Job For A Cowboy Spread Conspiracy Theory On Genesis

Job For A Cowboy may have one of the silliest names in death metal, but, with the release of their new Genesis album, they're out to show everyone that they're certainly no joke.

While just barely in high school, JFAC released an EP titled Doom that lead singer Jonny Davy says was written when the band hadn't really found themselves.

"Our EP, Doom, we all wrote when we were really young, we were all just about 16, maybe 17. We just kind of threw songs together. We were really undeveloped as a band. So we had a couple of years to develop and tour and we learned so much and we grew up. The new album is a lot more focused and a lot more aggressive and heavily influenced on modern death metal, while the older EP has a lot of metalcore and hardcore aspects to it, and the new album definitely doesn't."

Genesis, the group's Metal Blade debut, clearly shows the growth and maturity since Doom. Although it's hardly a breakthrough death metal album, fans of the sub-genre who love their shit technical and brutal as hell will appreciate the progress the young lads from Arizona have made.

But what stands out on the record more than the music is Davy's intricate songwriting and lyrics. Even though Genesis isn't being promoted as a concept album, the songs clearly tell a story of technology, religion and corrupt government, and how they combine to lead to the end of civilization.

"I spent a really long time on the lyrics," says Davy, who's the band's sole songwriter. "At a pretty young age I realized that I was an atheist. Over time, I read up on a lot of religions and religious conspiracies and conspiracies in general.

"The record is actually about a biochip called the 'VeriChip' that's being implanted [into people] and used for medical identification and money currency purposes. People feel it's an invasion of privacy, and the other aspect is religious leaders have come out against it for fear that this is going to be a fulfillment of a prophecy in the Book Of Revelations.

"The VeriChip is actually being used today, and eventually they want to use it to implant in people's arms or hands. So let's say you walk to a grocery store and, instead of paying with money, you walk through a scanner and take the money out of your account. On the religious side, you can turn on American Christian television and they'll be talking about it on their little talk shows. Religious leaders fear that the Antichrist is going to use the chip to control every man and woman in America and later the whole world."

For a pretty much unknown death metal band, the hype leading to the release of Genesis was overwhelming. It impressively debuted at #54 on Billboard's chart of top-selling albums in the U.S. after its May 15 launch. Well before the record's release, Job For A Cowboy secured a prominent slot on the Sounds Of The Underground tour that kicked off last week.

"The response has been way better than we could have ever hoped," says Davy. "This last year as a band has gone really over our heads.

"We still feel like that local band, but so much has happened in the past year it's pretty much mind-blowing to us. We got offered three of the dates for Sounds Of The Underground last year for Arizona and California, and I guess we got a good response based on those shows so this time they wanted us on Sounds Of The Underground 2007. I think you can pretty much ask any band that's been on the tour and they'll all tell you the same thing, that there's definitely no stress on such a huge and successful type of tour. It feels like a bunch of friends hanging out."

Job For A Cowboy, Gwar, Chimaira, Shadows Fall, Every Time I Die and others who are part of Sounds Of The Underground will make these Canadian stops:

July 18 Toronto, ON @ Kool Haus
July 27 Calgary, AB @ MacEwan Hall
July 28 Edmonton, AB @ Shaw Conference Centre