Article 20080211

Source: http://www.thedwarf.com.au

Date Published: 11 February 2008

Title: Shihad: Beautiful Machines

Writen by: earthbutterfly (The Dwarf Contributor)

Original Link: http://www.thedwarf.com.au

=Article= For those of you who have been dedicated Shihad fans since they were Shihad, and when they were Pacifier, and are Shihad once again – my interview with guitarist Phil Knight leads me to believe that their new album – Beautiful Machine, is what the fans have been waiting for…

Phil tells that the new album, due out in April, is a much more relaxed album which just really goes back to original experimental Shihad.

“We’re all just really happy with the album, I think this is the happiest we’ve been with an album since the release of the General Electric. We took our time writing and recording demos – the album has been almost 3 years in the making. It’s a much more comfortable album as well, after Love is the New Hate (2005) which had a very heavy theme to it, both musically and lyrically.

“When we recorded Love is the New Hate, we went back to our typical heavy sound after spending 3 years recording with a much more ‘pop’ sound to our music when we were under the name Pacifier.” But the change in sound was merely coincidental, rather than something that we had intended to happen, claims Knight. “The change in our music was something that just seemed to happen, and we went along with it for that time, but when we changed our name back, we felt that we should try and steer the music back as well.”

Phil also described being in the United States at the time of the September 11 attacks somewhat surreal. “I just turned grey with anxiety and all I could do that day was eat junk food… Snickers bars mostly.”

When we felt we had to change the name of the band, it took us a while to decide what we should rename our band as, and when we thought of Pacifier as an option, because it was a song on our album the General Electric, it just felt right; but it wasn’t anything to do with trying to bring peace and pacify the world at that particular time – we weren’t trying to subliminally tap into people’s peaceful side or anything.

Phil also recalls his days before Shihad, when he was growing up in a very musical family and enjoyed learning guitar so much that he wagged school so he was able to practice at least 5 hours everyday, and eventually, putting up an advert in his local music store brought him to Shihad.

Now, Phil describes how the band enjoys playing live shows anywhere. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small show in a local pub, or playing the Big Day Out circuit, we’re just happy to be playing in front of an audience, and both are just as fun to play.

“We’ve just been playing some small local shows around to promote our new single, and we just played the Auckland Big Day Out which was awesome, but hopefully next year we’ll be doing the whole (Big Day Out) circuit”