BF: I read that the songwriting on this album was way more collaborative than in past albums. Why was that the case?
JT: It was a longer time period between II and III than there was between I and II, so we had a lot more opportunity to go out and play these songs live. We’ve been playing a lot of these songs live for a year-and-a-half, so it’s been a constant process of revising and rearranging.
BP: Maybe two or three years from now, a song that we’ll play tonight might change a lot, but it won’t happen consciously. It will morph or evolve.
BF: Like I said before, this album is very dark. Are you at all concerned that people will hear this and be put off by it?
BP: I think people like dark stuff. I mean, look at Black Sabbath. They are the darkest shit in the universe. There’s not a person I know who says, “Oh, I HATE Black Sabbath.”
JT: It’s still a Budos album. I know our press release says, “We thought we were going to make a psychedelic doom rock record,” which is kind of bullshit, but we did think it was gonna be something way off-the-charts different, and yet it’s still a Budos album. (Daptone Records co-founder) Neal Sugarman came in the session and said, “I thought you guys were doing something totally different. This is just a fucking Budos album!” It is darker, and now when we play some of these songs live…we’re not going way off the edge, but we’re pushing it, and it’s getting a little noisier, so maybe IV is where we’ll make the noise record.
BF: Are you gonna keep numbering all of the albums, or are you gonna stop like Zeppelin at four and then come up with regular titles?
JT: What would we call the fifth one? We’d come up with the worst fucking title ever.
BF: (laughs) Now you mentioned playing these songs live—how much are the songs changing live, as opposed to the studio?
BP: They’re changing a lot. It’s funny, I was reading some crap on the Internet with one of our songs attached to it, and I thought, “Let me just hear what people are hearing after they read this little article.” And (after hearing it), I thought, “Wow.” We only recorded it five months ago, and I’m listening to it and thinking, “Damn. I don’t do that anymore, and I don’t do this anymore.” We’re already changing it.
BF: Are you adding a lot of improv into these songs?
JT: No. If there’s one thing we don’t do, it’s space out.
BP: There’s never a time when we’re like “Alright! Let’s break this baby open! Go ahead, man!”
BF: No 20 minute “Chicago Falcon”?
BP: No way. We always know exactly where the song is. All the solos are structured and set. It’s never like “You wanna take this one? Yeah, go ahead!” That shit don’t happen. But the cool thing about the structure is that we can push that song without going…
JT: Off the rails, man. That’s the last thing we wanna have happen.
BP: With ten guys.
JT: No way. We’re not blasting off to fucking Mars.
BP: You mentioned being on tour with ten guys and it’s always a party, but you’ve been out for the last month, and you’re going out for another solid month with just this little short break in between. There have to be times when you want to kill each other, right?
JT: It’s so crazy, but it never happens. I think one big reason is that we have no problem telling each other to just fuck off. And that doesn’t even happen that much, but if it needs to happen, it does. And then we move on.
BF: I’ve heard you guys consider yourselves to be a brotherhood. What defines that for you? Is that just bullshit, or is it a real thing that you actually believe?
BP: It’s a real thing. There’s a strong bond between us.
JT: That part isn’t bullshit.
BP: (_jokingly_) We never called ourselves a brotherhood. We’re more of a cult.
BF: Some of the guys in the band are schoolteachers. (_BP raises his hand. _) You’re a teacher, so are you gigging during every waking moment of free time?
BP: Pretty much every vacation, every three-day weekend, we make something happen.
BF: Does everyone in the band have a day job?
JT: Everyone has a job, except for Tom (Brenneck) and Mike (Deller). Tom’s a full-time musician. Mike just doesn’t have a job.
BF: (laughs) Are you guys any closer to giving up those jobs? Is that a goal?
BP: No way.
JT: It’s not a goal. I think that’s how we work. That’s part of who we are. This is not a full-time thing, and that’s what makes this fun. It’s not our job, so we go out and have a lot of fun with it.
BP: I think if it became a full-time job, that’s when we’d start seeing conflicts and crazy shit. Pretty much every time we’re on the road it’s vacation time—it’s party time. Everyone’s amped up, everyone’s together, and we’re having a good time. If it were a full-time gig, I think the band would self-destruct.
BF: It must take a lot of the pressure off when you don’t have to worry about earning your keep from it.
BP: Right.
No Comments comments associated with this post