Shadows fall.

IF ANY BAND ESPOUSES the workhorse ethic of modern metal bands, it's certainly Shadows Fall. After relentlessly touring for the past few years, this Massachusetts metal militia has gone from being local heroes to national stars and now a rising international presence. Their latest offering, The War Within, represents the next phase of evolution for their Iron Maiden-meets-American thrash aesthetic, and it has surprised many unbelievers by selling over 100,000 units during its first two months, a milestone for the band and its label, Century Media Records.

Having his group's latest album enter the Billboard charts at #20 was certainly a reality check for frontman Brian Fair. "It was nuts, dude, especially for a small Massachusetts metal band," he recalls. "To appear on those charts, I could tell my Morn, 'Look, this is real. We're actually doing something.'"

Despite his intense bellowing and stage presence, Fair is an amiable interviewee, laughing frequently and making jokes. He is also proud (and rightly so) of the fact that Shadows Fall have achieved success on their own terms, without "bending to any trend" while remaining an indie band on an indie label. They have won over fans from Fargo, North Dakota to Tokyo, Japan to Castle Donington, England. They recently toured the States three times in four months with the likes of DamagePlan, Candiria and As I Lay Dying, while their video for "What Drives The Weak" was picked as the #3 video for 2004 on Headbanger's Ball.

An important ingredient in the band's success has been their integration of melody and acoustic moments within their brutal milieu. "We've always tried to push the melody in our music," confirms Fair. "We probably listen to a lot more rock 'n' roll than grindcore, so we want to bring that into our sound. We just love a big chorus, a catchy chorus. We'll always have the extreme side, the heaviness and the technical aspects, but we also do want to write great songs that will last for a long time. We're not going to try a two-minute hit just to do it, but if the rift demands harmony, it's going to have it. I also feel if it's extreme a hundred percent of the time, it loses the impact. It becomes a standard. I'd rather have the songs build up to a point where it demands that level, and then just let it rip."

Let it rip and roar they do, and this time out, Fair found himself delving less into broad philosophical issues in his lyrics, as with the last Shadows Fall album The Art Of Balance, and focusing on tackling personal demons. With five months to record the album, Fair finally found time to make sense of all the craziness that had swirled around him for a long time.

"After three years on the road, pretty much nonstop, you realize you've gotten far away from family and friends," he observes. "It put a lot of strain on relationships. You may have gotten caught up in your life, and every now and then you have to come down to Earth and realize you can't always read your own press and get carried away. You got to realize that there are people out there who care about you and have supported you that you may have put some distance between. It was about getting back and reconnecting with myself and those around me who have been there since the beginning."

One aspect of his life that the Shadows Fall frontman stays plugged into is skating, but these days he doesn't get to pound the pavement like he used to. "It's tough to get out there in Ontario and Canada on a 20 degree day," he quips. There are also other concerns. "These guys don't like me doing handrails or skating vert a lot when we're on the road. They don't want me doing the barstool set because I broke my ankle. Skating is something I've done since I was 11 or 12 years old. Even at 30, I'm still out there on the board. It's definitely a big part of me."

It's been a wild ride for the metalhead who used to scoop ice cream for Toscanini's in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and he says he's already surpassed his modest dreams of success. "We've pretty much achieved all the small goals we set for ourselves," remarks Fair. "We just wanted to be able to tour a little bit and get out there, but we never expected for things to pick up this quickly and go this far. We never thought we'd be on a tour bus. We were in a van for so many years. Now we have the opportunity to travel to Australia, Korea and possibly even the Philippines this year, so taking it worldwide is pretty mind-blowing. A free vacation just to go and rock out is pretty unbelievable."