John: [Looking at the CD] These came out nice.
Jim: And they`re 100% recyclable. Because we care about the environment.
John: So why is it that it was a fucking year ago and we were in the studio, watching you record this shit, and it`s now a year later and I finally have a copy in my hand?
Jim: That`s a good question. I`m not entirely sure. If I had to guess, I`d say it`s because Underdogma was a little behind on things and they had a lot of releases - like Crom - ahead of us.
John: Now that it`s officially released, what are your plans?
Jim: We really want to get back to Europe. The Ireland tour was huge for us. You make much more of an impact over there as an American band in a shorter time than you would touring the States. Not that we`re not going to tour the States as well. This record`s gonna get pushed on radio probably in February.
John: How tough a nut is that to crack?
Jim: I guess it`s relatively easy, because we have nothing to do with it. These other guys � Freakshow Promotions � did a pretty good job with Wreck of the Minot and Go to Hell previous to that. Underdogma wants to use them again because they haven`t failed us in the past.
John: They local?
Jim: No, they`re from California. They did a pretty good job. We charted in a lot of stations when it [Minot] came out. The thing is, I don`t think it`s necessarily a tough nut to crack, it`s you do it, you crack it, you get to chart a little bit, and then it goes away.
John: What were the singles from the last one? �Evil Red�?
Jim: Actually, we didn`t release any singles. I think people just picked up on it because the record had this, that, and the other thing on it. Some people played �I Am the Messiah,� �Lower Than Life,� some people played �Paper Asshole.�
John: You can`t play �Paper Asshole� on the radio.
Jim: College stations?
John: It`s got cussin` in it.
Jim: Is �asshole� a cuss?
John: It`s kind of cussy.
Jim: I thought �fuck� was a cuss.
John: What would you do if you had a four year old boy and he was listening to the radio and he started talking about paper assholes?
Jim: I would take his beer away from him, smack him...
John: And then lock him in the closet?
Jim: And then have him make me a sandwich.
John: In the sandwich making closet?
Jim: Yes [laughs].
John: So you`ve had three major bassists now. You had Russell Boudreau, who left the band, when, last year?
Jim: He left in September `06.
John: You had Jase Forney who played on the new album. And you had this fine, young, going-into-the-basement motherfucker who`s playing with you now. How would you describe their different sounds?
Jim: Russ was a more four-on-the-floor bassist. He was like the Phil Rudd of bassists. He played what he had to play. He came up with some interesting, cool stuff, very subtle, but for the most part just laid it down straight.
Jase is kind of a different player. He played with distortion, a little bit busier. Monster fucking player. He initially was offered the gig but turned it down. So we had to find someone who could handle our tolerance for alcohol and we found Jesse behind a dumpster down the street. Took him to Ireland and he proved his fucking worth.
Oh, Jesse`s style. That`s what you asked.
Jesse: [emerging from basement] I`m kind of a shitty dresser. Poor footwear.
Jim: Sensible footwear.
Jesse: Sensible footwear, but not stylish.
John: And yet since joining the band, you`ve rediscovered the joy of hair.
Jesse: When I told my buddy Dan I was joining this band, he`s like, �You`re going to joining that band We`re All Gonna Grow a Beard? Does that mean you`re gonna grow a beard too?�
Jim: And thus he did. Jesse`s style is a little different from both of them. He plays guitar as well; he`s more of a multi-instrumentalist, so he`s a little more fluid a player. He meshes with me but not in the traditional sense. He kind of can fill up a lot of the space in the back.
John: How long did Jesse have to get his shit together for the Ireland tour?
Jim: Not long. We were originally going to have Jase with us, because he had worked on the record. When he came in, we had already gotten Jase up to speed, and then Jase split, and then we got Jesse up to speed, and it didn`t make sense to say, �Okay, now that you`re in the band, let`s get Jase back for Ireland.� And Jase was totally cool and gracious about bowing out, even though we had promised him he could go. That was a real solid that he did, not getting bent about it. Because at that point, Jesse had become part of the band. So Jesse had to scurry to get a passport and all that shit.
John: You had to get one rushed, didn`t you.
Jesse: Yeah. I just never had one. When I joined the band, Jim was like, �I just want to let you know that Jase is going to Ireland with us.� I never expected to go, but he was like, �But you do have one just in case something happens, right?� I had to pay through the nose to get one.
John: How long was the Ireland tour?
Jim: Six or seven shows. We were there for nine days, I think.
John: And you opened for Diamond Head. How did the legendary Diamond Head hook up with some shit ass podunk band from Boston?
Jim: They`ve been huge fans for 15 years [laughs]. Believe it or not, this fine establishment is where the story begins. Long story short, a gentleman by the name of Dr Michael Conway, cardiologist from Kilkenny, Ireland, comes to Boston a lot for business. Came to O`Brien`s, because he`s a fan of hard rock music, and happened to catch us one night a few years ago. Really enjoyed it, bought a copy of Wreck of the Minot, said, �You guys are great.�
Ran into him at the Linwood [now Church] maybe a year later and he says, �You`re a hit over in Ireland and my nephew`s band loves you guys and all his friends love you guys. You guys should come to Ireland and play. We have this rock fest here.�
At that point I thought it was lip service so I said, �Sure, let us know. Keep in touch.� And wouldn`t you know, we did keep in touch, and he said, �You should come play.� And I said, �That`s great. If we do come play, we`d like to play more than the one rock fest date. We`d like to tour.� And he said, �It just so happens, I`m going to have Diamond Head here� and it just kind of came together from there. It was kind of 99.9% shit luck.
John: Diamond Head still drawing a reasonably good crowd?
Jim: They are. In Ireland, I bet they could`ve done a little better, but everywhere else they do. They fucking kill. We saw pictures of these guys playing for thousands and thousands of people.
Ireland is really weird. The way it was explained to us is that there are no tours in Ireland. What they do is they have a festival and people will go to that, so the idea of bands touring through Ireland was a novel idea at this point. I don`t think people knew what to make of us. All in all, for us it was fucking amazing. Playing in a castle...
John: You played in a fucking castle?
Jim: We played King John`s Castle in Stab City Limerick.
John: Stab City?
Jim: Limerick is known as �Stab City� and it fucking lived up to its name.
Jesse: There`s no cool rhymes like �Lynn Lynn City of Sin.� It`s like, �Oh, you`re going to Limerick. Stab City.� They don`t fuck around, they don`t try to make it cute or clever. �Oh, you`ll get killed there.�
Jim: This is a castle and they had the front door of the castle locked to keep the riff raff out, there`s so many rough and tumble people outside.
Jesse: It felt like Dawn of the Dead and we were in the mall and they were all outside.
Jim: We went to the bar next door and there were ten of us. We`re walking down an alley and there are two crackheads up here and one little skinny crackhead goes and flanks the ten of us and the three of them were going to have a go at the ten of us. And our tour manager, Owen, said something to the guys - �Fuck off� - and then said, �Everyone, back in the castle now.� And we`re running back, thinking, �Jesus Christ!� It`s like a city under siege.
Other dude at bar: Is the castle usually a venue?
Jim: The castle is a venue for special events. I don`t think they`ve had a rock show there in a long time.
Jesse: They drove a semi in that transformed into a stage. It was like Optimus Prime but with 30,000 watts of speakers.
John: How were the acoustics?
Jim: It was crazy. Shit was bouncing everywhere. But it was sick. That was really the first time we played any outdoor venue � and a big outdoor venue at that.
John: Does it bum you out playing dives like this now?
Jesse: Nah, it`s pretty much the same.
Jim: Exactly. No matter where I`m playing, it`s pretty much a castle [laughs].
John: Speaking of gigs, not last year, but the year before, you seemed to be playing every other fucking week. Did that help or hinder you guys? At what point can you no longer play the same town to the same crowd?
Jim: You can overplay. I think once a month for in town is a good rule of thumb. Quite honestly, we love playing in town, but we`re aching to get out more. The album was supposed to come out early last year, but it didn`t. If it had come out, we were supposed to tour the States. But it didn`t, and the Ireland thing came up, so we did that instead.
Did you see how many skulls are on the cover of this album?
John: You can`t sell without skulls.
Jim: There are skulls, there`s fire, there are crosses. That pretty much trumps what`s on the record.
John: I was going to say, that art is metal as fuck and yet the album is more rock.
Jim: The album is more rock because...
John: Because you`re weepy.
Jim: I`m a weepy bitch. My magina had sand in it.
I`ll explain it now to the three people in stoner rock land that want to know why this album is more rock and less metal. Because it was all written on a fucking acoustic guitar, goddamn it. By me. Crying. Naked. In a room by myself.
John: I can hear sales grinding to a halt.
Jim: Quite honestly, when Russ left the band, almost all the stuff was written. And it was me going up to the rehearsal space by my house, writing on an acoustic guitar. Thus, some of the tunes stayed acoustic, and some got heavy. I`m a fan of bands that can do that type of stuff � there are tons of band of there that are hard as fuck and loud and faster than everybody. But the whole dark and light, Zeppelin thing is huge for me. I`ve always liked bands like Only Living Witness, Soundgarden, Zeppelin that do that type of stuff. And that to me shows the range of a band, what they can really do.
It`s also one of those things, with the name of the band. I`m sure we`ve had plenty of people not listen to the band because the name of the band is �We`re All Gonna Die� and they go �They`re probably a death metal band� and then they see the cover and there`s fire and the Virgin Mary with the snake Baby Jesus on Go to Hell, and the artwork probably scares the shit out of some people, but...
John: I`ve found that it`s not really a good t-shirt to wear when you`re walking into an old folks home.
Jim: That is still one of my favorite t-shirts.
Jesse: Old folks don`t even look at it. It looks like stained glass.
Jim: No, people get fucking worked up.
Jesse: Not old folks, because they have fucking glaucoma.
Jim: I have a funny aside about old folks. Right after 9-11, on our web page, we made a flyer for a Christmas show we were playing. It had Santa Claus holding a gun to someone`s head. This was literally December of 2001 and everyone`s super sensitive. For whatever reason, Tom Shultz of the band Boston goes and plays the national anthem somewhere and must have butchered it. Some midwestern woman got bent out of shape and sends me an email about it, because she must have looked up �rock,� �Boston,� whatever and must have found our website.
After she`s really fucking bummed that he did a shitty version of �The Star Spangled Banner� on guitar and now sees a picture of Santa Claus with a gun to somebody`s fucking head and she just flips her fucking lid. So she`s bullshit, sends me this scathing e-mail - �You should be ashamed of yourself, Tom Schultz!�
John: Now do you have a favorite on the album?
Jim: Yes. No. Maybe so. It depends on my mood, I suppose. I like some of the mellow stuff, because they`re cooler songs. I like �On the Sea� and what Dave Unger added to it with the Rhodes. I`d say, probably my favorite is �Elevator Down.� It`s a good riff, the song fucking chugs along.
Jesse: It`s good on the record and it`s really come way more to life now that we`re comfortable in it. It`s way song played now. That`s one of the bummers about recording stuff. If you just write and record instantly... Things change. Songs progress.
Jim: It`s kind of cool because when you do play it live, people are like, �That changed a little bit. That kicks a little better there than on the record.�
John: Jesse, with your role as a scab and playing all this previously recorded stuff, do you play it note for note or do you take what Russ and Jase did originally and add to it?
Jesse: I definitely have little things that I do. I try not to stray too much from the original songs, but there are things that are not exactly note for note. And if I change stuff, I`ll bounce it off of him.
John: Because he`s a control freak?
Jesse: Well, I won`t throw something in that I don`t think adds to the song. I won`t do something just to fucking do it. These are his songs; I stepped in. If I think it`s something cool that the other guys didn`t think of, I`ll ask, �Hey, do you like this?� For the most part, we gel pretty well with how we think. Since I joined the band, my playing and his playing kinda get along pretty well.
John: We talked about Only Living Witness and Soundgarden, and you`ve done covers by them. But no Zeppelin covers?
Jim: We actually did �Immigrant Song.� But that was with one of the lesser known bass players. Because you said there were three but there were actually six. There were some minor players. Believe it or not � and no one outside of Boston will know this � but the guy that plays in Waltham, Peet Golan, actually played in We`re All Gonna Die at one point in time. And another kid, Ryan Tucker, who played with us for awhile, actually was a producer/engineer on some of the Go to Hell songs.
Jesse: And he played on the live tracks.
Jim: He was on the live tracks on Go to Hell. And we were playing �Immigrant Song.� It wasn`t actually bad.
John: And among the six bass players, are you including Ethan [Dussault, producer/engineer at New Alliance Studio]?
Jim: Yes, Ethan was also a bass player for We`re All Gonna Die.
Jesse: Doing a Zeppelin cover is borderline blasphemous.
Jim: Who did one at one of those fests? Dove did �Achilles Last Stand.�
John: That was the last Sweet Leaf.
Jesse: That was fucking good.
John: You should do Anthrax covers.
Jim: You want us to do what song? I heard it the other day on Hard Attack.
John: �NFL�?
Jim: Yeah, that was the one.
John: He [Jesse] would go apeshit over that.
Jim: But he also likes Cinderella. He likes Duran Duran.
