Brave World

"There's no rest for the wicked man,” Obey The Brave's John Campbell says with a laugh. And as though to prove his point, the guitarist calls while on tour through the USA.

So far, 2013 has been a wild ride for the Montreal deathcore five-piece. Formed in early 2012 by buddies from Despised Icon and Blind Witness, this year has seen the band tear it up across North American and European stages, with their debut record Young Blood earning rave reviews. But according to Campbell, the band's amazing business wasn't something that they had planned.

“When we started the band we weren't quite sure what we were going to do,” Campbell explains. “The first talks we had when we got together happened when we'd all come out of bands that had toured fairly heavily, so we were thinking about starting something where we'd play some shows on weekends. As the songs came together we got more into it and decided that we wanted to do it full-time – give it 110 per cent.”

As the band was writing for their debut, everything just clicked. From the way Young Blood seemlessly marries a melodic metalcore sensibility with a brutal deathcore edge, to getting signed to punk institution Epitaph Records, it became apparent that, despite the band's initial plans to keep things small, the opportunity to do something much bigger was beckoning.

“The music is the primary reason that we all enjoy being in the band but, even if you're 100 per cent behind your band, you might not get the opportunity to be able to travel and put a record out. So getting signed up with Epitaph just made us more driven to do this as a full-time thing, and take this band as far as we can. Just do as much as we possibly can, because it's not an opportunity everyone gets.

“And it's one thing to write a song, but it's a whole other thing to actually play that song live,” says Campbell. “I think there's a whole different dynamic. Sometimes one of the least favourite songs on the record becomes one of [the best] to play live. And that all becomes good food for thought when thinking about writing a second record.”

According to Campbell, that second LP is very much on the way. “Ideally it would be out early to mid next year. We've been writing for a while now. It is more difficult being on the road to get stuff done, but [we're getting it] done, we're fitting it in.”