Their 2007 debut Once Only Imagined was spectacular and from the couple of tracks I heard from their new release Lullabies for the Dormant Mind, it's a more ambitious affair and threatens to eclipse their initial success. I spoke with guitarist Danny Marino before the start of their upcoming tours with Atheist and Threat Signal.

antiMusic: Tell us how you approached writing Lullabies for the Dormant Mind. Did you want to do anything differently than Once Only Imagined?

Danny: Yes, basically it started as an unconscious effort and then once we had heard the songs that were coming out, we noticed there was like a difference there. Then after a few songs were done, we were like, "Let's try and work with this style a little bit more and go towards it." Basically some of the songs were written ad lib. Some of the songs, before even touring Once Only Imagined are pretty old. They didn't make Once Only Imagined just cuz they weren't done in time.

Then while on the road, I had a little Korg Pender. It's a little box, basically just a little amp with headphones that you listen to it with. So in the van while we're driving, I'd just be riffing and trying to get ideas. And my drummer had a laptop with a little recording programming and we'd jot down ideas over the course of the tour. Then we came back and started to actually turn them into songs, like with drums and all the other parts. Usually the way we write, I write most of the initial song structures and ideas. Simon the drummer now is helping to add to that because he's also a guitar player, so he'll help play some stuff. And then we'll try to make some structure out of it with drums and bass. Then we make a demo recording and pass it to Alissa and she takes it home and tries to take her lyrics�she usually writes lyrics without melody, just poems sort of. And then she takes her lyrics and tries to make vocals out of it.

antiMusic: What are some of the songs that came together right at the beginning?

Danny: "The Tempest" is the oldest song. It's sort of, I guess, title-wise, it's like an inside joke to those who knew we were called The Tempest before. I mean the song is more about�lyrically, it's more of a story, but I'm sure Alissa could explain that better. And "Globus Hystericus" and "When the Bough Breaks," those are two songs that are not on MySpace. Those are the first ones I guess to come out, then "Martyr Art" and "�Eulogies" followed. And many more, I guess. (laughs)

antiMusic: Do you also write stuff with a live aspect in mind, how things might fit in your set list or do the songs just come out the way they appear to you?

Danny: I think they just come out the way they do. But we know�like the last track on our album called "Chlorpromazine". It's definitely our most progressive track. It has like a part in it that's sort of, I don't even know what to compare it to, but it's reminiscent of, like Radiohead or something, but we've incorporated a violin player on there to do a violin solo. And it's the type of thing, it's really great to listen to but we rarely ever would play it live. We still have yet to play it live to this day. We're thinking of doing it because we're doing this tour with Atheist and they're a very progressive band so we're thinking of incorporating it. yeah, there's some songs that we know, if it's a really driving song with like a really upbeat type of beat or something like that we know it'll come across really good live. So we'll tend to play those songs more live.

antiMusic: Does Alissa handle all the vocal melodies or do you guys offer suggestions as to which sections work well clean as opposed to the growling?

Danny: It's all her. It's kind of separate like that. It seems to work for us like that. She never really writes anything musically. And we never really write anything vocally (laughs). And it's working so far for us. Some bands, after a few albums start to get more into collaboration. So that might happen with us, I don't know.

antiMusic: From what I heard on the two new tracks on your MySpace, there are more elaborate vocal harmonies. Did you want to explore more of the two sides of the vocal environment, the beautiful and the brutal?

Danny: Yeah, we just wanted more of everything and that's kind of what we got. There's definitely more intense drumming because we changed drummers. Guitar-wise , I tried to steer a little bit away from the American hardcore side because�I just felt it was very it's cool and I like the vibe it gives but the more I go along the more I steer away from that and I'm really listening to a very European metal influence. And melody in metal is very important to me. And on the vocal side, yeah, I think the growling parts are more brutal and the singing parts are more epic and more melodic. So a little bit of more on everything.

antiMusic: You've done extensive touring since the first record came out. Bands sometimes grab influences from their environment. But conversely, from the musical landscape, the stuff that you've seen out there, the bands that you've been part of and seen and all that, does any of that help dictate what you don't want to do, what you want to get rid of for future records?

Danny: Uh, I guess. It's not so much the bands we've toured with. We pretty much keep up to date on what's coming out and what's new and what's the new styles and what's getting popular and whatnot, and so far we tend to� as least with "Lullabies�" we're not exactly following the trend. The biggest trend right now is this sort of modern death metal. You know, along the lines of Suicide Silence and Despised Icon. And a lot of things like this. It's really great, and brutal, and it's some of the heaviest s--- I've ever heard. Just for us, we couldn't get rid of the melody. And our music is such a big part of who we are. But definitely the bands we've toured with have a positive influence on our writing. We just got off a tour with The Haunted, and that was a really big tour for me, because I'm a really big fan of Swedish metal, like The Haunted and Arch Enemy. We already have some songs for our next album, and I can tell that Anders had an influence on my from The Haunted cause I hear it coming out of it in some of the new stuff I'm writing.

antiMusic: Is there any particular story behind the title, "Lullabies for the Dormant Mind"?

Danny: Basically, all of Alissa's lyrics are sort of meant to provoke you to think out of the box or think for yourself and not just accept everything as it is portrayed to you from the media, any source whether it be media or education or from your friends or your parents. Always question everything for yourself and make sure you believe it because you actually believe it and not just because someone else is telling you to. So it's sort of like the dormant mind is someone who is ignorant and doesn't question or reflect on things for themselves. And basically the songs are the lullabies. And I think it's kind of a play on words because lullabies are something that actually put you to sleep rather than wakes you up so that's kind of the pun there.

antiMusic: How did "Swan Lake" come about to making it on the record?

Danny: Basically we wanted an interlude track, like we had on the first album. We wanted something different. And I was thinking, we were listening to this classical piece by Samuel Barber. He's probably most famous in pop culture for being the theme music used in the movie Platoon. And basically we wanted to try and do a track but using our instruments instead of an orchestra. It was coming along but it sort of like hitting a wall. It was just like, this isn't really something we want to put on the record, you know because it wasn't coming across right, because it was such an orchestral thing to be put on electric guitars and everything. So it was like, well, Alissa already does a lot of operatic vocals in the background of the music. So what if she just did all of the vocals, like all the parts of that orchestral piece on her voice? And I suggested that to her and she said, "Well that's a big task but I think that I could do it. It would be pretty cool. I'd like to try." And then she went around and started to getting the sheet music for it from friends of ours and trying to get the parts down. But then we had found out that that piece because it's not over a hundred years old, it's copyrighted and we couldn't get the rights to do it. So then she had to find a new piece to do because she was already stuck on the idea of doing this vocal thing. And then she found the Tchaikovsky "Swan Lake" piece and said, I think I'd like to do this because I like it.

antiMusic: Well, it came out excellent. How did you approach the guitar parts for this record in terms of pulling in all the bits of riffage. You didn't have any extended solos on the last record. Anything different this time out?

Danny: Yeah, there's a bit more lead guitar going on. And mostly there's a lot of two guitar, whether or not it be solo or not, there's a lot of two guitar parts going on. Hence why we were forced to add a second guitarist. Basically it had to be done. I wanted that in the music. Luckily we already were friends with Chris Adolph so it wasn't like it was a hard adjustment together in the band. He already knew everybody and we all get along really well and he's a good player so that was pretty easy thing to do. I wanted to add some more solos but not too much. I don't really like bands that have a guitar solo in every song just because there has to be a solo. I think it should be there when it's needed, just like any instrument should have a solo when it's needed. If guitar is the complete basis of the music, like say Joe Satriani or something like that�there's not even a vocalist, you want to have guitar solos as much as possible. I like to put the solos basically short and sweet; so that there are no extra notes that don't need to be there.

antiMusic: Do your riffs com out of just jamming until something makes sense or do you get ideas when you don't have a guitar in your hand?

Danny: Pretty often I'll be on the subway and I'll just be sitting there and people will probably think I'm crazy because I'm acting out the riffs that are in my head (both laugh). For the longest time I didn't have an iPod or portable music so that was my music and so yeah a lot of times it would come and I would have to go home and try to make sense of it. I don't know what it is, but I have a very hard time writing riffs for this band in a jam scenario, like with the band just improving. I tend to get really good ideas for solos that way. Actual parts. I don't know, I can't really jam metal. I can jam blues and rock but when we improv jam on metal nothing really good comes out of it. (laughs). So everything I tend to write is completely alone in my room.

antiMusic: I understand you had several special guests on the record. Can you tell us about them?

Danny: Yeah, well, all the sort of background orchestral parts that you hear, anything you hear that's not guitar or drums or bass was sort of put together by Melina Soochan who's an artist here from Montr�al. We gave her the tracks, she came up with ideas and we would meet up with her every few days and tell her, okay, we like that. She would write the parts and we would produce them in a way. We might just say, okay this is not going to work. Let's try and change that. Or that's good; let's keep that. But for the most part it was all written by her. And we ended up using a lot of them in different parts of the song. Then she did the writing of it, but she didn't have a great software application to actually use realistic sounding sounds and high quality audio so then we went with the keyboardist in his studio to basically get some high quality string and keyboard sounds for the parts that she wrote.

And vocally there are a few small guest appearances: there's a guy named Youri from a band here called Unhuman. There's certain growling parts in "�Eulogies�" about half way through the song that you may hear that really sound sort of monster-like or not human. That's why their band is called Unhuman. That part's not Alissa. You can pretty much tell that it has to be someone else. And that's why Chris Donaldson our producer, the guy who did our record, did two quick screaming parts on the record, like just single words, just for fun sort of thing. The violinist I told you about earlier, he plays for my uncle's band, Frank Marino, Mahogany Rush. I'm good friends with him. We had that part that was like very psychedelic, or trippy and we were like�I was trying to put a guitar solo over it and it wasn't working. We needed something different, like something really out of the box so I called him. I knew he played violin but it's not your standard violin. He plays violin like Frank plays guitar. A big rig amplifier and multiple pedals and distortion. It's not like just a sweet Mozart violin.

antiMusic: So let's back up a bit. For those who are just getting introduced to you. When and how did The Agonist come to life?

Danny: Our first real show as The Tempest was in 2004 with Alissa. Before that myself and Chris Kells were in a different band called Solace and it wasn't much of a different band, just a different singer. All the songs were different, though. Once we lost the singer. We basically said, look, just cut everything, or mostly everything. We dropped most of our material except two songs which are on the first record. Solace was a little more alternative, less metal at the time. Basically we had tryouts and got Alissa on vocals. A few months later we had our first show and that was it. We did a bunch of shows like that just in and around Quebec and Ontario. And then we changed our drummer to Simon because basically besides personal differences, all the material was going in a direction our then drummer could not handle at all. He was not able to play metal style drums and Simon joined the band. That was a big plus for us because we got a little bonus. We didn't realize we were getting a guitar player at the same time who had written songs before for previous bands so it helps having a second songwriter, get a different style to throw in. for example there's a song on the new record called "Waiting Out the Winter" and anyone who listens to it, that knows us, has told me that they can tell that it sounds like it's a different band almost because or it's like, it's because it's Simon who wrote the entire song himself and is actually playing all the parts as well. Other than the vocals. So it's a different touch. He's very much influenced by Opus and Enslaved, and these sort of eclectic black metal bands. He's got a wide range.

antiMusic: What's the story behind the name, The Agonist?

Danny: It's not that great a story. (laughs) But basically there were a lot of previous releases under the name Tempest and The Tempest and whatnot. And when Century Media signed us, they were like, it's going to be really complicated and you'd be much better off. You should change your name now so that you don't have to change it once you have a larger audience. So that's what we did. We got all members of the band and said, okay, everyone go on your own and just brainstorm, get a list together and then we're going to get together as a group and go through the list and then figure out what works for us. And Agonist was one of the first names there actually and we went through all of them. We liked the ring to that, and I like putting The in front of it because just Agonist on its own, wasn't as strong. We didn't even know exactly what it was, and then we looked up the meaning and we really liked it. It has nothing to do with the word agony. An agonist is something that elicits a change in something else. Like, let's say, this bombing in this location was the agonist for that war to begin. Or in a medical sense, your liver releasing this secretion is the agonist that ended up to fight off that disease. It's something that elicits a change which we like to think our band can do, through Alissa's lyrics and possibly through the music as well.

antiMusic: With a name like Marino, guitar must be in the blood. When did you start playing in bands and when did you decide to make it a career?

Danny: I started playing bass at 14 and then after about a year, I picked up a guitar. My dad and my brother are both bass players, so there was just bass around my house. My dad also plays guitar. He plays in a Grateful Dead Tribute Band. And he like had a guitar in the house and so after a while on bass, I tried picking up the guitar. Then I started finding chords and other things and I was just like wow, this is so much better for me than bass. It picks up a lot faster for me at least. And yeah, I started playing from there. I feel a little weird about letting people know about the Frank thing because I don't want to name drop or show off about it. so it's funny �we'll be on tour with a lot of bands who are in the 30 and 40s age range and then they'll find out at some point half-way through the tour, that Frank's my uncle. Usually the guitar players in the band will come up to me like freaking out and just like: oh my god and like Frank is not a metal guitarist at all by any means especially if you ask him he'd say, no way. He just happens, I think, to have such a huge influence on all the metal guitars that came out I guess because he sort of took guitar to that really heavy level and they took it and put it on their metal music..

antiMusic: What were some of your pre-The Tempest bands?

Danny: That's it. I never played in a band outside my bassist Chris. I mean like nothing that we did shows with. I had friends that I've jammed with but we never actually had a singer. That was the problem; we could never find a singer.

antiMusic: �to match the voice in your head.

Danny: Yeah or just (laughs) to match anything decent. Singers I think are the hardest thing to find. We'd just jam with some friends and like to do a few little covers and then I had some original material. Then finally when I met up with Chris and our old drummer and we got the old singer then I was okay, finally I have some musicians that can at least follow along with what I would like the song to be.

antiMusic: You've done a lot of touring since your first record came out. What are some of the more memorable moments so far? I imagine your equipment van getting totaled would be one of those more unforgettable parts?

Danny: Yeah. (laughs) Definitely not forgettable.

antiMusic: What happened with that�where were you?

Danny: Montana. It was December. Driving the van with the attached trailer through Montana in December is pretty�hectic�. We didn't realize that we had already hit the Rocky Mountains. And yeah, so we were driving and a blizzard hit and as well the road went up and down, up and down, left and right. And so we were driving and we were going like 30 kilometers an hour with the flashers on, every one was. And we came up over this hill and started to go down hill and started to pick up speed, 50 60 and we tried braking. And it wasn't braking, it just kept sliding. And we were going faster and faster. And Alissa was driving and we saw that we were picking up speed on the person in front of us so she tried to turn to go around them and the back trailer started fishtailing. So then we tried turning the other way, turned right now and so the van and trailer sort of slid sideways into the mountain that was on the side of us. The van had very little damage. There was some slight body damage in the back, nothing serious. But the trailer actually flipped over completely and it was kind of a total loss. We had to just forget the trailer. And that's part of the reason we ended up canceling the tour we had lined up with Nile. We had to cancel pretty much because of financial reasons. We had no trailer. We were completely in debt because of that. The last little bit of our tour was the least profitable for us as well so, financially we were completely strapped so we had to pull out of that tour. On to more positive memories. (laughs)

antiMusic: You mentioned earlier about touring with The Haunted. That must have been a personal highlight?

Danny: That was great. Also touring with Overkill. It was a rough sort of tour but at the same time it was cool to be with bands like that. Also on that tour we ended up meeting Bam Margera from Jackass and his other shows and whatnot and he really took a liking to us. We ended up going back to his house where they film all the shows and everything. And stayed there and partied with him and got to be his friend and now we are in regular contact with him and might even be doing projects with him in the future. We were just playing this bar and the bartender told us, "Bam Margera owns this bar." We said, "Wow that's cool." Then we went up and started playing and the second song started and I looked right in front of me and he was standing right there, like right in front of me. I went, okay.

antiMusic: Let's talk equipment for a moment. Do you use an array of guitars for different songs or is it pretty much one work-horse and is your setup different live?

Danny: I'm sponsored by Washburn guitars. And live, we play with two tunings; some songs are in D and some songs are in C. So basically we have to do a guitar switch during our set. My main guitars are Washburn. The new HM series that's out. Basically I use the V and the Scott Ian-shaped model. In studio I use those, but I also use the Gibson Nighthawk. I also use my ol' BC Rich Mockingbird. In studio on the last record I used my Fender Strat as well because if you ever have any Queen parts, I usually use the Strat because I find it's the best Queen sounding guitar there is. And those are pretty much all my electrics. I have one acoustic guitar; it's a piece of s---. It's my first guitar I ever got. It was like $150 with the hard case included.

antiMusic: But it's got sentimental attachment so�

Danny: Yeah. I'm never going to sell it. I'm never going to sell my Strat either. That was my first electric. And Frank and my dad bought that for me.

antiMusic: What do you use for amps and effects?

Danny: Technically I'm endorsed by Randall at the moment. But I recently just returned my Randall because I wasn't enjoying it. I'm supposed to be getting another one. But it's been a long time. For now I'm using a Marshall JVM on tour and I used to use a lot more pedals and rack. Right now I just go straight into the Marshall. I just have a tuner and a noise gate pedal and that's it. I have a Line 6 DL4 Delay. Basically it's a stop box that has multiple delays in it. and I just stopped using it out of convenience at the moment, just because I'm sort of, the thing I dislike most about touring or anything, on playing shows at all is having a complication in a my set-up. We have no roadies so I have to set up and tear down all my own stuff. And usually being the opening band; you're completely rushed on and off stage, like you don't have time for anything. So you want the quickest set up and tear down possible. So for the moment that's what I'm doing�until.. if we get a headlining tour or whatever, then it's more like I can have more freedom to play around I think.

antiMusic: This is probably a stupid question because most musicians love to play but do you really like the freedom of doing your own show like you did the other night as opposed to being the opening act in terms of trying to fit the scope of your material down to maybe a half hour set as opposed to a headlining set where you get an hour or whatever it is but potentially a lot more in the audience?

Danny: Yeah. I definitely like headlining more for that aspect. You know, obviously, (laughs) there's the size of the crowd aspect for the opener, but as well it doesn't really matter because say you're playing for 500 people and only 80 0f them end up liking you of the other band's crowd, then if you do the headlining show to 80 people and all 80 people are there just to see you it's pretty much, it's worth the same amount. But if you get even bigger openers then it's like, ok, then that's really a matter of exposure. As for crowds-wise, the biggest tour we ever did was our first tour with Sonata Arctica. They were drawing thousands, you know. Every night it was like a thousand people. Some nights there were 1,800 and it was really cool. And we did pretty well on that tour. I'd say we probably would usually get about half the audience on every show. So that was good for us for exposure.

antiMusic: You come from Montreal and that's sort of a hotbed, or one of the most creative parts of Canada, I think anyway. I go to a lot of shows in Ottawa and Montreal and there's no comparison; Ottawa's just dead. Do you think there's something different or does the city play into your mindset in terms of writing or how you approach things especially when you get out and you see what the rest of the country is like?

Danny: Yeah. Every single band that we've ever toured with, whether they're from Europe or the United States or Canada or whatever, they're always extremely excited for the Montreal show because they know that just the enthusiasm is just so much more there. I've never played showed in Europe but I'm told that Europe is kind of similar. Bands say that the United States is pretty much THE worst crowds you'll find --- like enthusiasm wise. The crowds will be there you know, in numbers, but it's just that they're just tired, they've seen everything or I don't know. But, yeah, Montreal is great. And I think a large part has to do with the French thing. French people are just more enthusiastic about art in general whether it be music or movies or art. It's just more part of a culture and I'm pretty happy to live in Montreal. (laughs)

antiMusic: Anything else about the new record that I didn't ask you that you might want to share?

Danny: We're going to have a new video soon for the song "Thank you Pain". Basically, that's in a way "our REAL video", With "�Eulogies�", I assume that some people might have been: hmm why is this video so simplistic? Cause, like you know it's very straightforward. It's just individual shots of the band, right on their face. And "�Eulogies�" was basically an idea by us and Dave Brodsky. We just wanted to put out an extra video for the fans to get at because there was a delay in getting "Thank You Pain" done and we wanted to make sure those fans had a video while the album was released. So look out for "Thank You Pain" because it's going to be 10 times better. (laughs).