Intervista postata da
ReaxMusic.com.
November 25, 2007
Revolution, Ft. Lauderdale
REAX: Through your music you have created a lifestyle that has brought together a devoted fan base taking you to #4 on your first week of releasing your new album. What in particular do you attribute that to?
The Rev: We’ve always been a tight knit family and interact with our fans very closely since day one. We’re always the guys signing autographs after our shows. We have a unique sound and style, which is different with every album. People latch on to that just like I latched on to some of my favorite bands growing up.
REAX: Over the past few years you’ve shared stages with rock legends including Metallica and Guns n’ Roses. Did you ever think to yourself, “How did we get here?” Or, does it all make sense to you?
The Rev: The first time when Metallica came to one of our shows to watch us, I was happy enough with that. Then they invited us on tour and I couldn’t believe it. That was the first band that Johnny and I ever saw live. I never thought I would be singing a song on stage with them. On 6/6/06 in Berlin, it was just them and us opening, it was a dream come true.
REAX: With each album you’ve put out, the band obviously decides to make changes in the direction the band was previously taking musically, especially when comparing a song like “A Little Piece Of Heaven” to your earlier work. Are these changes a result of confidence or discovering new influences to apply to the background you’ve already laid?
The Rev: Certainly, I would say that it is gaining confidence and revisiting old influences. We grow as musicians with every album cycle and we come up with new ideas in our own heads and collectively. When we sit down and write, we flush those ideas out. It’s never as deliberate as one would think, but we never make the same album twice. I’ve always been one of the biggest Danny Elfman fans, so I’ve always been influenced in that direction. We wanted to release a Halloween EP, so we wrote that song as the first of Halloween-themed songs. Everyone liked “A Little Piece Of Heaven” so much that we decided to put it on the new album.
REAX: Is the background instrumentation on “A Little Piece Of Heaven” something you always wanted to explore and who did you work with on that?
The Rev: We actually worked with members of Oingo Boingo, Marc Mann and Steve Bartek. I wrote the song on piano, they helped with woodwinds, brass, strings, and choir. I wanted it to be cinematic… like a movie soundtrack, but played by a metal band. It was the shit to get to work with them.
REAX: You have succeeded as an internationally touring band and overall worldwide acclaim at a fairly young age. What have you gained from that experience and how to you keep your artistic values in check with that kind of success?
The Rev: I don’t have a choice whether or not to choose my values. If it was in my contract to write fuckin’ hits for any band, I would fuck it up… just like everything else in my life because I do what I want to. Everyone else is the same way. Warner Brothers is great in giving us 100 creative control. They stay out of the studio and let us do our thing. It’s a great place to be. It feels good that they’re confident in letting us self-produce our albums now. I’m most proud of how this album turned out… in essence that’s why we self-titled it.
