I think it's great. I like it, I think it’s a great achievement in rock making. It’s a good album. I think its got some very truthful moments and heartfelt moments. There’s not a lot of records like this around, you know? Velvet Revolver made a rock record; we made a rock record. It’s not really a part of the cliques and the current movements. That whole thing that seems to kind of take some of the nation by storm. This record is good songs and it’s got a good crunch and its got a good pissed-offness to it. It’s a pissed off snake, is what my record producer called this record. It’s spitting a lot of venom. It’s all good. It’s fun to play live. If people are feeling it, it’s good. It’s good to blow off steam and some of these songs live definitely rock and inspire mosh pits and things like that.
The band was new when recording the first record. It wasn’t like there were years of being together and a history together. How was writing the second record versus the first?
This was a helluva lot easier of a record. This is nothing like Inertia. Inertia was a band coming into a level of professionalism. I’m not going to say that the band wasn’t really ready for but we were still growing and our maturation level was still young and it was still really happening as it still is happening. That was a time where we kind of second guessed a lot of stuff and then Matt would pick up the slack, our producer, at the time we recorded Inertia When I was finished with that record, it wasn’t fully my vision of what we should sound like. I think this record is more of what it should sound like it. I wanted to make it more consistent from song to song where Inertia was a little bit more diverse. This one feels a little bit more like how I imagined The Exies to sound. And when we do another album then it probably would go a step further, but it was very different. It was very easy making this album. Plus being on the road for Inertia for as long as we were, we really came into our own as a group and started to understand one another and people and how somebody plays something you kind of know what to play, you kind of know what their thinking, there’s a lot of that kind of telepathy happening and it made it easy.
There was a lot of expectation and hype around Inertia. How do you feel about the success or lack of over the first record.
We were upse. I went through a serious fit of depression for a long time after that record was over because I felt like we got to number 16 I think on the active rock charts, the modern rock charts or whatever 100 kinds of charts there are. I felt like if we could get to 16 why couldn’t we get to top 10? I felt like something happened in the works, like something that the band didn’t do for that to happen but unfortunately it did happen. When that record was over, I was questioning myself every day, like "What am I going to do? Am I going to do another record? Do I want to do another record? Like what am I going to do with my life now?" That’s what this album is all about. There’s "Baptize Me" on there which is the first song I wrote for the record. That was the cry for help. I needed a change so badly that it helped me find some kind of direction and all the other songs kind of popped into place. Some of them I took from true stories and things from my life and some through other people’s lives.
How much of this record was a healing process for you versus a business-like second record for The Exies?
I think that 98% of this record is a healing record, but not all of it. The only thing that kind of stuck out like the business side of it was the label thought that the ballad "Tired of You" had massive potential to be a single. So the only business move that we’ve done there was the label got certain mixers for songs to make them sound the way the song should sound. For example, we got Joe Bereezi, who is known for some of Queen’s stuff and he’s done some of the gritty stuff for some of the other songs like My Opinion and Hey You, to give that real snotty, pit bull sound. In that way, there was business moves thought out like, "Okay, this song should kind of sound like this and this is the guy we should get and obtain him." It was a business move to get Nick Raskulinecz, the producer, only because he was the guy that would make it straight rock and he wouldn’t try to take it anywhere else. He would just be like, "I want it to sound like it sounds in the room and what it sounds like live and that’s the way it should be," because if it’s not people are going to be disappointed.
Because of that producing theory, how was recording this record? Did you strive for perfection?
It’s all about being representative of the sound of or the vibe of the song the way you have written it. Now it’s just about capturing that moment and if that means there’s a wrong key here or a guitar part or an out of tune vocal right there or whatever then so be it. Your capturing the vibe. If you try to make it perfect it’s gonna get stale so, in order for it to resonate. I think, we as humans are imperfect as beings, so I think having an imperfection in your song is warranted and makes it to sound more human and more natural to what we all feel. Things that are really cut perfectly are boring unless of course, its Mozart or something. To me that sounds perfect because that kind of music is meant to be that way, but rock - n - roll is not.
So, now you are out with Breaking Benjamin and Theory of a Deadman, two other bands who like to straight up rock.
I think it’s a cool thing. I don’t know very much about Theory of a Dead Man, I played one show with those guys. I know that they kind of have that sound that’s a little bit like Breaking Benjamin I guess. I don’t really totally know for sure. I like Breaking Benjamin. I think Ben’s got a good sense of melody and he’s got a good voice, a lot of power as a singer. I respect him and I respect a lot of the songs on their record. I think they’re really good so, I’m honored to be going on tour with them. I’m sure Theory of a Dead Man is great too, I just don’t know who they are. He (Ben) and I were the one’s that kind of set this in motion. We played a show together in Hartford, Conn. We just kind of hung out backstage and somebody told me that he was going to be in his bus playing Halo II and that I would never get him to come inside and so I pelted the bus with snowballs until he came to the window and he came out and had a drink with me. Then we went and talked and I said, "Hey, look, it’s a really great time for rock bands right now because there’s not a whole lot of us." And I told him, "I went up to Matt Sorenson from Velvet Revolver and being cocky, I just told him, ‘Take my band because we’re the best choice.’ And they did take us." I said the same thing to Ben. "We’re a straight rock band, we’re a little bit different than you. You guys are a little bit more hard core but still we rock and it would be fun, I like your band and I like you, we can hang out." It’s all about the hang on the road, the good times, good people and good friends. He agreed, so, we made it so.
