Mark Skaar in conversation with Jim Wilson of Mother Superior/Rollins Band
Interview and transcription by Mark Skaar - February, 2001
To preface this discussion, let me say that this is not the first time I've had the opportunity to speak with Jim about the goings-on of Mother Superior and Rollins Band. On a previous occasion, September of 1999 to be exact, Jim told me about the forthcoming Mother Superior album, which, at that time, was planned to be a double album entitled "Double Shot...On The Rocks". A lot has changed in the ensuing year and a half since that time as Jim picks up the story...
Jim Wilson: Obviously, we started working on the Rollins project around that time and having finished the last Mother Superior, "Deep" in August of '98, so by late '99 we probably had a ton of songs that we wanted to get done and get out. So we kept recording and then when Henry went away to do some spoken word we probably recorded some of the tracks by ourselves, because, at that time, there was another guy named Tom Grimley that we did some stuff with-he recorded a couple tracks with us on "Deep" and he's a local engineer around here that was doing pretty well. I think we did 10 or 11 songs with him. We started off just doing a couple of songs and it turned into a bunch. And then when Henry came back around we recorded a bunch of stuff with him producing. So our grand idea was to do a double cd and at the time we had also planned on it being on our own label, Top Beat, again. And after we finished the 10 tracks with Henry, he pushed us to look around (at other labels). Cause we did it on the downtime of working with Henry (on "Get Some Go Again"). It was recorded at Cherokee (studios) and it had sounded like nothing we had ever done before, sound-wise. For the first time having a "real" recording studio. Usually, Mother Superior albums were recorded on a low budget and we would run in and do as much as we could do in a matter of a couple of days and say, "Ok, the album's done". That's kind of the Deep Purple way of thinking about it. We always like to keep it live. Then after Henry did those songs with us, it was just some good quality stuff and we also realized it would be a lot easier for us to check around and find someone to put it out and not throw a double cd at them and say "Ok, our new album is a double and we want you to put it on you're label and it's gonna be 25 songs and you're going to love it". All of a sudden we started looking at it as two different records. So the first idea was a double cd and then the idea was put out the Henry (produced) record, and put out the other one on our own and since then, Triple X said they would put it out (the Henry produced cd) and that was cool for us because people have always said to us that would be a good place for us to get started to go to the next step and it was funny that a couple people had actually mentioned Triple X as a place that would be good for Mother Superior and all of a sudden I met Bruce Duff, the guy from Triple X, somewhere and I would see him at shows and finally when we got those tracks done I just sent him a cd and got the call saying "Yeah, we'll put that record out". That's coming out March 6th and it's definitely one of our most upbeat records and definitely our best sounding record. Cool songs, we've gone back and have been playing those songs so they sound good live too so it's been fun to get to 'em that way. The other songs will still be used. A couple of them have already been used. One of the songs on the second disc was "Black Silk", obviously we did that with Wayne Kramer and that was that music blitz download thing and it's coming out on a cd that music blitz is putting out called "Wayne Kramer Presents-Beyond Cyberpunk". It's got "Black Silk" on it and it's coming out in a couple of weeks. It sounds great. They mastered it up so it sounds super loud and blown up so I'm glad that worked out. A couple of the acoustic tracks that we had on the second disc, there's four of them I think, we're saving those up for the next record to just do something a little different and to have 8 or 9 rockers and a couple acoustic songs, and they're not, acoustic love songs, but just acoustic, blues-y, rock songs, kind of done in the way Zeppelin or Velvet Underground or The Rolling Stones, who would just have songs with acoustics, and they wouldn't be ballads but they'd be rockin'. So that's gonna be a theme of the next one too and one of the songs is called "Four Walls" and a friend of ours put strings on it and it's really cool and we got a chance to hook up with this producer named Tony Visconti, who produce Bowie and T. Rex and he did strings on "Band On The Run" and he's a producer and a string arranger so he's a fan of the band and we've asked him to arrange a string quartet for Four Walls, which is kind of like an eerie, prison kind of song, not necessarily a love song, so the strings will be more eerie than syrupy. So those (songs) are still coming. Of course we're excited through Triple X this will be the first time that (someone else will handle the bands' recording affairs). We kind of formed our own record label out of necessity, not necessarily because we wanted to, but more because we wanted to have records out and we had an "in" with a distribution company because of Jason's (M.S./R.B. drummers) affiliation with Tower, he got Bayside to distribute the Mother Superior cds. So we just formed our own label just because we saw the opportunity to do it. We never really wanted to, I mean, it was fun, but, it's fun making the music too and then when you have to have everyone come over and sit in the middle of the living room floor and box up cd's to send to everybody, we'd rather give that to somebody else and concentrate on the rock and roll. That's the good thing about the Triple X thing cause it's the first time that it's in somebody else's hands to make the posters and do the mailing and call people and get gigs for us and things like that. So that's exciting for us too.
Mark Skaar: Tell me all about the disc that's coming out March 6th...
Jim Wilson: It's mostly rockers, of course, and some of the standout tracks that we've been getting a lot of response from-"Whore", which is the opening song and "Radio Sucks", which, Henry has a little spoken part in the middle. He kind of plays the D.J. on that song. I'm not dissing radio because it's one of my favorite things that ever existed and to me, when I was a kid, the only other thing I could ever see myself being, other than a guitar player, was, a disc jockey. Just because I thought that was the coolest job. You get to listen to music and you get to be around music. You're kind of on the inside. The song itself is a story about somebody who tries to find salvation in their radio station by trying to escape everything to get to something else from the radio but, because of the sad state of radio, you can't really do it that well anymore. It's hard to find good music on the radio. It's hard to keep a station on for more than one song. Then it turns into "I'll listen to Van Halen on this station or I'll listen to Chubby Checker on the oldies station"...it's just so categorized. There's so much more you could do with radio and that is what that song is about. And so Henry has a part in the middle of that song where he plays the D.J. We were going to originally put on the credits for the album "Henry Rollins-D.J." as kind of a joke. Kind of a Limp Bizkit kind of thing, if we had a D.J. in the band. He actually has a spoken part on that one. And there's a sampler that Triple X is sending around right now with three songs on it, which is "Whore", "Follow Me Home", which is kind of the, and again I hate to use the word "ballad", and, not that I'm anti-ballads, it's just that our ballads are different than say, a Bon Jovi ballad. It's got a piano on it and it's more like a song for the ladies. And "Such A Worthless Thing", which is a good rocker, kind of Thin Lizzy sounding, which is another one that they're promoting. They're is some other hardcore stuff, "Zero's Back In Town" is like a punk rock song. It's just super upbeat. There's a song called "Fell For You Like A Child", which is kind of lowdown, ZZ Top kind of thing. "Pretty Girls" is probably my favorite song because it's something that we've never done before. After going to New Orleans a couple of times, that's one of my favorite cities and the music that came out of there I'm super into, like the producer Allen Toussaint and The Meters and Lee Dorsey and the real funk stuff that came out of there in the late 60s and early 70's, so we kind of mix that up. There's a famous dance and a famous beat in New Orleans called second line which is kind of an "Iko Iko" beat. We put that together with some Jimmy Page guitar riff and it turned into this thing so after we got done we were like "It's like heavy metal second line". It's a combination of these musics. Obviously there's blues influence on the record and we all sing on the record. On the song "Zero's Back In Town", we all take turns with vocals, which we're gonna be doing more of in the future. On the stuff we're recording as Mother Superior right now, for the next album, everybody's gonna get a song. I mean, I love to sing but it's like "I've sang 35 songs now, you guys can have a few." Plus those guys are getting better at singing and the more background vocals they did the more it was apparent that they could sing. So that's coming up too and it kind of starts on this album, which is why we also called the album "Mother Superior", just self titled, because not only is it the first record that we didn't have to do ourselves, it felt like a new beginning because of that. But also, it just seemed like, this is us and this is what we sound like when it's done right. Again, we got to spend a little more time on the production of it so it sounds better, it feels better. We go back and listen to the older records and we totally love them and they're raw rock and roll records and so is this one but this one has a gloss on it that we've never had before so that's exciting. It's real accessible in a Cheap Trick kind of way. More hooks and better sound. When you're doing it yourself you tend to keep it raw, not because you even necessarily want to, it's just that you don't really have a choice to go back and do things and this time around we just had the first opportunity to say "Well, what if we do this"? There's a few thing like that that make the album interesting because of that. There's a song called "Cool Cool Breeze" that is kind of Chuck Berry, but also kind of The Who, in the way that it's a big, massive rock song. It's a good record. It's less than 40 minutes and it goes by really fast but we like that too because that'll make you push play again. It seems like it's been along time in the making but on March 6th it's all gonna be worth it and it's also gonna be worth it for us to wake up on March 6th and know that it's gonna be in stores all over the place without us being in the living room putting stickers on it.
Mark Skaar: I know you did a show recently in Los Angeles and you have another show booked there the night before the new album comes out as a precursor to a full on tour....
Jim Wilson: Yeah, and we just got a San Francisco date too, on March 24th for a record release party there. We've trying to get as many shows together as we can. It's perfect timing to because we'll finish recording this Rollins Band record and then Henry is doing spoken word for a couple of months, just in time for the Mother Superior record to come out, so, it gives us the perfect time to go out and do it without having any other things looming. We probably won't do any shows with Henry until at least June, and that will be some starter shows so, the record release party is gonna be fun and that's gonna be the beginning. Right now, Triple X is hooking us up with a booking agent to get some shows going. We'll do as many shows as we can before any other Rollins Band stuff comes, but then when it is time to go back out with Henry, we're still gonna be promoting this record for the rest of the year because we going to be doing the Mother Superior/Rollins Band tour where we do a 35-40 Mother Superior set, take a half-hour break and then come out with Henry and do a full set as Rollins Band. It'll be great for us because we got a little taste of that the other night at the Troubador cause that was the first time we ever played as both bands and not just one or the other. Every time we do a Mother Superior show Henry comes and he sings along with every word and then when we do Rollins Band, we put everything we have into those, but the other night was fun. We did some new stuff, we did five songs from this Triple X album and then Henry came on and we went over some songs that we are in the studio right now recording, just to play em in front of some people and the response was great. Henry had put on his web site that we were doing this show and Rollins fans should come out and check it out and so for for a lot of the people that had seen us play as Rollins Band before, they got to see Mother Superior for the first time too. People came from San Diego and San Francisco and places they could drive from to see a free Rollins show and it was good to play for those people, we got a lot of nice comments after it was done and we'll invite them all again for the record release party and just play as much as we can.
M.S.: As we speak on February 1st, you are preparing to go into the studio for Day 3 of what has become the second recording session of new Rollins Band songs. How is this material shaping up and how does t differ from the songs on "Get Some Go Again"?...
J.W.: There's such a long process between recording a record and actually seeing it come out and we went through that with "Get Some Go Again" too. We recorded that in two different main sessions and by the time that it got mixed and a cover was made and we did new photos introducing the band and we went on the road and did 25 shows before the album even came out and just went to a bunch of American cities and played before the album was out. So by the time we recorded the stuff and all that happened and the album actually came out, we had written a bunch of other songs just being excited by the fact that, now we were playing with Rollins. Then "Get Some Go Again" came out and we did the tour, and during the tour we were writing stuff too. You would wake up with riffs in your head and you would go to soundchecks and someone would play an idea that they had and it would turn into another song and so by the end of the tour we had a dozen cool song ideas that we wanted to record right away. We booked studio time and recorded those before the end of the year and we had 13-14 songs done and Henry and Cliff Norell, our producer and engineer, actually mixed the songs, finished. So we had this 13 track cd by the end of 2000 and it was like, "Ok, we've got another record". Then after thinking that this record won't come out until at least summer of 2001, why don't we see if we can come up with some more stuff. So, at the very beginning of January we gathered some more ideas together after everybody went off for the holidays and thought about what else the record could use. Once we had the first chunk of 13 down and we came up with way more ideas then we thought we were going to so now we have like, 12 new things. I'm so glad we did it too because we came up with some new, killer stuff and it was cool to do it like that because you got to look and see what was missing (from the first session). We could put the first batch of songs out and it could be a record but we got some more up tempo, kind of punk rock stuff on this one and some funky stuff and just all kinds of different stuff that we didn't get the first time around. So, we're doing those right now, trying to make that happen. And it's turned out great. Last night we did three songs. We got set up the first day and just did one song because we didn't want to over do it the first day because it takes four hours to get the drum sounds perfect and that's the hardest part because by the end of it, Jason's drums probably has 15 microphones around it, just to get the perfect balance, and Cliff is so good at drum sounds. He betters it each time we go into the studio, the drums get better and better and yesterday it was like, "Fuck, this sounds like John Bonham"...it sounds great. It sounds like real, live drums. The first day we started with a two minute punk rock song called "Always The Same", which is pretty much done, and yesterday we worked on some different stuff. There's kind of this, up tempo, James Brown kind of song called "Up For It", which is really, really cool, and at the end of the night last night we did a real slow, sludgy song called "Going Out Strange", which we played at the Troubador the other night and people seemed to like that one a lot. It's more on the Sabbath kind of vibe, but it's different too. That's the cool thing about this stuff from "Get Some Go Again", it's different stuff. I guess just from playing together for a couple of years now. Henry's a great songwriter. He always comes up with great words and he fits right in it. So many times you try to write songs with different people and sometimes you vibe and sometimes you don't, but with Henry, we have the same tastes so everybody comes up with parts and everybody agrees on it. We never have problems with everybody accepting what comes out. So we got some good stuff. So we're gonna do 12 more and we'll have 25 songs to choose from by the end of it so we know it'll be a killer album in the end. Henry loves it, he can't believe it. After making the last Rollins Band record and taking two years to come up with 10 songs to put on an album, and that's what you got (referring to "Come In And Burn") it's kind of a different for him too and his management comes down to listen to the new songs and they're like, "When did you guys have time to write these?" But that's the way it is with us. Just lock us in that rehearsal room together and the four of us just kind of look at each other and it becomes that thing, ya know? And it's kind of different from Mother Superior because even though we're all involved with the overall writing of the songs, a lot of times it starts of with me and Marcus here at home, because we're roommates too, so it's easy for us if we're sitting around on a Sunday afternoon, we can pick up the guitars and look at each other and come up with a cool riff and then we take that into a rehearsal place with Jason and say "Hey, what would you play to this", and it kind of goes like that. But with Rollins Band, it's more like, here's the four of us together and everybody kind of has more of a say rather than a John and Paul or a Mick and Keith and then they introduce it to the rest of the band and it's Henry's thing too. Obviously he's got a major part of it with his vocals, and it's the difference between Rollins Band and Mother Superior writing wise too. I could never sing punk rock stuff in Mother Superior just because I don't have that kind of voice, so I'm really happy that we get to play some puck rock stuff with THE ULTIMATE punk rock singer. When we finished the first batch of songs, I went to see my parents over the holidays and I took the first batch with me, and I was like "What do we need?", and I was like, "We need more punk rock!" So for me, I can come up with guitar riffs that I hear and the first song we recorded, "Always The Same", that was like that. That was totally me and Marcus saying "ok, we need a punk rock riff" and we came up with the guitar riff and played it for Henry the first day of rehearsal and he was like, "I'll take that", and he comes up, puts the vocal on it, puts words on it, and it becomes a thing. So that's exciting, it's cool. It keeps it different from Mother Superior too. I think Mother Superior's stuff is always a little more groove oriented or soul oriented and it's still rock and roll but obviously Henry's not a soul singer either so there's a difference. It's always funny to think that it's the same band but because of the vocals it's a completely different thing.
M.S.: I think Mother Superior plays looser, while Rollins Band plays tighter...
J.W.: Thanks. That's exactly it. If funny, we did the "Get Some Go Again" tour when the idea came up for Mother Superior to open for Rollins Band and we all looked at Jason and said "You're the one that's gonna have the most work". I can play guitar all night and it's not like you really get tired from playing guitar. I might get tired from jumping around and playing an idiot but just playing wise, it's not a problem to play. And for me singing, that just means I have to sing for 40 minutes and we do a little bit of background vocals stuff with Henry but once my main singing thing's done, I'm done and by the next day, I'm sure I could sing another 40 minutes. But Jason obviously has to play with the physical energy for two sets...
M.S.: It's an endurance race...
J.W.: Yeah, exactly. At that time when the idea first came up, his reaction was "Well, it's a different thing too, Mother Superior isn't as driving or intense as Rollins Band, playing wise, so I could probably do it." But then, when we came off the road and started rehearsing for the Mother Superior Triple X record, just to get those songs live again, he was like, "Holy shit, this is totally as hard as it is for Rollins Band". It might not be as fast or as Rollins-ed out but it's still intense and it's still a groove that you have to get into and put everything you got into it. But he says he can do it, and we're always sponsored by Metrex Protein bars so we'll just keep him on those for awhile! Start feeding him a couple of those a day and make sure he takes his vitamins and we'll be fine.
M.S.: The latest release from Rollins Band is a live cd available only on Henry's 2.13.61 web site...
J.W.: It was kind of a big surprise for us. A bunch of different Rollins Band shows got recorded, some of them I haven't even heard. I know when we went to Australia and Henry had worked with the sound guy a few times before and the opportunity came up to record the four shows we did in Sydney at the same club. We were in Australia for two weeks. We did three shows when we first got there at the same club and they did really well so they added a fourth show at the end of the two weeks. They recorded those shows on 24 track equipment, live, and I don't even know what happened to those, but we knew that at certain points during the tour, we heard "tonight's being recorded", the Troubador show in L.A. was recorded by Westwood One and things like that, you just heard, "Tonight we're recording, so play good", so, you're halfway through a guitar solo and you go, "Oh yeah, we're being recorded"-you think about it too much. So we went to Denmark and it was a crazy, crazy show. The day we got to Denmark we checked into the hotel and it was pouring down rain and it was a three day festival- Friday, Saturday, Sunday festival that happens every years called the Roskilde Festival.
M.S.: And of course there was a tragedy last year...
J.W.: Yeah. Pearl Jam played on Friday night, the same night we got there. It was Pearl Jam and then was The Cure - they were gonna close the night. I was in my hotel room because it was raining. Maybe if wasn't raining I would've went to the show and checked it out but because it was pouring down rain it was like "I'll take the night off", and we had just flown in to Denmark. So, we were just chillin' out and a friend of mine called me the next morning and said, "Oh my God, where are you guys at right now?" and I said "Denmark", and the question came up, "Did you hear about the Pearl Jam show?", and I was like, "no". I guess during Pearl Jam's set, and because it was muddy and raining and slippery and everyone was sliding around, at some point, everyone just kind of moved forward and nine kids, and I think it was all boys too, just got trampled and slipped in the mud, fell to the ground, and when 90,000 are moving forward, if you fall under, no one's looking out for you. So it was during the Pearl Jam set and they knew something happened because everyone was freaking out. They stopped the show and the next morning the count was nine kids died. The Cure were supposed to play after Pearl Jam and The Cure canceled because obviously no one was in the mood to get moody with Robert after that. We didn't know what was gonna happen. We woke up the next morning and I got a phone call from my friend in the States saying she saw on TV that kids got trampled at the Pearl Jam show and weren't we at that same place, and I said "Yeah, we're playing tonight". Got on the bus, and was like, "What's going on?". Everybody had heard about it - it was big news. So it was like "Let's go to the festival and see what's going on". We went to the festival, we were playing that day with Y'sou En'dor, the African singer, was opening the show, then it was us, Rollins Band and then Oasis was to follow us and then The Pet Shop Boys after that, quite a lineup. Everybody was there - Oasis was there, The Pet Shop Boys were there, all the trucks were there, everybody's gear was on stage and we were all just kind of hanging around waiting to play and Pet Shop Boys and Oasis management people said "We're not playing because security hasn't changed any since last night". It wasn't raining anymore and it was a three day festival, so the kids were there to rock and they were there for the whole weekend. It wasn't like they came one night, went home, came the next night, went home. They were there and there was a place with just tents where everybody slept at night. You were going for the whole weekend like a Woodstock kind of vibe. So there's still 100,000 kids there and when we first got there they were having a vigil for the what happened the night before and it was super sad and super intense and then, in the middle of the afternoon Pet Shop Boys and Oasis said they were pulling out because nothing's changed - they haven't upped any security, it looks the same as it did yesterday and we don't want the same thing happening again. To us, it was kind of like "The kids are here, they don't wanna bum out again, another night, everyone's gonna be cool, no one's gonna be freaking out like they were the night before because they didn't want that to happen again. So no one knew (that they canceled) - they didn't go on-stage and say "We're not gonna play tonight". It was more like, The Pet Shop Boys management said The Pet Shop Boys were in the bus crying their eyes out over what happened the night before, and Oasis were already having problems. We were in Europe the same time as them and we were in Belgium and they almost canceled out there, they were going through their little cat fights or whatever that band does more than play, so it's obvious that it's not important to them if they don't play, they'd probably rather not play, just so they don't have to look at each other. So they both canceled out and I remember the management people coming up to Henry and saying "are you guys gonna cancel out tonight?", and Henry was like, "Fuck no!" We got into the mindset of "We're here and the kids are in front of the stage, waiting for the show to start". Of course we had respect for the people that got killed the night before. It was an awful thing but it wasn't shut down and if we would've canceled too, then there would've been no show at all...and then the kids would've just spent the night in a field? So Y'sue En'dor went on and he was incredible, he went on at 5 o'clock and played for an hour and it was totally spiritually moving and everybody was into it, it was definitely and uplifting thing. So by 6 or 6:30, we got the word that the other bands weren't going on. So we waited until 7 before we went on because we knew we were gonna be the last band for the night. And the sun went down and it was 100,000 kids. We did a couple of other shows for 90,000 at festivals, but the 100,000 was the biggest one we had done, and I just remember the sea of people and it was pretty incredible. I kept running over to Marcus' side of the stage, going, "This is like the Stones!", just yelling, cause there was such a huge stage and beach balls everywhere and people were just trying to make the best out of the situation and we did a great set.
J.W.: I personally remember the show because I wear contact lenses and I remember, like, three songs in, one of my contacts popped out and I actually caught it in my hand and handed to Mike, our road manager and he put it inside a towel and I played the whole show seeing with one eye. I didn't actually remember that until later on when we went back and looked at the journal and after we heard the cd. Again, I didn't know that it was being recorded. We got a tape of the show afterwards, they gave us cassette that we played on the bus and we remembered that it was a cool show, and then, months later, Henry was like "Oh yeah, they recorded that show and we're gonna put it out on a cd". It just kind of happened and it's really nice to have because, obviously after you record a batch of songs and then you play them every night, they're gonna change and there are certain things you learn how to do, certain solos that you pull off and different arrangements that by the end of the tour, you've got little special things going on, so I'm glad a lot of that stuff came out through that. And if you notice on the cd, I'm gonna give the secrets away here, the cd is completely live, we didn't go into the studio to do anything with it and because of that, we lost the first two songs...
M.S.: I wondered about that...
J.W.: Yeah, it started with "Illumination" and "On The Day" and something is missing on the tapes. I don't know if it's guitar or bass but something wasn't properly recorded so those tracks were unusable, so we just started it from the one point ("You Let Yourself Down"). I'm super excited about it and it's been doing great. Henry is selling it via his web site and we're gonna have em on the tour too, you'll be able to buy em at the shows. It's just the first in a series of records that Henry has planned. All the rest of the stuff that we recorded from "Get Some Go Again" will come out as a cd called "Yellow Blues", one of the tracks is "Yellow Blues". That's gonna be a yellow sleeve, and then the stuff we recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis during the tour will come out too, "The Sun Sessions", which will be blue, so it's like color coordinated web site only cd releases, and I'm sure there'll be more later on, but right now those are the ones that are in planning. So that's three records there, plus "Get Some Go Again" plus the new record, that's five albums in two years. By the end of the year those will come out.
M.S.: Are you at liberty to discuss what happened with the Rollins Band record deal with Dreamworks?
J.W.: The Dreamworks deal that Henry had was a record by record deal, a one at a time thing and he did the "Come On And Burn" record before we were involved with him, that was the first one he did on Dreamworks and I think he has one spoken word album that came out on Dreamworks and then "Get Some Go Again". In Europe, the record wasn't on Dreamworks, it was on Universal because Dreamworks is an America only label, so when we went to Germany and Australia, it was a completely different set of people, and now, with obviously Universal being big brother, meaning, a little bit of everything, Dreamworks is distributed and manufactured by Universal, but they're just they're own record company. We got different responses in Europe and the record did really well in Germany and Australia and Dreamworks is just so movie oriented now they don't even know how long the music division is gonna be around. They never really seem to pick anybody up off the ground, I mean, I don't even wanna talk about Papa Roach and Buckcherry, but other than that, what is there? George Michael and soundtracks for their movies, which have been doing very well for them, so that's where their main interest is. There's other factors too which are things I probably shouldn't talk about but since were not gonna deal with them, I will. Just like going to different places and when we first started "Get Some Go Again", we had two really cool Dreamworks guys that were coming to all different shows. They were here in L.A., they came to our shows in New York, they came to our show in Chicago before the album came out, totally hyping it up. They kind of worked together. One was a guy that had been in the record business for years and worked with tons of bands through the years, super cool guy. He got an offer to work with an internet company and then the other guy he worked with him jumped ship with him too so there we were at Dreamworks with a record coming out and the two dudes that were like "this is the shit", bailed because of a good job offer they got. We couldn't blame them for upping their lives. But during the time that it takes to get all that together, we had just lost some good company. So the record came out and it was exciting for us and then they kind of screwed up the whole "Illumination" remix thing. (Omitting it from the American release) We played in New York and one of the main Dreamworks guys came to the show and someone told us that he loved the show but he didn't come back to meet us, just things like that. It was like, we're working with a company that we don't really have that much contact with so it came time for getting this stuff done and when we first heard we might try to get through somebody else other than Dreamworks, even if it's a company that's smaller, if they're more behind it, they're gonna do more for it. We've been getting some really good offers for this record. We're totally taken care of in Europe. We have a bunch of different labels in Japan, BMG in Japan and in Germany we already have a deal, in Australia, we already have a record deal so we're trying to find a good American company to do it and I don't even think that Dreamworks was approached with this record, it was just like "You know what, let's just try something else".
M.S.: I'm sure that last couple years have been a huge thrill for all of you...
J.W.: Yeah, it's what we've always wanted to do, is to play music for a living and when that started happening, we have the same job as The Beatles, you know? We are playing music and making money at it so that's super exciting and the more we travel, the more people we meet and the more people get introduced to the music and again, going back to what we were talking about earlier, from Mother Superior being such a do it yourself kind of band with our own record label. We've always put out newsletters. We've kept up a mailing list and we've worked hard at keeping a mailing list up and now that we've been traveling around it grows more and more and just e-mail wise, you get e-mail from guys in Oregon or wherever saying "I'm totally into it, keep doing it", and kind of just branched out from being a local band that you're friends can go see. I remember the days of working at a record store here in L.A. and you would go to work with a bunch of flyers and you would give a flyer to everybody you worked with, like, "Dude, my band's playin', come out" you know? That would be you're way of introducing people to your music but obviously working with Henry we've gotten some better connections and just better networking. Henry's been so supportive of us and he's been producing our records too. He's a fan of Mother Superior too. He never wants us to stop that. Even when we go into the studio, like right now, we're in Cherokee and what he did last time, we've already started recording new Mother Superior stuff for another record. We've got some killer stuff. I'm just trying to take it one at a time. We got a bunch of songs together that we had been working on and we've been recording them. When we did those songs in November and December, it was the same thing. He gave us a day in the studio when he had a day off. He was like, "if you guys wanna buy some tape, go in the studio and do some more Mother Superior stuff, take the day", and then, if he would be doing vocals for Rollins Band stuff during the daytime, we would come in at night and work on Mother Superior stuff. We'll record a bunch of tracks and the band is there every day but by the end of the session they concentrate on the vocals, so we don't have to be around as much, and it's better that way, because you don't want to be singing behind a microphone and having four guys looking at you going, "Do that again", you know? It's better when it's just him and the producer telling him what was a good take and what wasn't a good take. So when he would do the vocals during the day, we would come in at night and he's always cool like that. We were rehearsing the other week for this stuff and CNN came over and did an interview with Henry and they wanted to film some band footage of the band rehearsing. Jason had his drums set up in the rehearsal room and had his Mother Superior bass drum head on with our logo on it. Henry was like, to the CNN guy, "When these guys aren't playing with me, they have their own band, Mother Superior, film the drum logo". Instead of like, hiding it, he totally brought it out. He's totally cool like that. He never wants Mother Superior to stop because he's a fan. He comes to all the shows, he'll come to the front of the stage and sing along with every word and I try not to look at him because I start cracking up. It definitely puts another work load on us too but, like I said, we're working on music and working on twice as much music is way better to me than sitting around wondering when we're gonna work on music again. So we just kind of give each thing space and whatever needs to get done gets done. Working with Triple X on this new record is great for us. We don't have to make the posters, we don't have to make the phone calls as much. We're still gonna work it hard cause we're so used to doing it by ourselves that we went to Triple X and had a meeting about what can we do to make this record the biggest, best one yet, just throwing ideas around. Everybody's gotta work, obviously, but when you've got other guys making plans for you while you're doing other things too is a great thing.