I recently caught up vocalist Jake Sirokman and bassist Clint Gregory of Metalcore mainstays Manntis at their stop in Monterey, CA during their current 'Savage Burn' tour. Discussing everything from the split with Century Media Records to new music and the overall direction of the new album, the guys were extremely positive about the current state of the band, the addition of new drummer Gus Rios, and where the band see themselves in the not too distant future......(*During their headlining set, they showcased four new songs: "Pray For What You've Got", "Heaven Burning", "Manowar", and "Beat To Quarters")......

Loudside.com: So how exactly did this tour get put together?

Jake: Basically I did it myself. I just sat there and, from going up and down the cost for the last three and a half to four years I know all of the promoters, and we had a really good guy up in Tacoma, WA named Joey G. who helps us out with booking and shit. But yeah, basically I just got on the computer about three months ago and just started hitting up promoters. This is our first time playing Monterey. Pauly hit me up and asked if we wanted to play, and we were like "Yeah, sure".

Clint: We've been writing for a while, and we haven't been out on the road for a while, and so we kinda just wanted to take a break and do a little header up the west coast, just to your ya know. We've been writing and writing and writing, and in pre-production we've been pulling our hair out so we decided to go out and do a little...

Jake: To go out and party for two weeks, and just have a good time....clear our minds a little bit.

Loudside.com: So now as far as the rest of the bands on each stop, is it just going to be locals?

Jake: Ummm, lots of local support from the newer places like Reno local. Once we get into Reno, we'll be playing with our good friends from a band called Takeover. They're from Spokane, WA, and they'll be on like four of the shows.

Clint: Yeah, alot of bands that we've played with before that we're just kinda meeting back up with. But we've played with alot of locals from little towns that we haven't been to in a long time, and it's been great. It's always fun having the local bands come out cause they help draw, and they get out there and put on a good show. Especially playing with local bands and we don't even know who they are and they end up kickin ass. It's kinda cool cause you don't know how every night's gonna be cause it's a different band everynight. Going on a big tour with like six or seven other bands you know how every night's gonna be. With this, it's like I wanna go watch these bands, I've never heard em before, and it's new music everynight.

Jake: Yeah, it's a cool feeling. I mean, usually we don't like to headline. We've been opening act or direct support, but it's cool that these local bands come on out and tear it up before we play ya know. Have a good time, drink beers after the show, meet new people, stay at random houses.....

Loudside.com: Now you guys have been on tour pretty constantly since the whole 'Battle For Ozzfest' thing. Have you had any serious time off to really focus on writing new music?

Jake: This is the longest we've been home in about, almost 4 years now. What we wanted it to be was like 6 months. But you know, just writing the songs without being.....we wanna do a good like 20 songs and pick like 13 of the best. We're going for a more epic sound, alot of guitar shredding. D-rock and Adair are writing songs daily. We've got about over.....I'd say a couple hours of material down. And now that we're with Gus, he's gonna spend some time with us back home for a couple of weeks, and the knock it out and maybe set up another tour. All that fun stuff.

Clint: We've been home awhile now doing all the drummer transition stuff trying to get a drummer down, ya know it's very important. Trying to find the right drummer, and we've been through alot of drummers. Jimmy Sanders, our first drummer, who was on 'Sleep In Your Grave' has been great. He's been jamming all of our home shows, he's been helping us write this whole next record while we've been trying out new drummers. We met Gus from Florida, and he flew out about two weeks before we started this tour and it's been great. He's been great. Jimmy showed him a  bunch of stuff and he's gonna pick up where Jimmy left off.

Jake: Basically he heard all of our shit through an iPod and jammed it in his studio in Florida. He came and he fuckin knew the whole album, and uhh...yeah, we're full blown now. He doesn't want to go back to Florida. He wants to do full time with us, and it's great. He kicks ass!

Loudside.com: Right on. Now in regards to the new music, how many actual songs have been written thus far, and is there any specific direction or lyrical theme to any of them?

Jake: Lyrically, the whole band is getting in there this time around, cause I pretty much spoke my mind on the last five years of my life experience, the band's life experience. And this time I just kinda wanted to collaborate with the rest of the guys and just get a  book full of poetry and get alot deeper. Like I said, we're going very epic with this. It's just gonna be a whole new things. The new album is going to be titled 'Master Of Ceremonies', and hopefully this summer we'll get in the studio and knock it out.

Loudside.com: Now as far as lyrical content goes, there are alot of bands doing the whole political thing because of the whole political climate. Is there any of that going on with you guys?

Jake: I've never been a political guy. I mean, not heavy involved...I know my shit, but it's nothing that I need to preach to the fans or any of that. They know what's goin on in the world. There's so many bands that are knocking out the military and stuff, and of course our hearts go out to those guys fighting for out country. I mean, ya know, we're still writing....there may be some stuff about the people over in Iraq, and all that.....but you got bands like God Forbid, they do the whole political thing and they kick ass at it so.....

Clint: Basically what it is is, we don't have a whole lot of views....like there's bands that are political and uh......I mean we have views, but I like to think of us.....we're around to....no matter what your beliefs are, no matter what you believe in, if you don't like the war, if you like the war, whatever race you are....if you just wanna come and just let ANY kind of aggression out, come do it with us. We don't care about people's views.....I mean, we do, but we're not categorizing ourselves as such. We're categorized in just intensity and just letting people come to our shows and just thrash with us, ya know. And whatever your opinion is, let's just rip the roof off the house.

Loudside.com: Ok cool. So, what exactly happened with Century Media? Was that just a one album deal or something?

Jake: Umm, no, actually we were gonna do more. It was just a mutual agreement with what we were working on and the loss of our drummer and stuff. Ya know we haven't really talked much about it, except for amongst ourselves and the lawyers and shit like that. But we're still on good terms with all the guys Phil our A&R guy, George....I mean everybody. We basically just turned the boat and we said "Hey, in གྷ....... (Jake gets cut off momentarily as his phone goes off).

Clint: Century Media's great....it's just another chapter we're gonna open up.

Jake: We got new management, we're with Archetpye Management. Heather Jones, who worked with us over at Century Media, she was our publicist, we brought her on. So it's just a whole new chapter and it's cool......(As Adair and D-Rock join the party).

Loudside.com: So as of this moment, you guys are completely unsigned, correct?

Jake: We are unsigned, or freelance as I would say. We haven't had much record talk, we've just really been pushing through this album.

Clint: We've been looking and people have been looking at us, and we're just gonna kind of take our time with it. In the beginning, we were excited kids, we did all the touring on our own, we busted our ass in a van and it was kinda like....we were excited, and Century Media loved us and we loved it and we signed with them, but this time we're older, and more mature and we're gonna go about it more carefully. And it will all work itself out. The new album, the material is there, ya know there's product. And we're really concentrating on writing and recording this record moreso than getting signed. That's something that will come in the future. For this next record, we wanna take the last album that we did and just turn it into.......ten times that.And that's what we're really concentrating on right now.

Loudside.com: So there are labels showing interest, but you aren't in the process of anything right now?

Clint: It's casual. We're being casual. They're lookin, we're looking it's keeping casual but you know.....

Jake: As long as the labels see us still working, busting our ass, busting our own merch.....It's kinda how we did it with 'Sleep In Your Grave', I mean we went in and found an engineer, producer, we did everything ourselves. We took a loan out, we made our own copies, we went on tours. And then Century Media kinda came and just slapped their name on it and that was that.

Clint: So this will actually be.....when we get picked up, it will be the first album that we've done where we've been a signed band, and we're doing the album. Like the first one, we weren't signed, we recorded it, put it out, Cameron Webb did it, we put it out and then we got signed. This one, it'll be the first album that we've done being under a label.

Loudside.com: Now as far as Gus making the cut as the new drummer, how did that all come about, and were any other drummer considered?

Jake: Basically I put it out a thing on the website not knowing that it was going to get to Blabbermouth, Lambgoat, Metal Underground and all that. I mean, we've always kept it within friends ya know....Jimmy, Josh, Andre. And it's a whole new world once you get out and start touring, and for some people ya know, it's just not the life eating Top Ramen everyday, and sandwiches that are moldy.

Clint: Yeah, it's hard to do a Savage Burn across the country, and alot of people can't handle it.

Jake: Yeah, so I finally put the thing out on the internet, looking for serious touring drummers that want to fuckin accomplish what out goals are. And we got alot of feebdack. Probably a good 40 drummers responded. I read them all, cheking out bios and all that good stuff, Gus came along and had a video with two songs. Our two songs, "Axe Of Redemption" and "Weathered Soul", fuckin nailed it.

Adair: He fuckin Nailed IT!! We couldn't pass that shit up, we were like look at this motherfucker!

Clint: He's really professional. I mean, when you think of a drum guy, I would think of him. He's a total drum guy. He practices all day, he knows everything there is to know about drums, he can play any kind of style but at heart he's a total metal drummer.

Jake: Basically we called him, and he came out to the NAMM show in Anaheim, so he was right there, we picked him up and came and jammed like half a set with him, and we were like, "Dude, you want the gig?" And he was like "Fuck Yeah!" And I think with his death metal influence and everything he can do, for like what we're gonna do on the next album is just fuckin perfect.

Clint: He's endorsed by Spaun Drums, which are just great guys, great drum sets. He's definitely the link in the chain that we were waiting to get hooked up with.

Loudside.com: Now having a guy like Gus in the band, with a predominantly death metal background, I don't know if he's had any time to really write with you guys, but how do you feel that it will affect the creative process?

Clint: Well he kind of came in with us, because he wanted to the music we were doing. I mean he was kind of over......he's a huge death metal fan, but he kinda wanted to try something new. He's been doing it for years and years. And he said like "I hope that your new stuff is longer, and kinda more put together, and more technical, cause that's what I'm looking to do." I mean he joined the band not with the "I'm a death metal fan but I guesss I'll play for you", it wasn't like that at all. It was more of the "This is what I'm kinda looking to get into" so it was perfect.

Jake: Him and Adair sat down, and on top of like the five songs he learned, the new songs that we have, him and Adair on the third day down just fucking made a blistering blast beat song that's just in your face. And we'll probably throw some of that on there. We're not the biggest death metal fans, but respect the music, and I could listen to it everyday......

Clint: This album is definitely going to sound alot different than the first one, but at the same time it's not. I think if a Manntis fan hears it, they're gonna know it's us, but at the same time they're gonna say "wait a minute....it's them but it's got something else goin on". And that's what we've been trying to do, to just twist it a little bit and put more technicality into it. Adair and D-Rock's guitar skills have gone.......they can do so much stuff now, it's just overloaded, and we're all gonna put it into this one album. And we're looking to make it long and brutal, but at the same time we want it to be beautiful.....and just, alot more technical, and alot more deep than our last one.

Loudside.com: Now as far as that goes with the whole genre thing, I know alot of bands have been trying to step away from the 'metalcore' tag. Did you guys ever feel that you were a part of that whole movement?

Jake: We've been labeled metalcore, and I mean, I'd never even heard the term until our first couple of reviews. And I'm not ashamed to admit that we're metalcore, because my background I grew up listening to punk rock, from punk rock to hardcore. Early 90's hardcore like Strife, Integrity, Hatebreed to christian hardcore like Strongarm, Zao. And then with Adair's Metallica/Machine Head.......I think it all collaborates well together....

Clint: It's only a matter of time before the music evolves again into something else. I mean you can't be the same thing. Punk Rock turned into Hardcore with bands like Minor Threat, and that turned into Terror and Madball. Things are just gonna split off. I mean, music can only stay the same for a while, and branches are gonna come off it, and that's where metalcore came from. They tool metal and hardcore and made one thing, and in a couple of years that's just gonna branch off into something else. It's just the evolution of music.

Jake: We've never called ourselves hardcore like Madball or Terror, but definitely more like Hatebreed with the good breakdowns. We don't write songs like "Let's write a hardcore song today", and the next day write a "metal" song. It's whatever comes out, if it's aggressive and hard, whatever comes, out it's whatever. Who cares what they call it. We just wanna make the best album possible, we dont' give a fuck what people think, or what they might expect from us. We hope they like it, and if not, well we had a blast doing it. No big deal.

Loudside.com: Ok, so what can the fans look forward to and expect from Manntis for the rest of this year, into the next?

Clint: Hopefully in their opinion  a great record, and alot of touring. I hope they like it cause we've been busting our asses on this thing. We're putting our whole hearts into it, so I think that they can expect a.....alot of touring and a really good next record. (laughs)

Jake: The longest we've been home in all of ཁ and ག, was at the most, I'd say abotu two and a half weeks, and then we were right back out. Enough time to go home, kiss our loved ones, pet our dogs, do our laundry, feed the goldfish and get the fuck back out on the road.

Clint: A new great record, alot of touring, alot of fans coming and partying with us on our RV, and hanging out with us and just having a blast. And a new website. New myspace page, and new merch......

Loudside.com: No plans for an official DVD?

Jake: Oh we have probably over 100 hours of just the most bullshit footage....

Clint: I have European footage, the Hatebreed tour, Sounds of the Underground Europe, we got the Dope tour, the Anthrax tour. We got all that stuff and it's gonna be great.

Jake: I'm thinking we're either gonna put it out at the same time as the new album, or do a double disc, with the DVD/CD package. But yeah, we're gonna film the whole studio behind the scenes, beer bong footage and all that.

Clint: I mean, we grew up on the Pantera home videos, so it's defnitely gonna be more of that style. Us having a good time with the music, and a good time with the fans, and partying and just doing stupid stuff and destroying stuff. It's looking good. I mean, I can't make it THAT long, but I do have enough footage to make it really long.

Jake: That actually could be the goal for the next few months here, is to get that out before the cd comes out. But we'll see.....