College Times

Media Credit: Courtesy Metal Blade Records

Job for a Cowboy has already had an amazing run. The Valley death metal quintet sold more than 12,000 copies of their debut album, Genesis, in its first week of release and saw the album debut at No. 2 on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums chart. Those are staggering numbers for a genre of music that almost never sees mainstream success.

Since then, JFAC has toured relentlessly, culminating in a slot on Megadeth’s Gigantour, which makes its final stop in Mesa tonight.

College Times recently spoke with JFAC singer Jonny Davy about the tour, the backlash the band has endured from the metal underground and the mystery surrounding hot metal chicks.

College Times: How have the first few Gigantour shows gone?

Davy: They’ve been going surprisingly well. We were kind of expecting the worst, ‘cause it’s obvious we’re not anything along the lines of Megadeth. We didn’t really know what to expect, but it’s been weird. The crowd’s been reacting awesome to it. So we’re just really stoked.

We’ve read a lot on the internet about how you guys are just a bunch of hipsters cashing in on a popular sound. How are you spending all the millions you’ve raked in from such a lucrative genre like death metal?

Oh yeah, death metal’s really popular everywhere, so we’re making tons. (laughs) The death metal genre is probably the least approachable by any standards or means in the entire world, so if anything we’ve been really lucky doing as well as we have. It’s been really surprising. I mean, we still feel like that shitty garage band, but we just got lucky enough to tour the world, I guess. We’re just doing what we love, playing heavy music. I guess it’s been working out for some reason. We’re still broke though.

How much of the backlash do you think has to do with your name? There are some people who seem to think you have to have a name like Disemboweled Messiah to be true death metal.

Yeah, I think our name is a curse in many ways. If there was anything I could do, I would change it, but I think it’s a little too late now. It just started off where we went through every generic metal band name you could think of and, of course, everything was taken. Job for a Cowboy popped up and, I don’t know how it stuck, but I wish it wouldn’t have sometimes.

Do you think there’s a kind of reverse discrimination in heavy metal where if you’re not fat, old and ugly, you’re somehow not legit?

I guess so, in a lot of ways. It’s just kind of weird that even in that genre, people nitpick on how people look. It’s kinda hypocritical, considering how everyone seems to act like (metal is) the one genre of music where you can do whatever you want.

Do you guys get a lot of groupies when you tour with all these fat, ugly old dudes?

Hell no. We are the most awkward group of dudes ever. If a girl came up to us, we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves.

Maybe you can clear up a question that’s been bugging us for years. Where do all the hot metal chicks go when they’re not at metal shows? You never just randomly bump into a cute chick on the street wearing a Cattle Decapitation shirt.

Um, I don’t know. I think a majority of them are just kind of like every other metal dude. They don’t really go outside much and they just sit in their parents’ basement and listen to heavy music and sit on the internet all day, I guess. That’s probably how it works.

Megadeth w/In Flames, Children of Bodom, Job For a Cowboy, High On Fire, Mesa Amphitheater, 201 N. Center Street, Mesa, 480.644.2560, May 22, 5:30 p.m., $39 adv, $42 dos

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