Fit For An Autopsy – Interview with Pat Sheridan (English)

Where caffeine meets sonic force

In a genre defined by raw intensity and unflinching honesty, Fit for an Autopsy have carved out a place of their own. Known for blending crushing heaviness with thought-provoking themes, the band continues to push the boundaries of heavy music.

Deutsche Version

Metalinside met up with Pat Sheridan (Guitar, founding member) and took a deeper dive into their creative mindset that shapes their unmistakable sound. We also talked about some very interesting behind-the-scenes stories and what makes a really good coffee.

Metalinside.ch (Liane): I must be honest with you. I have seen you play live only once so far and it was at Rock im Park festival. It just blew me away. You played around lunchtime and I didn`t expect so many people waiting to see you because I was sure most people from the audience were still sleeping. It was damn early!

Pat Sheridan: Oh yeah, that was a good set! It was crazy!

MI: So, I am very happy to be here again to see you tonight in a more intimate venue.

Pat Sheridan: That will be fun!

MI: So how did you enjoy Rock im Park/Rock am Ring and what is the best festival you have played so far?

Pat Sheridan: Well, trick question, right? Those festivals Rock am Ring and Rock im Park were incredible. We have been a band for maybe like 17 or 18 years. So, we are just in our career getting to the point, where these festivals are seeing that we are worthy of playing and they are interested in working with us. To get invited to festivals like Rock am Ring/Rock im Park, Copenhell, Hellfest, Download is awesome – these are festivals that you dream about playing when you’re a kid. In our world – to play in front of 1500 to 2000 people a night – well, those are big shows for us. We are such a particular kind of music, so when we get to play these massive festivals and act like we are some kind of special big band, it’s very special to us. All the promoters and all the people that booked us over the summer festivals, it’s something that we will never forget. You know the first time doing those fests is incredible, it was amazing. It was an incredible cool feeling to go on first on the main stage and play in front of thousands of people. It just feels incredible. So yeah, it was really cool!

MI: And it was really crazy, I loved it so much. I was very close to join the moshpit but well, let’s see maybe tonight. (laughing)

Pat Sheridan (laughing): Maybe today, we will see. Sometimes Switzerland can be crazy and sometimes it can be really calm, so we will see where it goes tonight. Last time it was very good.

The Dream Theater vibe

MI: That’s a good point. The audience is usually going nuts at your shows. There is always such a great energy. I have seen some videos on YouTube. So I was wondering, have you ever had a Dream Theatre vibe at your shows?

Pat Sheridan: Yes, there has been a few times where we’ve played and the audience has been more focused on watching than participating and some regions are like that. You go to some place and moshing, or circle pitting, stage diving, or crowd surfing are not culturally part of what they do. They go to the shows, they watch the band, they get excited and are clapping and are giving you praise in this form, but it also feels like they are not locked in. Sometimes it’s hard to produce the energy because it’s visceral. It’s one of those things where you are watching the crowd respond and then I am going to go further than them and then they go further than me and then I am in the crowd before you know it – that’s the way Fit for an Autopsy works, it’s very punk rock. We all come from the punk and hardcore scene and we have evolved into where we are at now. We react to the crowd. We are much more in a hardcore mentality live than we are in a metal band mentality live. We want the crowd to react and we are gonna give back what you give us. We are gonna take it further to see if you’ll take it further and then everybody on the stage gets into the crowd. There are plenty of videos of crowds being crazy and that’s great but sometimes they just wanna watch you and it feels weird on stage but when we are done people are buying merch and they are hugging us. So, it’s fine but we like the energy.

MI: That’s Swiss style. I have been to thousands of concerts and people were just watching. This can be irritating for the band. I know what you mean.

Pat Sheridan: Yeah, that’s the thing: You can’t always expect everyone to do what you want. It’s a give and take and you are here for them, you are getting paid to play a show. It is our job, so we must deliver the package. Sometimes it’s like you are not sure if they are mad that you or if they are enjoying themselves, you know what I mean (laughing)?

Hands-on approach

MI: The full tour kicked off in Portugal, so there are about 30 shows still to come. You will be touring Europe, UK, Mexico and Australia. As far as I remember it will not be finished before January 2026. How do you and the guys manage this tour physically and mentally?

Pat Sheridan: We are built for this, for touring. We are that kind of band – we are our own crew. We have a photographer, a sound person, tour management, a merch person and we do everything else. We set the stage, we carry our gear, we set up our guitars, we do it all, because it’s one of those things where it’s for us to make a decent living at the point that we are at. We know that we must do a lot of the work ourselves, but we are also very functional. We love the hands-on mentality and we love the challenge of the day. You know we are on tour with bands that are playing below us that have 5-6 people in their crew, we don’t. So, we are built to do this job, that’s what we are good at. Writing music. Will Putney is amazing at it. Touring and playing music live, that’s what we do, we are built for that. So, we are doing great, we feel good, a little sleepy, back hurts a little bit but we are here to party.

The craft of creating deep and sophisticated lyrics

MI: The lyrics in your songs deal with intense issues. You deal with very stressful and difficult political and social topics, so I was wondering how do you cope with it when you must deal with it every evening when you perform. You hear the lyrics, you know about the song, does it affect you somehow?

Pat Sheridan: I think maybe the thing that affects me the most is the way that the people who enjoy what we do are affected by our music. When you are playing live, you know, it’s like working. You are there, you are doing it, you are in the moment, it doesn’t feel as connected, because you are doing the job. Performing is the task at that point and doing it as well as we can. But when I talk to people and they say: “Hey, I identify with this!” or “I understand this!” or even “I don’t like this! I stand against this thing that you are saying”, that’s when I am affected. That’s when it becomes like, man, these things that we are delivering are so deep and so different than a lot of other metal bands. This also takes us back to that hardcore mentality and punk rock mentality we were talking about. Political, social worldviews, things that affect us like money and power and the overuse of power, the things that we talk about a lot. And when those conversations come up, I think it affects me. I walk away from it and I think about it in my bunk before I go to sleep at night. I think while I am doing the job, I can separate the performance from what the performance is necessarily saying. I think maybe for Joe, our singer, it might get a little deeper than that sometimes. But you know, we talk about some spicy stuff and not everybody agrees with us, that’s okay, that’s fine as long as you treat it with respect and we can have a conversation then that’s fine. But I think that a lot of the stuff we say is important and whether you agree with it or not it’s current topic and it’s what’s happening in the world right now and we are going to say what we want and if you don’t like it that’s fine. If you do like it that’s also fine but this is what we do. We must live in it, you know, that’s it. It is what it is.

MI: And Will Putney – he is writing the lyrics?

Pat Sheridan: Most of them, yeah.

MI: Most of them? So, you all in the band agree with the message?

Pat Sheridan: I would say yes, almost to the point where we don’t even have to discuss it sometimes. There have been times when things have been brought up where I have said: “Maybe we should approach this differently or we should consider moving this into a different way”. We just discussed the topics for the new record that we are getting ready or already planning for a new record or getting into the end of this tour cycle. It’s going to be two years of touring on one record when we are done so we are already discussing what the hot topics are going to be and what we are kind of leaning into. But I think we are all willing to take a risk for the art of what we do. A lot of people will grab onto something we say and say: “Oh, they are using this! They are politically this way!” – or whatever, and they are probably right but also: shock value creates conversation. So, when we do something, maybe it’s to make you think. Maybe it’s not necessarily about exactly what it means, maybe we are saying it to push you to say: “Fuck this, this is terrible, what are they saying!?” And then go and read it and maybe take something away from it. You know, a good poet, a good movie, a good screenwriter – they are writing something to capture you, to make you dig into yourself and find that uncomfortable place. Lyrically and emotionally, we are trying to challenge our listener to make them say: “Woah, what is this thing, what are they talking about?” and then dig in. Art and the message that we are trying to send is important to us. Standing our ground in the things that we believe in is more important than any of that – so we are never going to do what people want us to do. We are always going to talk about what we want to talk about and if you want to misconstrue or have a misconception about the kind of people we are, you are not reading in enough.

How business works

MI: I have the feeling that there is a strong sense of solidarity between musicians in the metal scene and this also gives rise to many exciting new projects and cooperations. I heard for example Joe, your singer,  is involved in a new project called Spitting Glass. So how important is networking for a band or for a musician’s success these days?

Pat Sheridan: Well, a lot of that stuff is done in the background. You know, business is business and booking agencies and management deal with a lot like putting tours together. It’s not always about who you like, sometimes it’s about what you can bring to the tour, which makes sense, because business is business and if you can’t sell a ticket, they don’t want you. But personal relationships very much help. One of the things about this Killswitch Engage tour is, after talking to Jesse and a couple of people in the band, they made it extremely clear to us that all the bands on this tour are picked by the band because they like the bands. If you create good relationships, you have a good work ethic, and you are a good performer it works to your benefit, absolutely.

MI: We talked about Will Putney earlier. He is the producer and main song writer, and he is a very busy guy. He has got a recording studio, a record label, is touring with bands like Better Lovers and – I don’t have to tell you – he won a Grammy (laughing).

Pat Sheridan: Yeah, he won a Grammy for producing the song “Bum-Rush” by Body Count.

MI: I just found out that he is not touring with Fit for an Autopsy?

Pat Sheridan: Fit for an Autopsy started between 2006 and 2007, we’ve been a band for a long time. Will Putney and I have been in bands together since 2000. He is one of my best friends and I have watched him grow as a producer, an engineer and a songwriter and I am super proud of my friend. Fit for an Autopsy only works because Will and I are in the band together. For me, if Will wasn’t doing this, I probably wouldn’t want to do it. It is just kind of where we are at. When Wills engineering and producing career became more important than touring, he realised that he couldn’t tour and give to the band what the band would need. That’s very important to him, because more than anything Will is an ultra-creative. He is one of the most creative and capable musicians and engineers that I ever had the privilege to work with. So, working with a guy like Will is something that’s beneficial to a band. A lot of people seek him out because he knows how to pull things out of you that you don’t even know are there. He does this thing where he says: “It’s good but you can do it better!” It’s good because you know this constant push for striving to get better, break mediocrity. He is one of those people that I want to work with, so when he came to me and he said: “Look I don’t know if I can do this band anymore, I want to focus on this.” I said, “Well, I don’t want to do the band without you. How do I keep you in this project because I am not ready to quit, because this is my career”, and so he was like “Look, I’ll stay home, the thing I love is writing and creating music, we’ll get somebody in the band to play guitar. You guys carry the band. I’ll stay home and write the music and that’s how we’ll work it.” Because truth be told, everybody’s full of shit in the music industry. All these bands’ antics that they are all getting together, writing these records together, that’s not the case. One or two people in the band are the main writers and they are the ones with the vision that makes the band what it is and everybody else is there to support that, help it and move the project forward. We all have our jobs and one thing in business that people tend to forget is, everyone’s got a place. No one’s place is more important. One guy is in the music, one guy’s doing the business, one guy is doing the touring, everybody’s putting things together. Each piece makes the puzzle. I don’t want to be in the band without Will. He has the vision of what Fit for an Autopsy should sound like. Him and I worked together on the visuals of what we should look like. I do the touring side, I handle those logistics, he deals with a lot of business stuff. So, there is this Ying and Yang between the two of us that makes everything work really well, and that’s what makes Fit for an Autopsy what it is. But more than anything: We are friends. And the current state of Fit for an Autopsy is a bunch of people that love each other, that are good at their jobs and it’s perfect. While people will say: “Oh Will’s not in the band and he writes the music? It’s like: “No! He is in the band!”

MI: And he is playing on the album?

Pat Sheridan: Yes. And he is the main writer and he is in every video. He didn’t tour with the band for 12 years and now he is capable of touring, so he’s got his other projects and Fit for an Autopsy works the way it works. But we can say that there’s a lot of music producers out there that get paid money to write for bands that aren’t in those bands and I know this for a fact. So while people might have a thing to say about how our band works: Will is a band member and he will always be in every video. He will be on every album until the band is over. There is no question about that. He is my number one guy and I am very happy with the way this works.

MI: I want to ask something about the last song of the new album, it`s called „The Silver Sun“. It’s very beautiful and I like the end. Who is playing the piano?

Pat Sheridan: My favourite song! It`s sad. If I am not mistaken, I could be wrong, but I think one of Wills engineers did that part of the song for us. Pretty sure, but I know Will wrote it, it’s pretty incredible. I think Randy from the studio did the piano part.

MI: Are you going to play the song tonight?

Pat Sheridan: No. We have such a short set. It’s such a long song, so sometimes when you are putting a set together you want to get the most bang for your buck, so we want to try to get as many songs in the set as we can, so we are just doing like a set full of a bunch of rippers that are not too long, not too short, just that everything fits, you know?

New material

MI: There is a new song out called „It comes for you“. Is there anything else you can say about this new track or the new album?

Pat Sheridan: It’s so premature right now, it’s just discussions about what we are gonna do, more than anything we are just trying to get to the end of this touring cycle. We just released a song like you said and a video, a little merch drop, to go along with it. Because sometimes we like to do disconnected songs that we can kind of visit our older styles or do something more aggressive or do something more melodic. There is just a lot of stuff to be pissed off about in our current global situation and we wanted to do something angry and we were all feeling in some sort of way and it just felt good to do something aggressive and mean and something very pointed and make a statement at this current time and this is kind of how that came about. And we wanted to release a little new music before the touring, you know? Shake the dust off the band a little bit, give fans something new to talk about, it’s fun. The song is fun, it’s hard to play live. We are playing it tonight. It’s the second track in the set. It’s very fast and aggressive, you know, but it’s a fun one.

MI: I must admit that when I heard it for the first time, I couldn’t finish listening to the song. Well, I do not want to sound like a wimp, but….(laughing)!

Pat Sheridan: Yeah, it’s hard to process.

MI: It is very intense. I really had to take a minute, took a deep breath and had to stop it: “Okay, maybe I am going to give it a try tomorrow.” (laughing)

Pat Sheridan: Yeah, it’s a lot, it’s very aggressive and it’s a little outside of what we are doing right now. You know the band is, I would say, becoming more dynamic and doing a little more melodic stuff and if you listen to the record there is a lot of: We go in and out of the aggressive to the melodic but it’s always kind of sad and it feels a certain way and real heavy. This song is just pissed. There is like no breaks, smashing into a wall, you know what I mean? It’s 100 percent what is out there, so we just wanted to dip back into the old version of what we do and remind people that we are not changing, we are evolving.

The godfather of coffee

MI: Let`s get more personal. Besides being a musician, you are also a tattoo artist?

Pat Sheridan: Yes Ma’am!

MI: Joe, your singer, is a hairdresser. Wouldn`t it be an additional business model to generate extra money on tour? Like styling hair and tattooing people before the show?

Pat Sheridan: As much as I love money, and I do: No money means no tour, means not beeing able to play live. You know what I mean, you got to make money. I have tattooed on tour before. I set up little guest shops at local shops because it’s illegal to tattoo in the bus, you can’t just do that. So, you know if I know someone in the area, I will do a set up. But in Europe they are very strict on visas and the way that tattooing works and my work visa for the band and my work visa for tattooing are two very separate things. If I get caught tattooing in Europe not on the proper work visa, I am in trouble. So it’s very difficult. In the States I can get away with it a little bit but I think what I may do is, I might start doing some European Tattoo Conventions in some off time and just announce it through the band stuff, like “Hey, I am coming to town, going to be tattooing at this convention, if you ever wanted to get tattooed by me on the road, now is a great time.” But I think mixing the two would be very difficult. I know Joe has cut hair on some tour before, but it’s difficult, you are trying to do two jobs, it can be overwhelming to do both, especially because I am such a hands-on guy and I do a lot all day long, interviews and sound checking and making sure everything’s done, I am my own guitar tech. It’s very involved, but I have done it, it’s fun, but it’s also a lot, so in Europe, not as easy.

MI: Besides tattooing, I heard you have a passion for coffee?

Pat Sheridan: Will and I are big into the coffee thing. I don’t drink beer or smoke weed or have any of those fun little vices. Other people love beer. They love whiskey and all that stuff. Coffee is my thing. Because of that I have immersed myself into different growers and producers, different roasteries, things that I like and things that I don’t like. I have become very particular in what I love and through that I have made some relationships with some different roasters. Golden Lantern was the first company we worked with Misha from Periphery who actually is involved in. The Gentleman that owns Golden Lantern’s name is Matt Rosenblum and he was in a band from New Jersey, so we all kind of loosely know each other. So that just worked out. We did a couple of projects with Golden Lantern which were fantastic. We did this Ethiopia that was unreasonably good and then we worked with a company called MODCUP maybe a year ago and we did this really cool blend of pink bourbon and yellow bourbon with an Ethiopia base. I believe it was with this producer from Columbia called Wilton Benitez and we used that stuff and then we stumbled upon. This is a great story: We played in Manchester / UK on our headliner tour and I walked around the block to a café called Atrium Coffee. I met a guy named Matt Whitehead. He is the owner and he introduced me to a company called Oddy Knocky from the UK. I was so blown away! I had to find them and buy more of the coffee. So, in doing that I met a person named Dimi and she works for Oddy Knocky and she is an incredible barista. Her Latte art is next level. She went to all these competitions and she is a super nice person. We started our friendship and I talked to them about wanting to do a project together and it just all came together.

This week we’ll pick up a bunch of bags of coffee to sell on tour and if you are in the UK, you can buy it on their website. We did an eight-ounce coffee cup and we did a bag of coffee, there is a – I think it’s limited maybe to 150-200 bags – and we are excited to just have it and sell it. Hopefully people buy it, the coffee is next level. It’s unbelievable. I was like maybe, possibly, the best coffee in the UK. It’s some of the best. I mean I have been lucky enough to travel to be able to go to like Nomad and Tim Wendelboe and like all these top tier roasters all over the world and Oddy Knocky knocked me back a couple of steps. They had a coffee called Holy Shit so Matt at Atrium let me try and if you are in Manchester Atrium is amazing, and I’ve tried it and I was blown away. I had to buy it. I bought five kilos of it and had it shipped to my house and bagged it frozen so I could keep it at home and yeah, I am blown away. So, I am really excited to work with these folks and I know Will, like I said, he is s also a bit of a pretentious coffee snub like me and super excited to work with this company, really.

MI: Okay, the coffee beans are one thing, but it is also important how you are going to brew the coffee and how you are going to grind the beans, right?

Pat Sheridan: Sure. Here is what I’ll say: I am certainly a nerd when it comes to my coffee. At home I have a whole dedicated area in my kitchen where I do pour overs and Latte’s, and I have a cold brew tower. Not everybody needs to be as in as me. You can just get it and brew it at home in a good machine and it’s fine as a drip, but to me this stuff shines as a filter coffee, as a pour over. If you are doing pour overs in your house, you will not be disappointed by this coffee. I am a pour over person like I have a 16:1 ratio, very particular about the way I do things. MODCUP coffee in the United States and Oddy Knocky in the UK in my opinion are the two leading modern coffee companies right now. They are doing the most interesting stuff it’s like I found MODCUP – blown away! Found Oddy Knocky was like – whoa there’s another one of these in the world! And I am very very impressed. Travis Clifton from MODCUP – fantastic people – and also from the UK, believe it or not, so it’s kind of funny that we’ve found this company in the UK with these modern ideas like MODCUP is in the States. But it’s all about what you like, finding the things that you like and then brewing it is another level thing. So, if you are doing pour over stuff at home, I have to send you a bag, I will make it a point to get you a bag of this coffee for sure.

MI: Puh, the pressure is very high now. I hope you will like my coffee that I brought you.

Pat Sheridan: Oh, I am sure I will! This is the fantastic gift, thank you so much, we rip through coffee on this bus, you wouldn’t believe it. We’re all coffee drinkers and we are shameless drinking coffee at two o’clock in the morning, you know, we are serious coffee buddies. This is the perfect gift and I very much appreciate it.

Change the music business?

MI: My last question for you: If you had the power to change three essential things in the music business, what would that be?

Pat Sheridan: (whistling) Number one: Fewer silly competitions between males. I think there is a point where competition is healthy, like when you play after a band that is really good live, you know you’ve got to pull your pants up and get your shit together, like we are playing after Decapitated on this run – very good, historically important death metal band, incredibly good live, technically perfection. We have to put our pants on and get up and play the right way. It’s okay to have a healthy competition about it but people should get along. Less ego, more working together. Less having to argue about things and more pushing forward and we’re a very serious bunch when it comes to work. So that’s one thing I think would be cool is to have less bands talking shit. If you’ve got something to say, come to me and say it and let’s work on it together, I am a big believer in that. So that’s one.

Two: Pay the bands what they’re worth. Stop fighting about money in a way that is unreasonable. I can’t count the number of times that we’ve been offered a tour and we’ve been so lowballed as a band, that we’ve been like “absolutely not!”, like I can’t afford to do that. So, start paying bands what they are worth.

The streaming services will be my third thing. I don’t mind if you get rich from me or from bands and music, but we have to get rich, too. There must be a point where we are getting paid the way that we deserve to get paid from these things. Streaming services are very important because they carry our music to people that were never hearing in a way that’s easy, so I see the value. But also, when there are bands with millions and millions of streams and they are getting nickels in the mail that hurts my heart. You know, somebody is getting rich, but it’s not the artist.

And one other side note: More good people in the industry. Good people deserve to be pushed forward, not held back, because there are good people that are willing to carry people with them and do good things for people around them. Push those people forward. Stop pushing the shitty people forward.  People change, people make mistakes, it’s okay. I have made mistakes, I’ve seen my value as a touring musician, but I also see some really great people not getting treated properly. So that’s a thing I think that could change in the industry too, so I will give you four.

MI: Thank you so very much, it was a very big pleasure to meet and talk to you, Pat.

Pat Sheridan: Thank you! Yeah, it was fun, thank you so much. One of the best interviews I have to say.

The pictures – Fit For An Autopsy (Komplex 457 Zurich 2025)

The video Fit For An Autopsy – It Comes For You