August Burns Red has been playing “Chop Suey!” From System of a Down. before going on stage in his live shows always packed for several years. Today, the band has released their official version of the song. They’ve put a very August Burns Red spin on the beloved 2000s track. The original video for “Chop Suey!” System of a Down just crossed a billion views, so there is no better time than the present for this cover to arrive.
“After years of playing ‘Chop Suey!’ over the public address system just before going on stage at our shows, we decided to try the song ourselves, “says guitarist JB Brubaker. “This is truly one of the most legendary rock/metal songs of all time and it was a lot of fun to cover. I’m especially proud of our singer Jake and our bassist Dustin. We haven’t done a lot of clean singing in our music and this song. shows our vocalists in a whole new way. ”
ABR’s latest full-length “Guardians” is out now via Fearless Records. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hard Music Album Chart, Rock Album Chart, and Vinyl Album Chart upon release. ABR also appeared on the cover of the Spring 2020 issue of Revolver.
When asked who the “gatekeepers” of August Burns Red are, vocalist Jake Luhrs told Revolver: “For the band, our gatekeepers would be our fans. When you think of gatekeepers, they help, right? Either they nurture or they provide. . Our fans definitely do. That for us. When we put out a new record, they buy real copies or they get all the vinyl. They come to all of our shows. We have people who have gone to 40 shows. I don’t know if I’ve ever been to 40 shows outside of my band to go see someone, never. So we have these die-hard fans. They support the band. They give us a place to exist and continue our work. They genuinely care about us.
“To me personally? I mean, it’s going to sound very cliché and very, very stupid and corny, but it’s Jesus. God just went through all of this with me, when everyone else was gone or no one came to help me.”. Who do you think he was talking to when he had 18 drinks a night? When I woke up at three in the afternoon, who do you think I was talking to? I was talking to God. He just helped me around. That’s my tutor and it’s the truth. ”
Earlier this year, Brubaker told Billboard that he and his bandmates have become more comfortable with the “metalcore” label in recent years.
“The word metalcore became taboo for us in 2013,” he said. “There was a huge boom of bands playing metalcore and it was so watered down and predictable and boring. And right now, now in 2020, I feel like a lot of that bunch of bands that were active seven years ago, so a lot of them have come and go now that I’m not so embarrassed by the term ‘metalcore’ anymore. Because I feel like the bands that were left standing from that boom, it’s like the cream rises to the top. And while I’d rather call August Burns Red a band metal, I understand why people would call us a metalcore band. I mean, we play a lot of breakdowns. So if you want to be quite literal about it, the ‘core’ is obvious. “