Evergreen Terrace

Steve has a conversation with Craig Chaney

CONFRONT: So, I’m SteveK and I’m with,

CRAIG: Craig: I play guitar and sing vocals for Evergreen Terrace.

CONFRONT: For those of our readers who might not be familiar with Evergreen Terrace, tell us a little about your background, the band, and how you guys got together.

CRAIG: We’ve been a band a long time, probably going on our ninth year. We all met in an underground bondage club in Jacksonville, Florida. And, I don’t know; we just all hit it off, we all drank the same drink, green apple martinis, and we all liked the same music, and there wasn’t any hardcore bands in our town so we decided, “Hey! Let’s start a hardcore band in Florida!” And now, there’s eight thousand million hardcore bands everywhere.

CONFRONT: Well, excellent; I thank you!

CRAIG: That’s all only partly true.

CONFRONT: Well, I kind of figured; as to which part, we’ll leave it up to the readers!

CRAIG: That’s right!

CONFRONT: One of the things that I really find interesting, is that you guys really encourage people to stand out, to be themselves, to not conform. A lot of acts out there pay lip service to that type of thing, but you guys really seem to be serious about it. I read something on your MySpace page; a very powerful statement: “In a world full of faceless sheep, Human waste, and nine-to-five zombies it’s important to remember that you are the one that is in charge of your life. You are capable of anything and everything that you want to do. Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t conform. Don’t settle. BUT MOSTLY–Don’t let anyone tell you how to live your life.”

CRAIG: Correct.

CONFRONT: Now, that’s the sort of realization that some people never make; and if they do make it, they’re just too afraid, too bound up in the world to just really do anything about it.

CRAIG: Right; we’re in the Matrix.

CONFRONT: Yeah! Exactly! How did you guys figure this out? How is it you broke free, and what made it the message that you want to spread?

CRAIG: I think-first of all, I think it’s an extreme message-anyone can come back and say, “Well, you know there’s no way you can ultimately be 100% not bound by the man” so to speak. How we came to that realization was over several years of being in this band and from seeing the world and travelling extensively, and being as lucky as we are. We were all raised in pretty strict Southern homes; not even the homes in particular, but just raised with religion and with ideals that were, you know…

CONFRONT: Conservative?

CRAIG: Conservative, yeah; and we definitely learned through our parents and our environment, the schools that we went to and things like that. So, when you get out of that bubble, when you get out into the world and you actually see things-And I’m not, you know…I think you can believe whatever you want to believe, as long as you don’t feel like you’re being held down in any way. And that’s kind of what we’re saying, is that it’s tough to get out of the Matrix and it’s weird and sometimes it’s actually kind of depressing once you do. But ultimately, it is up to you. It’s up to you to pop that bubble and experience life how it really is and see things from a different perspective-not the perspective you’ve been seeing with your whole entire existence. So, I don’t know; we’ve seen a lot, lived a lot and sometimes we wish that more people would share the same views. But you know, that’s what we’re here for, apparently.

CONFRONT: Well, I know where you’re coming from. One of my personal frustrations is just the level of ingrained conformity-like you said, we can’t get out of it, we can’t unplug completely; there are some levels of control that one has to accept, but just to be able to determine your own destiny, to go out and start a rock band, or in our case to go out and start an online music magazine, which we did just a year and a half ago; if more people took charge of their lives, if more people actually took responsibility for themselves it would be such a better place.

CRAIG: Of course; and it’s so simple.

CONFRONT: Well, it’s simple, and yet it’s the hardest thing in the world to actually do.

CRAIG: Yeah; I guess it’s like a lot of things, I suppose. I don’t know; we’re definitely happy where we are, finally, and I think we’re coming-especially as a band-and lyrically and what we’re about, it’s always been kind of a haze, because we didn’t really start for any particular reason; we just started to be able to have a good time, and not work, you know?

CONFRONT: Yeah, I know that feeling!

CRAIG: Actually, several of us have given up, have sacrificed extremely lucrative careers for this band, and I’m 30, a couple of the guys are 28, and so, you know we’re definitely…

CONFRONT: It’s all or nothing?

CRAIG: Right! And it’s funny, because I know that none of us are going to have any regrets, but it’s like, this is definitely “IT”, you know what I mean?

CONFRONT: Yeah; I know.

CRAIG: Which is awesome! Because, I mean, all that my other friends that I graduated with, seeing how their lives turned out, it’s a shame that they made a few decisions-sometimes not even their own decisions-that dictated their future. And it’s horrible, because they could have done what they wanted-it’s not has hard as you may think it is to do what you want to do.

CONFRONT: No, I’ve seen the same thing; and this is more like a conversation than an interview, but I’ve seen the same thing. I’m 37, and I know people that have families and it’s all they ever wanted and they’re happy, but I know people that had huge dreams, and they never really acted on them and they’re absolutely broken souls, and it’s just a terrible thing. And one of the things that I really got the message from while watching you guys onstage-which by the way, I want to ask later on how you guys maintain that energy night after night-but one of the things I really got the impression of is that you really do want to wake people up or even just think for themselves a little bit more. And it brings me another one of the questions I have…especially with Metal, we find that a lot of kids in their early teens, mid-teens turn to music for solace and comfort and a sense of belonging, to find their identity and find some sort of sane anchor in their world.

CRAIG: Yeah, definitely, that’s right.

CONFRONT: How does it feel to be doing something that provides that kind of level of solace and that kind of comfort, and how does that effect what you do?

CRAIG: I mean, it’s-everything we do is for that reason. We are all fans of music-and a funny story: the single on the new record, “Chaney Can’t Quite Riff Like Helmet’s Page Hamilton”, that was just a quote from a review in Alternative Press off our last record; because they said “Oh, well, they sound like Helmet!” which is funny, because Helmet’s one of my favourite bands, so we thought “Cool, it would be funny!” because the contents of that song fit perfectly with just that quote; we like to just use random song titles but yet still relate to the song in some sort of way even if it’s just some sort of ridiculous song title, like “Bad Energy Troll” or something. So, we didn’t know that MTV2 was going to call Page Hamilton and say, “Hey! You ever heard of Evergreen Terrace? You know, you guys want to sue ‘em?” and he was like, “No! What? No! I never heard of them, but this song’s awesome, blah, blah, blah…” and he was a super cool guy. Well, they played an hour from our home town so I went to the show, and I walked in, watched an amazing set-it blew my mind, played every song I wanted to hear, and I went up to him afterwards and my hands were shaking! You know what I mean? So, we completely understand how kids feel; we completely understand how kids relate to music. Some of those songs from his band-and several others-whatever band influenced us or got us through different times-I mean, music’s such a huge factor in people’s lives whether they realize it or not. And I think we definitely relate with all those kids and that’s what, to answer the question as far as the energy goes: I mean, playing first, not sleeping-we sleep in the van pretty much every night-and to still show up at the show and to be able to look over and see my friends-my best friends-playing onstage. Sometimes I’ll just have different thoughts; I’ll think about the studio, the recording; everything that was involved, all the energy that went into it, and it’s just like a weird little factory going on inside you just taking these thoughts and emotions and turning them into energy, and then you have the kids in front of you just freaking out, kids singing, you know.

CONFRONT: Yeah; I noticed you guys had some people come up onstage, doing your lyrics.

CRAIG: I know; I was like, “What?” That’s happened a couple of times now on this tour, but tonight was-I would definitely say by far the best crowd.

CONFRONT: I’m glad to hear that. Most of our market for CONFRONT Magazine, because we’re internet based, most of our audience comes from the ‘States, but it’s nice to hear that Montreal’s got the best fans!

CRAIG: Yeah! Well, other than Florida or the Southeast.

CONFRONT: Well, I imagine your hometown is where you’ve got the most fans.

CRAIG: Yeah, well, yeah.

CONFRONT: What is that like? Going from being a fan to having fans?

CRAIG: I don’t think we’ve really adjusted; I think we’re still awkward to it, you know what I mean? Kids will come up-and all you want to do is be personable and hang out; that’s what we’re all about; usually when we’re at a venue or at a bar just hanging out or at the merch table or just mingling-and kids can come up to us and hang out if they want to and we encourage it if they want it, because we’re on tour, you know? We want to hang out with people, meet cool people! But, it’s definitely a little weird. But like I said, I look at these kids, and I can relate. Because I will go home and I’ll go see a band-like, I’m going to see the Cure on my birthday in June.

CONFRONT: They just played here a couple of days ago.

CRAIG: Oh yeah? Well, I’m going to see them, and I’m sure I’m going to be standing there in line in the back with a poster, hopefully, hoping someone will sign it, you know what I mean? So I definitely understand.

CONFRONT: One of my friends wives actually stalked Robert Smith at the Airport in Toronto, once.

CRAIG: As well she should have!

CONFRONT: She had “contacts” with the airline that he was flying in on.

CRAIG: [laughing] Oh, no!

CONFRONT: Yeah, basically she stalked him at the airport and got to meet him, got her picture taken and that was big.

CRAIG: That’s awesome!

CONFRONT: Yeah; but, that’s just the thing: even from my perspective-again, this is conversation, not interview-but from my perspective, like I said, we started the magazine a year and a half ago, and we’ve gotten a huge response. I’ve interviewed some bands that I grew up admiring-

CRAIG: Like who?

CONFRONT: The Cranberries; I got to interview Dolores O’Riordan.

CRAIG: What? Really? That band had a huge influence on me.

CONFRONT: What?

CRAIG: I was in that time, I was in that time. That was like, that whole, alt-wave of you know what I mean; the 120 minutes kind of, but they were still a little more mainstream.

CONFRONT: Well, I get to say that I was into them before all my other friends, and my friends were laughing at me because I liked the Cranberries and “Dreams” was the only single that was out.

CRAIG: Yeah! Man, I remember that! And it was in every movie soundtrack!

CONFRONT: Yeah; anything with Drew Barrymore in it.

CRAIG: [laughing] Yeah!

CONFRONT: Who is still the Gen-X Goddess. But you know, it’s just so weird, because I find that half the time these bands that I as an old fogey have never heard of are the ones that give the better interviews, and the ones that I idolize, I’m like, “Wow, I have absolutely no rapport with this person,” and it’s just an interesting perspective going from fan to interviewer, and that’s why I wanted to know about going from being a fan to having fans.

CRAIG: Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely different, but like I said: we don’t have anybody lining up outside our van, like As I Lay Dying, every night, where after the show they’re just standing there, waiting forever; we don’t have those kind of rabid fans, but we definitely have those heartfelt fans, and it’s encouraging, because like I said, we’re fans, too, you know what I mean?

CONFRONT: The flipside of that militant fan base though; I mean, Dimebag Darrell…

CRAIG: Yeah.

CONFRONT: I mean, how do you deal with that? Doesn’t it just freak you out sometimes when some manic fan jumps up on the stage; even though they’re doing it just to participate? Every now and again, doesn’t that just go through your head?

CRAIG: Yeah, but I mean…

CONFRONT: Well, obviously you can’t live in fear.

CRAIG: Well, you’re right. But I mean, the beef that guy apparently had with him, I mean, it was so weird and it was that weird Pantera/Exhorder beef or something like that; and that’s just such a rare situation. You don’t ever hear about that happening; you never hear about anyone getting shanked on stage. I hear random stuff from hardcore bands who will have a beef with a scene or with a crew, and they’ll be playing and the rival crew will come up and bash them with bats or with their own instruments, but that’s just…I mean, I don’t think we’re too concerned with that. Well, that’s why we have Orange Alerts, right?

CONFRONT: Well, we don’t have those in Canada. We have, “They’re mildly annoyed at us”, “They’re not speaking to us.”

CRAIG: [laughing] Shit, man!

CONFRONT: Then there’s “They just flipped us off!” and that’s the extent of our military warnings. But the point you just made actually brings us back on track with the questions-

CRAIG: [laughing] The PLANNED interview!

CONFRONT: Yeah! The planned interview: There’s so many genres and sub-genres in Metal…and there seems to be such a rivalry and animosity between some of them; and I was a child of the 80s and most of the Metal then was the Hair Bands, but for me, Metal is Metal, and I could listen to Pantera, As I Lay Dying, or Evergreen Terrace, or I could go and listen to Poison, Bon Jovi or Cinderella; why do you suppose there’s such divisions now; such animosity?

CRAIG: Because I think people need it; I think people categorize themselves into, like, “Oh, I’m Indie Rock” or “I’m this!” or “I’m that!” and however original they may think they are, they have the exact same favourite movies as anyone else who is Indie Rock, or they listen to Postal Service, too.

CONFRONT: Yeah, like the point made in that episode of South Park, where it’s like “If you want to be a non-conformist you have to dress exactly like us.”

CRAIG: Right, right; and that’s funny, because we were talking about that the other day: it’s funny how people in the scene will be, like, “Fashion! Man, I hate fashion! I hate fashion!” and I’m like, “You…that’s a fashion; that’s fashion right there. The way you dress right now and you and all your friends who say that they hate fashion? That’s a style; that’s a fashion. You’ve created fashion!” So, it’s like, whether you like it or not, it’s there, and I think human beings need to slap labels on things, and I think people as individuals, to feel more individual or more…

CONFRONT: They have to conform more to their subgroup in order to feel like an individual?

CRAIG: Right, yeah; more or less. And for me, it’s like, Metal or Hardcore, or our band? I don’t know! We listen to everything; all our influences are completely ridiculous.

CONFRONT: Well I know; I heard some Tears For Fears, although more kids know it as Gary Jules, tonight; “Mad World”.

CRAIG: Right, of course! Right; yeah, I know!

CONFRONT: By the way, I just have to say, that was an amazing version of that song.

CRAIG: Thanks!

CONFRONT: I just wanted to say; it really blew me away.

CRAIG: Awesome, thanks! We really like covers; they’re fun to do. I wish more people would do them, as much crap as people get for them, I mean, whatever! It’s fun!

CONFRONT: So from your point of view, then, the sectarianism, it’s just normal human behavior?

CRAIG: Well I think that’s got a lot to do with it, but I don’t think that…I mean, whatever makes you feel better. I mean, if a kid comes up to me and asks, “So, how do you like touring with other Metal Core bands?” I’d be, like [whispering] “What’s Metal Core?” I mean, it’s really Metal and Hardcore, and it’s a term that came out a while ago, in like the Atreyu-ish era, which is when we came out, too, but whatever makes you feel better, whatever makes you organize your CDs and records better, I don’t give a shit. I mean, if you want to slap a label on everything, go right ahead. I mean, I don’t know what’s Thrash, I don’t know what’s New Metal, I don’t know what’s Black Metal.

CONFRONT: Neither do I; I thought it was just because I was old.

CRAIG: I mean, I don’t even know what Grind is. We’ll say we’re more of a Punk Rock band than any of the Metal things.

CONFRONT: That’s something that I hear a lot; that you guys-a lot of bands-identify more with like, the early Punk scene, with that kind of energy and that kind of vibe; and you’ve mentioned a couple of times now that your influences aren’t necessarily from the Metal scene; so, what are-who did you listen to growing up? What are your influences? Who got you motivated enough to go into music?

CRAIG: I think it’s different for everyone in the band, which is really cool, I think, but we all had the same kind of common interests or common bands that we listened to, back in the day; early Victory stuff, like as far as influenced OUR band directly, things like Snap Case, Refused, Voice its Fire; early hardcore stuff. A couple of the guys, Josh and Jason and I think even Drew are way into the [label] Fat Wreck Chords…I don’t think that a day goes by that someone’s not listening to NOFX in our band; Propaganhdi, and that’s Kyle and Josh’s favourite band. And if that’s their favourite band and they’re in a band like this, you know, that’s definitely saying something. Me, my favourite bands when I was growing up, was a lot of New Wave stuff, like New Order, but then I get that first wave of, like “Emo” if you want to call it that, with Sunny Day Real Estate, Mineral, early, early, early Jimmy Eat World, but then I was heavy into U2, the Cure, Depeche Mode, all that. But then, we all like Metallica; that was my first band that I was ever into; we all went through that phase; we were all into Grunge, now everyone’s into Country, kind of, sort of.

CONFRONT: Country? I’m sorry…I just had a…well, no there are some…

CRAIG: Our drummer’s uncle is Steve Earle, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him…

CONFRONT: Yeah, I have totally heard of Steve Earle.

CRAIG: Well, you know how he’s like the godfather of Alt-Country?

CONFRONT: Yeah; Copperhead Road; one of my favourites-also the only Country album I own.

CRAIG: Really?

CONFRONT: Yeah.

CRAIG: Well our drummer, his parents are, like, touring folk musicians, and so he comes from this, like, this Nashville touring musical background.

CONFRONT: So more like the…I don’t want to say “Folk”, but the non-commercial Country music.

CRAIG: Yeah! I mean, we’re not busting out…uh…

CONFRONT: Billy Ray Cyrus or Lee Ann Rimes…

CRAIG: I mean, yeah; that stuff’s ridiculous; I mean, that’s Pop. We’re not doing any of that shit. The older stuff; we’ll listen to Merle Haggard, or I try and listen to a lot of the Ambient stuff; I listen to a lot of Radiohead. I like all the textured and saturated stuff…like Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, stuff like that.

CONFRONT: About the Radiohead thing…

CRAIG: Yeah?

CONFRONT: Where they had released ‘In Rainbows’ online-this is a pet peeve of mine, because the hype about it was that it was going to revolutionize the way music was distributed, and it ended up that it was all a big publicity stunt for the release of the album in January.

CRAIG: I downloaded the record, and then I bought the record when it actually came out. But, I didn’t really understand what they were trying to do. I kind of thought I understood what they were doing, but I thought in my head, “Well, this isn’t going to work” and apparently it didn’t work that well; apparently people just downloaded the shit out of it and not that many people paid. But, that band kind of lost me, after ‘The Bends’; actually, after ‘OK Computer’ and then I got back into them with ‘In Rainbows’

CONFRONT: Well, that’s just it: Radiohead, it’s literally you either like everything or you only like everything before ‘Kid A’.

CRAIG: Yeah, ‘Kid A’ was a little much for me.

CONFRONT: I go between both camps.

CRAIG: Well, there’s definitely good stuff. I think ‘Kid A’ and then ‘Kid B’, which was called what?

CONFRONT: ‘Amnesiac’.

CRAIG: Right; ‘Amnesiac’; I call it ‘Kid B’ ‘cause I can never remember the name of it.

CONFRONT: It was actually supposed to be part of the same album.

CRAIG: Oh yeah?

CONFRONT: Yeah, but they couldn’t; I can’t remember what it is but I think it had something to do with the label not wanting them to release a double CD.

CRAIG: Oh.

CONFRONT: Yeah, so they ended up doing it as a two-parter.

CRAIG: I think that it’s definitely, I mean, I’m a music person anyway, so there are just certain records that I’ll listen to at certain times, but it’s not like a record I’ll immediately throw on when I get into the van, but there’s definitely some good shit on there.

CONFRONT: Final question-well a couple of questions-because we had talked about the Internet and the New Media; do you find that that’s played a part in your success as a musician at all?

CRAIG: I think we’ve always been on top of any kind of resource as far as the Internet’s concerned. I mean, we’ve pretty much been on top of it since MP3.com, which I credit for a lot of us being able to tour independently early on in our band’s existence. I mean, we were literally booking our own tours until-literally-the past year, or so. And then MP3.com existed, and I was like, “Man! Let’s stay on top of this!” and we listed every song that we ever recorded, and 3 of the songs we did were in their top 20, and “Sunday, Bloody Sunday”, the cover we did was, like #1 for like, a year. And that was the only thing that people had at the time, and then it went to Pure Volume and then MySpace came out, and of course MySpace is a great resource for bands, whether you like it or not. I’m not really familiar yet with Facebook; I’m not too sure how it works, but I think we have one, I don’t know. But we personally run our MySpace, and we really check every email, and we reply to every single email.

CONFRONT: Yeah, I’ve heard that from a couple of bands.

CRAIG: It’s tough.

CONFRONT: Yeah, that’s what I hear. But the thing that I find is that again, it’s two camps: You either get the “Oh, we have somebody who does that for us” camp, and a lot of guys do that-and not because they’re too busy or because they have too much of a workload but because they can’t be bothered, and then you have guys who say, “It’s tough, but yeah, we do it, and we try to answer every single one of them as often as we can”, and it seems that you guys are very loyal to your fan base, and it seems like that human interaction is something that you’re trying to get out of that very inhuman medium of the Internet.

CRAIG: Definitely. And I think that’s extremely important. And I mean, when the kids come to the shows, I want them to be able to not be so star-struck to the point that they don’t come up to you, but then it’s a two-edged sword, because you get kids who think they know you better than you know yourself because of what they read on the bulletin; that’s part of it. But I think that it’s extremely important to keep that contact. And I’ve been told by some suits, by some other people that “Hey, you know, you’re fucking with the mystique of your band”, you know, or that there’s a psychology behind fans and their bands where if you keep them wanting and wanting and wanting and never quite giving them more, that they become even more infatuated, you know? And then they have that itch, and they become a mega-fan and then they infect other people, blah, blah, blah. But for us, it’s like “I don’t care; I don’t give a shit. We’ve been a band eight years, man. Come on! I wanna hang out with people!”

CONFRONT: Okay, well final question-because I’m freezing, and I’m about 4 coffees behind.

CRAIG: Freezing? I’m from South Florida! This isn’t cold!

CONFRONT: Well, this is actually colder than it should be this time of year for Montreal. Maybe Al Gore is on to something.

CRAIG: [laughing] Maybe, yeah…

CONFRONT: Well, the last question is, because you mentioned so many bands that you that aren’t necessarily part of your genre, what are some bands, or artists, that you would like more people to be aware of, that aren’t necessarily unsung, but it’s something that you listen to, that you really want to share with others?

CRAIG: Man! Uh…wow…

CONFRONT: [laughing] Of all the questions I’ve asked tonight, this is the one that stumps you?

CRAIG: Well, it’s because we meet so many bands that are so fucking awesome, and they’re unsigned or they don’t really get the chance, you know, and you’re like “Oh, man, I just wish they had a chance!”. But I can only go back to our influences, those which I think never really got a chance; on our last European tour we played two shows with Boy Sets Fire, which is one of those bands which, we would not exist if it wasn’t for them. And we met them, and we were talking about ‘Notes From the Plague Years’, probably their best record that they had put out, ever; and their guitar player or somebody had an accident in the band and they got all mangled, and so that was it and they broke up. And, I think that was a band that has influenced so many other bands, whether they know it or not. And I think that if kids went back and listened to bands like that, or like Cave In, or Snapcase’s “Progression Through Unlearning”, then kids would be, like, “What? So THAT’s where all this stuff came from!” I don’t know; that’s really all I could think of, although I’d really love to give all my friends’ bands a shout-out.

CONFRONT: Well, go right ahead!

CRAIG: Well, our friend Guillaume who’s from up here, he’s in a band called Tears from the Sky, and they’re pretty rad, and they’re just trying to break into the US, trying to tour in the US, and they just did their first tour, which is awesome; I’m stoked for those guys. Of course, all the bands on the tour; you know, August Burns Red, Misery Signals, are just awesome. August Burns Red are going to be huge.

CONFRONT: And then there’s these bands that you know they should be huge but they just vanish-not necessarily by their own choice, but just because of fate.

CRAIG: Yeah; yeah, I mean, more or less, it’s like, there’s a band from our home town, they’re called Shadow Agency, and I think they were a little ahead of their time, you know what I mean? And they kept plugging and kept plugging as long as they could while working shitty jobs, you know what I mean? I think that they’re about to reform and things are taking off again. But, you meet so many bands and it’s like “What is it with this band?”

CONFRONT: Again, conversation, not interview: the Warlocks are this group out of Los Angeles, and I just caught them because they were playing a show; they were the opening act for The Sisters of Mercy.

CRAIG: Oh yeah? Man!

CONFRONT: Yeah; the first time in 14 years that they came to town was two years ago, was the Sisters of Mercy, and the Warlocks were their opening act, and they just blew me away! And it’s like, their music is just not being picked up, and it boggles the mind why that happens.

CRAIG: Yeah, yeah, I think it is weird; I mean, especially when you see a band and you watch their set and it’s like, “Wow!” and you know, I mean, that this band, they have it. And everything is working for this band, and then for one reason or another…but they get eaten up by the industry, they get eaten up by the gas.

CONFRONT: Poor record sales.

CRAIG: Poor record sales, that’s across the board, right there.

CONFRONT: Promotions departments that don’t have faith in the product.

CRAIG: Yeah! Yeah, of course. Or they sign with the wrong label, but we won’t get into that, because now we’re with Metal Blade, and they’re awesome!

CONFRONT: And a few years ago, Metal was on the outs with mainstream audiences, and now it’s starting to experience a resurgence, and there’s these huge tours going on now; where do you think it’s going? Do you think Metal is going to make a comeback, and if so, is it going to get the cookie-cutter treatment that Emo, and the new Punk/Goth movement got? Is it going to be good or bad for Metal to be popular again?

CRAIG: I think there’s too many quality bands that outweigh the second, third, fourth wave cookie cutter shit. There’s too many quality bands in the scene that are getting attention right now that are going to influence a whole other wave of cookie cutter bands, but I think it’s a good thing. I grew up on Headbanger’s Ball. We were talking about Helmet earlier, and that was the first band that I ever saw on Headbanger’s Ball, and then it was just every other band after that. And then Headbanger’s Ball had a resurgence, and once again no one tuned in, so…which was crazy. And, I was stoked because our video aired on it before MTV pulled it. So that was a dream come true; that was one thing I could cross off my list. But I think with bands like As I Lay Dying, and a lot of these Metal bands that are in the forefront right now, I think it’s good for Metal, as long as people don’t lose sight of what they’re doing and lose their heads.

CONFRONT: But why is it-I mean, the fans are there, so why isn’t it on the radio? Why isn’t there a Metal show on the music video channels? Why is the closest thing we have to Metal on TV right now Metalpocalypse?

CRAIG: That show is awesome!

CONFRONT: It’s still an amazing cartoon, don’t get me wrong don’t get me wrong, but you know…

CRAIG: It’s just not as lucrative, you know what I mean? The advertisers who buy commercial spots, it’s not as lucrative to them. I mean, what are you going to do? Sell Zest to a fucking Metal kid? What are you going to sell to these kids? That’s’ the whole reason anything’s on air to begin with. It’s weird, because the kids are obviously there. It’s a weird situation. I’m really curious as to what’s going to happen with the music scene in general in the next year, with gas the way it is, and sales the way they are, with music burning and things like that, which is a conversation in and of itself. I mean, I don’t know. Things are definitely going to get interesting over the next year. It would be awesome if Metal was the genre that became the…

CONFRONT: If it became the new Grunge?

CRAIG: Yeah! Which, I don’t know. Andrew and I were talking about it the other day. We were listening to Alice in Chains, and I was like “Yeah, man that would be so awesome if Grunge makes a comeback!” and we keep seeing all these random Grunge bands at shows now; and we’re like “Wait a minute! Is Grunge making a comeback?” and now Mudhoney’s putting out a new record, and we’re like “What is going on? What is going on? Grunge is happening again!”

CONFRONT: And every now and again you get somebody who was great and then they put out a lousy album.

CRAIG: Yeah.

CONFRONT: Like, I’m sorry to say, the Breeders, Smashing Pumpkins,

CRAIG: Oh yeah, the new Smashing Pumpkins record, yeah.

CONFRONT: Yeah; basically Billy Corgan and his back-up band.

CRAIG: Billy Corgan and his pro-tools rig.

CONFRONT: But the new Portishead, though, just blew me away.

CRAIG: Yeah? I haven’t heard it.

CONFRONT: Oh, you must!

CRAIG: Oh.

CONFRONT: It doesn’t have that same dark jazz-again, conversation, not interview; sorry Editor-it doesn’t have that same kind of jazz noir kind of feel to it, but it is so quintessential Portishead that it is, it is a must.

CRAIG: It’s giving me goose bumps!

CONFRONT: Oh, it will!

CRAIG: I’m going to check that out; awesome!

CONFRONT: Oh, the new album fits right in; my test is, can I put all 3 albums together, on “shuffle” on my MP3 player, and will it still sound amazing? Because the first two, you shuffle them together and it’s just great. And the third one? It’s not seamless, but it’s still a good variety, a good change-up for them.

CRAIG: I wanna name-drop some bands!

CONFRONT: Okay; name-drop some bands!

CRAIG: Name-drop some bands that I’ve been listening to: A band that hasn’t gotten the recognition that I think they deserve is a band called Sparta; the other guys from At the Drive-In that didn’t form The Mars Volta, and it rocks.

CONFRONT: Again, another cool band.

CRAIG: Right! Yeah! But they [Sparta] are definitely the more Rock-structured side of At The Drive-In, which was a huge influence on me. And their latest record is mind-blowing, start to finish. A band called Margot and the Nuclear So-and-So’s is another band I’ve been listening to. It’s Poppy, but their instrumentation choices are really clever, and it’s really cool because it’s different. And then there’s bands like MSI, who aren’t really my cup of tea, usually, but that band is writing some interesting stuff I think.

CONFRONT: Yeah, the bands that you don’t like but you have to acknowledge that they’re good, anyway.

CRAIG: Yeah; right! Like, my girlfriend is a mega-fan of MSI, so she’s kind of forced me to listen to it.

CONFRONT: My wife was into the Backstreet Boys.

CRAIG: Oh no!

CONFRONT: Well I don’t know about any more, but at the time, so it was like, “Must…adapt…”

CRAIG: Well it’s cool! It’s definitely variety.

CONFRONT: Well I do have to admit, they have some good…stuff…It’s not my bag.

CRAIG: Anyway, all right; it’s cool!

CONFRONT: Well, thanks very much for your time!

CRAIG: Thanks for yours!

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