William DuVall + Ethan Kahn Discuss Chained Saint’s Debut Album

On Thursday (April 3), Ethan Kahn of Chained Saint joined Loudwire Nights to celebrate his band’s debut studio album, Blindside. He was joined by the producer of the album, Alice In Chains‘ William DuVall.

Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

“This band, it really started off as me and these guys just playing Metallica covers in my garage,” Kahn, told host Chuck Armstrong. “This is awesome. This is the best thing to do after school — and we did that. We played five out of the seven days of the week, just playing covers.”

Eventually, the band started writing their own music. It was the third song they wrote when they realized they might be onto something.

“[That song] ended up being ‘Neanderthal,’ which is on the record,” Kahn explained. “We were like, we love this. We thought it was great and we just wanted to keep going with it and keep writing and we took off from there.”

DuVall first caught wind of Chained Saint through Kahn’s father, a friend of DuVall’s. He’d send DuVall videos of the band playing and share some of their music.

While DuVall enjoyed these clips, what really grabbed his attention was Chained Saint’s first demo tape.

“At that point, it shifted a gear in my mind,” DuVall admitted about hearing their demo tape for the first time.

“It was going beyond just a proud parent sharing cute videos of his son rocking out for fun and it showed a potential that went to another level.”

After some back and forth, DuVall agreed to go to Miami to check them out firsthand and then joined them in the studio. When he thought back to that demo tape, he shared what it was that he heard that convinced him to head to Miami.

“It was compelling, everything I was hearing, in terms of the risk and the raw arrangement ideas,” he said.

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“These guys have a sense of what makes a song move and they’re still developing obviously and we made changes and we did all of that stuff, but just the raw thing they were doing on their own in their rehearsal room or in the garage or whatever was just like, man, this is a wisdom beyond their years. These kids are all in high school, rocking at this level. It was enough to get me down there.”

Once he met the guys in Chained Saint and realized they were ready and willing to listen to what he had to say, he was ready to produce Blindside.

“Once I saw that, it was game on … We have some more things to do together. I’ll definitely be working with Chained Saint again, seeing what we can do next.”

What Else Did Alice In Chains’ William DuVall + Chained Saint’s Ethan Kahn Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

• Why they decided to record Blindside straight to analog: “I think it encapsulated the music perfectly and William kind of sparked that idea. We weren’t 100-percent sure, but we got in there and it sounded exactly how we envisioned it. It was just perfect.”
• What it means to Kahn to have the chance to work with a guy like DuVall: “It was just game-changing…he pushed us to such limits that we didn’t think were possible for us at times, especially recording tracks like ‘Corrupt to the Core.'”
• What’s on the horizon for Alice In Chains: “We do have this May run [of shows] coming up and we are excited about that. We’re excited to see everybody. Beyond that, I’m always in the lab. I don’t want to say too much more than that. I mean, we’ll have to see what happens. But yeah, I have a lot of plans.”

Listen to the Full Interview in the Podcast Player Below

William DuVall and Ethan Kahn joined Loudwire Nights on Thursday, April 3; the show replays online here, and you can tune in live every weeknight at 7PM ET or on the Loudwire app; you can also see if the show is available on your local radio station and listen to interviews on-demand.