ALBANY—You might think that veteran 518-based hardcore metal band Brick by Brick would be settled into a familiar pattern by now, after seven studio albums and some 20-plus years spent doing their part to hold down the heavy music scene, especially in the Northeast. Yet with their brand-new EP, Collapse, the band has still found a way to push even further, for what is arguably one of their most confident and sonically devastating releases to date.
Tapping Life of Agony guitarist Joey Z. (Zampella) to produce, Brick by Brick—guitarist Mike Valente, singer Ray Mazzola, drummer Jeff Facci and bassist Andy Parsons—crafted four new songs and a cover of White Zombie’s “Thunder Kiss ’65” at the producer’s home in Merrick, Long Island, over this past fall and winter, the result of which is Collapse. Dropping for release on April 25, the band is also headlining a mega release party at Empire Live on Saturday, April 26, with support from friends 25 Ta Life, The Lycan, Oakheart, Balor, KAKOS, and Everdredd, for what will surely be an epic evening for Albany heavy music.
With so much happening in the Brick by Brick camp, I sat down recently to chat with Valente, the band’s ever-dedicated leader, who’s also a driving force for bookings at Empire Live/Underground, and the founder and one of my partners in the Extreme Music Awards. Enthusiastic and always thinking of new ideas, Valente took me through the process and inspiration that led to Collapse, as well as what’s in store for the big upcoming release show.
BRENDAN MANLEY: How do you feel about this new Brick by Brick EP, especially compared to what you’ve put out in recent history?
MIKE VALENTE: Man, I gotta tell you, I pushed us over the top on this one, and the production on this, it’s just paramount. Joey [Z.] really worked us in the studio, which I was kind of surprised [by], but he had a method to his madness. We let him do what he had to do and I’m really happy with the results. I think it’s the best thing that we ever put out. And I know everybody says that when they release something new, but this, just the production is really good on this.
BM: I agree, it sounds awesome; everything from the instrumental tracks to the vocals is just crisp, killer and huge.
MV: He’s got his own studio… He welcomed us into his home—the studio is downstairs, in the basement—and it was just awesome.
BM: Tell me a little bit about what led up to the creation of the EP. What inspired you to start writing this, and what’s the Brick by Brick process?
MV: I do most of the ideas and the skeleton. And then I get together with Jeff [Facci, drums], and we pretty much hammer out a structure of the song. Then we bring in Andy [Parsons, bass], and he’ll put his two cents in. Ray [Mazzola, vocals] is usually the last part of the puzzle, because he likes to get recordings. He likes to sit on it and throw down his lyrics.
This time around, we did things a little different, because we got Joey in right from the get go. I told him we needed a producer. The last couple records, I did most of the production. We brought in Jason Bordeau, who helped out with production on the last few things, but Jason is more of a passive kind of producer, and let us make the final decisions on a lot of stuff. And I didn’t want that on this record. I wanted outside perspective, because, you know, when you’re writing the stuff and you’re performing it, you kind of get blinders on. You only see what you see.
So getting Joey involved, we would send him demos, and he would just be like, “Okay I like the way this is, however it would sound better if this part was here, maybe. And make this part longer.” We listened to him on three of the four songs; one of the songs I kind of was like, “Nah, I’m not feeling the way you’re doing it on this. We’re going to keep it this way.” And he’s like, “Yeah no problem, whatever, it’s your song. I’m just making my suggestions.” I’m like, “Alright, perfect.” So he was real, real easy to get along with.
This time, me and Jeff pretty much wrote everything. We brought Andy in and he changed a few things. Then we would give it to Joey. He would change it and we would go back and forth until we honed it in. Then we started rehearsing probably about three weeks before we went in the studio to track the drums and everything. Ray didn’t even have anything written until we went into the studio, so he was a little later than usual on this, but because of the bouncing around and the songs changing around, he wanted to make sure he had a grasp on things before he started throwing stuff down. It was definitely a cool experience.
BM: Is working with Joey again something Brick by Brick would consider?
MV: I don’t see us not working with him again. The process was so awesome that yeah, it’s definitely got to happen again.
BM: Did your pre-existing relationship and knowing the guy personally factor into being able to get him to work with you on the record?
MV: It was funny. I’ve known him for a long time and I booked Life of Agony last year at Empire Live. We were chatting it up and I was mentioning how we were thinking about going into the studio and he just he goes, “I would love to produce you guys.” I’m like, “Really?” He goes, “Yeah. Are you kidding me?” So I said, “Alright, well let’s do it.” And that was that. It was simple as that.
BM: Was there anything interesting that you picked up from him, maybe that other producers hadn’t done in the past, that worked well this time?
MV: He’s really OCD and he knows exactly what he wants. I’m in the studio and it’s only five songs and each song’s three minutes so I’m like, “Okay, it’s not going to take that long.” The fuck it did! It took me like 16 hours to do five songs. He goes, “Alright, we’re going to play through everything. Just play it like you normally would. Go.” I’d play and play and he’d say, “Alright good. Do it again. Sounds good. Do it again one more time. Do it again. Even better. You’re getting warmed up; do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again.” That’s all I kept hearing and I’m just like, “Oh my god.”
When I tracked, I used two guitars and he let me use one of his Les Pauls that he wrote River Runs Red with, so I’m like, “Hell yeah.” I did probably 15 takes with each guitar for each song. You don’t realize how long that is. My back was hurting, my wrist was killing me, and I’m standing in one position the whole time. I tried sitting down and he’s like, “Oh no no no no. Stand up. You can’t sit down and play.” He was just basically yelling at me, telling me what to do. I didn’t argue or nothing and at the end of it all, he just goes, “Thank you for not questioning me. I really have some great takes and I’m going to go through each and every one.” It was really phenomenal.
He did the same thing with Jeff and Andy and Ray. We did drum tracks and we had to play those songs five or six times each. So at the end of the studio, Jesus, we must have played the songs 150 times, you know?
BM: Obviously, Joey’s a great guitar player, with a great heavy tone, especially live. Did you guys nerd out talking about gear?
MV: For a while, yeah. You go to his house and he’s got like 15 different amps and 20 different cabinets and all sorts of pedals and this, that and the other thing. I told him what I used and he pretty much stuck with what I was using. I told him I’m not opposed to changing it up and he tried some other stuff, but kind of just went with pretty much my sound.
BM: There are also a lot of cool audio clips on the EP, especially starting off the songs. That’s a tradition of course in our scene, but you seem to really love doing that.
MV: I do. It just kind of breaks it up. On this one the timing for the songs is a little bit more spaced out, because this EP was designed for vinyl, so you kind of have those breaks in the vinyl. But when you’re listening to it on a CD, for example, the songs just run right into each other, which is kind of cool. So the breaks are actually the clips. I just wanted to keep the flow going. It also gives you a little synopsis of what the song’s about.
BM: Is there much legal wrangling that you have to go through every time you want to use one of those clips, or is it easier than that?
MV: Well not yet. [laughs] A lot of the stuff we find is usually older or whatever, and there’s really no legal things. However we just got an email from Sony Music because of one of the samples. It was used in a recording by a techno DJ that apparently is signed to Sony, so they’re basically saying, “We don’t want you to get your stuff confused with our artist.” We were like, “Yeah, that’s not happening.” So we basically had to show proof that it wasn’t taken from their song. I’m like, “How can you do this? You don’t have rights to this song. It’s a 40-year-old cartoon that I got this clip from.” What happens is these bigger labels have AI bots just combing the internet for something that they can grab on. With this AI shit, Skynet’s coming. I’m telling you.
BM: The title of the EP is Collapse, and it’s also one of the song titles. What’s the inspiration behind that?
MV: Basically all of the stuff that we’ve recorded since Ray’s been in the band, which is a decade now, it’s funny how I come up with the names to the albums and it’s always reflective on what’s going on in the world. We’re not a political band or don’t take sides per se, but just as an onlooker, seeing what’s going on. Our first record [with Ray] was called This World, My Enemy (2015) and the cover is basically a corpse, and instead of having internal organs he’s got money pouring out of him and birds are just picking at the money. It was like a little hidden message there. And of course things started happening then. We then released Hive Mentality (2019), which looked like a little political dig, which it was. It wasn’t on one side or the other; it’s basically saying it all sucks.
After that we had Dismal Existence (2022), and things don’t look like they’re going so good since then. Now we’ve got Collapse, so everything kind of foreshadows what happens. It’s crazy.
BM: It’s a good time right now to be writing heavy music, which always thrives amid upheaval. It’s either a time of total insanity like now, or a really stale and oppressive period, like when you and I were growing up during the ’80s with Reagan. I agree; Collapse definitely captures the sentiment of what’s happening in the world right now.
MV: For sure. Absolutely. You know, I’ve got so many friends that are on the left, so many friends that are on the right, and I’m just like, “Yo, you still got to get up in the morning and go to work. What are what are you arguing for? You both should be getting together and facing the enemy, because it don’t matter who’s in office.” It don’t matter; either way the government don’t like you.
BM: Another thing that’s cool about the EP is how current it sounds, with all the breakdowns and slamming riffs. The band continues to remain remarkably relevant, even after all this time.
MV: I appreciate that. Thanks, man. I’m a metal guy. I come from thrash and metal before hardcore, so I was kind of a late bloomer when it came to the hardcore stuff. I just went back to my roots on this. I write based on the attitude, so even though it’s focused on more metal, there’s still a lot of hardcore in it.
BM: Let’s talk about the cover and the artwork. What are you going with on that?
MV: Well a lot of the stuff that we’ve done in the past has been more animated. This time around, we wanted to go with more of an abstract, serious vibe. Just something different to make you keep wanting to look and see what the hell’s going on. So Maxime Taccardi did the artwork. We were trying to get him to do artwork for us previously. We reached out to a couple of different artists and we ended up going with Craig Holloway for that last album. I always like Maxime’s stuff; it’s dark and it’s evil and it’s just not forgiving. Not saying that Craig’s stuff wasn’t like that, but Craig basically drew what I asked him to draw. This one, I didn’t ask Maxime to draw anything; I said the album is called Collapse, and I said these are the images that I like that you did, if you can incorporate some of those ideas. He came out with this and I’m like, “Whoah, that’s some serious shit right there.”
BM: You said the EP is coming out on vinyl as well?
MV: Yeah. We weren’t going to do any CDs, but people are requesting them. So we are doing a split vinyl 7-inch with Concrete, with each band doing a White Zombie cover (Ed: Concrete is covering “I Am Hell.”). Then we’re doing the CD, which will have the five songs on it—the four new songs and the one cover—and then the 12-inch vinyl will have the five songs and three live tracks.
BM: Nice. Where are the live tracks from?
MV: They’re from the show that we did with the Acacia Strain in December at Empire Live. It was a good show and we recorded a few of the tracks. I mean, I’m not a big fan of hearing us live, but those songs captured the energy of the night, so we decided to go with those.
BM: Let’s talk about what’s in store for the release party.
MV: Usually when we do a bigger show, we try and team up with a bigger band, so we can have some sort of a wow factor. The last time we did a release, we did it with Skinless and Nuclear Assault and Ringworm on the bill and it was just fucking awesome. Years before that, we’ve done them with Dying Fetus and Cro-Mags. I like to bring friends’ bands that are bigger, so it’s a bigger impact.
We started setting this up in October of last year. But after the pandemic, everybody really gets it in now when they tour, so everybody was booked up already or in the studio and couldn’t do it. I reached out to everybody from Obituary to Crowbar. Finally we had Shadows Fall, and we were going to set that show up, but before I started building that package, I got a message from their management saying that they got picked up on the Killswitch Engage tour, so they can’t do the show now. I hit up their management and I’m like, “What am I going to do? I ran out of bands.” He goes, “Just do it yourself. Why do you need a bigger band? You guys will do fine. Just headline your own damn release party.” So I sat on it for a couple days, and I’m like, “You know what? I definitely like the idea.”
I was a little nervous, because it’s a big responsibility, especially when you’re doing a bigger room. You don’t want to look like a clown. So I just surrounded myself with bands that were my friends. I strategically placed them so there was minimal fan crossover, so each band is in the same demographic as far as age groups, but not necessarily genres. It’s definitely a mixed bill, which I love, because mixed bills are easy on the ears and keep your attention.
I’ve got The Lycan; they’re a brand new band. A friend of mine that cultivated that band reached out and I said, “Yeah this would be a great debut show for you.” Then there’s KAKOS, which has Nick Stamas in it. Nick is a driving force behind the Extreme Music Awards All-Star Jam; he’s the main guitar player, who learns 900 songs in a short amount of time. He’s a phenomenal musician, so I put him on there. We’ve also got Oakheart, who’s from Glens Falls, who are a great bunch of dudes. They’ve been around for a minute now and they really bring it. They’re just great metalcore and solid. Then I’ve got Everdredd, who’s a newer band, more along the lines of the Acacia Strain; it’s got that deathcore thing going on. I’ve also got 25 Ta Life, who was looking for a show and I decided to wrap them up in there. And then we’ve got Balor, who are old friends of mine. We get along so good with those dudes and they’ve played like two or three of the release parties that we’ve had. They haven’t played in a while, so I figured let’s get them on the bill. It’s just a cavalcade of friends.
I’m really kind of overwhelmed with this show. I knew it was going to do okay, but seeing all the response and the ticket sales—I mean we’ve got like at least 450 pre-sale for this show so far—I’m like Jesus, this is going to be sick. I can’t wait.
BM: Good for you! Especially going into it kinda worried that you couldn’t necessarily fill the big room.
MV: It’s a lot of work and if you have a bigger band on there you can kind of sit back a little bit and let them take over the ticket sales, like, “Okay while you’re doing that, I’m going to do this over here.” But now everything’s on us. I’m such a kook when it comes to communication and I know all the opening bands probably can’t wait for the show to be done with, so they don’t hear from me at all, because I contact everybody like 900 times a week. It’s okay though, they’ve got this. Everybody’s been supportive and it’s just really good. My drummer and bass player are significantly out of town; they’re not really around, and Ray’s really slammed and works like 60 to 70 hours a week when we’re not playing, so a lot of this fell on my shoulders.
BM: Are you guys playing a longer set for the release show?
MV: Actually we’ve got a real long set. Usually we’re like 25 to 30 minutes, tops. This time, we’re a little over an hour. I was like, “Ah, I don’t think people are going to want to fucking stick around that long.” But playing the set, it flows so well, and we’ve got a lot of old stuff. I get emails all the time, “Hey can you play this song and play that song?” So we took all those emails into consideration and we revamped the whole set. I’m excited to play this set; there’s a lot of old stuff we haven’t played in a long time, as well as all the new songs too, so it’s going to be fun.
BM: You’re going to pretty much run through the whole new EP?
MV: Yep. I mean, not chronologically like it is on the record, but throughout the set. The new song “Ready for War,” is definitely going to be a good opener.
BM: Anything else to throw out there about the EP or release show?
MV: April 26th, come out. It’s going to be a party. It’s going to be fun. We do have VIP packages; I think we’ve got like three or four left. We’re doing a whiskey tasting where we’re demonstrating our own Smooth Truth whiskey, so it’s definitely a different VIP package than most bands. You get a bottle of the whiskey plus a ticket to the show and more. You can get that at bxb.soundrink.com.
BM: In addition to the album release show, what else is going on, touring wise?
MV: We’ve got the release party the end of April and then in May we’ve got a Canada run, and then we have another run with the Cro-Mags. Then in June we’ve got I think three weeks with Hoods, all East Coast. Then August we’ve got a week run, going out to Pennsylvania and that area. Then we’re holding off; we’ve got some stuff brewing for October. Hopefully we’re going to get picked up on a bigger tour, so we’ll see what happens.
BM: When I was talking to you at the club the other night you were mentioning getting everybody back into gear again after taking some time off. How’s that process going?
MV: Yeah, because our last show was in January, so we haven’t played in four months. When you take that long off, everybody gets into their habits of working and family. Not saying it’s a bad thing, but when you’re playing and you’re active, it’s always in the back of your mind that you’ve got shows. But now I’ve got to break them out of the habit of not having shows. Everybody’s getting comfortable with their jobs, while I’m like, “Uh, time to get uncomfortable, guys. Let’s go on the road.”
We started rehearsing a couple of weeks ago. We only rehearse maybe once a week, just for like an hour or so. We just go over the set. Andy’s my mainstay. That guy has got a mind like a steel trap. I forget everything, so half the songs, I need the rehearsal. Those guys don’t need to rehearse; I do, because I forget everything. I play the wrong chords and Andy’s like, “What the fuck are you doing? You wrote this stuff.” I don’t remember. I tell him, “I got you in the band so you can show me how to play my stuff.”
BM: That’s too funny. He seems like a cool guy.
MV: Andy brings an interesting vibe to the band. He’s just so laidback and chill. He’s like a secret weapon. He doesn’t say a word; he just sits there and sips his scotch and next thing you know, something crazy happens. [laughs]
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The new Brick by Brick new EP, Collapse, drops on April 25 on Upstate Records. The Brick by Brick release show and party goes down at Empire Live on Saturday, April 26. Tickets can be purchased HERE.