That was over 3 years ago, so a lot has happened since then. We played a few more warm up shows over the next few months and then went on the road to support the self-titled record. First we toured with a band called Epidemic, who was on Elektra at the time, and a rotating line up of opening bands that included Unloco, The Color Red and Seether. It's very strange to look back and think that Seether was opening for us at one point. If we play with them again, we'll be opening for them...

After that tour we went out with Chevelle and Stone Sour for a couple more months. That was probably the best part of the whole Roadrunner experience -- being out on the road and playing in front of hundreds of people every night. Our tour with Epidemic was fun and there were some good shows, but it's nothing like opening for bigger bands who can draw a lot more people to the show. Unless of course you are that bigger band... we're still working on that.

Then, as you probably know, our contract with Roadrunner ended (which is a nice way of saying we got dropped), and up until this year we were pretty much on our own. We had no label behind us to record a new album or do more touring or anything, so it was like a step backwards in a way. But we ended up just writing non-stop and then finally putting together some money and recording the new album. Once we had the album finished, we shopped it around to a bunch of different people. In the end we decided to go with Rock Ridge Music. They were one of the only labels that seemed genuinely excited about the record and what we were doing and they were just very up front with us. A lot of labels will hype everything up and tell you that you're the next big thing and your record is filled with top 10 singles, but they were more like... you know, this is gonna take a lot of work and not everything we do is going to work, but if you guys are willing to put in the time and effort then we'll get behind the record and get it out there for people. And they were willing to let us be involved in all the decisions and do pretty much whatever we want creatively.

You guys still busting out the TV screens and the ocular noise machine?

Yeah, we still use TVs and video screens in our live show.

I've noticed you playing a few shows here and there in support of the new album, any plans for full on touring?

We're doing what we can. For the immediate future we'll probably be doing more of these smaller things as opposed to a full US tour. We were just out in Michigan for a couple shows and we have some other stuff coming up in the near future. We're trying to get to as many places as we can. Hopefully we can do a full tour eventually. It's just gonna take some time to build things up to that point. Being on a smaller label, we don't have the kind of money that we had on Roadrunner, so we have to be smart. We're making it work though.

How is the live performance for the group developed over time. You certainly already took a unique take on it, how have you managed to expand upon it?

Certainly, the addition of Jay to the band was the biggest evolution of the live show. Since then I think it's just been a matter of us making sure we put on the best show we can. We're always adding in different elements and new content for the visual side of things. It's important to keep things moving forward or else it starts to get boring. It's a lot of work to create the video content for the shows, and a lot of the time we're limited by the venue we're playing in, as far as how we can set up the stage, so sometimes it's difficult to push it as far as we want. But I think the show has been consistently getting better and better. We have so many other ideas too so I think it will always be evolving. At a certain point a lot more options open up. If we're playing bigger venues we can do more with multiple screens and more interesting lighting and stuff, so we're really working towards that.

So enough live talk for now, tell us about the new album, been a long time coming!

It was definitely a long process. I'm glad its finally out. The album was actually done for almost a year before it was released, so we were getting pretty frustrated in that time. There's always gonna be some time in between when you finish a record and when it comes out, but a year is a little ridiculous. We'll try to avoid that next time.

As far as the making of the album, we had a lot of fun doing it. We worked with some great people. Every time we get into the studio it's a learning experience. This time we were definitely more in control so it was exciting to see how things turned out. On the last album, the producer was very involved in the arrangements and the decision making process. At the time it was great because I think we needed that outside influence to push us in some different directions and to make us rethink our whole way of doing things. And then with this album it was our time to get back to exploring all these new ideas ourselves. I think we learned to push ourselves more and to try different things on this album that we might not have tried if we hadn't been through that experience on the first album.

Throughout the whole process we were filming everything so we have a ton of behind-the-scenes footage from the studio. We're gonna be doing some cool stuff with it on the website, so look out for that. You can see a little piece of it now by using the CD to access the exclusive online content. There's a behind-the-scenes video there, some bonus tracks that didn't make it on the album, all the lyrics and a bunch of other stuff.

The album certainly had the groups signature sound and a bit of an expansion upon that this time around, where were you drawing influence from?

I don't think we ever consciously draw influence from anything in particular. Definitely not any particular bands or anything. We're all influenced by what we listen to, but we don't really think about it when we're writing. The main thing I think we tried to do was get away from making things overly long and complicated. It's easy to fall into this thing where you're making songs really long and adding 4 different bridges, just for the sake of doing it. You kind of forget that the song is supposed to be fun to listen to and not just fun to play. There's a big difference.

Do you think you avoided the dreaded sophomore curse successfully, or look back and say 'should of done that differently'? How has the reaction been overall?

It's hard to say at this point, especially since I'm so involved in it. But from the response we're getting, I'd say yeah. People seem to like the new album just as much or even more than the last one so that's a good sign. The last album wasn't this huge successful thing, so it's not like we had as much pressure to live up to something like that. I think the last album was good, but it wasn't a #1 album or anything, so there's still a lot of room for this one to do better. Hopefully we're on our way to something like that.

What was behind the split from Roadrunner, was it amicable?

I wouldn't say it was ugly or anything like that. Maybe "inevitable" is the right word. Technically it was their decision to let us go, but we felt like it was time to get out anyway. They obviously had other priorities and if we did another album there's no guarantee it would even get released, let alone promoted the right way. So I think we're in a better situation now, even though its a smaller label. We have more freedom to do things the way we want and not have to worry about some guy in the marketing department making decisions for us.

Rock Ridge certainly is a new venture and testing the waters, how does it feel to be part of it? They been treating you better comparatively?

It feels really good. Like I said, we have a lot more freedom creatively to do what we want and be more involved in the decision making process. We're definitely working on a smaller scale than a big label like Roadrunner, so there's less money to spend, but it's more satisfying. It's gonna be a long road, but I think in the long run we're much better off where we are now.

You obviously already embrace technology and innovation, and have been in the music industry for quite some time. Where do you see the future of the both technology and the industry heading? Do you think they'll ever get along or we'll be hearing about file sharing incessantly until the end times?

I think about this a lot. The internet has already had a huge impact on how the music industry works. We wouldn't have half the fans we have, especially outside of the US, if it wasn't for the internet. I think it's at the point now where you can really just produce your own content, whether it's music or a novel or television... without having to have some big corporation involved, and still be able to get it out to a huge audience. Just in the past few months the whole "podcasting" thing has really started to take off. I think that's a serious threat to commercial radio. But I think there needs to be a threat. The radio has evolved to a point where it's basically just a big nationwide advertising network. It's exclusive, where the internet is very inclusive. Anyone with a computer, a broadband connection and some free time can now potentially reach more people than any radio station. I don't see radio becoming non-existent, but I think the competition will force stations to rethink what they're doing. People don't want to just hear the same 20 songs over and over again. But for whatever reason that's what it's evolved into. So when people are podcasting and playing stuff that would never be played on the radio -- and they're building a big audience -- people will have to eventually take notice.

The next logical step is "videocasting" or whatever you want to call it. Self produced television shows. I think you're gonna start to see a lot more reality TV shows being made and distributed online. And as technology gets better and becomes more affordable, it just becomes that much easier for anyone with the determination to compete with these big companies. And I really think that's gonna change things. People who are really passionate about what they do and don't want to compromise it so it has some kind of "mass appeal" can still get it out there for people. And I think stuff like that will become more popular than anyone expects and it'll prove that everything doesn't have to be dumbed down to appeal to a big audience. Hopefully it'll push companies into taking more risks and getting behind real talent as opposed to just going by some kind of proven formula all the time.

The group has had quite a few years to develop. Do you find yourself still in it for the same reasons you started? Was it the want to be a rock star, an outlet, what was it that drew you in and keeps you there?

I think overall we still do it for the same reasons. Unfortunately as we're all getting older and have more responsibilities we do have to worry about money a lot more. When we started it was never really about money or even becoming famous or anything like that. We were in high school and it was just fun. I think we couldn't help but do it. Certain people are driven to do certain things. You just kind of go with it because it feels right.

So I think at this point we really feel like we're good at what we do and that there's a big enough audience for it where we can make a living doing this. The hard part is finding that audience. We're still doing that now. We're definitely not there yet, but we're hearing from new fans every day. It's not going to be this overnight thing, but it's constantly building so I think we're still on the right track.

Mainly what keeps me doing it is the fans. I'd still be doing it regardless, but if we didn't have fans I probably wouldn't be as driven to get the music out there and tour and all that stuff. Knowing that our music means something to other people is a really good feeling.