#shoutweb

[radinaandreeva]

Cold Interview: Year of the Spider - By Therese McKeon (From: ShoutWeb.com)

Scooter Ward is an emotional guy. In fact, as frontmen go, you can't get much more emotional. With "Year of the Spider", the band's third release, you find yourself feeling sad, angry, and even a bit weepy along with the raw-nerved singer. Discovering the diverse layers of Cold's music is as refreshing as it is depressing. The carefully weaving of Scooter's haunting vocals intertwines powerful songs with lyrics that have remarkable substance. Shoutweb hooked up with Cold's leading man for an often teary-eyed discussion of the meaning behind the tracks on "Year of the Spider" and why he pours his heart into his songs.

Kelly Hayes • guitar Scooter Ward • vocals Jeremy Marshall • bass Sam McCandless • drums Terry Balsamo • guitar

Shoutweb: Hey, how are you feeling? I heard you were sick a while back?

Scooter: I had something wrong with my throat. I had to get a shot in there so I could sing.

Shoutweb: Did you have to cancel any dates?

Scooter: We cancelled one actually because of that. It was in Omaha I think. They stick a needle in your throat then they give you something so the pain from sticking the needle in your throat is okay. I was like, "You know what, man? I'm just sleeping tonight."

Shoutweb: You started out in the Boston area with shows. How is the new material live?

Scooter: We've been together for so long and I think everything is getting better. We finally got the right crew and everybody so everything is really good.

Shoutweb: In the past when I've seen you live, I know you were sometimes frustrated with not getting the sound right.

Scooter: We had a major problem with that but we've finally worked everything out now.

Shoutweb: That's awesome. The times I've seen you live, things that may sound fine to me I could tell were not sounding right for you.

Scooter: (with cell phone ringing)

Shoutweb: Do you need to get that?

Scooter: No, that's just Terry. Fuck him. (laughter) Whenever he wakes up, he calls me. I'm always like, "What? Did you need to tell me about your dreams?"

Shoutweb: (laughter) Or "I missed you!"

Scooter: Yeah, right. "I've got coffee over here for you, baby." (laughter) I don't know what to tell him. It's a total waste of time. He thinks something special happened.

Shoutweb: He doesn't want to miss out. (laughter)

Scooter: It's funny though.

Shoutweb: Are you like the Dad of the band? Is everybody always checking in?

Scooter: It seems like that. They all check in with me to see what's happening or what they need to do. But I don't mind.

Shoutweb: Are you militant in that way?

Scooter: I'm not militant in that way but I am in the "get your fuckin' job done" kind of way, you know? I do so much that I think that they feel kind of guilty sometimes. They are always saying, "Well, man, we'll do something." When I give them shit to do, they're really stoked.

Shoutweb: You run a tight ship there. "You gotta step up!"

Scooter: I'm like, "Come on, man. You want to do this? Let's do this."

Shoutweb: You guys haven't been on tour for a while. I know September 11th did not help matters.

Scooter: We toured right up until then. We did a little headlining tour with Flaw and Dope and then we kind of stopped.

Shoutweb: Then the Weezer tour that went sour.

Scooter: The Weezer show was actually on the same day as the September 11th events. We were supposed to start the tour that night. I remember we were all at the hotel down in the lobby watching shit go down that morning. I ate a biscuit and went back to bed. I said, "If shit's going to be going down, I'm going to be dreaming."

Shoutweb: (laughter)

Scooter: (laughter) Fuck it.

Shoutweb: I need to ask you a bunch of things about this record. I don't know if it's because I have the flu right now or what but I literally almost starting crying.

Scooter: Yeah, I think that's what it was made for. I think once people actually get the lyrics that I really sing instead of making them up on the web sites, then they'll know what I'm talking about. I think when they really get them, because the stuff I'm reading is crap. When you read the real thing, it is way worse. That's how we write. I think that's what we need to do. I just feel like we need to do that. It's good therapy for us and for our fans that are so much like us. It's good that they can express the pain through that.

Shoutweb: Are you solely responsible for the lyrics?

Scooter: Yes. The music pretty much tells me what to do.

Shoutweb: Musically, this record is great but lyrically it's even better.

Scooter: Well, I do a lot of the music too. I really work on the music with the band then I kind of separate myself and go to write lyrics. I focus on the music first because it tells us what to write for lyrics.

Shoutweb: Wow, it's amazing. It's all such a foreign process to me.

Scooter: Me too.

Shoutweb: I usually will first listen to a record when I get it and take notes and then I listen to it a few more times. But with this record, just to enjoy it is such a pleasure.

Scooter: Well, thank you very much.

Shoutweb: It's strange because it is still very depressing and emotional but it is refreshing at the same time.

Scooter: It was really opening up. This is a really personal record. Like I was saying, we've written records before and I've written records that are just story telling a lot. I draw those emotions from me and the band and I just went off farther and kind of developed stories for them. But on this record, it's pretty much really about our lives and really about what we're going through. If I start crying during this interview, because I do that all the time when I start talking about this.

Shoutweb: Are you serious?

Scooter: Yeah.

Shoutweb: You're going to make me cry too. Well, this is what I wrote down about the whole record in my notes. You cannot sing these words and have them ring true, unless these things have happened to you. Now, I didn't mean it to rhyme but basically there you go. That was the feeling that it left me with. This is just too much.

Scooter: It was kind of like that when we were making the record and I was writing the lyrics in Hawaii because I can't write in Los Angeles.

Shoutweb: Really? You can't?

Scooter: Yeah, I don't know why. It's really weird. There's something in the air. We can do music in Los Angeles but I can't write the lyrics in Los Angeles. I don't get it. What happens is, I would come in and write these songs and they would be totally different topics of what they are now. I spoke to Howard Benson before I did this record and I was like, "Dude, I'm gonna make you cry by the time I bring the song in because I want you to understand. I want you to really feel this with me. Because if you can't, then you can't produce this record." I would bring the songs in and he would tell me, "Man, it's almost there but it's not yet." He'd tell me, "I feel that but I don't feel that." What that did to me is just made me open up more. I knew when I was done. I came in there like, "All right mother fucker, this is it. You're going to love this." When I started playing it for him, he'd say, "Dude, it's over. Go ahead." He pushed me a lot so that was cool. I thank him for doing that because nobody's ever done that before. A lot of other producers will just let the band do what they do. They'll say, "Great! Sounds good!" They don't really discipline the vocals or the lyrics because they don't want to get the singer mad. Howard was saying, "Dude, you just told me what you wanted to do with this record. If you actually want to do this then you have to take my advice and you have to listen." His criticism was good.

Shoutweb: I watched the "Stupid Girl" video. You guys look cold!

Scooter: Initially, we wanted to play on a frozen river. They wouldn't let us do it because of the liability of having all the kids on black ice. We had to do it at an elementary school but we still did it where it was freezing. It was cold. We didn't want any Hollywood manufactured cold. If we were going to do it, we wanted to freeze just like everybody else.

Shoutweb: (laughter) But you are Cold so that works on many levels.

Scooter: Right. It seems to follow us. The first six dates of this tour were freezing.

Shoutweb: So, Rivers is guesting on that song?

Scooter: Yeah, I think he's on the pre-chorus. He actually did the first verse initially when he sent it to me. I was on the second verse because "wanna love ya, wanna bug ya"... I don't know but I kind of had a problem with singing that because that's really Rivers. The second verse, I could deal with.

Shoutweb: How did his involvement come about?

Scooter: I had written a Weezer riff in the studio and it sounded like a Weezer song. I couldn't come up with anything for the verses. I had the chorus but every time I played the chorus I heard Rivers voice in there freaking me out. I said, "I am going to send the music to someone who maybe could tell him." So, we went out to dinner a couple of times while we were making the record. He came to our house for parties and stuff. I was like, "Hey, man, you gotta hear this song." Finally, two weeks before the record was done I sent him the track and a week later he sent me back the "Stupid Girl" verses. I was stoked. I was like, "Let's do it." After hearing me sing on the second verse, he wanted me to sing the first verse too. He really likes my vocals a lot and told me that he would feel embarrassed having his own spot. We kind of fought about that for a minute but he won in the end.

Shoutweb: I'd really like to spend some time going through these songs. I don't want a record like this to get shoved in there with all the other records out there.

Scooter: That's cool. That's pretty much impossible for it to get lost.

Shoutweb: It's just a beautiful piece of work.

Scooter: When we play the live shows now, and when people listen to the record. I mean, this is our third record and, even on previous tours where people have heard our record before, there is just no feeling like there is now. When we play live, I have such a different feeling. It feels perfect. This is finally what we wanted to do. It has just that much emotion that we wanted to put out. I think it's undeniable. I really don't think that anybody can say that it's a bad record. If they do, I will be like, "I don't know what you're listening to right now, bro." I don't get it.

Shoutweb: By the time I got to tracks eight and nine, forget about it. I hit "Rain Song" and I just lost it. But let's not jump ahead. "Remedy", to me, has almost a punk rock vibe.

Scooter: With "Remedy" we used the old Cold vibe, like off the first record, the song "Give". We kind of wrote the music around that. One thing with the records we make, we always do it for us but we also do it for our fans. We don't want to feel like we're short-changing them. All of these bands seem to totally change their format like Korn and other bands bringing in crazy beats and rappers and weird stuff. We're going to have songs that are mainstream on this record. Our music has developed and that's just going to happen but at the same time we wanted to incorporate elements of the first two records. We didn't want to get pigeonholed by people saying that we totally changed and sound totally different. Because it's not. It's the same, just better.

Shoutweb: There is this drum/bass thing going on that I love. What are the lyrics about?

Scooter: Lyrically, it's about wanting to be an individual. Throughout my life, I've always had people... I'm not the best person in the world and I have my mistakes just like anyone else. It's just about other people. When you make a mistake or you do something or sometimes you're not sure if it's a mistake or not. You're saying to yourself, "Am I wrong or is this my life?" I've valued people's opinions all my life but I really don't give a fuck. It's about being an individual and about saying, "I'm doing this on my own and if it doesn't work out then it doesn't work out."

Shoutweb: "Suffocate" has a female vocal on it.

Scooter: That's Sierra Swan. She was on our second record "13 Ways To Bleed On Stage". She was on a song called "Witch" and "No One". She's just a really good friend of mine. She's been a friend of mine for the last seven years. I saw her play a little club in L.A. and she sounded like Susie Sue to me. I just fell in love with her. I was just like, "Dude, you have to sing with me." She is like the sixth member of our band. Actually, she got signed on Atlantic Records and she's working with The Neptunes right now. She's supposed to have a record coming out in the Fall.

Shoutweb: "Suffocate" seems pretty straightforward.

Scooter: That is one of the most straightforward songs. It's about a relationship where you feel smothered and suffocated. Sometimes when you're in a position like I am, you have people who will be your friend or try to be your friend just because of what you're doing. You lie and you fake. I'm just kind of going, "Fuck, I really thought that you were sincere and that you were trying to be cool. In the end, it's to benefit you." I guess I'm going to run across those people my whole life. I write songs about them so I it's all right.

Shoutweb: Good therapy.

Scooter: I always figured that I could read people really well. I did a good job for a while. At a certain point, there are a lot of people and you're judgment gets a little clouded as to who these people are and what they want to be in your life. Your filters aren't out and you let a lot of people in and weed out the bad ones.

Shoutweb: Even good people turn ugly. It's like "The Lord of the Rings" when you get obsessed with the ring "my precious".

Scooter: Exactly.

Shoutweb: "Cure My Tragedy (A Letter to God)" is definitely powerful.

Scooter: When I was going to write this record, my sister was dying of cancer. (pause) It started in her ovaries and then went into her brain. It started taking over her body.

Shoutweb: I'm sorry to hear that.

Scooter: The hardest thing for me was to be away from her. She's my little sister. She's 27 so she's not little but she'll always be my little sister. It was really hard to be away from her because I've been there trying to protect her my whole life. When something like this happens, there is nothing you can do except for hope. I was away doing the record and I really wanted to be there for her and be with her through the chemo and stuff. She would call and be crying and be all upset about it. It was really hard for me to be on the other side of the country. Making a record really meant nothing to me at that point. I was like, "This is crap. I gotta be home with my sister." She was like, "You can't do that. It means a lot to me. Just write a song for me." (long pause) And I did. It's kind of like a letter to God saying, "If you made the world a stage for me then..." (pause) What kind of happened was amazing. Right when the record was done, and I gave her the song, it left her brain and it's clearing up now so it's kind of amazing.

Shoutweb: Oh my goodness. The power of prayer, even in a song.

Scooter: Yeah, it's weird. Now the next time you hear that song, it will have a totally different meaning.

Shoutweb: Thank you for sharing that.

Scooter: I have to do this. I checked with everybody that I was writing these songs about and I was like, "It might be painful for me to bring this stuff up and write songs about it."

Shoutweb: "Stupid Girl" is more of a lighter theme.

Scooter: "Stupid Girl" was a chance for me to breathe kind of. I was like, "Rivers, thank you!" I don't have to fuckin' cry or think about the dark side of everything on this song. When he sent me those lyrics, the second verse still sounds like a Cold verse to me and the chorus definitely does so it's still Cold in a lot of ways. I detach myself from it because he did the verses so it definitely means something to me but not as much as the other ones. I don't know what his version of "Stupid Girl" is but I think I have a version. My version of it and what I see through it is that you could just be a total piece of trash and at the same time, you don't know that you are. You have this person that's going to leave you and you don't have any idea why. A lot of people are blind to the fact that they are idiots.

Shoutweb: (laughter) Funny.

Scooter: (laughter) You know? I don't know. It's going to be funny because I'm sure a lot of people are going to hear the "Stupid Girl" hook and say, "Hey, it's about a stupid girl." But not really. It's about a stupid man, that doesn't know he's stupid.

Shoutweb: "Don't Belong" has that light, squeaky guitar.

Scooter: "Don't Belong" was pretty much about me growing up. I was always a little odd compared to other people and really quiet. I have people come up to me and them saying, "He's such an asshole because he doesn't talk" or "We see him out and he just sits there." Well, I don't know what to say to you. I don't know what to do to you to make you think and make you understand that I'm all right. It's about everybody's pre-conceptions about me or certain things that have happened to us. It's just feeling like we don't belong. I don't even go out to clubs anymore or anything because when I do I feel like an idiot. I have drunk people coming up to me saying crazy shit. I just don't feel like I belong there. It's the same thing when I go to L.A. I just don't feel like I belong with those kinds of people. It's so fake and so untrue. I'm trying to be as true as I can to people. For them to be sitting there with me at the same table and be affiliated with me kind of freaks me out. I usually say, "Well, this is the business part of it. I'm just going to have to deal with these people to do what I want to do with this music in order to put it out." I think it's just about not feeling that I'm a part of what they think I'm a part of.

Shoutweb: "Wasted Years" has a lot layered vocals, which come across very powerful to me.

Scooter: "Wasted Years" is pretty much. I've had a lot of problems with alcohol and drugs at times in my life. I was ashamed of myself at points. I've always been the guy who knows that he has problems. Nobody ever had to tell me, "Man, I think you've got a problem." I would wake up the next morning and say, "Man, I've got a fuckin' problem!" I know that I was fucked up. I always tried to fix myself but I'd always fall back sooner or later and go right back to the same bullshit that I was doing before. I feel like I've wasted so much time in my life by doing that. It's amazing because I'll probably still fall back again. I think that's actually part of who I am so I don't know if I care if I do. Hopefully, one day I'll be better but I don't know. It's really about my personal life and just how I feel about me. "Betraying life was the life I betrayed with the shape that I'm in." It's hard. It's not easy to win. I think that maybe things would have been better if I would have been more focused and sober and blah, blah, blah but... that didn't happen. What's the condition I'm in now because of what I've done?

Shoutweb: Do you have any regrets?

Scooter: The regrets that I have are people that I may have hurt in the period of time that it was happening. That's probably it. The people that I probably have affected throughout that time.

Shoutweb: Tell me about "Whatever You Became".

Scooter: "Whatever You Became" is about whenever we tour on the road. We meet all these people. It's cool and a lot of them are like friends. They're not really like fans. I don't think of them as fans. I think of them as like a family thing.

Shoutweb: A lot of those friends are complaining because they were putting live MP3s on the web site and they got banned from the boards.

Scooter: Really? They were putting live MP3s out?

Shoutweb: Yeah, I was asking people if they had any questions for you and they said, "Ask him what he thinks about them banning us from the boards!" It was the new material.

Scooter: I think that's pretty cool to put those out there as long as they're live versions. That is unless the sound is total shit. They may have heard the sound quality and said fuck that. I didn't know about that. What was I saying?

Shoutweb: You were telling me about "Whatever You Became".

Scooter: Oh, yeah. We meet these friends and we become friends with them over the years and we leave them the next night. It's like seeing your family for a quick visit and then you have to jet. You never know what happens to these people or if you'll ever see them again. I think I take everything too personally. I love everybody too much. And I really care about how they feel and how they're dealing with what they're going through. It's just kind of strange.

Shoutweb: You have a big heart.

Scooter: I know. It's a curse.

Shoutweb: Some people say that artists in general feel more deeply than other people. They have those extra sensors that are out there all the time. They either block everything out and become very introverted or they absorb everybody else's problems and emotions.

Scooter: I almost wanted to do that for a minute. And then I was like, "Why would I do that?" Let's be the first rock band that actually makes everybody feel welcome and everybody feel like they're really a part of something instead of coming to see some guy on stage and wondering. Because when I was a kid, rock stars were unapproachable. They were kind of in mystery land. They appeared, played, and then went back to heaven or something. With this new record and the way we're doing this, I was like, "You know what? Why don't we be the first rock band that can really be there for our fans and really do this?" Because they're the most important thing to us besides the music and I don't want to fuck up either one of those things. I know that might be a lot to have on our plate but I have nothing else to do on my schedule today.

Shoutweb: (laughter) That's funny. "Can You Feel" is that changed?

Scooter: "Can You Feel" is actually called "Sad Happy". I changed the name. It's about this girl that followed around a little bit on the tour. She was by herself and she was really scaring me because she was getting rides from truck drivers and shit. She was offering favors to them and stuff. It was really scary. After a couple of shows I said, "Sweetheart, what are you doing? What's going on?" She said, "Well, I have to follow you." And blah, blah, blah. She started telling me her story and she told me that her father had molested her. (pause) And he had been raping her for her whole life. She was doing anything to follow us around. I told her, "You're 18 years old now and I don't know if that's cool to bring somebody out with us. I wish you could get focused. If you need help, I'll give it to you." I had given her some money to start out and get an apartment and maybe help her land a job. I kind of looked out for her but at the same time it was really emotional for me to deal with that and her going through that. I was feeling that I was the guy that was supposed to make everything better. I tried. I guess I did kind of do that because she's better now and she's away from him. In the song, I had written about her getting revenge on him. She burns him in a fire. (long pause) It's hard to re-hash that kind of shit.

Shoutweb: Those lyrics - wow! They mean a lot already but when you know the story that goes with it. "I will be strong, I will sing." That's about when I lost it.

Scooter: It happens. And then the "Can you feel" part in the bridge. That's probably definitely where it got to you. I was like, "Can she even feel anymore?" Because I would be numb if something happened to me like that. I was screaming, "Can she feel?"

Shoutweb: We got it easy.

Scooter: I had a great family. I really had a great, great family. It really freaks me out when people tell me stories because I know the things that happen. My pain comes from friends on drugs and fuckin' my whole life and just things around me. Definitely my family was always there to support me even though a lot of times I didn't want them to because I was so fucked up. I was the cool kid and I wouldn't take it from them or I always thought they were wrong or talking shit. I was like, "Whatever! You guys don't know what you're talking about. I'll figure this out." But obviously now, you understand that they were right.

Shoutweb: "Rain Song" has a violin sound in there. Is that what that is?

Scooter: Actually, it's keyboards. We just put it in there. Howard helped us find a good sound and we just used that. "Wasted Years" actually has thirteen violinists on it. It's the real deal but on "Rain Song" we just kind of through some keyboards in there. I'm a big Cure fan and I always incorporate that stuff into the music a little bit. I thought it was a little cooler in there.

Shoutweb: What is "Rain Song" about? Scooter: "Rain Song" is about... Actually it's weird because from my condo I can see it. It's about a block away where it happened from my balcony. When I had just gotten out of high school, my friend Jack and Becky had moved in together. They had gotten fucked up one night and when they went to bed an electrical outlet shorted or something and caught their curtains on fire. They had gotten burned alive. (pause) I was at my parents house sleeping and I remember that it was pouring down rain that morning. The phone rang and my Mom was like, "Oh my God." I knew it. I knew something had happened to one of my friends again. She came in and told me that Jack and Becky were in the hospital in the intensive care unit and that their bodies were burned and they don't think they're going to make it. I just remember the rain pouring down that rain and every time it rains, I think about her. (crying... again)

Shoutweb: So, there is no having to dig deep for these lyrics or themes. These are right on the surface for you. Raw.

Scooter: No. And after I tell you the story and you hear the song again, you'll definitely feel it too.

Shoutweb: So, no wonder Hawaii is a good place for you to write. It rains every day there.

Scooter: Actually, it's been raining a lot lately. It rained here this morning. Maybe I'll move somewhere that it doesn't rain.

Shoutweb: Speaking of rain, the next song is "Kurt". I am assuming that is about Kurt Cobain.

Scooter: That song is actually called "The Day Seattle Died". And it really wasn't for just Kurt. It was for Layne Staley actually. We were touring with Jerry Cantrell on the first record and we went to Seattle to play a Halloween show. Sean Kenny was with us and we wanted to meet Layne Staley because he was my idol. He was such a sick man at that point. They were like, "Man, he doesn't come out of his house." They finally got him to come out and get dressed up because it was Halloween. He got in a little costume and snuck in up there and nobody knew who he was. He sat down with me and hung out. It was amazing but at the same time, it was heartbreaking to see my idol looking like an 80-year-old man. It was really weird. It was the same thing with Kurt. I was driving home from work one day in Atlanta and I heard the news and I had to pull off the road. It hurt my heart. I'm just kind of talking about the impact that they had on everybody and the music industry and people's lives. When I sing, "We could all feel the shotgun hit the floor" I mean that because when I heard that I could totally just see it. I was just thinking, "That's not cool. What the hell just happened here?"

Shoutweb: Oh, I thought you were saying, "We could all feel the shock when you hit the floor."

Scooter: No, it's "We could all feel the shotgun hit the floor. Never mind the faith if you can't believe."

Shoutweb: I can hear that Seattle sound in that song.

Scooter: That's a big influence on us so I think that always rings true a little somewhere in our songs.

Shoutweb: So what about "Change The World"? It's not the "End of the World."

Scooter: We're always doing something with the world in a Cold record. "Change The World", okay, it's better now. (takes a deep breath) It's about affecting people's lives and not being able to deliver. Some times people expect so much from you and you're going, "Hold on a second." I never wanted to change the world. Everything's cool and everything's good but what did you expect me to do actually? Some times they expect too much from you and it's a little shocking. I try to be there for them as much as I can but some times I can't.

Shoutweb: Do you feel burdened?

Scooter: I don't feel burdened. When I have a lot of problems going on personally in my life and when I get everything else dumped on me too, it is a little heavy. You're like, "Hold on a second. I can't take much more." At the same time, I'm saying, "Wait a second. This is what you set out to do and this is what you wanted to do. Don't be a chump." I try to be strong for a lot of people but I am very weak inside, you know?

Shoutweb: What is "Black Sunday" about?

Scooter: "Black Sunday" is about my girlfriend, a few years ago. She was in a relationship and got married and had a little baby. Two weeks after the baby was born, it died in the crib.

Shoutweb: My Lord.

Scooter: I am with her through all this pain. I know what she goes through. It's really hard to take sometimes. I don't know what to do when things come up with babies and stuff like that. It's amazing and I just can't understand how a human being can handle it. I have a little girl and if anything ever happened to her, I don't what I would do. So, this is just a song for her. The whole time when people tell me these things, I talk to them about it but I guess I don't let them know that I really understand. I just try to give them positive vibes and solve the problem. I just say, "We can do this or that and hopefully everything will be better." The whole time knowing that it's really not going to be better but I'm trying to make it more positive. This was a song to her to let her know that I really understood what is going on. All those nights that she cried and all those nights that she talked about it, that I really, really understood where she was coming from.

Shoutweb: So, I guess you might call this a personal record!

Scooter: Definitely. There are not a lot of personal albums out there right now. I think it's a lot better than listening to a song about going to high school and getting a girlfriend.

Shoutweb: "Kill The Music Industry" is interesting.

Scooter: "Kill The Music Industry", now that's a good one! (laughter)

Shoutweb: (laughter) The machine gun noises are amusing only because of the title of the song.

Scooter: Actually, when we let the record company hear it, that was really funny because we were in the studio and they listened to it. I just looked at the look on their faces and said, "What do you think about that?" They said, "That is really fuckin' something buddy." I said, "It's not targeting you guys, you people sitting in this room. I'm just trying to target the whole music industry as a whole." The music industry says, "Well, this is what's hot right now. Let's shove it down everybody's throat." What they're shoving down people's throats and for the past year I can't stand. Everything is so monotonous and boring and unfeeling. When we write songs and when I write lyrics, if I don't get that chill down my spine then I don't think to put a song out like that. If it doesn't do anything for you then why would you want to share that with the world? But a lot of bands just fuckin' re-hash bullshit and good for them because some are very successful at it. I just think it's crap. I don't blame the bands because they're just doing it and maybe that's all they know how to write about. I blame the music industry because they force it on me. Some of the lyrics are, "They think they've changed your faith. They've gone too far. They mame the way you see. They think they'll can your life and control your mind but they can't relate to real life."

Shoutweb: And I know exactly what you're talking about.

Scooter: You know. If you know any big wigs in the music industry then you know what I'm talking about.

Shoutweb: Who is that singing in the background on that?

Scooter: We had a party. We had the guys from AM Radio, which is Rivers from Weezer's new band. We had the guys from Adema come out. They were all working in the same studio too so we just had a big party so they were all out there. A new band out of Jacksonville called Burn Season was there. Sierra Swan and her whole crew were there. We just got a bunch of people together and had a good time. We had fun doing that song in the studio. It's actually on the DVD. You can see it when it comes out. It's pretty funny.

Shoutweb: When does that come out?

Scooter: We have a DVD that's coming out with the CD. It's from the beginning of "Year of the Spider" to right now. You get to see the making of the "Stupid Girl" video and all that. The two weeks of shows we did. It's really cool but it's sad too. I didn't want another DVD out there where it's just like bands partying. We really don't party that much. We're more about the emotions and the music so I said, "Why don't we make an emotional DVD to go along with the emotional record?" So, everybody feels this too.

Shoutweb: Wow, that's awesome.

Scooter: Well, we have to do these things now. We have to sell CDs.

Shoutweb: Kids were asking about the artwork and the Chinese symbol. Is that the symbol for spider?

Scooter: No, that's the symbol for Cold. When we started this thing with the spider, it was kind of amazing because we didn't know that two thousand kids were going to go get it tattooed on there bodies. All these people have the Cold tattoo now. So, we said, let's do something new. So now there is a new tattoo out. So we all got the new tattoo for the "Year of the Spider" record. It's a way to be in touch with your fans and have something to share with them.

Shoutweb: You had fans sending in pictures of their tattoos for a possible cover?

Scooter: It never said it was going on the cover. Sometimes thirteen-year-old kids think that they understand what I was writing on there. I never said the cover but I always said it would be on the album. When you open it up, the two sleeves are the tattoo photos.

Shoutweb: I wanted to answer some questions from fans. What is the song "Serial Killer" about?

Scooter: I was trying to put myself in a child's place. I tried to feel what it would be like to be abducted by a serial killer, get away, and then look for him later in life or see him later in life and bring back all that emotion that happened when I was a kid. It was a story something like that.

Shoutweb: Some kids love to hear the old songs.

Scooter: We've played those songs so many times live. You just kind of get bored. With the new record and every time we make a new record, we always love the new stuff and we want to play that more. We'll always throw in songs off the old record but we would throw the singles off more because that's the way the business is. Until we have a big headlining tour, we only have 45 minutes to get it all in. We always want to put out the best songs and most emotional songs that we feel we have right now instead of going back seven years.

Shoutweb: "Year of the Spider" was a title you guys chose a while ago.

Scooter: After we made the record, we were thinking about what to call it. I said, "Dude, we're going to call it the year of the fuckin' spider because all of our friends have surpassed us and done great. I think we've made a record that is just as good if not better than all of theirs. I said, "Let's call is Year of the Spider because this is going to be it."

Shoutweb: What's happening touring wise?

Scooter: We're bringing Finger Eleven out with us because they're good friends of ours. Their music is really emotional too. We do 22 shows with Staind.

Shoutweb: Thank you for spending so much time with me.

Scooter: You're welcome. Thanks and take care.

http://www.geocities.ws/sadhappysite/interview3.html

#cold #scooter ward #year of the spider #terry balsamo #kelly hayes #Jeremy Marshall #Sam McCandless #interview #nu-metal #nu metal #metal #alternative metal #rock #alternative rock #2003 #shoutweb #song meanings #meaningful

[pastorhogg]

Meteora

Melodic nü-metal

"I want to heal/I want to feel what I thought was never real/I want to let go of the pain I've held so long/(Erase all the pain 'til it's gone)/I want to heal/I want to feel like I'm close to something real/I want to find something I've wanted all along/Somewhere I belong" — from "Somewhere I Belong"

Though the nü–metal sound is quickly becoming passé and tired with its blend of powerhouse guitars, catchy melodies, hip–hop rap, and passionate singing/screaming, Linkin Park is still packing a punch with their audience. They certainly didn't pioneer the genre, yet their debut, The Hybrid Theory, became the best–selling album of 2001. Most people expected the band's long–awaited follow–up to do well, but no one expected Meteora to sell more than 800,000 copies in its first week, topping the Billboard album sales chart en route to going platinum.

Linkin Park's popularity stems not only from their solid, hook–filled sound, but also because of their passion, optimism, and search for spiritual truths. The band has toured with P.O.D. and Project 86, prompting many to wonder if Linkin Park has some tie to Christianity. In an interview with Shoutweb, lead emcee and vocalist Mike Shinoda revealed that he "was raised in a really, really liberal Protestant church. Two of the guys are Jewish. [Sample master] Joe [Hahn] was raised in a little more conservative Christian church and [lead vocalist] Chester Bennington has his own really unique views on religion. In general, we are all over the place."

Since Mike writes most of the lyrics with Chester, it's not surprising then that spiritual themes show up. Like their debut, ...

Continue reading...

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[fyeahmindlessselfindulgenc-blog1]

Here, have an interview.

"Shoutweb: Why are your songs so short?

Jimmy: Cuz we get bored real quick. Two minutes, I get the point, do you? You don't even have to press rewind anymore, just press repeat.

Shoutweb: Are you guys planning on doing any remixes?

Jimmy: For other people or for ourselves?

Shoutweb: For yourselves.

Jimmy: Yeah we got the "Bitches" "Molly" remixes that just came out. We got UZ doin' some stuff, and some drummer guys, and guys from "Front Line Assembly" and all these other people.

Shoutweb: What's your next single?

Jimmy: I'm not sure, it's really not necessarily a single, we just had some people who wanted to remix "Bitches", and we had some people who had remixed "Molly", so we just threw 'em together. I'm not sure what the next thing we' re gonna remix or push out is. There's thirty two songs on there, so HEY, I gotta get one of 'em right.

Shoutweb: I was told that you got arrested for lighting your penis on fire.

Jimmy: I wasn't arrested for trying to light my penis on fire, I was arrested for having my penis out. It was in Detroit, but the lighting my penis on fire was a different show. All the shows really blur together. I tried to (light my penis on fire) but it didn't quite work.

Shoutweb: How many times have you been arrested?

Jimmy: Really only that once surprisingly enough.

Shoutweb: What is the ratio of crowds that love you to crowds that throw shit at you?

Jimmy: Hmm? I never really gave it much of a ratio. I'd say it's either or. If it's a bad night, then it's just people standing around being boring no matter what we do, they just sit there, and aren't really doing anything. It could be a pleasant crowd, but I want them to be doing something, so I try to piss them off.

Shoutweb: So you purposely try to piss them off?

Jimmy: If they're not doing anything, hell yeah! It's for my enjoyment too, ya know? I wanna see something.

Shoutweb: What's the worst crowd you've had to deal with as far as being pissed off?

Jimmy: I don't know, there are so many here or there. I'd say the worst place to play with a pissed off audience is the Red Rocks. It goes up, the audience is all above you, and you're at the bottom, so it's like some guy at the top can throw something at you and totally hit you easy.

Shoutweb: What's the best tour you guys have had so far?

Jimmy: The Korn tour is really good, just because it's really good, and it' s really professional. ICP (Insane Clown Posse) was fun, definitely a learning experience. Rammstein was cool, lots of pyrotechnics. I think we're all very impressed by the food on the Korn tour. Good eats.

Shoutweb: How did you guys end up on the Korn tour?

Jimmy: I guess Jon Davis heard the CD and wanted to laugh at us and throw shit at us in person, so he invited us on the tour, so we said, "Ummm, YEAH! OKAY!"

Shoutweb: What's it like playing in a stadium that big?

Jimmy: It's not that very much different, I'd say that some of the ICP shows... actually like half of the ICP shows, and a couple of the Rammstein shows were pretty big, kinda similar to this, so it wasn't a complete absolute shocker, like Oh my god! One or two of the places were like HUGE, like Fargo, that place was gigantic. Very weird. They like us in Canada, which is weird. I wasn't sure how they were gonna react. Some night's people are like "Yay!", and other night people are like right off the bat, the curtain opens and they're like, "You suck!", but that's all part of it, and we enjoy it. We never leave the stage until we're damn fuckin' done. We usually have a good time fuckin with 'em, and pissin 'em off. The nice thing about a smaller club is that you have more stuff you can play with. You can come off the stage, run to the back. They have a lot more rules in a larger place, but the nice thing is that the crowd reacts as a whole. You can pretty much make 'em do what you want 'em to do.

Shoutweb: What kind of music do you listen to?

Jimmy: Right now I'm bringing it back to the eight and the nine. I just went out and bought the new Vanilla Ice. I bought Pump up the Jam, and I'm listening to Snow, Informer.

Shoutweb: You listen to Snow?!?

Jimmy: Yes.

Shoutweb: Man, I haven't heard that guy in so long.

Jimmy: (Laughs) A lot of people haven't heard that guy in so long.

Shoutweb: Which of your CD's do you like better, Tight, or Frankenstein Girls?

Jimmy: Um, I don't know. For me they're very similar. One's longer than the other one. I like the new one just cuz there's so much there. I mean it's in alphabetical order, and that kind of stuff. If I had like four or five albums I'd be able to go, "I really liked this one. This is a great period of my life, yada yada yada.", but they're back to freakin' back.

Shoutweb: What made you decide to cover a Method Man song?

Jimmy: It's a good song. I liked that song, it wasn't too new, or too old, or nothing like that. There was a lot to it, and I enjoyed it. I just made it a little wackier, and as usual, most people don't even know it's a cover.

Shoutweb: What do you guys do to pass the time on your tour bus?

Jimmy: Crunch berries... Steve raps... a couple of farts...

Shoutweb: Do you invite your mom to your concerts?

Jimmy: Yeah, she's come to one of my concerts. She enjoyed it in the fact that I wasn't bumming money off of her anymore. I don't think she necessarily got it, but she thought it was funny.

Shoutweb: Where did you get that pink suit?

Jimmy: (sort of rapping) Well, I put the pink suit together. I had to dye it, and do all the stuff.

Shoutweb: So you made that yourself?

Jimmy: Well there ain't no pink suit's out there for boys. Well, there might be now that pink is the "in color", and Gwen Stefani is wearing pink, now there might be a pink suit out there for a guy, but when I was looking around a year ago there was nothing. I had to get a white outfit, and basically dye the whole thing pink, and it was running all over me for the whole last summer.

Shoutweb: So, why did you decide to do that?

Jimmy: To piss people off... For fun... It's some guy running around in a pink suit.

Shoutweb: What's the craziest thing you've done on-stage?

Jimmy: Um. Drink my own piss I guess would be the first thing. The thing I don't like about that is that when I do something like that, Steve will do something as well, and people won't notice that he did anything. Like, I drank my own piss, but then he took the cup, and drank MY piss! I mean, my piss is my piss, if I'm drinkin' that, it's my piss, if he drinks it, it's somebody else's piss.

Shoutweb: ...that is so cool...

Jimmy: (Laughs)

Shoutweb: How did you guys end up being a band?

Jimmy: We just sort of put it together and it just ended up being like this.

Shoutweb: Did you guys know each other before..or..?

Jimmy: Yeah we knew each other before for a long time, but we were never in any bands. I hate, fuckin' hate musicians. I pretty much went around and found friends who could play, and were into doing something stupid.

Shoutweb: How do I get my hands on the "Bring the Pain" video?

Jimmy: (fake Chinese accent) I'm not sure.. I'm not sure. We made it and we sent it out, it wasn't very good, it wasn't finished. We just kinda sent it out and people started playing it here and there. I really don't know, I think I have a copy. You should check E-bay. People selling my stuff on E-bay and payin' for college while I'm here starving.

Shoutweb: How come you have pong on your website?

Jimmy: Cuz pong rules man!!!

Shoutweb: Do you guys ever plan on writing a serious song?

Jimmy: Probably not. Some of them are pretty serious, but it's just whatever works. Like I could start out with a serious idea. I could write a whole song that's serious, and the chorus is the shit, then I'll destroy the rest of the song and just work on the chorus and write new stuff. Pretty much it's whatever sounds good to me goes. It's all on what sounds good as opposed to the idea of the song.

Shoutweb: What's the story behind "I Hate Jimmy Page"?

Jimmy: The basic jist is that I'm getting really sick of people just goin' on and on about classic musicians, and Clapton is god, and Led Zeppelin, and nobody ever wrote a better song, and that's the best record, and blah blah blah, and then not doing anything new. It's like they all just sit around and pray to these guys. It's like great, I'm sure we all wouldn't be doing what we're doing if Led Zeppelin hadn't written this song, and if the Beatles hadn't done that. Let's move on. I mean even with the Sex Pistols shit, it's like alright the Sex Pistols did their thing. Why would you want to do Sex Pistols Part 2? Ya know what I mean, it's like what's the point? Do something different, entertain me, plug in a frickin' toaster. Who cares if you can hit an e-minor 7th chord. Make me wanna see you for a reason.

Shoutweb: How did you end up with the name Little Jimmy Urine?

Jimmy: Nobody ever called me that, so I figured I'd go with it.

#Its not new before you ask #[Clearly] #shoutweb #interview