All That Remains’ Phil Labonte on the Passing of Oli Herbert, Future of the Band
Since the sudden passing of guitarist Oli Herbert, All That Remains have understandably retreated from the press, but with their new album, Victim of the New Disease, coming out tomorrow (November 9), they are opening up about their late bandmate.
Vocalist Phil Labonte appeared on Talkin’ Rock with Meltdown and talked about his reaction to Herbert’s death and how the band, as a whole, is doing:
“It was a shock. He was 44 years old. He wasn’t a really big partier. He would go hang out with people and stuff…He didn’t do drugs. He didn’t drink a lot. He’d smoke pot once in a while, but that was the extent of it. So yeah…it was a big shock, and we’re still processing it and trying to figure out how it is that we move forward and what that means and stuff. So, it sucks.”
For fans wondering about the future of All That Remains, Labonte confirmed they are moving forward and will be heading out on their upcoming European tour as scheduled:
“We’re going to continue on. The band is not going to end. It’s going to be different; it’s going to be weird. We’ve got someone that’s going to be filling in on this European trip we’ve got coming up at the end of the month. He’ll be announced, actually, tomorrow. He’s the guy Oli would’ve wanted to fill in…And then we’ll start looking for a full-time replacement I assume shortly, because we’ve got stuff that we want to do next year. We just don’t want to let the record that coming out tomorrow to be just kind of pushed aside. Oli would have wanted us to play the songs. He was excited about the way the record sounded, and he was excited about a lot of the stuff on it. So, he wouldn’t want us to stop. We just have to figure out what that actually looks like and how we do that.”
To listen to this interview in its entirety, click to the 22-minute mark below.
Erica Banas is a rock/classic rock blogger that loves the smell of old vinyl in the morning.
