Success Will Write Apocalypse Across The Sky:
Grinding Towards Supremacy
Words: Scott Harrell
Photo: Courtesy Nuclear Blast Records

When their debut full-length, The Grant Partition, And The Abrogation Of Idolatry, drops in the U.S. on legendary label Nuclear Blast May 5, Tampa’s Success Will Write Apocalypse Across The Sky (or S.W.W.A.A.T.S. for short) will begin a new chapter in the long, illustrious history of envelope-pushing extreme metal in their hometown. Vocalist John Collett recently spoke to REAX about what it means to be a part of that tradition.

REAX: So where did the name come from?
John Collett: It's actually a line from a William Burroughs short story called “Apocalypse.” What it entails is art actually jumping off of its canvas and turning into a living, breathing form, and overthrowing society in a sense, taking on its own entity and becoming a strong and powerful force. We thought that was pretty interesting, we took that and ran with it because it touches on some of the things we talk about lyrically.

REAX: Were you very conscious of not wanting to go with a cliched death metal name?
JC: The guys were bouncing names around before I came in, and Aaron Haines, guitar was in a band called Bodies In The Gears of The Apparatus, so it was kind of the next step of him having a lot of success with that band. Having such a long name, it was very eye-catching. You're either gonna love it or hate it, but you’re gonna check it out. It's a freakin’ paragraph. And it's cool in the sense of, I know we didn't just make this thing up out of thin air, it acutally stands for something. And the acronym is cool.

REAX: Do you guys feel like part of a Florida heavy-music tradition?
JC: Without a doubt, man. Growing up in the northeast, Cannibal Corpse was a prime example of a band that kicked me off in this scene. I truly believe that anybody who is playing this style of music that denies that they're influenced by the the Tampa scene is kidding themselves, for sure. Obituary and Death, the list goes on and on. Years and years of putting out killer music. Morbid Angel. It's instilled in this area, and the fact that we get to be a piece of that is awesome. That's just icing on the cake.

REAX: I hear a lot of non-Floridian influences in your music too, from Napalm and Carcass to groovecore stuff like Prong.
JC: That stems from every member of this band growing up in different parts of th counry, and being touched by a lot fo different music scenes, you know? I'm from New York and Aaron's from the Jersey/Philly area, so we grew up in a bit of an old-school hardcore scene that turned into a metal scene. We got to watch that transform, and there was something very inspiring about that. We can't escape the Relapse Records influence, for sure. We were very influenced by the doom and stoner bands as well. We've kind of put all of that together, and come up with what we have right now, which I think has mixed pretty well.

REAX: It seems like this band is much more firmly rooted in metal than some of the bands that spawned it, like Bodies. How do you feel about the lines being so blurred between genres like hardcore, metalcore and metal?
JC: I’m gonna be honest, I'm really not a fan of these different classifications. It's just metal. I wish people would just accept that fact. There are some separating factors between the different styles, but what it boils down to is, it's metal, in my opinion. It's pretty much the same thing. Bodies was a grindcore band, and this band is definitely a combination of grind and death metal if you want to use those terms. But I’ll always stick by, we’re just a metal band.

REAX: Is it tough to find places to play or other bands to play with locally or around the state?
JC: We're blessed in this day and age to have the Internet, there's a lot of ways to get exposure, and meet new people and bands to hook up with. That's pretty much how we've been rolling, and it's been great. We've made a lot of friends.

REAX: How stoked are you to be headed out to Europe for the first time?
JC: It's a dream come true. It really is. I have really deep-seated English roots, and for me to even be able to travel there in the first place is a dream, but do go out there and play music and work and do what I love, it's a whole nother ball game. We're more than excited to finally make this trip, because nobody in the band has been overseas. There are a couple of people who haven't been on a plane before. We're thrilled to death.

REAX: It seems like a really eclectic bill, lots of different heavy styles.
JC: That's totally what we were shooting for. And for that to get tossed at us as our first major tour on Nuclear Blast is spectacular. The diversity, the different forms of metal, it's bound to bring people of different ages, colors and creeds, you know? It's gonna be interesting to see the audiences we'll encounter. But that's been a goal of ours from day one, to play to as many different crowds as possible. So for our first tour to be on such a high-profile package, it's killer.

S.W.W.A.A.T.S. is on the Thrash & Burn tour with Darkest Hour, Bleeding Through, Beneath The Massacre, Carnifex and more in Europe through mid-May. Look for a Tampa CD release party for The Grand Partition, And The Abrogation of Idolatry shortly after.

myspace.com/swwaats