“Behind the Curtain” Track List:

1. Agenda
2. Demonseed
3. Blackened Sunsets
4. Behind the Curtain
5. Bad Boy
6. Cattle Drive
7. Closer
8. Fight My
9. Sever the Spine
10. Sexual Degenerate
11. Usurper
12. Bleedthrough

“We’ve learned to pack bedding, because a lot of times we sleep either in a vehicle or on a floor. We haven’t made a lot of money on the road, so we have to prepare to just live. And friends are a huge, important things for us, because they usually put us up,” says Marcus Steiner, guitarist and vocalist for Lies From Elysium. The Calgary, Alta. metal act spends a lot of time on the road, and they’ve learned a thing or two about the importance of prepping before hitting the highway since first forming in 2006.

“Small towns are our bread and butter, basically. We’re all small town guys, and when we go there it seems like the crowds can relate to us because our experience comes from small towns, it’s aggressive, heavy, and we try to bring a full show that people don’t normally see in your average sized venue, or average sized bar,” Steiner continues.

When not working full time, recording or rehearsing, they keep busy getting in touch with bar owners and promoters.

“Emails, phone calls, and it helps us a lot if someone in the town can get a copy of our CD and take it to that person. It seems if there’s a double prong approach to it, it just cements it in their mind that we’re a decent band and they should take a chance on us.”

And there are no limitations to where the hard-working three-piece is willing to play.

“We will play anywhere. If we can make it work where we’re not losing money, than we will get to your town and play.”

Heading into the new year, the band is hoping to journey east, across the prairies and all the way to Canada’s east coast.

“All the way as far as Newfoundland if we can,” says bassist Kiel Edge. “Because, as Marcus was saying, small towns are our bread and butter, and I’m told everyone on the east coast loves metal just as much as we do out here in Alberta.”

But before they make that 6,000 km trek, they will unleash their full-length debut on their hometown province of Alberta.

Behind the Curtain follows the group’s 2008 EP Uncertain Times, and is the first album to include drummer and Rich Jaeger, who engineered that EP, as well as the new disc.

How did you end up in the mix, Rich?

Rich Jaeger: I met these guys at a studio when they were recording, and their drummer [at the time] got flaky and I filled in for a couple shows, and then he flaked out totally and it all just fell into place.

What attracted you to the music they were playing?

Jaeger: Just the vibe from the guys and the music. The heaviness.

What would you say is the best way to describe Behind the Curtain, for those who aren’t familiar with Lies From Elysium?

Kiel Edge: System of a Down, Slipknot, and Lamb of God all smashed into one.

Steiner: Pure energy, absolutely authentic. That’s how it feels, anyways, and all I can describe it as.

You guys and recorded and produced yourselves – what can you tell us about that experience?

Edge: Yes. We did the drum tracks at The Beach, which is the studio that Rich works at, and luckily we got some good deals from them, and then set up a small, baffled little corner in my apartment in Chestermere, Alta. and recorded the rest, the bass, guitars and vocals, in a tiny little hut. It was not very comfortable.

Marcus Steiner: Yeah, it was a 2 x 2 square foot space that really sucked to be in.

Edge: And for a month and a half. It was really hot in there!

How much time was spent from start to finish?

Steiner: The album from beginning to when we actually got the copy in our hands was about 11 months of pretty intense work. We all work full time too, and every day we were getting together. Rehearsals were a couple months, recording seemed to take forever, and then waiting for the copies seemed to take even longer.

How did having an engineer in the band help you out, aside from a good deal on recording drums?

Edge: He’s the whole reason we got it done.

Steiner: We saved 10s of thousands of dollars.

Edge: His experience allowed us to really just get creative in the studio. We got to be as meticulous as we wanted. Maybe a bit too meticulous at times, but it was definitely Rich’s baby.

Did you mix and master as well?

Jaeger: We all mixed together, and then had Grant (Howarth) at Outhouse master it for us, and he did an awesome job.

When it came to writing songs for the album, how did you approach the process?

Edge: The way it usually breaks down is Marcus will come in with a riff – he’s got a lot of riffs stored up from his years of being on this planet – or me and Marcus will build riffs together. We haven’t really started writing a lot with Rich yet, but it’s basically like a jam session, or if Rich has a beat we’ll start out with that.

Steiner: It’s really organic. We’ll start with something that feels good when we’re jamming and then build on it. Very little of the stuff we put out there is premeditated; it’s all just a big jam for us

Did you write specifically with this album in mind?

Edge: Most of the stuff on this album was already written before Rich joined us, because we were already planning to record this album. There are a few newer ones with Rich’s writing on them, but it was mostly done, as far as the melodies of the songs, so Rich just kind of took what we had and put his masterful drum beats to it, to help create the new style of heaviness we’d been hoping for on this album.

When the album comes out Jan. 16, what do you hope people get out of it?

Edge: A desire to come out and see us live, and support what we’re trying to do so we can put out more albums.