Ash Avildsen, the CEO of Sumerian Records, had an absolute powerhouse of an interview this week on Jamey Jasta’s podcast. He shared a lot of information, but by far the biggest news was that the band Periphery would no longer be on his label.
Periphery, for those who don’t know, are one of the biggest names in progressive metal. Hailing from the D.C. Metro area (go us), they’ve been absolutely melting faces for over 10 years now, even getting nominated for a Grammy in 2017 for their song “The Price Is Wrong”.
In the interview, Avildsen calls Periphery “their own worst enemy” in regards to the way they go about writing music, and the kind of music they put out. With their progressive elements, Periphery is not a band that everyone will love right off that bat or maybe ever. They’re undeniably talented, however don’t exactly create “radio-friendly” music, and this is what Avildsen was pushing them to expand upon.
Avildsen went on to say that “Periphery could be an arena band”, meaning they could be so huge they could be selling out arenas across the world. However this isn’t what Periphery wants to do, so they chose to leave the label and put out their next album on their own.
While this may be an issue for some bands, as self-producing and putting out a record without the help of a label is a huge feat, Periphery are no strangers to doing things on their own. Many of their past albums have been self-produced, and if they intend to continue to make the kind of music they want, this seems like the logical step to take.
However, his wasn’t the only news that Avildsen announced in his interview. He also announced the first three bands of this year’s Summer Slaughter Tour. This year the headliner will be Between The Buried And Me, and they will be supported by Born of Osiris and Veil of Maya.
Born of Osiris and Veil of Maya are no strangers to the Summer Slaughter Tour, as they’ve both played it multiple times. However, this will only be Between The Buried And Me’s second appearance.
It’s interesting that Between The Buried And Me is this year’s headliner as the festival is generally geared towards death metal acts such as Cannibal Corpse and The Black Dahlia Murder. It will be interesting to see if the acts announced for this tour later on continue this trend towards more progressive metal.
Below is the podcast that Avildsen appeared on, The Jasta Show. The episode is almost three hours long, but I highly recommend giving it a listen. Avildsen does a deep dive on the whole Periphery situation along with many other topics. For any new metal fan, Avildsen is definitely one to listen to whenever you get the chance. He’s the head of one of the biggest metal record labels in the world, and is relatively highly respected in this industry.
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