I’d always been a control freak prior to that-in a way it was because of who I am, but in another way, it was also because I’d had to because I didn’t have people in the band who could contribute well until Jane Doe. We all had a lot of respect for each other as musicians and friends, so that was the first record we wrote that was really a collaborative process. And we were all on the same page musically. And Nate was also finally living in Boston-prior to that he was commuting up from Virginia. Kurt Ballou: It was the first batch of song we wrote after Ben joined the band, so we definitely had a new perspective and a new energy and a new means of working. What do you remember about the songwriting process for Jane Doe? Converge-now a sleek and furious four-piece-drove into New York City under a blanket of ash, on the road to a silver future. On September 11, the day the band was to embark upon a two-week tour with Playing Enemy, the Twin Towers fell and the world changed forever. On September 4, Jane Doe was released to considerable critical and popular acclaim. On September 1, Ballou was laid off from his job as a medical engineer at Boston Scientific (“it was like the adult version of playing with Legos”), thus freeing Converge to expand considerably upon their annual one-month touring schedule.
By the time the Jane Doe recording sessions-a three-month marathon spread across as many studios and helmed by Converge guitarist/producer Kurt Ballou-were complete, the band had kicked longtime second guitarist Aaron Dalbec (also of Bane) to the curb. The band had also recently recruited local drum dervish Ben Koller, formerly of grind outfit Force Fed Glass, to replace skinsman Jon DiGiorgio. Bassist Nate Newton, formerly of Jesuit, had joined the band three years earlier and recorded on two split releases-1999’s The Poacher Diaries (with Agoraphobic Nosebleed) and 2000’s Deeper the Wound (with Japan’s Hellchild), the inaugural release from Converge vocalist Jake Bannon’s label, Deathwish, Inc.-but had yet to track a full-length with them. It was also 2001, and change was everywhere. It was feral, it was ferocious, it was fucking unstoppable. Shit, it even had a song that was just drums and vocals (the 42-second apocalypse of “Phoenix in Flames”). Call it Album of the Decade, like we did in 2009. Any way you break it down, Jane Doe was both a semi-melodic milestone (“Hell to Pay,” “Thaw,” the title track) and a discordant landmark (everything else), far and away the most crucial metallic hardcore record since fellow Massholes Cave In (who had since stepped bravely onto the major label playing field) unleashed Until Your Heart Stops three years earlier. Call it the record that catapulted a certain Boston quartet (then quintet) into permanent cult status with a slew of face-ripping live staples (“Concubine,” “The Broken Vow” and “Bitter and Then Some”) and a soaring, epic title track.
Inside a Freeform Mathcore MaelstromĬall it the face that launched a thousand metalcore graphic designers (into a rat-race of feverish mimicry). Previously unavailable online, the following story features lengthy interviews with every member of Converge who performed on the record.
Jane doe yes i remember it well full#
In the time between acquiring tickets and waiting for your chance to down bitters and then some during the New England legends’ landmark set, you can celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album and dig into the full Jane Doe Hall of Fame from our long sold-out January 2008 issue and Precious Metal Hall of Fame anthology.
Tickets for the exclusive performance are still available, but are moving fast (tickets for their Jane Doe set at the Philly edition of Metal & Beer Fest are already sold out)! Converge will perform their seminal metallic hardcore classic, Jane Doe, in its entirety at Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest: Los Angles on Friday, December 10.