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Lauren: What gave you guys the inspiration to get into the music business and become a death metal band?
Doc: First off I want to thank you, Lauren, for supporting the band, and we appreciate you participating in the contest. Congrats. Anyway, to the questions. I don't consider us a death metal band, but we definitely had those leanings when we started playing. At the beginning, there were no plans to have a serious career in the music business. We really just started jamming for fun and began writing our own songs because we didn't know how to play any cover songs. After a couple years, the band became better and just seemed to notice that we were actually pretty good and doing something a little different than many of the local bands. Eventually, we attracted the attention of a small local label, and then Century Media. The rest is history.
Lauren: Growing up, who were your idols/ favorite bands?
Doc: I was all about Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Megadeth, Testament, Pantera, Sepultura, and pretty much a lot of 80's thrash metal when I was a teenager. A little later, I began to really get into more extreme stuff. A local radio station and some friends turned me on to the death metal scene, like Morbid Angel, Oppressor, Suffocation, Nile and European melodic death metal like At The Gates, Meshuggah, Carcass and Arch Enemy.
Lauren: How did you all meet?
Doc: Dallas and I are brothers and used to play guitar in our house but had never played with anyone for real to create songs. I was 16 and Dallas was 17, and one of our friends, who we used to draw comics with and listen to metal records with, mentioned that his cousin was jamming out a town over and was interested to have us come down. We didn't even drive at the time, so our friend, John, had to drive us there. Corey was playing drums, Byron - our current singer - was playing guitar, and Robbie - our first singer - was just kind of hanging out. Byron started playing bass because we played guitar, and Rob started singing. Like I said before, we began writing our own songs because we couldn't all play covers. Our current bass player, Beeker, didn't join for a couple years. Corey, Byron, and Beeker all went to school together.
Lauren: For Doc and Dallas: How long have you guys been rocking out on guitar together? Jon, how long have you been playing the bass? And Corey, how long have you been rocking out on the drums?
Doc: Dallas and I have been playing for about 13 years, and I'm sure Corey and John have been playing for at least 15-16 years.
Lauren: Out of all the places you guys have played at, what is probably your favorite place to play?
Doc: I really love to play in London. The fans we have there are so dedicated and enthusiastic. You can tell they are real fans who pay attention to the details of the music. There's a great deal of appreciation for rock history and its roots in the UK, surprisingly, in the young kids as well. I also love playing in New Jersey, our home state, too. Our fan base has grown steadily yet remained loyal to the band over the years.
Lauren: Out of all your albums, what was your favorite to make?
Doc: The newest one, Constitution, is my favorite album so far. As far as the recording process, all of the albums have been hard to make. Determination was probably the hardest and most frustrating album. Reject and Out Of Misery were done in such a small amount of time that we really couldn't stress too much. Plus, we didn't know much about the recording process back then. The new record was very trying because of the amount of attention paid to detail, and we had the time to really tweak things. We also had a few hiccups, like guitars going out of tune and things like that. Gone Forever was a great time in the studio because things seemed to go right, and we had made the biggest leap as a band in terms of songwriting ability and production, not to mention working with Eric Rachel rocks, and Colin Richardson hit it out of the park on the mixdown.
Lauren: What five bands do you like touring with the best?
Doc: I'll say six: Lamb of God, Machine Head, Chimaira, Hatebreed, Devildriver and Shadows Fall.
Lauren: What do you think you all would be doing if you weren't in the music industry?
Doc: I really have no idea. I probably would've gone to school and studied something that I could make a living at. I think I would've made a good lawyer or graphic designer. I hope things go well, or I'll have to find out.
Lauren: Where was you first performance?
Doc: Our first show was in 1997 at a bar in New Brunswick, NJ called The Court Tavern. This was before John joined the band, and we were called Manifest Destiny. The band only had about six songs, and we were horrible. In fact we were so bad, and knew it, we didn't play another show for about a year. It taught us a good lesson. Make sure you're ready if you're going to promote yourself. All my father said was, "You guys were out of tune." That was not a compliment. At least, he was honest.
Lauren: What has been the best thing that has happened to you as a band since you've gotten a record deal?
Doc: The two things that stick out to me is playing Ozzfest and hitting the Billboard Top 200 chart on our latest record. These are accomplishments I never dreamed of when starting the band. Like I said, we started with no expectations. Ozzfest and the Billboard Top 200 are things that everybody knows about, and it gives you a sense of accomplishment that you can tell normal people and they acknowledge it. It makes you feel like all these years of work are really starting to pay off because I'm doing things most people will never be able to do in their lives.
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