Revisiting The Curse With DAN JACOBS From ATREYU

Interview by Kris Peters
Bands of renown all boast a number of great albums to their name.
But within that body of work, there is always that one album. That
magnum opus. That genre-defining, gravity-defying masterpiece that
sets a standard by which not only their peers, but the band
themselves are measured by forever more. For ATREYU, THE CURSE is
that album.
With their legacy as one of the originators and frontrunners of
metalcore, and a reputation as one of its greatest live bands,
ATREYU could have easily rested on their laurels with their
notoriety assured for life. Instead, they have embraced growth and
evolution, seamlessly morphing between styles but always ending up
with killer results.
July 2025 will see ATREYU return to Australia to celebrate the 20th
anniversary of The Curse with a series of never to be repeated
shows that will see them play the songs from the album as well as
other fan favourites. Joining them will be Texan metalcore titans
Memphis May Fire, who will be making their first trip to Australia
in over a decade.
HEAVY caught up with Atreyu guitarist Dan Jacobs to get a gauge on
what to expect.
"Yeah, it's exciting," he enthused. "We've never been down that way
with Memphis before, and they've been friends of ours for a long
time. We've done several tours with them before, so it's always fun
to tour with them. It made sense. Also, getting to come down and
play The Curse in its entirety… It's gonna be a good time."
We ask Dan what some of his memories are of making The Curse.
"Oh, man," he sighed. "I remember when we recorded it - or demoed
it I should say - we had the whole album completely written and
recorded in the order that you hear it on the album now. We just
put the whole thing together and when we turned it in to the
producer and asked if it was cool, he said yeah, let's record this.
It's actually pretty interesting how much the demos and the
recording… it's just all the same thing, as opposed to chopping
songs up or moving things around or changing the order. But we
demoed it the same way it is on the record, which is kind of fun.
We recorded it up in Canada on this island. Half of it was done in
the studio in Vancouver in Bryan Adams' studio. It's called The
Warehouse. We did basically the pre-pro there and then some drums
and when we came back when we were done for a week we did all the
mixing. The majority of the two weeks of recording were all on this
island where we were basically locked there to an extent. We didn't
leave for two weeks. We didn't leave this dudes house. We just
stayed at his house and recorded for two weeks. We didn't go to any
bars or restaurants or anywhere. We just stayed at this dudes house
in the woods in the middle of nowhere. It was kind of making us go
crazy a little bit, and I think that all played into the vibe of
the album a little bit."
In the full interview, Dan talks more about making The Curse and
what that album means to Atreyu, whether or not they knew they had
struck gold when they wrote and recorded it, what to expect from
Atreyu live, new music, the early days of the band and more.


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