My kids don't really like when I sing for some reason...but they like when I play guitar. So I started writing songs just playing guitar for them.
You can go to any small town in America, there's going to be a metal fan there. You can't say that about post-rock.
I was young, but to me that was underground music. I had never heard anything like Venom or any of that stuff growing up in Louisville. That was sort of the only weird records I could find. All that stuff would be in the import section. And sometimes there would be some sort of goth type of stuff. But that was the stuff I was attracted to.
Now since I've gotten back into it, I've been listening to a lot more of the 1990s death metal type stuff.
We aren't trying to make poetry or anything beautiful. It's just a rock show. We just want to enjoy playing loud. That's just about it.
On a musical level, I do find it rewarding. It's not like I want to blow my brains out while I'm playing these songs from so long ago. I am still surprised by the way the songs are constructed - note choices, the way the arrangements are made, the way these songs are assembled. I'm still amazed at times.
In my entire life I never set out to do anything ground-breaking or pioneering, and I'm not going to start anytime soon.
I'm still in the Midwest, but I'm in Columbus, Ohio, so I'm three and a half hours away from everybody. That's one of the reasons we're not as active as we'd like to be - it's an expensive chore for me to go down there just to talk or something.
We were pretty normal - suburban kids having a good time playing in bands. We were silly. We weren't dark, intense, humorless people. Humor was one of the connecting forces among us. It was more like camaraderie.
When we woke up every morning, one of our things was, "Let's go put a new sign in the back window of the van." Those are the different signs we had up in the back of our van, so that the people behind us could have something enjoyable to look at.
It was pretty common to form bands that only lasted a few years. Slint was my favorite band that I was in at the time, and I didn't realize that I was bummed out about it until quite a while later.
I think the majority of the people in the band still play in other bands, because we're not that active. But for me, it's the only thing I want to do and it's the only thing I'm focused on. I've always played in a couple of different bands at once, but now I'm only interested in the Dead Child stuff.
I stayed a kid for a pretty long time, and the logistics of being in a band, I did not take seriously at all.
The thing I like about the band [Dead Child] is that there's no pretense. We aren't even trying to be artists or poets.
To be honest, just trying to get everybody together in one room to get our picture taken for the back of the album, it took so long just to organize that.
I was into the music, but the idea of showing up places on time or having to tell people when you're not going to be somewhere - that just didn't even cross my mind.
I don't know if it was related to the type of music that we were doing at that time or what, but Todd Cook actually just turned to me and was like, "You know what would be a great name for a metal band? Dead Child." We talked half-jokingly that we were going to do a band. I guess as time went on, I started writing songs that were more metal sounding, and it just evolved from there. It actually started with the name first, and then the songs came second.
We just have to plan everything in advance and concentrate it so that we get everything done in time. It's not as laidback as I wish it could be.
Punk came along and grunge made guitar solos uncool.
When I was younger and bands were formed that way, out of friendships rather than anything else. It wasn't like we put up want ads.
Personally, I love the cookie monster grunts. I like how they alienate listeners. We sound the way we sound. We're individuals. We don't all like the same music. Everybody contributes their own influences, style, and history.
When I was really young, I was really into Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden and those kinds of bands.
I was into Metallica when they first started, like when Kill Em All came out.
As I got older, it turned into hardcore punk. I started getting into more aggressive music.
I listen to every type of metal under the sun. I'm not very discerning.
