We’ve worked with him in the past, we borrowed him from Testament for a few festivals here and there. He then started showing a lot of interest in becoming a member and performing with us and after discussing it we felt that we get along with him better than with any other guitar player we have worked in the past. Not to say that we didn’t get along with previous guitar players but Steve just seemed more interested and focused on what we were doing. He has been a Nevermore fan and once he started contributing songs to this record we were really impressed that they sounded like Nevermore songs. There wasn’t really a lot of thought, the whole process seemed very natural. He came up for some rehearsals with us and he was expressing interest in joining Nevermore and we were expressing interest in having him as a member and after a summer of festivals and a tour we made the transition which was really easy to do. Even our producer in the studio remarked once he heard Steve’s contributions, “Wow this guy sounds like he has been a part of the band for quite awhile,” and in actuality he had been with playing with us for the better part of a year at that point.

I think as long as we stay somewhat poor and hungry and angry we find ways of expressing ourselves. One of the main reasons, and I can speak for Warrel as well as myself, is that growing up we were big fans of bands like Rush, Led Zeppelin, and Sabbath and their lyrics had some depth to them, something to be said especially with Rush. We have always been socially conscious, at first when we started we thought, “Oh we’re going to change the world with our message,” and then you start to realize that’s not going to happen but it doesn’t hurt to have that depth and philosophy. A lot of that is also attributed to Warrel studying philosophy and poetry for four years in college which really put his attention towards social issues. One of his favorites is Timothy Leary, Warrel is fascinated by him. The whole artificial intelligence thing he is really into as well, The Learning part II is on this record and its called Sentient 6. I just feel privileged to be in a band that has something to say that will be interesting instead of “party all night” or “I’ll punch you in the face” or even “I pack a chainsaw and I’ll skin your ass if I’m having a bad day.” I mean who cares everyone has a bad day. But I guess it has its place if people want to get out and mindlessly rock its what they do. I’m not really one to bash on anybody’s style but I prefer something with a little more substance.

It’s obvious metal in general is on the rise. What I attribute to MTV is poisoning and rotting the brains of the youth. There are so many kids that were brought up watching Backstreet Boys and N’Sync and today its Britney Spears then the whole Headbanger’s Ball thing was just gone and all the nu metal bands couldn’t play any solos so I think that these kids just were not exposed to metal. It took a lot of them awhile to get a little bit older, start exploring and then they would discover bands like Iron Maiden. Then these kids started discovering solos and a structure to music and learned there was more to music than a rhythm and some angry vocals. So I attribute a lot of it to MTV poisoning the mind of our youth and spoon feeding them garbage for so many years. In Europe this didn’t happen they didn’t have that type of pop culture over there so metal has always been a mainstay.

It’s hard to say, we never go into the studio with any preconceived ideas of how we want the songs to turn out. It just seemed natural with that beginning piece that the death vocals would work. We have been in the scene long enough to be exposed to and tour with a lot of great death metal bands, Death being one of them. It was just a natural progression, whether or not we’ll use it in the future remains to be seen. I like it personally it gives us a little broader spectrum. For a long time we were too melodic for the really hardcore fans and too heavy for the more melodic fans and we really didn’t have a fan base so we had to create it. We seem to be pulling a little from each genre more and more so our fan base slowly grows with each record.

It was a group decision. Our producer said it was one of the strongest songs too. When you are on the inside looking out you don’t see things as everybody else does. When Nevermore first started we were pretty bull headed and wanted things exactly our way whether it was producers, with videos, whatever we were doing. What we realized more and more was that you find somebody and you trust them such as a producer. You put your faith in their hands, we trust Andy Sneap he did a great job on the record. For the choice of the video song we asked our friends, our label, Andy Sneap, and the results were overwhelming, everybody was saying The Final Product. As for me I was thinking something as extreme as Born or something as melodic as Sentient 6.

We have full artist control, we made sure that was in our deal. It also has a lot to do with time. If you want a song to be productive on MTV it can’t be a ten minute song and you don’t want to [edit a ten minute] song either. This one happened to be the shortest song as well and it made the most sense. When we did Enemies of Reality we edited that and caught all sorts of hell for that so we decided not to edit any more songs for MTV.

Right now it is a mail order in certain markets. What the plan is is that once the original stock is depleted, which it is close to doing so, they are going to replace the old version with the remix which kind of concerns me really. I thought once the remix was done it would be in the stores right away considering how much everyone has talked about it. If they have the remix version ready to go who wants to go out and buy the old version? It really pains me when our fans have to buy a cd twice. Sometimes record companies will try to disguise a cd with new packaging and at most you might get one extra song which I am really against, put that new song on a single or a compilation instead . Repackaging and reselling the same thing concerns me and with this remix fans can pay five bucks and get the cd in the mail instead of spending another fifteen dollars. If they really want the new packaging its basically a negative image of the original artwork and Andy Sneap’s name on it.

I would say if that ever happened it would probably be over indefinitely but I just don’t see that happening to us. Jeff Loomis is such a talented guitar player and he always seems inspired, he’s always listening to other bands and other kinds of music and he gets really excited. I’ve seen him get a new cd and he’ll sit down and listen to it like a kid for the first time. So that question I can relate to after watching the Metallica movie. It is just so sad that those guys are so uninspired at this point. I don’t know what ruined them, if it was the money or that they got tired of each other but you can definitely tell that they are uninspired and keep releasing records. With Nevermore I can’t say, we’ve never gotten to that level we’re we have millions and millions of dollars but I just can’t see us being uninspired, we love the thrill of touring and the interaction with fans and as long as we have that we will be inspired to put forth our best effort and do the best we can. Whether or not we can keep topping ourselves remains to be seen but we seem to have a way of outdoing ourselves with each record except for Enemies which was a production error more than anything.

I can a little bit. The way Warrel’s mind works and the way his lyrics work, he has a pre set idea of what is going to be said on the record but he doesn’t like to influence anybody with them because growing up we didn’t have as much coverage as metal has today (kind of like Rush was when we were kids). So because of this you would interpret the lyrics in your own way and means and then you’d read an interview with the band that totally dispels what you thought the song’s meaning was. So Warrel likes to keep that aspect of the music locked inside of him and is hesitant to tell even me about his lyrics and I’m probably one of the closest friends that he has. There is a common thread throughout all our records. Mike Amott put it once jokingly as this, “The pigs! They won’t stop fucking with my head!” in his best Warrel impersonation. I see it as a lot of the political overtones in our songs are pigs, worms, or this record we have lizards. I think he equates a lot of what is going on politically with slimy creatures. So there is a theme that runs throughout all the records but as far as a concept album Dreaming Neon Black is the only honest concept record that we have. This one, yes there is a loose thread but no it is not a full blown concept.

Hopefully doing the same damn thing we are doing now which is releasing the best music we can, being able to tour, and having a fan base that respects what we are doing. I have a friend that I worked with in a club in Seattle and when we first started Nevermore I had to have a second job to keep myself going. I met this incredible cook in the kitchen and he would school me in great food (which as a chef I can really appreciate) but also great jazz music. He would tell me that he was going to produce a documentary on jazz and years later I ran into him and saw a trailer for this documentary and it was amazing. I asked him then if he could do one for Nevermore and he came out with us and after one trip with us he flew down to LA with us and filmed the making of the video. One of the things that said though was that there is a huge correlation between jazz and metal. Americans embraced jazz and then threw it aside and the only way it survived was because of Europe. He saw the same thing with metal how it was popular and then thrown away and how its still alive in Europe and how no it is starting to come back and regenerate. The point of this is that jazz musicians basically tour until they drop dead. I saw people play in that club in Seattle when they were in their fifties and sixties and died within the year. I myself couldn’t think of a better way to go than doing something that you love to do until the day you do. I say I hope we keep doing this and with the same lineup, its incredible that the core of Nevermore has been together for ten years which is unheard of. We actually finished our record contract together. We’re like any other band we have our arguments, our disagreements, quit, get fired, but we always pull back together and realize that we’re doing this for the music and after ten years we’re like family now, we’re solid and I don’t see anything changing in the next ten years other than one of us having some brats running around the house.