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This Hurt isn’t going away soon
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
Michael Roberts of alt-metal band Hurt says his band’s new record is its best yet.
The Austintown native is not only the band’s guitarist but also served as producer and sound engineer for the new release, titled “The Crux.”
Roberts has been a member of the Los Angeles-based band for three years, but his involvement with it goes back even further. He played on the band’s prior album, “Goodbye to the Machine,” and also produced it.
Roberts’ music career got started with Ivet, a hard-rock band that was popular in the Youngstown area in the 2000s. When that band split up, he joined Cleveland-based act Leo.
It was through his involvement with Leo that he met, and eventually joined, Hurt.
“As Leo was coming to an end, I was working as a record producer and sound engineer for other bands,” said Roberts, calling from a tour stop in Des Moines, Iowa. “I didn’t expect my career to go much further. I was getting tired of the grind of being in a band for not much reward, and I didn’t want to start over.”
Leo had toured with Hurt — best known for its singles “Ten Ton Brick” and “Rapture” — and Roberts had become friends with the band.
“They asked me to work on ‘Goodbye to the Machine,’ and we got to know each other really well,” said Roberts. “I worked well with lead singer J. Loren Wince, and we became good friends.”
After recording “Machine,” which was released in 2009, Roberts went home and wrote an album’s worth of instrumental material, while Hurt went on tour. When the tour ended, Wince visited Roberts, and the two began to collaborate.
“I played him some of my music, and he said, ‘Hand me a microphone,’ and started singing in my home studio,” said Roberts. “He made my songs come to life.”
Wince would later ask Roberts to write songs for the next Hurt record. When the band’s guitarist quit to pursue other interests, Roberts was named his replacement.
It was a time of transition for the band, which not only had a new guitarist but also switched from Capitol Records to Carved Records after “Machine.”
The new album, “The Crux,” which was released in April, has a diverse musical landscape, alternating between heavy riffs and calmer, more intricate passages.
Roberts said his songwriting tends toward the angry and aggressive. But as record producer, he had to gather the musical vision of the entire band and make it cohesive. The result, he said, is the band’s best effort to date and its most well-received.
“This album has gotten the biggest response in the history of the band,” said Roberts. “It was [the band’s] first to debut in the Billboard Top 100.”
Hurt aimed high in making “The Crux” and was in no rush to finish.
“We wanted to make a record that 20 years from now, we would say, ‘I wouldn’t change a thing,” said Roberts. “We wanted it to make an impact. We think it’s the best one the band has ever done, and we’re trying to get everyone to hear it.”
Youngstown fans can hear the band Tuesday at The Altar Bar in Pittsburgh.