ESCAPE THE FATE:
Ready to Reinvent Rock N Roll As We Know It… And Looking Really Hot Doing It

By Damien Ellinghuas

22 year old Robert Ortiz likes Metallica, Guns & Roses, having fun with his boys, and playing drums. But the man is no ordinary 22 year old with a drum kit, for he is the drummer in one of modern rock’s biggest bands, Escape the Fate. Formed in 2004 by bassist Max Green and Ortiz, the band quickly found its way into the spotlight after winning a local radio contest judged by My Chemical Romance, allowing the group to tour with Alkaline Trio. Subsequently ETF inked a deal with Epitaph, allowing them to record their debut EP “There’s No Sympathy For The Dead,” and eventually their first full-length “Dying Is Your Latest Fashion.” Shortly after, however, vocalist Ronnie Radke was indicted on several charges, and was asked to leave the band. This didn’t stop the band however, as Craig Mabbitt of Blessthefall stepped in and took the reins, and the rest is history.

Ortiz grew up listening to classic Thrash and Heavy Metal, if you couldn’t tell by the homage his look pays to Slash. Don’t think it’s just a gimmick to attract ladies though, as Ortiz stated “You gotta look good, and you gotta look cool, and once you look cool enough for long enough, that’s when you start to look fucking good....It’s a package deal man, the look of the band is very important, and not in the sense of you wanna look pretty, it’s because we want what we look like to match the sound of what we do.” And what is this sound exactly? Crunching hard rock with havy metal riffs and fills galore, all under the reigns of a talented young singer who manages to blend guttural screams with glass-shattering high notes to make sure you always know the melody is there. However, their forthcoming self-titled album (slated for a November 2nd drop date, hint hint) carries with it a pretty big order, as Green stated in a previous interview “This record is the cure for the modern day music epidemic, We are wiping the slate clean and re-writing rock music as you know it.”zz

Pretty intense words, but Robert doesn’t seem too concerned about it, saying “The planet’s just lined up on this one, and I genuinely believe with every ounce of my being is going to be it, it’s gonna be that album. Everyone has their moment, a certain song that matches to a certain song, and I think we’re gonna make rock cool again, and become a rad fucking band that everyone can listen to and just be like Fuck man, these dude’s are awesome” And why shouldn’t they believe so, with the state the industry is in right now, it certainly could use an adrenaline shot to the heart right about now, and maybe a morphine shot to every one of the Jonas’ so that I can sleep at night without hearing the fucking 12 year old next door sing whatever god awful hit they have out on the radio as of late....fuck Disney.

But you won’t find that shit here, as the band is promising an album that will forever change the modern day mainstream music scene as we know it, and all we can do is hope so, because I’m starting to get worried. You won’t have to worry about him losing his hair anytime soon, because according to him “With Songwriting, it’s about 75% hair, 25%...a lot of other shit...The hair is important man.” Which is good, we don’t need someone pulling another 90’s Metallica....shudder. Robert also seems to have found “The Fill”, a fill that is gonna blow people’s minds, on the third installment of their Guillotine song series: “Lars Ulrich, he’s not renowned by other drummers, but he’s got more memorable moments then anyone else, like that double bass part in One, or the beginning of Sad But True...I have found that fucking fill. Whenever I would hear myself I would say damn I should’ve done that, and this time around, I did that.”

It seems like everything fell in place for this album with everyone in the band, but only time will tell if this band will make it into the history books with a career/industry altering record. Based off of my talk with Robert though, I have hope for the future.