What’s up man?

Just hanging out, doing the show in Louisville, Kentucky.

I can barely here you. I don’t know if there’s any kind of volume switch on your end.

All I have is my cell phone. I had it on speaker phone, but I shut it off and put it up to my ear now.

I can hear you fine now.

Cool.

First off, tell me what it’s been like touring with Metallica.

It’s pretty easy. We play for about an hour. These guys, they tour like two days on, day off, day on, day off. Stuff like that, so we spend a lot of time in our hotel rooms. But out of all the bands I’ve played with, they’re the nicest guys I’ve played with.

Is it strange for you guys, having been primarily a headlining band, to now kind of take a role as opening for another band?

In this case, I don’t think so, cause it makes sense. We’re not … big heads. We understand who Metallica is. They have a twenty year career. We would love to have a twenty year career. If this is the stuff that we have to take to do it, we’re gonna do it.

I interviewed Tony last year and he told me at the time, out of all the bands out there, you guys would love to open for Metallica. Was that something you guys were pushing for?

Yeah, we always wanted to. That would be a tour that if you think about it, who would you want to play with? And out of all the bands, you know, let’s play with the granddaddy’s you know. Out with the big boys and here we are. You never know when you do get the tour, you don’t know what to expect with what kind of people they are, but all in all, it’s been a great crew. All the crew likes our crew. They’ll do anything for us. We ask ‘em for a PA, they’re letting us borrow mikes, checking this thing out and that thing out. And the band, we hang out with James every once in a while. We were in Europe skeet-shooting, go-cartin. They’re a great bunch of guys.

I’m in Great Falls, Montana and next week you’re playing a show out here. Is it something where you guys are gonna pull over on the side of the road on your way to Calgary and rock out the Montanans?

That’s pretty much what we’re gonna do. I didn’t even know about this date up until a few days ago.

It was just announced like three weeks ago, so it’s kind of a quick deal.

It’s good too, we’ll do our own little thing. Have we played up there before? Great Falls.

The only times you guys have ever played in Montana was the show in Missoula last year with Adema.

I remember that one.

It’s weird cause Great Falls is like in the center of the state, it doesn’t have a college. Usually the cities that get chosen are Billings, Bozeman and Missoula, but for some reason Great Falls got the nod. It’s been real exciting. People are going nuts. The venue holds about six thousand and it’s close to selling out, which is pretty good for this area.

That’s awesome. I think if people have never seen us before are really gonna enjoy the show, you know. Especially with what you got going.

How do you feel about playing shows in smaller markets?

I love ‘em because you don’t get to do it often and when you do, it’s not like … here’s a perfect example, you go to L.A. and New York and you go play there and you’re an opening act there. Half of the people aren’t gonna show up and those that do are gonna sit on their asses with their arms folded, saying show me what you got. You go someplace like Great Falls, you go to places where there’s not a lot of rock shows, everybody’s into it and excited about it. It’s like you’re a kid again.

I know what you’re saying man. I’ve seen shows in big cities and little cities and it is weird cause in the little towns it is more intense.

Yeah. And it’s legitimate. Everybody wants to go there and get there early. And they’re excited about it.

They had a little contest last week of local bands, and the winner of this contest gets to open for you guys. How do you guys feel about having a local opener who you’ve never heard of get up there on stage and play before you?

We had done that before we were signed. If you’re good and you get voted in, hey I’m all for it. I’ll do my best to promote it and that kind of thing. And if they’re really good I want their CD. Cause we’re always looking for a new band. That’s how we started. We packed up, Paul our manager at the time owns a club, he wasn’t our manager at the time, he was a club owner. We backed up Candlebox and Ronnie James Dio and Ratt, so we did what we had to do to get our music out there.

I was at your guys’ show at Red Rocks back in 2000. It as KBPI Birthday Bash and the speaker caught on fire … do you know what I’m talking about?

I know exactly what you’re talking about. That was a great night. We didn’t know what was going on. I think our engineer was pushing the shit out of our speakers. I really don’t know. I think it was a faulty wire or something. I’m not really sure.

It was cool cause it was the last song of the show, of the encore, and it was perfect. The thing was burning and burning and then you guys got done and they could put it out and everyone went home.

Yeah. That was a really good show. I love it up in Red Rocks. We played there last year too.

Yeah it’s a great place to see a show.

Um hm.

So you guys working on new material for a studio album?

Yeah. When we can, we have a jam room and we’ve been playing and doing riffs. We’re gonna take a couple months off this summer. First month is for ourselves and the second month we’re gonna go start writing and then after we tour, we start back up August 16 and then we go through November 27 with Metallica then we’re gonna take a little bit more time off and then the beginning of the year go somewhere and write. Tear shit up and get in the studio, hopefully by springtime. That’s what we’re hoping for.

Are you guys gonna do an acoustic tour of any kind?

That could happen depending on how “The Other Side” how the single’s doing on radio. That could happen after we hit the studio. Perhaps a small little theater run, acoustically. That’s up in the air, we don’t know what’s going on with that.

Metallica have gone through their fair share of being tortured by the masses in reference to selling out. As a band involved in mainstream rock, do you guys get tired of hearing that term “sell-out” being thrown around by media and fans?

No. We haven’t heard that yet with us.

I don’t mean with “you guys” but in general. With bands in general.

Here’s what happens. A lot of times bands get bored and they wanna search and reach and try different things. You can do the same thing over and over and over, but after awhile you’ve done it. That’s why with Metallica’s new record, it sounds different because of that. They wanted to do something totally different. They did it on purpose. Same thing with acoustic music. We all love that type of stuff. We’re all versatile musicians. We were able to convey that stuff out before. We kind of did with “Voodoo” then we had “Spiral” on the “Awake” record and “Serenity” on “Faceless.” So we always want to throw that little bone out to let them know that we can do a little more than just rock. So that’s when we put the acoustic CD out and it’s like something it made sense to do. It was fun to do. And the songs were fun to play acoustically. And hopefully someday we’ll be able to branch out even more.

Do you think successful bands are punished for selling a lot of records?

Yeah. In American it’s tough. Cause so much of it, like that New York, L.A. thing I was telling you about. There’s so much of it that people listen to it, and the label’s will spit you out real quick if you don’t sell a lot of records. So you could sell 10 million records and then sell four and it’s a disaster. For a band like us, we’ll sell three and it’s like awesome.

If you weren’t in a band, what would you be doing with yourself?
I was a roofer before I was in the band. But now I’m into motorcross and hockey, so I’d probably try to buy a motorcross or try to start one up or something like that. That’s my goal someday. Do some fun stuff.

Were you bummed that the Celtics got swept?

I don’t watch basketball. I was bummed the Bruins lost. I had a playoff deal going and everything. I was pissed.

If you could share the stage with any bands past or present, but you guys are on the bill, what would those bands be?

I would love to play with Led Zeppelin.

Any other ones?

We’ve played with Sabbath, done Metallica, Ozzy. I don’t know, let’s see. That’s a lot of bands I grew up … Oh, I would love to hang out with Rush. Play with them.

Thank you Robbie, for getting in touch with me.

Get ready for some snow.

Why is it cold?

I shouldn’t say that. It was like 79 degrees yesterday and right now you can’t even see the road, so it might be sunny and fine by next week.

We’ll get ready for it (laughs).

Have a good one.

Thanks man.