One of the most venerable and critically lauded of American thrash/speed metal acts, Flotsam and Jetsam have been staples of the genre since their formation in 1981 and have continued to be in demand as a touring act, and a consistent seller as a recording act.
The band’s latest album, The End of Chaos, was released earlier this spring to pretty much universal fan and critical acclaim – a rarity in the age of internet trolls and anonymous comment boards. It is a tour de force of heavy metal songwriting, combining the best elements of the genre, including crunching riffs, pounding and insistent rhythmic tempos, exceptional musicianship, penetrating and intelligent lyrics and the vocal master of band founder Eric ‘A.K.’ Knutson.
Alongside Knutson in the latest incarnation of the band is long-time guitarist Michael Gilbert, who was in the band from 1984 through 1999, rejoining the fold in 2010. As well, second guitarist Steve Conley and bassist Michael Spencer joined in 2013 (although Spencer had a brief turn back in 1987 as one of the early replacements for former bassist Jason Newsted, who left to join Metallica in 1986 upon the death of Cliff Burton). Drummer Ken Mary is the new recruit to the Flotsam & Jetsam lineup having set up his drum stool first in 2017.
The band is in the early stages of an extensive headlining tour of North America, which began May 10 in Denver, and wraps up in Tempe, Arizona on June. 15. Flotsam and Jetsam will pop across the border to play three shows in eastern Canada – May 25 in Quebec City, May 26 in Montreal and May 27 in Toronto, and then will also hit Vancouver on June 8.
“It’s a pretty intense five-weeks. On most of the shows we’re taking a band with us called Dead by Wednesday and we will also have local openers at each show. We’re hitting a lot of major markets, but we’re going to come back and do more after our European run in September. And it’s been crazy since the album came out, we have been going full steam doing interviews, shows, rehearsals – all kinds of stuff. We love to play shows, we love to make records, so anytime we’re sitting at home doing nothing, it wears on me, because I want to be doing shows every night. I want to be on tour, I want to be making music all the time,” said Gilbert from his home outside Phoenix just before the start of the tour.
“And touring in this day and age is great publicity too, to get out there so lots of people can hear you. We’re trying to reach different audiences now, and if you’re not playing, you’re not going to get out there in front of those people. It’s cool to see our old school fans, and there are a lot of them, but more and more kids are coming out, and these young fans are turning their friends onto the band as well, because we’re seeing more and more younger people at the shows, which is pretty surprising.
“So, we want to strengthen that connection with those younger fans listening to what we’ve got going on now, and what it is to be an old-school thrash metal band. It’s kind of cool that so many new people are discovering us more than 35 years into our career.”
Flotsam and Jetsam blew out of the gate, as their first two albums, Doomsday for the Deceiver (released in 1986) and No Place For Disgrace (1988) becoming hits within the metal community – a trend that continues this day as they continue to get requests to play songs from those albums at their shows. Since then, the band has gone through numerous lineup changes and other challenges and setbacks over the intervening three decades, but Flotsam and Jetsam continued to persevere, recording 11 albums since 1990, including 2019’s The End of Chaos.
“All the reviews have been really good, and we are totally stoked about the reaction to the album. I always cringe when I see stuff online sometimes where you go through the comments and you see the trolls. So far, I haven’t seen anything bad, which is really surprising, because trollers are usually pretty brutal on bands. But so far, good reviews, good turnouts,” Gilbert said.
“Hopefully, it will be a contender for one of the top metal albums of the year. Although we’re not super old or anything like that, but at our age we’re older than the newer generations of metal and it’s nice to be able to have another big run at it, another go. We’re still very much in demand in a lot of places and it seems like the demand is only going up. You’ve got to embrace that sort of opportunity every time it comes along, because you never know when you’re going to get it again.
“We definitely have been working hard; we have had pitfalls and there always seems to be something going on. We have had times where we had some tours fall apart right after releasing a new album, and we ended up sitting at home. And the absolutely worst thing you can do is sit home after you’ve just released a record. And that happened a couple of times, which is really detrimental. But with our previous, self-titled album [2016] and now The End of Chaos, we have been touring like crazy for those and it seems like it’s all taking effect, where we’re getting some bigger tours lining up for us: we’re getting some great direct support gigs and now we’re going on this headline tour in the United States and Canada and playing so bigger venues. I can’t complain about that at all – it’s a great place to be in our career.”
Gilbert’s voice takes on an almost reverential tone when he talks about bandleader, vocalist and songwriter Eric ‘A.K.’ Knutson, who has been at the helm for the entirety of the band’s 38 year existence.
“A.K. is like a machine. He is like our grandfather or our dad. It seems like for the first couple of shows of a tour he struggles a little bit, but that’s just his warmup time. After that he becomes incredible. And he smokes and he drinks like crazy. Years ago, we used to get on him about it asking him to stop or slow down. But you can say that to him until you’re blue in the face. The fact is that guy’s getting better as he goes,” he said.
“I am not saying this because he’s one of my best friends, but he truly is a one-of-a-kind talent in metal. He’s got a super unique voice, and he will do anything that needs to be done for this band. On our last tour when we did a run in the States, we had a bus company that gave us a crappy bus that was breaking down all the time and A.K. was the one who kept fixing it. So, we would do a show and he would get all greasy after the show while fixing the motor or whatever. And even sometimes before a show, he is there working on the air conditioner in the bus or pulling an axel off the trailer. He was doing stuff like that all the time.
“And when we see that none of us have anything to complain about, I know I sure as hell don’t. Because I just see that guy and he is just a tough mother****er. Here he is, just smoking a cigarette, working on the motor of the tour bus right before a big show. That’s pretty ballsy.”
Not every stop on the current tour is a major metropolitan centre, as there are smaller communities represented on the schedule. Gilbert said it’s fun to hit a variety of venues, especially places that may not normally get acts of Flotsam and Jetsam’s magnitude.
“You can get a lot more up close and intimate in some of the smaller towns and venues. You can meet people and we have done a lot of shows like that with people saying, ‘I have waited 25 years to see you guys,’ and that’s always really cool. And those people often have all the old records to sign and stuff, and I love that. I love meeting people who are really connected to the band and our music,” he said.
“And it was those fans, the people who really got into our first two records, that really helped keep us in the game during the tough times. With those early records, there are songs that we absolutely have to do, like Hammerhead from the first record and we always have to do No Place for Disgrace from the second. They’re always asking for different tracks from those records, because I think it represents a significant part of their life when they were growing up.
“But they also embrace the new stuff, so even when we were doing opening slots on our last tour, we still managed to do three or four new songs. We were doing Prisoner of Time, Recover and Control, and sometimes Demolition Man was in that rotation. Now on this headline tour, we’re able to throw a couple newer ones in the set, as well as some deeper cuts from the first albums, because we’re doing a full headliner set.”
For more information on Flotsam and Jetsam, The End of Chaos and the current tour, visit www.flotsam-and-jetsam.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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