Dan Sugarman

The truth is - people just don't know the truth. What's the truth? It's waaaay fucking harder to to do this then you think. An even bigger truth to consider is that out of the 10-15% of people that think they can live this lifestyle, less than 1% make it out alive, and less than .001% "make it". The people in ABRB now are the survivors - the ones who wanted it the most and earned it. What do I do when people bitch about the lineup? I laugh to myself and wonder what kind of bullshit I can make up to throw back at them as an insult about their personal/professional life. Everything and anything that comes from someone's mouth outside of a band is complete speculation. The second you turn around and repeat that to someone else is how that bullshit is spread. And believe me - it IS bullshit majority of the time. Band members keep the personal inner workings of the band outside of the public eye for a reason - what we do is ugly, and the amount of effort that all bands put into presenting an "image" to the audience is a great facade for problems to hide behind, but sometimes those problems bleed through and are exposed in small fragments of truth to the public... But is it the full truth? Almost never.

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ABRB is here and alive - maybe one day well let everyone in on our full story and maybe one day everyone will see the trials and tribulations we've gone through.. And to still be standing and thriving is something you all will one day be amazed we pulled off.

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Ground Zero is coming soon, and you will love it.

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Ah, thanks for the love and support man! Really appreciate you reaching out to me - wish more people would do that! It's always fun connecting with friends I've made through music... welcome to the family my dude!

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As far as Ground Zero goes, we're all very excited to get into the studio and get this record out. It's definitely our most dynamic and aggressive record to date and we cannot wait to start touring these songs in support of the album. Hopefully we'll see you there, ya?

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And as of now, our most challenging song in the set is a new track off of Ground Zero called "Vision". Super fuckin' riffy, lots of intricate leads, most of which are using new techniques that I've been woodshedding on and implementing into songs as we go, and a lot of really cool syncopated rhythms ... that way keeps it interesting for me as it's always a fun challenge to execute those sections live as perfectly as my mind hears them. Some people might view that as risky, but to me it's what makes performances so fun - challenging yourself to stay on your game constantly under, and any circumstance, mind you.

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As far as if there are any songs I'd like to play live that we haven't yet... I'd say King of Thieves or Legacy, both of which are off of Instinct. Two awesome tracks that we're just not quite sure how well they would work in a live setting compared to lets say "In Dying Days" or "Resist", you know? But who knows - if people ask for it then there's no reason we wouldn't play it ;)

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Thanks for your question man! Hope that answered something haha

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Here is the budget breakdown, hopefully it answers a few questions. Keep in mind, this is our job, and our job is a reflection of ourselves. To improve our effectiveness and impact on the job, we have to improve ourselves. Typically a label comes in and helps a band get a trailer, get the album artwork, covers the cost of a hotel for 3-4 weeks while they record, cover the $1,000+ album art cost, give per-diems to the band so each band member can live each day (at least 1-2 meals), and pays for the $15,000 studio cost in our case (not $2,000 at all - if you want that kind of quality go listen to the pre-production versions of new songs online right now. All of which are songs I recorded on my home rig -which still exceeds the cost of $2,000 because I ended up investing in most of it myself outside of what we received through the campaign). We are ALL making sacrifices man - I'm sorry we asked for your help by simply "pre-ordering" our album with the opportunity of cool extras, and I'm sorry we showed you an inside look at what it takes to do this at the level we do it, and will be doing it. If you want the ABRB you know and expect, then we want to come out of the gates 10x harder. And guess what... it costs to grow my dude. We will not be releasing "Ground Zero" looking recycled and worn out, and we will not be playing these songs on our old fucked up gear torn to shreds by 3 years of hard touring, and we will not be risking our life for the 3rd time with a trailer as fucked up as ours... So in the end your misinformed, which I understand. It costs to do this man, there's no denying that. Just to go on tour we'll invest 10-20 grand on merch from our own pocket. That's just a tiny piece of the internal financial workings of being in a professional band, but thats just to show that only a fraction of what ONE TOUR costs is almost half of making ONE RECORD. Imagine what it costs us to do tour upon tour upon tour... so, in reality, 50k is not a lot to ask considering how far we were going to stretch it in terms of investing it into our live production and in getting the best engineers and mixing and mastering we could, and then we were going to invest our own money into marketing. And to be even MORE clear, this budget breakdown is completely miscalculated now considering we didn't hit our goal, but you should be able to see that it costs money to make a record. All this shit is real, and its stuff you may no consider until someone shows you. So, here you go:

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BUDGET BREAKDOWN

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Pre Production $1,500
Rehearsal Studio $2,800
Per Diems (@$25) $3,500
Trailer $3,500
Studio / Live Gear $3,200
Album Artwork $2,500
Campaign Artwork $1,000
Studio Time (Track, Mix & Master) $15,000
Travel $1,500
Accomodations $1,800
Misc (Band Hard Drive, etc.) $700

TOTAL EXPENSES $37,000

FUND RAISING GOAL $50,000
IndieGoGo Fees (4%) -$2,000
Credit Card Fees (3%) -$1,500
ADJUSTED GROSS $46,500
Cost of Perks (20%) -$9,300

STUDIO MONEY $37,20

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The differences between these two records will be huge to some and invisible to others... it's really a matter of perspective and what you're looking to get from an As Blood Runs Black. Instinct was emotionally charged, pissed off and powerful. It was also rushed, written and recorded on the quickness due to inner band turbulence at the time, and was drowning in a pool politics that we could not crawl our way out of. One day I'm sure we'll open up about our history so you can have a better understanding of the trials and tribulations we've gone through to still be here doing this... but thats another story all together haha

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For Ground Zero - that isn't happening this time around for us. We're taking our time and doing it right. We've removed all the sickness from the band... and now it's just YOU and us. Ground Zero is going to be a much bigger statement from us musically and lyrically. We're really pushing and challenging ourselves with this recorded, and experimenting with our boundaries, which is something I'm all about and have been enjoying immensely - since I prefer a challenge anyways.

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The songs on Ground Zero will be more in your face, more melodic, more pummeling, more dynamic with peaks and valleys, with tighter song structure, a more aggressive and technical approach, and they will be more digestible to listen to with more complexities to closer you listen.

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Keep your eyes and ears open, you'll be happy you did ;) Ground Zero is coming soon, and soon you will be too haha

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