After over a decade, Shadows Fall have returned with new music in 2025 and singer Brian Fair appeared on Full Metal Jackie's weekend show to share an update on their progress and how it's been to be back in the creative space after this time away.

"There wasn't an agenda, there wasn't pressure. We've got these amazing ideas, we've got these great riffs. Let's see if we can make them into songs. Everyone was bringing so many great ideas to the table," recalled Fair about the moments that their jam sessions turned into something more.

Speaking about the new music, Fair told Jackie, "We notice the older we get, it seems like the heavier and angrier the music is. And I don't know if that's because we actually have real life problems with mortgages and taxes and things like that, as opposed when we were just a bunch of dudes traveling around like pirates on a tour bus. But whatever it is, there's an edge to these new songs."

Within the discussion, Fair gives a proper update on how things are evolving toward a full studio album and provides his hope for when they might be finished and ready to turn it around for fans to check out.

The singer also spoke with Jackie about what his life outside of Shadows Fall has been like during the break, what it was about metal and this life that brought him back into the fold and the challenges of writing the recently release song, "Souls Devoured."

The vocalist also shares how the music industry has changed in the band's decade-plus away and how he feels about the current state of metal and the groups that are emerging that have caught his ears.

Check out more of the chat below.

It's something I didn't know if it would actually be uttered. Once we got rolling, we wanted to, but we didn't know what the reality was. And here we are, two new songs already out, a whole bunch more in the works. Train is back on the tracks, and the rock and roll trainwreck continues.

When we first started jamming just for the live shows, it felt just good to be playing in a room together again. And then the ideas started getting talked about, or we're gonna try and do some new stuff.

Honestly, Jon [Donais] was sitting on a pile of riffs and just had a vault of ideas. So once he kind of started showing some stuff, there was that nervousness of, like, is it gonna sound like Shadows Fall? Is it gonna be our identity of who we are and what we were doing back then? And right away, the first round of stuff he showed us, not only were we all super stoked on the ideas, it sounded like Shads. We're like, "Alright, the mojo's still there."

The first tunes came together really quickly, and that energy really kind of inspired us to really focus on that as a whole thing instead of just maybe we'll write a song here or there. We're like, "Oh man, we've got an album in us." We definitely got it and the juices were flowing.

And I think that time away is what really made it that much more fun to come back to when there wasn't an agenda, there wasn't pressure. We've got these amazing ideas, we've got these great riffs. Let's see if we can make them into songs. Everyone was bringing so many great ideas to the table.

The other thing is these guys, they've kept their chops up playing. Jon's been playing in the Big 4 with Anthrax. Jason [Bittner] was with Flotsam [and Jetsam] and then Overkill and doing all kinds of stuff, and now with Category 7. So those dudes have been in that headspace and were already ready to go. But once the ideas started flowing together with the five of us, it just clicked immediately, man. And I think it's some of our most powerful material.

The other thing that's funny, we notice the older we get, it seems like the heavier and angrier the music is. And I don't know if that's because we actually have real life problems with mortgages and taxes and things like that, as opposed when we were just a bunch of dudes traveling around like pirates on a tour bus. But whatever it is, there's an edge to these new songs.

I think that was a huge part of it. When you're working on those early songs in the early days, you can refine them and work on them over and over again until you're totally satisfied. We're back in that situation again, which is nice.

Working with Monarch as a label has been great too, because they wanted us to make the best songs we could without a very restrictive or imposing schedule, because they also knew we're trying fit it in between things. Everyone's got real life stuff. So we were able to really let these develop in a way that we were 100 percent happy with before we hit the studio.

We're still doing it in that way where the initial ideas would get recorded. We'd pass them around, get everyone on board, and then I would demo vocals, send them to the guys, and once we were satisfied, we'd get it with [producer] Zeuss and we'd bang that out. And we're still doing that. New ideas are popping up constantly that we're able to add into the mix, as opposed to having a deadline already set where we're like, "Oh, we got to just focus on what we have."

We can really pick and choose not only the best material, but the most developed and really let it kind of find a life of its own, as opposed to having that core "release a record, tour, release a record" schedule that can really affect the quality of some of that stuff or the excitement behind it.

So, yeah, we're not only super psyched, but we've also got the ability to really give this everything that we want to.

It was a lot of fun, actually. I've tended to write from a fairly personal and philosophical kind of vibe a lot. Granted, I've dipped my toes into other kind of styles here and there, but this song had such a grimness and darkness to it that I immediately was picturing these demons and the earth splitting and all these things happening.

So I just imagined a character who was trying to survive this situation and realizing instead of trying to escape from it, they had to fight fire with fire. And all the voices in their head and all the dark thoughts that you try and suppress throughout your whole life, they're like, this might be my only escape route. I've got to give in to the dark side and let the demons out. So the voices in your head that you've tried to quiet, maybe it's time to time to listen.

Unfortunately, on the apocalyptic side, it is storytelling, but I don't know how far off from the real future it is. Who knows where this world's heading? So maybe we all need to be ready to tap into that instinctual, primal demons inside of us someday to survive. It was probably watching too much of like The Last of Us and other things like that probably creeped in as well.

I will always feel blessed to have been able to travel and tour the way we did in the early days. We were tour monsters. We never went home and when we did, we were usually probably playing like random gigs with other bands we're in or other projects. But it does take a toll on you, just that constant grind. It can start to drain some of the fun and excitement out of the music because you start to punch a clock. We were on that hamster wheel for 20 years or so.

Physically, my neck, my back, everything from swinging around this hair like an idiot every night was starting to kind of catch up too. So when you have the mental fatigue combined with the physical fatigue, we knew it was time to take a break and hit pause and really focus on different things in our life.

Both myself and Paul [Romanko] started families and we really missed being away from that. It can be tough missing some of those firsts while you're on the road. Like I watched my daughter crawl for the first time on Skype while I was in Bulgaria and stuff like that. It's just tough. Which was funny though, because Joey Belladonna was over my shoulder watching it with me. So I'm telling my wife, the singer for Anthrax got to watch our daughter crawl for the first time, which is a pretty cool story for later. But at the same time, I would have liked to have been in the room.

So we knew we needed to take a break. We've always been close and like brothers, but even those tensions start to build up from just living in each other's pockets for decades. Now, to have that break, you realize how much you do love performing, how much that energy onstage is part of who you are.

But we've also approaching it in a different way. It's a much healthier Shadows Fall bus these days. We were known for throwing it down pretty hard back in the day. And now there's a lot more yoga mats and rollerballs than there are bottles of Jack Daniels and tequila these days, I'll tell you that. Not that we don't still have our fun, but it's very balanced.

It's also realizing the show is the most important thing. We're a little bit older now, so that takes a little more warming up. It takes a little more consciousness of just taking care of your body and things like that. Right now, man, we are killing it live.

And it also made us realize we didn't used to practice a lot. We didn't like to rehearse because we toured so much. We're a lot better when we practice. It's one of those lessons we didn't want to admit back in the day.

We've been hitting the ground running and doing these festivals and then some weekends, and now a longer run. We're sort of extending it, and we'll see. Hoping to do some maybe more extensive touring in the next year or two. There's nothing nailed down yet, and honestly, a lot of obstacles kind of get in the way of some of that. But if we can't, anything we can do that makes sense, we're gonna do. It has been a blast.

In the early days, I was drawn in by just the energy and the spectacle and the chaos of metal. I was lucky having a cool neighbor and older brother turned me on to metal. Pretty early on I was listening to Ozzy and Sabbath and all that stuff. The crunchy guitars and just that that attitude is what drew me in.

But then I saw Cinderella on the Night Songs tour, opening for Bon Jovi. And I saw Tom Keifer and was like, "I want to do that. That's what I want to do." And I knew from that minute honestly and from there, I quickly ended up more in the underground scene. I realized you don't need to be an arena rocker, which is a hard place to end up. You can just be a hardcore kid in a small band playing people's basements and small clubs and bars and have just as much fun.

That's really when things kicked up a notch. That energy of the early Boston hardcore scene in the '90s was like nothing I'd ever seen or experienced. And I got caught up in that wave. And I knew from then on, in some way, this music was going to be a part of my life forever. Granted, I still didn't think I'd be playing shows in my 50s. Maybe not, but I'm glad I am.

Honestly, the fan reaction, the release onstage, that kind of cathartic experience that I have reconnecting with the lyrics I wrote, that's what keeps me going. And I'm glad we're making new music because the creative side of it has always been a huge part. I love writing, I love recording. Some people think that's the tedious part of it, but I really enjoy that. So to be able to balance that with playing shows again is what really made me excited that we're getting kind of a second life, a new breath to this.

But metal and hardcore are part of who I am and always will be. And as long as this body allows me, I'll be jumping around like an idiot onstage.

The state of metal right now is incredible because not only is there a ton of diverse new music, people are realizing that it's a scene that's kept alive by the people themselves.

Obviously things from when I was young to now have grown in a business sense with these huge U.S. festivals, which is an incredible addition that wasn't there when we were touring. To be able to play things like Sonic Temple and Aftershock and Rockville and have all these bands in one spot for fans to come and travel and not have to go to Europe to do it is incredible. So that's been an exciting development since the time we went away.

But also just the fearlessness that younger bands have of mixing different ideas and trying to push the genre in new ways is really inspiring. Sometimes at our age we'll feel a little bit like dinosaurs compared to some of the bands we play with. But you realize that energy and that spark is coming from the same place, so it's cool.

And as far as newer bands, man, there's been a few that I love. The kind of death metal resurgence of some of the classic sound with bands like Gatecreeper and Frozen Souls bringing that sort of like '90s Florida sound back to the forefront and turning on kids. The bands like Bolt Thrower and things like that, I love seeing that.

But then there's also bands like some of the bigger bands to see, like Sleep Token and Spiritbox and these bands being able to play like arena sized shows, but with playing crazy underground music is pretty inspiring, man.

It shows you that there are really no limits to what this can do. You can do the small hardcore shows that there's still a DIY sign run by young kids, but then there's also the chance to really bring this music to the masses. So I love that none of that's disappeared.

If anything, it's just evolved and grown in ways that are cool and we're just happy to be able to kind of cruise in the back door and get back onstage again and still be able to party with everybody.

I was always still making music. Some of it was kind of more mellow solo kind of stuff. I'm one of those guys who will write probably 100 songs that no one will ever hear. But I was also doing a few other projects that were a little more the hardcore side.

Like I was playing in a band called Hell Night in St. Louis. We still do stuff occasionally now that it was more of a like Black Flag meets like Deep Purple kind of band. We were doing some weird stuff.

And then personally I got way more into yoga and fitness where I was even studying to become a personal trainer and working with people with things like that. I even put up some exercise videos which I'm going to get back to at some point and showing that even at a later stage in your life you can still get in the best shape you could be in. I'm probably, maybe not in as good as shape as when I was like a 20 year old, but I'm probably in a more balanced shape than I've ever been in my life. So that's been a fun thing to really get into then.

Outside of that, all my time is consumed by family stuff. I am very lucky to have an amazing wife who lets me kind of do all of this in my life. But I feel like all we do is drive our kids to sports. I swear to God, we're like sports ubers. I'm at every soccer park practice. Yeah, it is, it's insane. We are just sports ubers.

I also have a day job where working for a guitar company and doing that but outside of that I'm just driving to soccer parks and practice fields and basketball courts and that's it, man. And I love it, though, because my kids are finding their own things and I'm getting to cheer them on. It's great. And luckily, I've been able to drag them to a few Shadows Fall festivals, so I can be like, "See, I told you dad was cool back in the day. I told you." They didn't believe the stories, but now they're getting firsthand accounts,

It is funny because with the dreads and all that, my kids have gone the opposite direction. When my daughter has the shortest hair she could have, and I'm like, that's her way of being punk rock, you know. She's like, "You grow your hair all out crazy all you want, dad. I'll show you."

But it is funny, though. Whereas my parents are always like, get a haircut. I'm always like, you sure you don't want to throw that out? But it is funny when you get recognized by parents at a soccer game, and then all of a sudden I see my kids kind of getting that little bit of pride of like, "Yeah, yeah, that's my dad."

Yeah, it's kind of been a different sort of process than we're used to because things aren't as traditional as far as album releases go. So I'm glad that when we had some songs fully finished that Monarch was cool with letting us release them as singles.

It's kind of getting people excited about us coming back and not having to take too long because for us to finish a full album is going to take us a little while. So we've got the two songs out - "In the Grey" and "Souls Devoured" out now. We've got probably six songs instrumentally that are done. I'm going in to record some vocals in July, but we also have about four or five new ones that we're loving that we now want to get in the mix too.

So at some point we'll have to stop ourselves from keep adding new ideas, but the ideas are flowing so we want to get everything in there we can. So we're hoping the full album is done before year's end, but. But we'll see. We're taking it slow.

They're being very lenient with our time frame, but at some point they're going to want to get the whole thing done. So we're starting after these shows. We're kind of getting right back into full writing studio and finishing everything up mode.

Hopefully, I don't know if we'll release any more singles during that time. But it's hard when you get something finished not to share it with the world. And nowadays you really can easily, so it's a little bit different. But that's the plan now, is to try and get everything finished before the end of the year.

Amazing. Well, I speak on behalf of the fans. We are here for all of it, Brian, and we're very excited that you guys are back and loving the new music and can't wait to hear more. Wishing you luck and just super psyched. 

Indeed. We can't tell you how inspiring it is to see people who still care about a band that we started three decades ago and to have that excitement back and to see younger faces who weren't around the first time getting to come out and see us live and enjoy it and give that energy back to us, it's just been absolutely overwhelming and incredible and we feel very lucky and very blessed.

We're trying to make the most of the moment and also appreciate you spreading the word as you have for almost as many decades as well. So it means a lot and we can't wait to see everybody out at shows.

And don't forget, we don't play shows, we throw parties so come down and party with Shadows Fall. We won't be hiding in the back. We'll either be at Merch or at the bar hanging out so come say hello.

Thanks to Shadows Fall's Brian Fair for the interview. You can stay up to date with the band through their website, Facebook, X and Instagram accounts. Find out where you can hear Full Metal Jackie's weekend radio show here.