MUSIC: Five minutes with Darkest Hour

Mike Schleibaum of Darkest Hour

One of the main bands for Affliction's Summer Slaughter Tour 2009 is Darkest Hour, a group that the metal genre has deemed influential, inspiring, and a guideline for all things heavy. According to Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, they personify a "new wave of American metal". 14 years after their arrival, Darkest Hour is about to release their sixth album, Eternal Return. Along with the release is a perfect marketing scheme that not only gives album-buyers something to look forward to more than the music, all whilst discouraging illegal downloads. Guitarist Mike Schleibaum sits down with me before the show to talk about Orlando, the perpetual change of the scene, and the Eternal Giveaway.

So you've been playing music since when, 1995?
It's to the point where you don't even remember the time before you were in a band. 15 years is a long time, especially when you party. It's hard to not do what you like doing, but it's also a hard thing to keep doing all the time because the older you get and the older your band gets there are a lot more challenges to face.

Would one of those challenges be feeling like you have to adapt to how the genre is changing?
It's like we have to adapt every day, but I don't know if we're there yet. Everything happens so fast. Three years ago, I didn't ever have to worry about putting videos on the internet, but today every interview is either that or recorded. There's so much other TV now. You have to adapt pretty fast to survive nowadays. There are so many bands, and the younger bands are way better at adapting because they've grown up in a world where everything is moving faster. It's definitely an interesting thing to be caught in the middle of, but it also keeps you young.

The band is now about to release the sixth album, Eternal Return. Along with it, there's the Eternal Giveaway, which is absolutely ridiculous. Who came up with that idea?
We wanted to do something kind of fun. The prizes aren't like, "win a Porsche" or anything. We'll play at your house or something. We used to play people's houses all the time back in the day. We don't really do it anymore. It's the last record on Victory, they always wanted to do some kind of marketing thing... all those things combined turned it into something fun. If you get the record, you're probably going to win one of the prizes.

You guys come through Orlando pretty frequently. What's your favorite part of the city?
We used to play The Social all the time. That whole strip down there is fucking insane at night. People would come out from all over the place dressed insane. If you were from any other part of the county and you'd drive down through Orlando, you see it a little bit differently than the people who live here. It's kind of like a parade of awesomeness that happens down there. I think  that's the area of Orlando that I'm most familiar with. We've been coming here for years, so, you know, the scene's changed a lot. When we first came here we were playing VFW halls and really weird places. The kids were dirty as shit, and they'd do anything. They were the kind of places where someone would shit on someone else for a free CD. That always happened in Florida back in the day. Now it's a little tamer but everything's a little bit bigger. A lot more bands are starting to come here. I know that it's rare for bands to come down to South Florida, and it's a pretty far drive.