New SG Interview: Craig Mabbitt and Max Green of Escape The Fate1

by Andrea Larrabee

“I’d kill some zombies.”
– Craig Mabbitt

It’s 4 o’ clock in the afternoon, and I’m in the dancers’ dressing room at Crazy Girls, a strip club on the corner of La Brea and Sunset in Hollywood, waiting to meet Craig Mabbitt and Max Green from the post-hardcore band Escape The Fate. Their third album has just been released the previous day, and the boys are scheduled to perform a special mini-set for a select group of guests invited to a record release party hosted by their new label, Interscope, at the intimate venue later on in the evening.

Cracked mirrors and a ’70s style red formica laminate counter run around three walls, the fourth being taken up mostly by a bank of sticker-adorned lockers. The carpet has seen better days, the lighting is harsh, and the room is otherwise sparsely furnished with a few cheap chairs and an exceptionally wobbly table. Ink jet printed signs are taped up in several places to remind the girls who usually occupy this space that the $25 house fee must be paid before they start their shift. In short, in the cold light of day, the circumstances are seedy rather than sexy – though that would change later on in the evening as the club came alive to the epic, hormone-charged sounds of Escape The Fate’s grind-friendly release.

“C’mon, c’mon, shake you money maker,” rages vocalist Mabbitt, delivering the band’s ode to their hometown “Sin City.” The lingerie clad girls on the business side of the dollar rail comply as the rest of the band, Max (bass), Monte Money (guitar) and Robert Ortiz (drums) rock the shit out of the new songs.

Formed in 2004, the band have paid their dues and clocked up the miles touring virtually non-stop. Having built up a loyal following under the radar thanks to their energetic and accomplished live performances, the band sold 350,000 units via their previous label, Epitaph, with their first two releases, Dying Is Your Latest Fashion (2006) and This War Is Ours (2008), combined. Now signed to a major label, Escape The Fate are poised to move up to the major leagues in the live arena too. Consequently tonight’s event, which is lavish by today’s post-Napster standards even for one of the majors, is a celebration not only of how far the band have come, but of how far they’re expected to go.

As the crew set up the band’s gear for the evening’s live performance, Craig and Max join me at the comically unstable table in the room where the ladies of Crazy Girls normally undress for work to talk about the new album. However the ambience of our surroundings leads to a discussion of the excesses of life on the road, and one of the new tracks sparks an in-depth conversation on contingency plans for the impending zombie apocalypse.

Read our exclusive interview with Craig Mabbitt and Max Green of Escape The Fate on SuicideGirls.com.