Artist News

As I Lay Dying explain decision to reform in tell-all interview

By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 18 June 2018

Metal band As I Lay Dying addressed the controversy surrounding their decision to reunite in a 30 minute tell-all video over the weekend. The classic line-up of the band recently released their first new music since frontman Tim Lambesis was convicted of attempting to hire a hitman to kill his wife.

The video was released as the band prepared to play a comeback show in San Diego on Saturday night. In it, Lambesis explains that convincing the band to work with him again had been a slow process. His bandmates talk about how his arrest and the subsequent fallout affected them, and how strongly they came to resent him.

Guitarist Nick Hipa, one of the strongest critics of Lambesis in recent years, says that at one point his feelings towards the vocalist had become “blind hatred”. He felt that Lambesis had no real understanding of the effect his actions had had or how much his crimes had become part of the other band members’ identities as well.

But eventually, and very slowly, he goes on, they began to rebuild their relationship. After several years, he eventually agreed to meet Lambesis face to face. “When we met up, it wasn’t very positive at first”, he says. “I said, ‘Look, I’ve seen you say you’re sorry, you’ve said it how many times, but when has it ever been real?’ … And it was nothing but genuine remorse on his end and taking responsibility for everything that he’s done”.

“That’s what it took”, says Hipa of his decision to work with Lambesis again. “It took all of those years, him facing punishment, the consequences for his actions, living in the ruin that he made for himself, and also acknowledging that it would never end. What he did was very public, and it can never be forgotten, and it shouldn’t. But that’s part of what he has to endure for the rest of his life”.

“When I saw who he was, and who he had genuinely become, I let go of that”, he goes on. “I wanted to let go of it, because I had never handled it and that pain and that hope and that helplessness, I let it become my life for worse in the form of hatred. I used that as my strength for all those years, but it devastated me on the inside”.

Watch the full interview here…