Exposed Vocals Interviews Trey McLamb from BLATANT DISARRAY
Formed in 1999 in Raleigh, North Carolina, BLATANT DISARRAY is a thrash-
metal band armed with an arsenal of razor sharp songs that rip through you
and a live show that takes you back to the days of head banging and circle
pits. The music is heavily based off of the classic Bay Area thrash sound
combined with a neo-classical and European metal foundation. Rapid double-
time drumming, wicked fast riffs and shredding guitar solos makes BLATANT
DISARRAY an absolute feast for thrash-metal fans.
Exposed Vocals: How did you hear about Exposed Vocals? What made you decide to sign up?
Trey McLamb: They reached out to us on Twitter, I checked out their website and liked what I saw, great content with no fluff, and thought it would be a great to be a part of a site that is open minded to multiple genres and seems more heavily focused on music.
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Trey McLamb: I grew up in Virginia Beach, VA, my family wasn’t a Navy family, but most of my friends’ were so they all moved away eventually which led me to kind of live in my own world. My family moved to North Carolina when I was 14 and my cousin who lived a few miles away had a drum set. My aunt had a hair styling business in her house and I would go over there to get a haircut as an excuse to bang on the drums afterwards, they caught on when I was going every couple of weeks and let me play whenever I wanted and my Father eventually bought the drums from my cousin. I didn’t get a haircut for years after that, heh.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Trey McLamb: The band is really influenced by METALLICA, especially in the early days and its a line from “The Shortest Straw” lyrics.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Trey McLamb: The internet changed the game and the industry is starting to reinvent itself, now bands have gone back to playing live for what income they can get because that’s one experience that can’t be shared over and over for free. Giving away music has always been around, even back in the tape trading days, just now its just a click away. We still give our music away whenever relevant for promotional purposes of course, like someone would a business card.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Trey McLamb: Start small and work your way up. A small room with 50 people seems way more packed than a big room with 150 people. Try to outgrow the little dive bars and move up. Try to be professional online too, better to have a good recording of just two songs than eight crappy ones, which is a deal breaker for airplay as well. Same as photos, spend the money for a real photo shoot rather than let a friend take some with their phone, one great photo can really help a band.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
Trey McLamb: Everyone makes mistakes, happens all the time. Mostly mine are from bad monitors onstage or dropping a stick or something, but occasionally there is the inevitable “brain fart”, its just human. Unless its a train wreck that can’t be recovered, just roll with it and don’t make the “mistake face” and draw attention to it, most people would never even notice a bad note but they would notice a musician making a big deal about it onstage.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
Trey McLamb: We’re mostly just weekend warriors lately, but plans are to do some proper runs for our new album and some festivals this summer. No crazy road stories come to mind, although we did play a house party once, all crammed into to a basement and everyone wore costumes, we all dressed as hip-hop guys, that was a strange show for a thrash band.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Trey McLamb: Our writing method isn’t much different than most metal bands; it usually starts with a riff that gets matched with an appropriate drum beat and once it gets off the ground and it evolves from there, rarely are songs brought in fully written. The only thing different these days is our singer owns a recording studio so we get to track our ideas and once the song is fleshed out everyone can experiment with different overdubs to see what works, so songs are written knowing they will be recorded and have parts added instead of just played live, although we have indulged ourselves on occasion we try not to go nuts and write songs that we can’t recreate onstage.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Trey McLamb: We can be found online at:
www.blatantdisarray.net
www.reverbnation.com/blatantdisarray
www.dirtrecords.net
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
Trey McLamb: I have a wide interest in music so I go from ABBA to Zappa so to speak, I won’t incriminate myself but I do have stuff on my iPod that I will only listen to in private, I’ll just leave it at that.
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Trey McLamb: Mostly just try not to blow it all, but I would sleep in everyday, drink tons of coffee, read, and devour Netflix. Oh yeah, and buy tons of cymbals, I already have all the drums I need.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
Trey McLamb: We are in writing mode again, we have one cover song (which I can’t mention yet) that the drums have been tracked for, and a few odds and ends in the works. We are looking to release a 4-5 song EP next instead of a full album and do a digital-only release, something we haven’t done yet. We still love the full CD format, but we want to switch it up this time.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Trey McLamb: Online is the way these days, I see on Twitter where our music is being played in parts of the world I’ve never heard of and have no idea who these people are, that’s amazing. YouTube has been great to us too; videos are a perfect way to promote the band in places we would never get to visit.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
Trey McLamb: Probably any of the “Big 4” because they were such an influence to us, although the band did do a show with ANTHRAX already, so I guess the other 3…
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Trey McLamb: We are getting ready to play out more this summer and get in on some of the festivals, we also have a lyric video for “Born In A Body Bag” in the works, which features Reed Mullin from CORROSION OF CONFORMITY on guest vocals. Other than that, the usual writing and recording.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Trey McLamb: I have no idea. Books and films are my other passions, so something in those worlds I imagine.
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
Trey McLamb: I don’t remember the first one I bought with my own money, but the first album I ever got was for Christmas, the “Red Album” from THE BEATLES. It blew my mind and I remember sitting in my room listening to it every chance I got, I still own it even though it is scratched all to hell.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Trey McLamb: Being an active musician is a life style, you have to coordinate schedules with many people and keep a strict calendar. I try to have “off days” where I don’t play music although those are rare. The best way is to decide the night before what I am going to do the next day and try not to get distracted, after being a musician all these years I have a system that works for me, I often wonder what it would be like to be bored.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2015?
Trey McLamb: We have an EP and another video in the works and talks to hit some of the summer festivals. Visit us online to keep up to date and if you happen to catch us out on the road somewhere, come up and say hello. Thanks for all the support, we are eternally grateful.
