When Candace Kucsulain decided she wanted to be a vocalist in a hard-core band, it wasn't necessarily other vocalists who inspired her to pick up a microphone.
"What really got to me was the opportunity to play a live show and let the energy take over," Kucsulain said by phone from her tour van "somewhere in Texas." "It was the chance to harness that energy and use it to express myself and jump around on stage that made me want to join a band."
Kucsulain joined Walls of Jericho in 1998. After releasing the extended-play CD "A Day and a Thousand Years," and then the full-length CD, "The Bound Feed the Gagged," later that same year, the band headed out for a tour with straight-edge band Earth Crisis, and later with death-metalhead In Flames.
After some intraband struggles and line-up changes, Walls of Jericho called it quits in the early 2000s, only to re-form in 2003 with Kucsulain, bassist Aaron Ruby, drummer Alexi Rodriquez (who was replaced in 2004 by Dustin Schoenhofer) and guitarists Chris Rawson and Mike Hasty.
After releasing its critically acclaimed sophomore album, "All Hail the Dead," the band toured with idols Madball and Sick of It All.
"We were lucky to tour with those guys, and we were able to see places that I would never have been able to if I weren't in a band," said Kucsulain. "And the other perks is the fact that we just went to Japan and all over Europe."
Last August, Walls of Jericho released its third full-length CD, "With Devils Amongst Us All." "We're not a band that writes a lot of music on the road. So we spent time writing and rearranging music in the studio. We would flesh the music out — which means we spent a lot of time arguing — and got the ball rolling. We did have to cut a lot of lyrics down to make the album what we all wanted.
"We knew that there would be a lot of people scrutinizing us because of the success of the last album. In the past few years, we've noticed that all the bands out there have stepped up their game. And in order for us to compete, we had to put out and do a good job. The trick for us to record a good CD is to capture the emotion through our music and voice and not just play loud. There has to be some substance. And I was very happy with how we did it on this album."
If you go
What: Kittie, Walls of Jericho, 36 Crazyfists
Where: Country Club Theater, 3930 S. Washington Blvd., Ogden
When: Monday, 6 p.m.
How much: $15
Phone: 467-8499 or 800-888-8499
Web: smithstix.com
E-mail: scott@desnews.com