Review Fix Exclusive: Ignite’s Brett Rasmussen Talks ‘A War Against You’

Review Fix chats with Ignite’s Brett Rasmussen, who discusses the band’s first album in over a decade, “A War Against You.” Touring a playing with iconic bands the likes of Bad Religion, Misfits, Suicidal Tendencies, Goldfinger, Sevendust, Machine Head, In Flames and Motörhead, they’ve created quite a legacy of their own. Reunited with producer Cameron Webb, the band is back in a big way.

Review Fix: What makes “A War Against You” a special album?

Brett Rasmussen: The inspiration from our fans who pushed us to make this new album. It is always a humbling thing when somebody thanks you for making music or tells you that an album you made changed his or her life. That reminds you that there are people who are anxiously waiting for the next album, so that is where a lot of the inspiration comes from. That challenges us to make better and better songs.

Review Fix: What else did you guys do differently with this one?

Rasmussen: Every album is different than any of your previous albums. In the approach to this album we reminded ourselves that there are things that Ignite fans expect from us and we feel it is important to keep a link to our previous work, but at the same time, it is very important to surprise our listeners with new and exciting elements that they do not expect. When bands try to make a copy of a previous record they always fall short because it is impossible to capture the magic of a previous album. That was a different time and place. We believe it is important that bands re-create themselves somewhat on each album and keep the energy and creativity fresh. That was always the biggest challenge during the recording process, to create something exciting and fresh without losing the sense of the band. When we finished this new recording we were very satisfied with the results.

Review Fix: How has your sound changed over the years?

Rasmussen: I personally think that we have become better songwriters and better musicians over the past 20 years. With that, you are going to try new things and take inspiration from new avenues as well. We are always listening to new bands and seeing what other musicians do. It’s inevitable to take inspiration from songs and artists that move you.

Review Fix: How was “Oh No Not Again” written?

Rasmussen: Musically it was written on bass. I was messing around with distorted bass tones and got something really dirty sounding that inspired me to play a driving, climbing bass run. I was in my room sitting at my desk with a 5 string bass playing the intro bass run over and over and I was having a lot of fun with that. The structure of the song musically was written in about an hour, then, of course, some re-arranging was done in the studio and some great parts were added by the guys.

Lyrically, Zoli had read through the memoirs of his uncle, who was a teenager fighting in World War II. He wrote about the atrocities of war and how horrible it is to experience fighting and death on the battlefield. The writings of his uncle inspired Zoli to pen this song.

Review Fix: Are there any other songs with interesting stories behind them?

Rasmussen: Here are a few notes on a couple of the albums songs:

“Alive” Zoli’s family emigrated from Hungary to the USA in the early 1960s. They were escaping an impoverished country that was under the harsh communist rule. There was no opportunity, no hope, no future in their eyes. So, they decided to uproot everything and leave their homeland in search of opportunity, freedoms and the chance to have a future. They came to the States by boat and were put on a train to California. It was the opportunity that they had dreamed of.

“Where I’m From”  This song was written in Hungarian first and then the English version came second, much like our song “A Place Called Home” from the album with the same title. I think I like the Hungarian version slightly better than the English version.

“The Suffering” This song talks about how we are still struggling with many of the same racial issues in 2015 as we did in 1963 when Martin Luther King gave his great and inspiring speech “ I Have A Dream”.

“How Is This Progress” This song tackles some environmental ideologies that developers use the justify decimating the earth. It seems that when people want to justify destroying the land around us they use the words “Progress” for a reason and as an excuse.

“You Lie” The drums in this song are one of my favorite on the album. They are so chaotic and so different from the original demo that we recorded. Once we got into the recording studio Craig tried a bunch of different approaches to the drum tracks and it was really cool to see this song evolve rhythmically.

“Work” Is a blue collar song that tells the story of a man who sacrifices his dreams and his life to provide for his family to no end. There are some people who take responsibility in life when they bring children into the world and there are others who abandon their responsibilities for selfish reasons. This song was written in appreciation of Zoli’s father and the hard work he did his whole life to support his family.

Review Fix: How do you want this album to affect people?

Rasmussen: I guess there are always heightened expectations when there is a long wait between albums for a band. We were very happy how many people loved Our Darkest Days because we really liked it when we finished recording it. We had the same feelings when we finished this album…we liked it and that’s all we can really do, is be happy with what we have created.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Rasmussen: Tours…and hopefully, another album in less than 10 years.