Rhap Session: Norma Jean

by Jen Guyre

For Christian metalcore mainstays Norma Jean (vocalist Cory Brandan, guitarists Scottie Henry and Chris Day, bassist Jake Schultz and drummer Chris Raines), reinvention is not so much a planned process as it is a spontaneous one -- and some would say the key to survival in a scene currently overrun with mimicry. Their latest effort The Anti-Mother, featuring production by Ross Robinson  [Korn, Blood Brothers, At the Drive-In], songwriting by Chino Moreno of the Deftones, guest vocals from Cover Reber of Saosin and a collaboration with Page Hamilton of Helmet, shows the Atlanta-based band moving toward a mature sound and experimental vibe.

"We never really want to set a sound for ourselves [because] we never know what it’s gonna be like until we’re done – it just sort of happens," says Henry. Rhapsody caught up with Henry on the Warped Tour to find out more about what went into the making of the new album.

On The Anti-Mother
It’s kind of a character, or a personality, that’s inside of everybody. We – people in general –- will do stuff that we think is right or good for us at the time, and it's very deceiving, because it ends up hurting us in the long run. It’s just about those decisions we make throughout life that we think we’re doing it because it's good for us. Something that’s beautiful and nurturing or caring on the outside, but inside, it's ultimately bad for you. It’s not really a themed record, but a lot of it is personal experiences that we’ve gone through and just the things that have happened in life where that does come into play.

On meeting and collaborating with Page Hamilton on "The Opposite of Left and Wrong"
He ended up coming to one of our shows a couple years ago in L.A., and we were just freaking out. We came off stage and he was hanging out in our backstage room. He watched the show and hung out and we just hit it off -- he’s a really awesome dude. So, we just kept in touch; we would hang out whenever Helmet was in Atlanta, or we were out in L.A.. When it was time to start writing, we thought it would be amazing to get Page involved.

He flew into Atlanta for two days and we wrote and messed around and played a Helmet song with him; it was great. We spent an hour or two where he was just showing us different voicings and different chords on the guitar – like the chords you hear on Helmet records where you’re just like, "What is that?" So, we were just geeking out doing that, and some of those chords he showed us are all over the record. A lot of us play music just from growing up and listening to Helmet. It was really cool learning from the guy that inspired us.

On meeting and collaborating with Chino Moreno on "Surrender Your Sons"
We never had met him or any of the Deftones dudes, but they had a tour going at the same time we [did]. Our tours were kind of following each other, just interlinking every once in a while. And we thought, since we love the Deftones so much, it would be awesome to just leave them a box of our merch and a letter. We left them a box of stuff at this venue; we never knew if they got it or anything. Later on in that same tour, we were playing in Virginia, and when we got there, these people gave us a box from the Deftones and they left us a bunch of merch. We were so stoked that they actually got it and thought enough to leave something for us, so that was cool. And that’s really all the contact we had with them, but once we got Page involved, we were like, "It would be awesome to see if Chino would want to do it!"

Our manager got in touch with their manager, asked them, and he said he was down. He came out to the studio when we were at [producer] Ross Robinson's. The Deftones were actually recording at the same time; Chino just happened to be in L.A. for a little while, so he came in for two days and it was an awesome, different experience. We had a couple of riffs that we could use, but we really didn’t know what to expect, or what we [were] gonna do about writing this song. He came in and we all just got in a room –- there were four of us with a guitar, and Ross [Robinson] was in there. Chino just tuned his guitar and started messing around and starting playing this riff, and we were like, "Whoa that’s awesome!" And Ross loved it too and flipped out and was like, "That’s it! We’re starting right there."

So, we just started the song out of nothing, out of whatever he was just messing around, and we built the song from that. It all kind of happened very naturally without any kind of plan.

On working with Cove Reber of Saosin
We did a tour with Saosin late last year and just hit it off with those dudes; they’re really cool and we just got to be good friends with Cove. He was working on some stuff in L.A. at the time, and just happened to come and hang out in the studio every once in a while, and Cory [Brandan] thought his voice would really go well with some backups. Cory didn’t want it to be his voice backing up himself, so Cove came in and was stoked to help us out.

He actually helped write a lot of the vocal parts on the song we did with Chino. It just turned out that after a while Chino had to go back up north for the Deftones record, and he hadn’t done vocals yet. It was getting late in the recording process, so we were like, "Okay, how are we gonna do this? Is [Chino] gonna even be able to do it after we wrote the song with him? Is he even gonna be able to be on the record now?" And Cove was around, so him and Cory were like, "We better just do this me and you just to make sure we have it." They sat down and wrote the lyrics and the vocal parts for that song together, and [sang] it together and loved it. We ended up being able to send Chino the song and he put his parts on it, but Cove was also a big part of that song.

On producer Ross Robinson
It was definitely a dream of ours to work with him the first time on Redeemer. We just grew up loving things he had done over the years, everything from the first Korn way back in the day, to At the Drive-in and Glassjaw, stuff like that. 

As a band, we always wanted our recordings for our songs to have a very live feel, not a sterile, hooked-up-to-a-tuner feel, and when we started working with him, he was into the exact same thing. He likes digging in deeper about what the song is about and really making it come alive. Everybody that’s in the room playing knows exactly what the song is about, and you play different when you know what you’re playing for. We just loved that vibe that he gets out of us, and we work together really well, so we definitely wanted to work with him again for The Anti-Mother.

On the band's achievements
I feel like we’ve already achieved everything we wanted to. We’re really excited about this record; we got to work with some heroes of ours. It was really hard, but at the same time, I think we really earned it. It was just a long recording process, and we really pushed ourselves musically this time, so the record is a success because of that in our eyes.