January 30, 2005 - Road House Casino - Henderson, NV
Phil: We're sitting here, with Mudvanye...Matt from Mudvanye! How are you doing tonight?
Matt: Superb!
Phil: The first night of the tour was in Sacramento. How did that go?
Matt: Better than expected.
Phil: Really? What kind of a club? Was it a smaller venue?
Matt: It was like this, a small bar/ club with a stage.
Phil: You guys have sold out shows everywhere! What made you decide to do this small club tour?
Matt: Going into this tour cycle, we really wanted to give back to the fans. It's real exciting for us, warming up. I mean it's been over a year since we've toured and this was sort of a cool way to just get close to the fans. Also to breaking us into being on the road, real intimate, back to the basics of what being on stage was about for us. It's a cool opportunity for the kids, we haven't been on stage for years, so it's kind of a bonus for the kids.
Phil: Cool! Your next studio album is Lost and Found is due to be released with Epic Records on April 12?
Matt: Correct!
Phil: Can you tell us what to expect to hear on this album?
Matt: In the spirit of our previous records it's pretty eclectic, we go from heavy songs, from the heavier shorter to the point, metal...to songs that are more bruiting and introverted and internalized. Like we've done on the past records, there's a pretty broad emotional characteristic to the record. Especially like the last one. There's some very radio accessible songs. We just wrote some solid songs, in the spirit of trying to punch ourselves into more of a traditional rock band. Which is exciting for us, getting away from the party ways that we've written our music in the past. Dissolve your individuality in the music and pay more service to the song structure. That was important on this record.
Phil: So, your tickets were only available online?
Matt: Yep, it was an internet thing! Which is Cool!
Phil: I bet it sold out right away!
Matt: I don't really pay attention to any of that, the whole point behind this was the limited availability. If you could call a tour a collectors item, being able to come to one of these tours will be like that! Like getting a drumstick from a drummer that you're really into, getting an autograph from a famous actor, it's one of those one time sort of things. This tour, in a sense, is like that opportunity to have that special, unique experience. So that was the idea of the online event of putting these tickets out, and also doing these small clubs.
Phil: You've chosen Happy? to be the next single off of Lost & Found.
Matt: Actually it is the first single, Determined wasn't an officially released single. Just as in the spirit of this tour, Determined was just a, for lack of a better term, a publicity stunt. In the sense that we took the song and we surfaced it to our fans, we pressed a couple hundred thousand samplers, I don't know maybe not that many, but a lot! Just single CD's and we gave it away free! It was more of the sense of just giving back to the fans, letting everyone know that we appreciate. Kind of as a contradiction to the internet downloading thing, we're not afraid to let our fans have a song. We thought that was a really cool thing so it wasn't necessarily a single release. It was never surfaced directly to the radio, if the radio played it that was their prerogative.
Phil: Oh, okay! So, how do you go about choosing the song that's going to be released or does the label do that?
Matt: Oh no, we pretty much have our own say so, it's definitely a collaborative relationship. theoretically we have a say in every aspect of the way that our career is worked through the label. Of course there is give and take and everybody has their own opinions. Obviously, people who work in the radio department at the record label, that's their job, they're supposed to know, so you want to trust their instincts, their intuition. But we've never had any serious contradictions, as far as singles that we've wanted to put out, everyone has pretty much agreed. It was between two songs, Happy? and another one and it wasn't so much of a fight over who won. It was more of a "wow these are both good songs to lead a record with!" We all just kind of sat back and took a couple of months reflecting and feeling it out and living with the songs before we made a decision. Case in point to note, we've got some other strong singles to follow this one! Which we're excited about, we've never had a really strong second radio single. With LD50, we had Dig, then we never really had a strong follow up single to that. So we're really excited and have some expectations and hopes that we can lead with another strong second single after Happy?.
Phil: You guys have sold millions of units worldwide, been involved from MTV to The sopranos on HBO. Did you ever anticipate this type of success?
Matt: Absolutely! I knew we were rock stars! *laughs* I mean how can anybody? Unless you're like a David Bowie or a Mick Jagger or something. Maybe those people are able to, maybe when you gifted or a genius like that, you know that you're just going to be somebody special someday! But for normal, regular people like us who just work really hard at something that they love, you'll never see it in terms of selling millions of records.
Greg: It's all about making the people understand!
Matt: There's a lot of factors that are definitely out of your control that contribute to the success that you experience. Those things you can't visualize or have expectations about. Chance meetings at the right time and right place, being part of a movement at the right time. The timing is, there's so many things that you just can't really choose or control. I mean we're very fortunate, there's probably much better bands that deserve the success that we've had. They just have never had the opportunity, it's just the way the chips fall sometimes. I don't take it that personal really?
Phil: What other guest appearances on CD's or any type of stuff like that have you made?
Matt: We've been on like samplers of all kinds of things. I know we've been on like a WWF...What was that wrestle thing? WWF sampler that we were on? Didn't we have Dig on that a live version of Dig on that or something one time?
Greg: Yea, WWF.
Matt: We've been on stuff like that, but I can't remember specifically. We've been on a few shows. We've been on Carson Daily.
Greg: Jimmy Kimmel. No, not Kimmel....Kilbourne.
Matt: Yea, not Kimmel, we were on Craig Kilbourne. So that was pretty cool.
Phil: Awesome! Yea, he's since been replaced with that other guy now.
Matt: Yea, Carson Daily was pretty wacked out, I think it was...was it Carson Daily that they had their first pit on?
Greg: Oh yea, they pitted full circle!
Matt: Yea, it was pretty fucking wacky!
Phil: So were there any songs that didn't make it on this new release that you were like "oh man, I wish that song would be on there!"
Matt: No, we've never...our writing philosophy is we don't write a song unless it's right or unless it writes itself. There's no extra songs. A song is worked and has its own spirit and it has its own identity.
Greg: It's too much work.
Matt: *laughs* It's too much work, absolutely! So, I mean essentially we know that at a certain point when we're working through a song...we can just look at each other and go "that's fucking cheesy, it's just not working, or something's missing." It's not becoming revealed through the writing process. Then the song will get discarded and parted out and lots of times, reworked and digested into other songs. So in the past, we've always set it out and said "okay we're going to write this many songs." Like with the last record we knew it was going to be a 13 song album. One song we already knew it was going to be silent and we knew we needed 12 other songs and we knew what the song content was going to be lyrically for each one. There were 12 songs already in print so wrote 12 songs, period. There was no, let's write 15 and pick. This record we wanted to write 12 songs, it was much looser, we didn't have a specific number that we had to write, but there's something about the number 12 that works really well. I like working in 12's. But we ended up having an extra song that we did, before the recording of the last record, that we did for fun that was just on its own, that we started playing live last year. It was a reinterpretation when we did it live. For this record we thought it would be fun to capture that with the producer we were working with. So, we recorded that one too. And then, after the record was done, we had time, we had a much longer break than we expected, so we went back into the rehearsals...out East in Illinois, we wrote two more songs just for fun. So we ended up having 15 songs for this record. It came down to, we've never done something like this, we only wanted 12 songs on the record, what are we going to do? We actually pulled two and switched a couple around which was...we've never done something like that before and it was not something we intended to do. It was kind of weird, kind of painful. Point being, every song that we wrote, we were happy with and we felt right with those completed songs. So, those other songs, will surface for something.
Phil: Movie soundtracks?
Matt: Movie soundtracks, or maybe on a sampler kind of thing. Something like that. They're special enough to us that we're not going to just toss them away. I couldn't see any of them being used on another record. They were part of the spirit of what this record was in the writing process. It's not like it's going to pop up on another record. I would have a very hard time seeing that. We don't work like that.
Phil: Do you guys have any headlining or co headlining tours coming up that you can give us a little bit of...
Matt: Yea! Well the idea is that we come off this run in America, we go to Europe for another...it's even shorter than this one, for like two weeks. We're back home by March 4th or 5th.
Greg: 5th.
Matt: 5th! Then we'll take the rest of March off, going into rehearsals or whatever and hopefully be leading a headlining tour into an album release. Be on the road two weeks before the album comes out. Dates have been thrown around, a tour schedule has been thrown around...the big thing we're dealing with right now is just putting together the right package, finding the right bands and stuff.
Phil: How about future DVD plans?
Matt: Nothing specifically.
Greg: Hope fucking not, I'm tired of doing them!
Matt: *laughs* Our last one was really disappointing. I don't know...it's just, we don't like to do things unless it's...the spirit of it has to be a realized thing and if it's something that we're just throwing together to satisfy a contractual demand or something like that, it really doesn't artistically follow within the realm of how we operate. In my opinion it's fly from the concept if we're not doing it as part of the project of what we are. I think it kind of shows in the last DVD. If we do another DVD, I'd like to come at it with the perspective that it's going to fit into the equation of the scheme of what the record was about. Maybe with our touring, with the collective, creative space is about. Make it something that contributes to the obvious point we're at. Instead of it being, let's film a couple of shows and put it on DVD. It's cool in the first live DVD, it was great, we were really happy with it. But, now it's kid of like, could we utilize the medium and make it something more special? I'm sure there's going to be...obviously we're going to do something, eventually. But...maybe we should start planning it before hand, so we're one up and ready!
Phil: So you're not filming any of these shows at the smaller venues?
Matt: No! Actually, I don't want to! The problem is...it's dangerous too, if the footage doesn't exist then there's no fear of somebody gaining control and it getting out. Even inside of our camp, somebody getting ideas, like "hey, we've got some footage, let's do something with it!" The idea of filming the very first shows that we've played in 14 months, is a little intimidating, I'd rather just not document it. Just not have the possibility of, I mean 'cause, visualize say...the band sounds great but the drummer sucked that night. I have to deal with that! Everybody is like this turned out so much better than we thought. We've got fuckin' five shows done, we could edit out a few songs and put together a DVD, but unfortunately, I'm not on my game, like these are my first shows. I'm going to have to live with that, it's a dangerous situation. You know what I'm sayin'? I'd rather just have some time to focus on what's important right now, the show. Not putting together a product and filming and having all that shit. It's about the fans, it's about the show, it's about us getting on stage and having a good time and getting to do what we've always loved. You know, get away from having to worry about recording records and making DVD's and being contractual to the record label and whose got what points and who's getting sucked off behind some desk somewhere. We're just playing rock-n-roll on stage and having fun!
Phil: Well, I'd like to thank you for taking the time out with closedcoffin.com here in Las Vegas, it's actually Henderson, but Las Vegas sounds cooler!
Matt: We're close enough! You can gamble inside can't you?
Phil: Yea, if the place would ever open!
Matt: It's not open?
Phil: Well, it wasn't earlier but I think it's starting to turn on the pin ball machines!
Greg: It's not a real casino!
Phil: Right! I heard casino and...
Matt: Casino, doesn't that imply 24hours and get a beer at 5:30 in the morning!
Phil: Exactly! That's what we had thought. We came down early to get a beer but you know, that just didn't happen, so...well, do you have any final words for the fans?
Matt: No, just hope you get to come to the show and enjoy. We appreciate you coming out! If unfortunately, you weren't able to get a ticket online, this is just the beginning of...we'll be back around.
Phil: So, you'll be back to America and be doing a lot more North American dates, right?
Matt: Oh absolutely! I'm assuming we'll do this headlining tour coming up, we'll do a summer festival, we'll do another headlining tour in the Fall, leading into Christmas head into a break and then come back after that, after Christmas. Then who knows, but there is potential that we'll do at least three more US runs!
Phil: Alright, cool, thank you dude!
For more information on Mudvayne visit them online at...
http://mudvayne.com
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