With not one but TWO new albums - 'Step Into The Light' and 'Failure Will Follow' - vocalist Vincent Bennett explains everything we absolutely need to know.

We knew exactly how we wanted these records to sound before we entered the studio. I personally had 30 demo tracks done before we even wrote together. We grabbed a few riffs from those demos here and there, but most of what we had was written in the studio between all of us and Randy Leboeuf, our producer. Everybody had good ideas and they never stopped flowing.

Randy turned us on to a spot near the studio called Fire Bagels, and we liked it so much that we made him pick it up on the way to the studio every morning. My go to breakfast was an Asiago bagel with Taylor ham, egg, and cheese. I miss that shit.

When we got to the studio, a few comforts from home were missing, so we did what we could to fix that. We bought Randy a big ass TV, and a bidet so we could take dumps in luxury. We proceeded to watch a lot of classic horror while writing. The Phantasm soundtrack was a huge influence on the theme of ‘Failure Will Follow’.

I’ve never smoked anything, but we made Randy smoke weed using a magnifying glass. We called it “taking a solar hit”. I also attempted to roll a joint for the boys and I was told it looked like “something a dad trying to relive his youth would roll”. I don’t know shit about that shit.

Mike Recon is an enigma. He might spend half the day on the toilet, he might get high and go to sleep, he might bust out some gnarly riffs, or he just might break out the riding mower from the shed and spend the next few hours making the studio lawn rival the look of New Jersey’s finest country clubs. You never know what you’re going to get.

The “live room” sound you hear at the beginning of ‘Flourishing’ was a snippet of Griffin [Landa, bass] and me jamming in the drum room. I’m playing drums and he’s on guitar. Kevin [Boutot, drums] had to step it up and start playing blast beats to keep up.

Taken from the June 2023 issue of Upset. The Acacia Strain’s albums ‘Step Into The Light’ and ‘Failure Will Follow’ are out now.