Steve: What about the album Dead Years do you really like?
Rick: I like that the band got to show their voice a little bit more on every instrument.
Steve: What do you think the album says about you guys as a band?
Rick: It kind of has two faces to it. On one hand its really kind of depressing, and it kind of has this sad melodic sound to it. On the other hand it's very angry. The topics of the songs, some are the most personal we've ever written, indicating certain events between family members or other things that have happened to the band which is kind of a first for us. We've always written about things that were important to us, but I really don't think anybody could have looked at our lyrics and said, "Oh man this is about a very specific event that is being alluded to. I really wanted to change that on this album. On the other hand it's kind of socially conscious, almost political.
Steve: What reaction do you expect to get?
Rick: I'm not too worried about it, so I'm expecting a good reaction. This is the first album that I really think we went in not caring.
Steve: What's the difference between this album and the previous two releases you've put out?
Rick: We kind of approached this one in a completely different way. We had recorded some stuff before Monuments, but Monuments kind of had this very young sound to it. We were working with an engineer who it was the first full length he had put out on that level. We were all taking shots in the dark. With Haunt What's Left we worked with a very seasoned producer. Our goal going in to making that album was making something that sounded very real and very raw and sounding like a live band but very well produced. On the new album, it's kind of a mixed bag of a lot of things, but I think that the new album was made keeping it sounding like a good record. Rather than worrying about if it was going to have that live sound to it or anything like that. The new record is heavier, it's got a lot more depth to it, it has a lot of huge reverberated leads and a lot more experimenting on it.
Steve: You guys released the artwork as well. It's pretty creative and colorful. Talk about that.
Rick: The guy who made it is my best friend. He lives at my house with me. We had just talked about what it is we wanted to do, and he draw this bird with a human skull on it. I was like, "Sol that is awesome," and he was laughing but I was like, "I want to use that for TOTA." That night he ended up staying up all night and just drew the album artwork. It was unbelievable. He pulled out a lot of imagery from very old sci-fy movies. Our goal of the album artwork was to convey panic and a society that is so entrenched in the panic that they are not able to function. There's a sense of worrying, of hurry, of wanting answers and not getting them. Sol did that in an awesome way, and I really like the colors he used.
Steve: Why did you want to go with that sort of theme for the artwork?
Rick: One of my biggest fears being American is our system of propaganda and our system of mental control. It has really infiltrated every aspect of life.
Steve: Straying from the topic of the album, what is it you all like to do for fun?
Rick: We all like drinking good beer, and we're all pretty normal guys. We like to go fishing, build stuff, play an occasional video game. We all have girlfriends that are friends so they'll cook for us, and we'll all go out to eat together. We have sort of an American, happy group of friends.
Steve: What other bands are you really close with and really enjoy playing with?
Rick: Yeah, my friends that are in bands that can put us on tours where we get fed, like August Burns Red, We Came As Romans. No but we've got to tour with the Letlive, those are some of our favorite guys. We've got to tour with No Bragging Rights, they're really close friends of ours, Within the Ruins. I mean there are a lot of bands we've toured with and have become really good friends with.
Steve: You mentioned August Burns Red, and they're from the same area as you guys are. Did you all know each other before both bands started?
Rick: Yeah, we've all been friends for years. We knew them long before August Burns Red. We all use to go to "steak night" every Monday where everyone would go buy a steak and bring it to the house. The funny thing was, I think the only dudes that actually played at the time were Matt Greiner and Brent [Rambler]. Every now and then they'd go down on the drum kit and Matt would bring his double peddle, and they would jam up for us and we'd all clap and go back upstairs. I remember JB [Brubaker] talking to me and said, "I am thinking about learning guitar," and was like, "I'm thinking about starting a band." Usually when somebody who's like 19 says that they're thinking about learning guitar, you usually don't get somebody who sits down and allots two hours a day and works their ass off. But that's what they did, and out of no where they put out an EP themselves and it's like, "Man, JB's band is pretty good." Then they get signed to Solid State eventually. TOTA has toured with them and it's weird to meet kids with August Burns Red tattoos and be like, "Really? A tattoo of JB's band?" But yeah, they've always been close friends.
Steve: You are getting ready to release Dead Years and you've been on the road a bit, but what's next for you guys?
Rick: Well we're about to release that album, we have some bonus track stuff that we'll be releasing, we covered one of our favorite songs. I'm not going to say what that song is yet. We want to surprise everybody. We are getting ready for two pretty long tours we just signed up for. We'll also be shooting some music videos at the end of this month for two songs. Not saying what one's yet!
Make sure to check out Dead Years hitting stores September 25. In the meantime, here's a little teaser for you all.
- Steve
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