AU: You’re currently in the middle of your 15th anniversary “Legacy Tour” in the states. How has it been so far?

R: Pretty incredible. All the bands have been really cool. Everyone’s just playing their own brand of metal and having a great time.

AU: Afterwards you’ve got your tour in Australia in January. I know you’ve toured down here before, but is this the first time you’ll be headlining?

R: We’ve been there actually twice and we headlined both times. This will be the first the first time we’ve come down with some direct support from the US.

AU: You’ve got your new album “The Human Romance” coming out next February. Can fans expect to hear some new material from this album?

R: Oh yeah. There’s a lot of old DH in there, but there’s a lot of new stuff we’ve tried out. I think it’s a very balanced record as far as melody and thrash and heaviness, it’s really cool man.

AU: The record’s been produced by Soilwork guitarist Peter Witchers. How would you say working with him has influenced the record?

R: He was really cool. It really worked out for us. He’s a really good, smart and creative producer.

AU: On your most recent albums you seem to have shifted away from the political lyrics that were so prevalent in your earlier records, to more personal, universal themes. Does “The Human Romance” continue in that direction?

R: The Human Romance I think is not so much political as it is human experience. It’s more or less like a focus on why human beings are the way they are and why they love, hate, feel, kill, you know. Kind of like a study of the human race. Pretty intense.

AU: You have mentioned previously about Swedish Death Metal being a big influence on your sound, but what would you say are some of your hardcore/punk influences?

R: Well a lot of the guys when they were growing up listened to bands like Battery and a lot of old hardcore like Earth Crisis stuff. And then on the Punk front, some of our favourite punk bands are Born Against and stuff like that.

AU: Darkest Hour is considered one of the pioneers of metalcore, what’s your take on why the genre has become so immensely popular in the last few years?

R: I don’t know. Me personally, I don’t know if we consider Darkest Hour a metalcore band. I think that we’ve always just been a metal band, but I think that because of where we came from and our background, because we were part of the hardcore scene back then, that we kind of got put into the metalcore genre. I’m not really sure why it exploded the way it did, but I think it’s just a very aggressive style of music and I think it captivates a lot of people as far as like kids and stuff. It’s a good outlet, it’s a good release and it’s not too crazy, you know it’s kind of listenable. Not like straight up Death Metal which sometimes just out of control. So yeah I think it’s just got more of a mainstream feel, nowadays anyway, but back then it was always just a loud aggressive style of music.

AU: There definitely seem to be a lot of “flavour of the month” bands coming out. Do you feel the scene is becoming overcrowded?

R: Yeah, yeah I fully agree, with myspace and the internet anyone can start a band and put it online and I don’t know, it’s crazy there a like a thousand bands and kid’s their attention span is short lived so the turnover rate for who they like is very high. Yeah, it’s difficult.

AU: Why do you think Darkest Hour has lasted so long, especially in a scene with such a high turnover rate?

Communication, the fact that we all just communicate so well. That’s the big reason why we’re still together, but also our love for music and our love for what we’re doing for so long. We don’t really see ourselves doing anything else so that’s definitely why we’re still around, still doing it.