RC: Yes Indeed I'm a happy camper, we're at the back of
the HedPe tour bus. We're with Chad...
Chad: What's happening?
RC: The guitatist, one of the 'guitar brothers', and
Mawk...
Mawk: Yeah, I'm the bass player.
RC: How did you find your way from Europe to Huntington
Beach, CA?
Mawk: I just came here looking for a band, I met Jahred
one night and he was so drunk, leaning against the
bar, at some club somewhere in Orange County. We
started talking and he was looking for a bass
player and he was a singer and we hooked up the
next day and that was nine years ago.
RC: And you guys have made great music since then. It
seems to have clicked since the first album. The
first album was a little raw compared to this one
Broke, you definately need to check it out, and
then you can throw it in your CD-ROM and it's got
some cool behind the scenes sh** going on as well.
You guys brought Machine in to the studio as a
producer on this, how did you pick up on him? He's
done some work with Shootyz Groove and stuff, and
he has a very refined trained ear and it seems
like his work has really amalgamated with your
stuff nicely.
Mawk: He did a remix of us a couple of years ago, a song
called "Darky." He did a crazy industrial techno
dance mix of one of the song, freaked us out, and
then last summer we did a song for the Black
Sabbath tribute album, a song called "Sabba
Cadabra." We hooked up with Machine and did the
whole thing in a weekend.
RC: What album was that on?
Mawk: It was on Nativity in Black.
RC: Was that on Masses of Reality?
Chad: You'ld have to dig through your old record
collection to find that one out.
RC: I was trying to look smart but it ain't working.
Chad: Don't try to look smart on TV, it never works. We
learned that the dorkier you are actually the
cooler you are.
RC: I am a dork on television.
Chad: We're not afraid to be as dorky as we wanna be.
RC: Now did you record most of this on the back of the
bus? The first one was more of a studio work
where as the foundation of this one was written
on the back of the bus for Ozzfest?
Chad: Uhmmm...
RC: Am I wrong? Spank me!
Chad: Well what happened was the writing process for
this album was done on tour. Our first album we
never went on tour, you know before you make your
first record so, we recorded a lot of our stuff
on the bus and wrote it. It was more like a
preproduction thing. We didn't record any of the
album while we were traveling, you know.
RC: Now you didn't tour Ozzfest in an RV or anything
did you?
Mawk: No, we had our own adventures on Ozzfest. We had
a bus for a little while, a really nice bus and
then we had a little disagreement with the driver
and he left us on a sidewalk in Wisconsin.
RC: "Wisconsin Death Trip"!
Mawk: It almost was, it was a Wisconsin suck trip and it
just went on. I didn't see Chad or any of the guys
for days. We'ld all hitch-hike on different
peoples buses and a couple of us drove a ride a
truck that the equipment went in.
Chad: I just want to say that all the stories that you
hear about us, they're all true. It's not like
we're making up these cool stories about us like
ohh... poor us, we went through all of it.
RC: It just sort if seems to happen around you, it seems
like.
Chad: It's a lot better right now. People look at us now
and think that everything's so great, but it
hasn't always been this way. We came up from
traveling fourteen months with eleven guys in a
RV. I don't know that many bands that have done
that you know.
RC: That's a tight squeeze.
Chad: And we survived, we almost self-destructed to tell
you the truth.
RC: Months of therapy for the band or what? What's
theraputic to HedPe for a situation like that?
Mawk: Everybody has thier own answer for that. We all
go home and do our own different thing. I like to
disappear in to the woods myself, Chad has his
thing, we all go our own ways. You got to do
something to keep sane, you know.
RC: Something to keep touch and keep your feet on the
ground so you can come back to it and start anew
and make a great product like this. Now I was
reading some reviews and a lot of the critics
were comparing you guys to Korn and Limp Bizkit
and I just don't hear that. I hear HedPe and I
hear a singer that has much more of a vocal range
than Fred Durst and Jonathan Davis. They are kind
of two-range singers, where as Jahred is a
diversified talent. It must be great to work with
that. Is that kind of what keeps you going even
though you haven't hit pay day yet?
Chad: Well, we didn't start this band to make a million
dollars and become famous. So the reasons are the
same, that we make music.
RC: A lot of bands do that.
Chad: If that was the case we would have given up a long
time ago because we've been around a longer time
than some of the bands you've mentioned or at
least as long. What keeps us interested is the
growth that we all go through as people and
musically. We think that we have something to
offer special, no matter what any journalist wants
to compare us to. To us we will only take it as
flattering remarks, we don't care.
RC: It's nice to get mentioned these days, it keeps your
name out there.
Chad: If someone goes, 'ohh... this band HedPe', first
they're talking about us which we like, and if
they say 'ohh if you've never heard of them you
might think Rage Against the Machine.' You might
think that would make us mad but not really,
they're one of our favorite bands.
RC: Right, you take it as a homage, which is cool.
Chad: We don't get hung up or bummed out about people
comparing us.
RC: I was a critic once and to me to just flat out
compare a band to one band that's just flat out
a shortcut to thinking.
Chad: Journalistic laziness.
RC: Exactly, now I just want to ask you about this, the
'guitar brothers' thing (refering to the other
guitarist Westyle), where if one of you don't
want to do something you have to look at eachother
and say 'guitar brothers'. Was that a distorted
story that I read?
Chad: No, that's a very true story. It had a lot to do
with drinking... Jack Daniels and since I've kind
of cut my Jack Daniels consumption pretty much
completely out of the picture that kind of thing
died out. If on any given night he(Westyle) was
drinking a lot of Jack Daniels and I wasn't and
he wanted me to all he had to say was 'guitar
brothers' and then it would of kind of force me in
to it. Then we would pay eachother back, if he was
trying to chill I would try to rush him and bum
him out on something in the name of the 'guitar
brothers.' It's funny that you would even hear
about that cause it's kind of an inside thing.
RC: I try to read about things and I've dug you guys
since the first CD. I sited you way back in the
day with the self-titled debut. I didn't hear your
indie release but I knew that this was on the
state of cutting edge material. A lot of people
tend to forget the pioneers and are sometimes are
the ones left behind. But you guys came back and
proved that wrong cause you've up'd the stakes
once again and came out with some great sh**! Is
this the producer Machine on the cover?
Chad: No, that's an actual homeless person.
RC: Oh really, it said that in the press kit.
Mawk: It said that in which press kit?
RC: I have it in the front, I'll show ya'.
Chad: That's a misprint, that's a large misprint. That's
cool though, I like that kind of stuff.
RC: Could you show me the rif for "Meadow" real quick?
(Chad picks up his guitar and plays for a minute)
Chad: Something like that.
RC: That's a nice song, a nice arangement. While you
were on the road did you see a lot of evil content
in the world. It seems to reflect back through on
this CD, it seems like you're frustrated with how
the world is and how people are? Even with on
"Jesus of Nazareth" and how Jahred is calling out
to him.
Chad: Yeah, exactly how you said, and Jahred writes all
the lyrics so a lot of that is his personal
reflection and things he has had to overcome.
Mawk: Definately everything on that album relates to
what we lived and how we lived for the last two
years, cause everything was written while we were
on tour. It reflects things that went on
particularly in Jahred's life and maybe ours too.
But it's not apllicable to all of us, like I
don't feel like I'm waiting to die every day.
RC: Like "Killing Time" it's like whoa... Armagedan's
coming baby!
Mawk: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
RC: This is Armagedan on CD, it's a powerful attack, you
guys did a great job and I'm wishing you nothing
but the best this time around. "Bartender" is on
the airwaves now, are you working on another track
for a video?
Mawk: It's probably gonna be "Killing Time."
RC: Yeah, alright, I love the opening rif for that it's
a hook mother f***er.
Chad: It's NOT pop music.
RC: One more quick question, how do you hook up with a
label that has N'Sync, Backstreet Boys, and
Britney Spears.
Chad: I can answer that question very easy. We signed
with Jive a number of years ago, like you said
we've been around a long time ago and at that time
the only artists that we knew they had was more of
a hip-hop roster, like KRS-One. They were famous
for like Too-Short and A Tribe Called Quest and on
and on. Then we put our record out and like a year
later they started puting out these pop acts and
we were like 'isn't that our label?' But the good
thing about that is they made a lot of money and
hopefully they'll throw a little of that our way.
RC: They seem like a label that takes care of thier
artists, spread the love.
Mawk: Well, we're not exactly selling out arenas and
we're riding in this nice bus and life's pretty
good.
Chad: Yeah, we have Britney Spears to thank for the bus.
RC: Well thanks guys, appreciate your time.
For More Info Go To www.hedpe.com
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