Decas isn't a new album, but rather a collection of various unreleased material celebrating our 10 years anniversary.  To be specific, there are three new songs, four cover songs, and about six remixes.  The three originals should tie fans over while we begin writing our follow-up to The Powerless Rise, while the rest of the content should peak different interests amongst our fan base.  Old school dudes will probably appreciate our Slayer and Judas Priest cover, but not dig the electronic remixes, and vice versa for our younger fans.  There's something for everyone on Decas.

The tour is about over by now, but it has been an excellent trek for sure!  We're fans of Amon Amarth as a band and as people, so to be able to share the stage with them and have the opportunity to play for a lot of their fans has been an honor.

Overall, my answer is yes.  Certain elements of our sound are pretty similar (i.e. we're both heavy, we're both melodic, we both have tons of fast parts, etc.) but what separates us is our delivery and the way we are perceived.  This tour has been awesome in that the way we view these similarities seems to be translating to people in the live format.

The covers span the scope of types of heavy music that have influenced the band.  With Judas Priest, you can hear the clear influence of their melodic-ness in our sound.  Slayer, obviously, is the complete thrash influence on the band.  The Descendents—then—would reflect the fast paced punk energy (prevalent in hardcore) that has also shaped the way we approach our music.  We ended up choosing these bands and songs based on a very long serious of conversations, emails, and arguments amongst ourselves haha.

We haven't played anything of off Decas since most of the tour took place before it was released.  We have been rehearsing "Paralyzed" at sound checks and plan on incorporating that into our set soon!

Some of the artists approached us about specific songs while we approached others.  Innerparty System had reached out to us a while ago about "The Binding of False Light" and the idea had intrigued us.  We were happy with what they came up with and were curious how other songs in our catalogue would work with different people who we felt would add an interesting touch.  The most specific example is Ben Weinman and "Wrath Upon Ourselves".  We are all fans of the Dillinger Escape Plan, so the idea of having him remix one our more chaotic songs was pretty exciting for us.  The result is something we all love, but might be a little harder for a lot of our fans to digest!

We plan on taking the first few months of 2012 to write the new record.  There is no absolute direction decided upon yet, though if you or I were to guess, I would take the direction of The Powerless Rise as an indication of where the band is going.

Never stop aspiring.  Music is creative and creativity is in your mind, of which there are no limits.

Some of these bands don't necessarily sound like us, but these are the records that I've been listening to a lot lately:  Crosses "S/T" EP, Decapitated "Carnival is Forever", Karnivool "Sound Awake", Yeasayer "Odd Blood", Oh, Sleeper "Children of Fire", In Flames "Sounds of a Playground Fading", Thrice "Major/Minor".


As I Lay Dying were last in the Midlands in January 2011 and MR were there to review the show and interview drummer Jordan Mancino, and you can see MR's review of their previous album, The Powerless Rise, here

Visit AILD's website here