What have you guys been doing since the last tour ended?
We spent a year writing / recording and just did two tours with Nickelback in '06 - March was four weeks with
Nickelback then we did six weeks ... so other than that we were just writing in between. On the last tour that we did
we took out a second bus just to finish writing and demo, it was a ton of work trying to play a show then work during the
day writing. As soon as we got off the tour - the next day we went into pre-production for two weeks then went into
recording. We spent the last three months of the year recording.
It seems like non-stop work.
Well, we had some down time - like when we were at home writing. We'd work from eleven or noon until
four or five o'clock - five days a week working on music... that is your down time. I'm certainly not complaining about
the work.
Are you looking forward to the Evanescence and Finger Eleven tour coming up?
Yea, it's going to be a lot of fun. 'Cause we're starting it out doing a couple of our own shows - we'll
do those shows then we'll go right into our headline tour and then a summer headline tour. So yea, it's the beginning
of a long haul on the road - which is really great, we like to do that. It makes it feel like a hard days work at the
end of the day, so that's good.
How's the new CD coming along?
It comes out April third, and our add date was yesterday officially... we're already number nine, which is
great. We were number one added for two weeks in a row before the record was really added. As far as the rehearsal
of the record - it's going really well. We're just trying to figure out how to play the songs live.
Are you trying to incorporate a lot of the new songs in your live shows?
We'd like to, but at this point we have four records plus "B-sides" that we've done. We've got fifty-something
songs that we can use, you have to do your singles because people do want to hear them. We have eight songs that are
singles right now, nine counting the new one. Doing a fifteen or sixteen song set is about an hour and a half - so all
we can do is pick and choose which songs we want to play and which songs they want to hear and hopefully we find a happy place
in-between.
Have you played any new songs in front of an audience yet?
We haven't yet, we've only played two songs when we did the last Nickelback show. The rest of them have
yet to be played.
What do you hope to achieve with the new record?
Well, certainly it was never ... when we first started playing it was never certain that we'd be in a band
for a living. At this point now, we can pretty much call ourselves - we can pretty much say that's our career.
I guess we've already achieved what we wanted - that we've written a record that we wanted to make without anybody telling
us what we had to do. Epic (Records) has been very very good with us. So just being able to go and write
the songs that you love - I think that's an accomplishment in itself.
Last week you guys were in the studio finishing up the album - what were you doing?
Last week we were doing bonus tracks. It's one of those things right now where people are asking us
to do something exclusive.
Like Target and Best Buy?
Exactly, iTunes and Best Buy... people like that. On one hand I think it's cool because it really is
a bonus for people, on the other hand people think that we're just trying to get them to buy our record more than once by
putting extra songs on them. You can always get those songs somewhere else - I don't think that's going to encourage
anyone to buy the album more than once.
Except the die-hard fans.
Yea, and that's cool too. If it's something that I love - I do buy it because I like to buy everything
that's involved with it.
What drives you guys as a band - and what inspires you to keep going?
Oh gosh, man. Certainly what drives us to keep going is that we love being musicians for a living.
I say that being a drummer, so that's sort of tongue-in-cheek. We have a lot of fun doing this - it really is a dream
job for us. And having an outlet for your thoughts and ideas is the best thing in the world - you can compare it to
someone having a personal blog or something like that... it's just a bigger scale to get your thoughts out. And artistically
- you have the whole art work portion of making a CD, where you can design something. Then you have the image portion,
then you have the whole songwriting part which is pretty much everything to me. Certainly all those things drive us
as a band.
What are some of the biggest misconceptions about the band that you'd like to
leave behind?
I don't know if we even have any misconceptions, we're pretty much just a straight-up rock band. And
I think people give us credit for that. It's what we've always done, it's what we still do. I think people know
Chevelle as a hard-rock band. I can't really think of any that come to mind.
I know your brother, Joe, left the band a while back - why did he leave?
We've been together for ten years - I'm speculating that there were a lot of reasons, but there's not just
one thing. I think that it ultimately came down to that it wasn't really his passion anymore, it wasn't fun to him.
He wasn't happy.
Do you guys still talk?
Not really, but to be fair we never really talked before... we never really had any relationship with each
other.
Dean is also your brother-in-law, right?
Yea, Dean is our brother-in-law... that's right. We've known Dean for over thirteen years, we're really
close friends with him and have been since I was eighteen years old. It's not difficult for us to hang out as a band
and as close friends - it's all the same thing now. People ask, "You hang out with your bandmates?"... well my bandmates
are my brother, Pete, who I'm best friends with... and my brother-in-law, Dean, whom I've been best friends with for thirteen
years.
Were you guys surprised after seeing Dean audition for the band?
I've got to say that I wasn't really surprised because having known him for so long I've seen what he can
do - he's played bass and guitar ... and written his own music... not professionally, but he certainly had a knack for it...
but he never played bass live. I was pretty sure he could to it, but when Joe left we asked Dean if he could do this...
he said, "I can't do it right now because I have a project that I'm working on... why don't you go on this six week tour and
when you get back we'll play together". Because we had a two week break in-between the tour. So we asked Geno
Lenardo (Filter) to fill in at that time, and when we came back I went to Dean's house and sat down with him. We played
through eight or nine songs with just him and me... just bass and drums, and he knew all the parts perfectly and could sing
everything without Pete even being there to sing. It was really cool - I was ecstatic. I called Pete and said
that he was a dream come true.
So there was no doubt that he was the one?
No, not at all. Not at all, he was flawless from the beginning. He is a very talented musician
- that's all I can say.
Was there any hesitation because he was your brother-in-law?
No. (laughs) People have brought that up since then - and I was like, "Well, I really screwed
up our relationship".
Last question, do you have any guilty pleasures when it comes to music?
No, not when it comes to music. I listen to a lot of the heavier stuff. I don't listen to
that much music - I know people are proud that they listen to all kings of music... I wish I could say that, but I really
don't. I'm one dimensional when it comes to music.
