UN: All three of your records have been released by Century Media in the UK, but A New Darkness Upon Us marks the first time that the band is being released in the US by the label. Are you guys excited to see how the reaction will be?

Adam(vocals): Totally, we’ve been over a couple of times before and managed to hook up with some cool bands to play with like God forbid, Blood for Blood and Buried Alive and got great reactions. It’ll be good to see what we can do with a higher profile release behind us, Century Media certainly seem to be behind us but we really need to get over to play.

Scott(guitars): I followed the radio play lists our radio promotions team sent me and we charted pretty good. We got lots of emails from that so I guess the reaction has been really positive. Now the video is on MTV2 kids can see more of us before we come over to destroy.

UN: Do you know exactly why the first two cd’s weren’t released domestically? I know that Thorp licensed Carved From Empty Words. It seems that in a country where Hatebreed is doing so well the label would have wanted to have your albums released here because you guys have similar musical approaches.

Adam(vocals): Somewhere along the line some fuckwit decided it shouldn’t come out. We were pretty sore about it but all the C M staff are cool as fuck nowadays and are really behind the new record.

Scott(guitars): It was always a mystery to me, when we played the NE Metalfest in 2001, all the press and kids who’d seen us couldn’t believe how things had been handled for us in the States. Everyone was talking about it, it definitely hurt us. ‘Carved…’ got stellar reviews everywhere and ‘Officer Down’ has become a classic. It’s a real shame CM didn’t get behind it.

UN: Would you agree that A New Darkness Upon Us is the bands strongest album to date? Did you guys go into this album any differently then you have in the past?

Adam(vocals):There was a long gap between the records, about 3 years most of which was spent on the road and I think we just grew as a band. We spent a long time writing the songs ensuring there was no filler, if a section didn’t make us wanna throw ourselves across the room up it was canned. We kicked out our drummer and really landed on our feet with Neil who brought even more aggression and groove to the songs. We really piled the pressure on ourselves in that if we didn’t sincerely believe the record was world class then it wouldn’t come out.

UN: Do you think that from a production stand point this is the bands strongest album? What brought about the decision to work with Andy Sneap? Pretty much every album he produces sounds amazing. He is just capable of getting the biggest guitar sounds possible. Was that a deciding factor in working with him?

Scott(guitars): Definitely. Andy has a big enough reputation without the need for me to big him up. I’ve been a fan of Andy’s work for a long time and our style of riffage would sound great with him behind it. We demoed the album with Andy and it was clear we all got on great and shared common views and interests on metal. We knew it would work out. I’m very critical of how albums are produced and having struggled somewhat with other producers in the past to get the right results, I didn’t want that this time. We wanted to feel secure that the end result would be dynamic and powerful with no risk of it turning out shit!

UN: Would you say that having a new drummer on this record brought anything new to the table? The drum performance is quite stellar. I noticed a lot of little fills and his playing is very tight.

Adam(vocals):Yeah definitely, Neil kicks ass. He’s a less is more guy with the capability of playing fuckin insane stuff with ease too!

Scott(guitars): Our previous guy was a great drummer but he had some basic flaws which compromised the band’s tightness. With Neil in the seat we have a tighter groove which the kids can grab hold of easier. Bands nowadays have great drummers to make everything dynamic and you have to compete. Sneap knew it was 100% necessary to get it right on the album and worked Neil to the bone to get that performance.

UN: Do you think that A New Darkness Upon Us is the most metal that Stampin’ Ground has ever been? There definitely are hardcore breakdown and the vocals are definitely hardcore influenced, by most of the riffs wouldn’t sound out of place on a Slayer record. Would you say that a combination of thrash and hardcore is a good description of the current Stampin’ Ground sound?

Adam(vocals): We didn’t set out to write a record more metal or more hardcore, we just tried to concentrate on our strengths. I think the heavy music industry demands a more metal approach from what we do these days. Listening to the record now, it turned out totally metal which is fine by me.

Scott(guitars): We are definitely more metal these days; more of a thrash hardcore band. When we play live most of our chosen songs are the up tempo ones, and it comes across even more. SG is just one of those bands who just sounds how it sounds. Every interview we’ve ever done tries to bridge the ‘genre’ issue but it really is as simple as hardcore tinged metallic thrash.

UN: The band is playing with Anthrax for some shows in June/July of this year. You guys must be pretty excited about this. I wouldn’t say that Anthrax was an influence on the band, but as the same token it has to be nice to play with a band that is so influential and helped start thrash metal.

Adam(vocals): It’s gonna be great, NOT ha ha

Scott(guitars): There’s a lot of Scott Ian’s influence on my playing, especially the down picking stuff. Him and James Hetfield ruled in the 80’s, and I always looked up to them. They too are a band who manage to be themselves and take some hardcore influence to the masses to great success. We have a lot in common with them and we are really excited to tour with them.

UN: While on the subject of the tour with Anthrax, are there any bands you’d like to tour with? I’m sure that you guys would jump at the chance to play with Slayer as they are an obvious influence on Stampin’ Ground.

Adam(vocals): Yeah Slayer would be great. I’d love to get on one of Danzig’s Blackest of the Black Tours, that would fuckin rule. Machine Head would be awesome too; although I can’t understand their lack of success in the U.S.

Scott(guitars): Playing with Slayer would be the ultimate; and I don’t think we’d detract from their set in anyway. Almost everytime I’ve seen Slayer the crowd have shown little interest in the support band…(except Hatebreed I’m sure), but I think we’d win them over. It would be an awesome night of intense riffs. I’d love to support Sepultura again as they were totally cool, and also some newer bands like KSE and AS Adam said, Machine Head too.

UN: If I’m not mistaken this new album also marks another first for the band, the video for Bear the Scars. Is there a concept behind the video, or is mainly just live footage. Do you think it’s almost necessary for a band to have a video these days. Heavy music is getting more and more exposure right now.

Adam(vocals): The song is about finding a way to deal with traumatic memories. Obviously suicide is one option, although accepting that any experience, good or bad defines the person that you are today, for better or for worse. Dealing with it is obviously more positive than committing suicide, it’s about getting past that and on with your life. The video has many references to this but unfortunately the US censor’s weren’t happy with all our references to suicide and it’s been edited for the States.

Scott(guitars): It’s totally necessary to have a video. These days everyone has cable and the opportunity to watch heavy music is all around you. The younger audience find their new, cool bands on the TV, and if you aren’t on there, you aren’t competing.
UN: While on the subject of the video, has the band put any thought into releasing a dvd? You must have tons of live footage from over the course of the bands career. I’m sure there would be a great deal of SG fans who would be into a dvd release.

Adam(vocals):Yeah we have got lots of footage, it’d be something we won’t do for a good while yet though, wait till we’ve done a few more music video’s that we could stick on there.

Scott(guitars): We have stuff from day one, documenting a huge time scale. You name it, van journeys, breaking down, bad shows, awesome shows, its all there. Maybe one day we’ll edit it and put it out. It would be a mammoth job though, one that gets bigger everytime we go on the road!

UN: Do you think that with Century Media releasing this album in the states a US tour might not be that far off? I’m sure there are tons of people who are hoping for the chance to see the band live.

Adam(vocals):We are fucking gagging to come over, the last couple of US tours we were hoping to get on fell through for whatever reason, it’s all very frustrating. There’s usually so much bullshit involved in getting on a good tour.

Scott(guitars): The more I deal with the metal music industry the more I hate it. It’s full of ‘industry types’ sat in offices arguing about whose cool and being paranoid about who’s bigger than whom. People like this write us off because they think the kids don’t want to see us; even if they do. Hopefully someone will stick their neck out for us and once we’re over we’ll have everything to prove. We’ve toured with the best and we hold our own.

UN: We’re coming up on the ten year anniversary for Stampin’ Ground next year. Did you guys ever imagine that the band would stay together as long as it has? You’ve had a fair share of line-up changes over the years, but it seems pretty stable as well over of the years.

Adam(vocals): I joined the band on New Year’s Day ’98, and I was going to see them play in 96, I never thought about how long we’d stay together though. We’re pretty hard on ourselves; the minute SG starts getting stale or we can’t write a record better than the previous one we’ll call it a day.

Scott(guitars):Our outlook is the same today as ever. You never know what the future holds; I look back and we’ve done some amazing stuff. We’ve come a long way from humble beginnings and through the bad times we’re still here, stronger than ever. Everything is stacked against us, mainly because of Geography, but we won’t be beaten.