landmine Marathon. This is going to be a big breakout tour for Warbringer because it’s their first headlining tour. How do you feel about this?
Kupiec: We all couldn’t be more excited. The Kittie tour is going surprisingly well for us, we’ve been gaining new fans every night and the Warbringer tour we’re all really excited about because it’s gonna be more of our crowd you know, the thrashers and stuff. Plus, it’s gonna be with Warbrigner, whom were great friends with and Lazarus AD, whom where great friends with and Landmine Marathon from what I’ve heard are really bad ass as well. It’s going to be a great tour for everyone without a doubt.
Review Fix: Which band would you like to tour with the most?
Kupiec: Anyone and everyone. I’d love to tour with my idols Testament and Exodus. Those are bands that I grew up and listened to. I think, as a new band, we should tour with everyone and anyone that we can to get us out there, and eventually get to bigger and better tours and maybe even a big four thing, which would be amazing.
Review Fix: Who’s your favorite band?
Kupiec: That changes every week, but I’d say that my favorite band right now is Thin Lizzy. That should be an interesting answer, but its just a band that I’ve grown up since I was a kid.
Review Fix: How do you feel about the passing of Gary Moore?
Kupiec: Oh man, I was just devastated. Gary Moore, he’s just got such style. It was a tragedy to the guitar community. All the stuff that he did with Thin Lizzy and all the solo records that I own he’s definitely one of my favorite.
Review Fix: What’s the future of Diamond Plate?
Kupiec: Touring and writing. That’s all we plan to do. To take music back to its roots and just tour and tour and tour, and while you’re on tour, you’re writing and then you get into the studio right away. Then you just continue touring. That’s always been our dream and that’s what we’re going to end up doing.
Review Fix: What’s something people might not know about you?
Kupiec: I’m a huge vinyl junkie. I collect records and have a pretty big collection and that’s all I spend my money on so I guess that’s obscure.
Review Fix: Which one would you say is your baby?
Kupiec: My baby? The most expensive record I’ve got is from the band called Hose. The producer Rick Rubin, that was his first band and its really raw and dirty punk album put out on DEF JAM records. It’s cool as fuck having that and there’s an etching in the vinyl that I think he put in there. I have a huge metal collection as well, but I collect everything from metal to jazz.
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