Andrew: That’s probably like a deeply psychological question. I’m really gonna be honest. It’s just whatever the mix of experiences, insecurities, even pain in my past or childhood. It's that desire to perform or to be used in that way or whatever you wanna call it. I don’t know if that means for a long time, it’s just that switch that’s there, that there’s a desire to sort of educate and entertain for a long time. Kevin: Like an outlet? Yeah, definitely. I’m sure that there’s a therapeutic element to performing for certain.

Andrew: The guys were supportive of the idea. I think the one thing that has been confusing for the other guys is that the way it’s been marketed by the publishing company as more of like an officially endorsed Project 86 product. Whereas, I wrote it as to be biased and sort of slanted in a humorous way from my perspective. The guys didn’t have a problem with that. It’s just; the publisher doesn’t necessarily understand how to market the book. And to understand when you sell... This is kind of a unique situation for themselves. We’re still kind of working through the details of that sort of thing. I think it’s a good thing for the band overall. I just want people to know it’s written through my eyes and it’s slanted. If they were to write the book, it’d be probably a much different take. They’d be making fun of me a lot.

Andrew: No, not yet. I’m hoping it reaches her. She’s probably married though to a professional football player. *laughter* I’m still clinging to that one. Kevin: Have you talked to Jeremy? I’ve talked to him a couple times over e-mail. That story happened a few years ago. Well, no… a year and a half ago. The last time I heard from him, he said he was doing much better. He was back with his family. He was going to rehab. And that’s the last time I heard from him. So, I’d like to think that that means he gets on the right track. I mean, the reality is that people who are in that severe of a situation, sometimes it’s a very difficult path from that point on, but I definitely think about it from time to time. Kevin: Yeah, it’s an awesome story. Yeah, thanks man.

Andrew: Depends on the show. Tonight it's ‘I wonder how many songs we’re gonna get through before they stop us.’ *laughter* However, at the end of the set tonight it was really magical, cause I really felt free at that very last moment where I was there with the crowd and I was sort of doing the very thing at the very end, and I felt like I don’t care what happens. I’m not worried about what happens at this moment with my band - what our future holds - because I’m right here right now and this is what it’s all about. And it’s amazing too that I felt that way, in this sort of environment that is sort of not conducive to a rock show. You know what I mean? And it was all because of those kids and everyone that was out there that was just being one notch higher than our normal show. I could tell those were most of the people that were at Purple Door. Kevin: Yea, we saw some of the photos of Purple Door online. That looked pretty insane. We were actually gonna be there, but had been told it rained out. We still have some pending circumstances with that whole thing. So I’m hoping that everyone is upstanding about how they deal with that. I mean, of course everyone’s blaming Project 86 and me for all that stuff and to a certain extent justifiably so, but we still weren’t the ones throwing the mud. They did allow it to continue for quite awhile. And I allowed it to continue, just because of having fun without even thinking about it. I don’t know. I hope it doesn’t get ugly and it turns into this multi-thousand dollar thing and Purple Door ‘blahblahblahblah’ and the production company ‘blahblahblahblah.’ As of this point it’s still not quite resolved yet, so I’m hoping it is...

Andrew: Music is hard right now. It’s not necessarily a worthwhile profession. You have to really love music to be able to live a life of somewhat poverty. Unless you go huge like Underoath or Norma Jean. It’s tough man. It’s tough right now. It was much different four or five years ago when people were buying records more. They’re buying records a lot less now and that’s sort of what drives the whole industry. I don’t know, count the costs, I guess. You have to really know that’s what you’re supposed to be doing.

Andrew: What’s my favorite Scripture? *thinks for a moment* I like Psalm 91 a lot. A friend of mine shared that with me a long time ago when I was like really hurting and stuff. That’s one that always kinda sticks in my head.

Andrew: I play a lot of video games. We play Halo a lot, Game Boy Advance, listen to music, sleep, hang out with friends after the show. Today we played basketball and I have these enormous blisters on my feet. It’s awful because I don’t have any basketball shoes. I try to exercise a little bit here and there and find anything to take up time because sometimes it gets boring. There’s a lot of downtime. First of all, you’re in the van all day and that’s downtime and then you get to the venue, and unloading and there’s like four hours of downtime before you play. So [it's easy] finding time to read or exercise or play video games or write.

Andrew: Well we’ve always been a band that’s sort of searching for some sort of reputability and integrity and respect in what we do. I think that’s why we’ve had some sort of influence is because, on one side of the coin, we’ve been known as a Christian band. Which I understand in one sense, I don’t in the other. Because I’ve been saying a lot lately that I don’t think there’s a such thing as ‘Christian rock.’ I think that you are either a real band doing it for the right reasons or you’re not. I’m not saying that it’s wrong to play music because you wanna play for Christians. Notice I didn’t say play for God. God has nothing to do with that whole equation. But I think that we do have a responsibility as artists to be genuine professional musicians. To write creative music, not music that’s some sort of rip-off form of a band that did something better than you beforehand. I mean, we want people to come away seeing a professional show that’s genuine. That’s honest and for them to know that we’re real people. And that’s why real people relate to our band. And people who aren’t, maybe who are really, really, really sheltered, don’t necessarily relate to Project 86 because we don’t approach things from that perspective. Because it’s not who we are. Definitely something we’ve always liked to try to do is develop our own sound, so that we don’t sound like anyone else. That’s why the music and content is the way it is. Yeah, I mean, we take it seriously, but we don’t necessarily take ourselves seriously. We take it seriously. And we want everyone to know that it’s a somber, sobering thing to be at a Project show. It’s a freeing thing as well, because it’s a place where people can sort of free up those pent-up emotions in a safe environment with people who are doing the same thing on stage. Hope that makes sense. Kevin: While writing up questions for the interview and reading the book I realized God uses different channels to reach people. Yeah that’s one thing I definitely wanna get across. Because it’s not necessarily written from a Christian angle, it’s just ‘here’s what happened.’

Andrew: Totally, totally. He makes it clear. He definitely makes it clear when it’s that time. We just come from a completely different life perspective than most really conservative, churchy schools of thought. And I don’t know how to explain it to people in a way that it makes sense other than to just tell it like it is. We’ve always struggled getting on the tours that we want to get on, because we have this reputation that follows us - mostly because of our fans. Or our fans in the past who are so, ‘This band’s a Christian band and there are good Christian bands and you should follow Jesus.’ And it’s like the people who don’t wanna hear that that are like, ‘I’m never listening to that band.’ That word of mouth is what makes the perception about a band. You know, Marilyn Manson came up to us and asked us to do some shows a couple years ago. And we’re like, ‘We’re all about it. That would be awesome.’ The rumor was he loved our music, but then he heard through the grapevine that these guys are Christians and a Christian band. So we’re just like, ‘Dude… gimme a break.’ So one thing we’ve always tried to do is to teach through the music. Hey, there is a way to reach people in this day and age, in this post-Christian culture. And I say "post-Christian" meaning most people have heard it and they’re not turned off by the message of Christ. They’re turned off by the actions and the reputation of Christians. And it’s justified. In a lot of ways I agree with that. So many Christian people are - if they were honest with themselves - not real people and don’t know how to relate. You know everything’s a super-spiritual thing with angels and demons and everything is. The main thing is, I don’t think God ever wants us to have an agenda when we love people, when we build relationships with people. It’s not, ‘Hey I befriended this guy I work with. I’m really working on him to make him believe what I believe.’ You know what I mean? There’s that subtle religion and that subtle little pride that creeps in and it’s really wily and it’s really dangerous. And every Christian goes through that, especially when you’re trying to do right. It always comes back to that. We’re flawed, you know? But I think the way to get around that is to just be friends with people. Just be friends with them. And if the opportunity comes about to talk about your perspective on life and your faith, so be it. But if it doesn’t, don’t force it on people because it only pushes them away. That’s the culture that we live in. That’s the reality and that’s why I like the way we approach our band. It’s probably a little bit different than maybe some people would want. It’s because we get it. We understand and we know the way people are. It’s just really hard for me and frustrating. We’re trying to destroy "Christian music," but we’re also trying to save it. And maybe we’ve already done our part, but as long as we’re doing what we’re doing, we’re gonna talk about these things in an honest manner and a respectful manner and try to redefine and bring about better artistry and better communication and better understanding from fans, and from the media and from people in the industry. It’s important.

Andrew: I question everything, man. The idea of being a reactionary means trying to go into a situation with an objective viewpoint, but when the elements of a situation or experience play our upon you, you respond to them accordingly in hopes of gaining a better understanding of the world around you and about your life and about who you are. I question first and foremost how the church approaches things today and that causes me to be very much on the fringe of church culture. And again, this has nothing to do with God, it has to do with people and the way they interpret God or use God or worship God. It’s all about the actions of people. That’s first and foremost. I mean everything, every other question about life, sort of stems from that. I guess going back to your first question, ‘Why am I an artist? Why do I perform? Why am I in a band?’ Because I’m driven to learn. I’m driven to question. I’m driven to create and search, and I think the artistic process is that ‘thing.’ That process of questioning and searching and illumination and creation. I don’t know. It’s a pretty broad question I guess, but I question why people do what they do. And why I do what I do. You know what I mean, and that gets into a lot of psychological things, but because I question why people do what they do. Why do people act the way they do towards me, towards my band, towards my friends, towards just me I guess. In my experiences and stuff, why are people the way they are? And that sheds an interesting light when you start seeing the patterns that we go through. When human beings hurt, they respond in characteristic ways. When a human being is loved, they respond in characteristic ways. But a human being who has been hurt and is loved, they also respond in different characteristic ways. Noticing those patterns in people and watching the interplay of those things: family, pain, relationship and how that works into religion and faith. Because that’s my lens, that’s my area of the way I view the world and humanity. It sheds way different light on the Christian experience and the search for God. Because you start realizing so many other things that we’ve been taught are not necessarily originating from God. They’ve been somehow made up by people and I always wanna get to the root of the matter. That’s why, like tonight when we played, is a great example. We come on stage, we’ve got this huge banner behind us with a guy with a knife and a hole in his chest and I’m painted up like a skeleton for Halloween and the crowd’s going insane. And the promoters and some people from the school or whatever are like really offended by some of the things that they were seeing or some things said from the stage. You know, I went up there and I’m like, ‘How do I say something about this, about who we are, in this context that sort of exemplifies it. I’m in my Halloween get-up, just thinking about it beforehand. ‘Is there such a thing as a Christian holiday?’ There isn’t really. I mean, Halloween started out as All Saints Day, All Hallows Eve. It was a Christian thing to begin with and then it sort of became something else. I don’t care, it’s just a holiday. It’s just a superstition. My life isn’t concerned with that other stuff. That’s why I can do whatever I want and make fun of it and have fun with it and go trick-or-treating and do whatever. That’s why it’s like you get so caught up in that. But not only that, on the flipside of things we get so caught up in Christmas and Easter and it’s just as bad. Not because it has its roots in paganism and Constantine or in whatever century made it the official religion of the Roman Empire and 'blahblahblahblah.' Other people know this and some people don’t. But then all of a sudden it’s endorsed by the Catholic church and on-and-on-and-on down the line it’s endorsed by Christian people and then we make it into this like hyper-spiritual thing where it’s like, ‘Dude… it’s just a freaking day.’ It’s no different. We don’t even give gifts because of God anymore. We give gifts because it’s some stupid thing. And Easter and all. I’m not gonna go off about all that. It’s just that a holiday is just a holiday and a guy painted up like a skeleton is just a guy painted up like a skeleton. And that’s why we so something like that and go up there on stage and say, ‘Look, once we diffuse our superstitions about holidays and about these types of things we’re a little bit more free and open to get down to the real things about our spirituality and our faith. And people are kinda like *makes contemplative face* some people really got it and other people were like, ‘Uh, what is he talking about?’ What I find is that in any attempt to try to approach things objectively, like really try to get to the heart of the matter people get offended. And for whatever reason, our band has always played that role where it’s ‘we’re those guys that you never know what to expect.’ That somebody’s always really, really, really getting their life changed by or really, really getting ticked off about.’ And the same thing can happen on any given night with Project 86. It’s like Purple Door. So many kids are gonna remember that day for the rest of their lives just like we will. That’s all I was thinking about when I was up there when all the mud was flying. I wouldn’t stop this for the world. I don’t care about the consequences because I know that this is going to go down in the history of our band as one of the greatest things ever. Yeah, it’s for whatever reason that’s us. That’s our band and we’ve had a lot of bad things happen to our band over the years and we’re still here and that’s sort of our testimony I guess.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah totally, totally. We just need people to buy our records. That’s what it comes down to. I hate that it comes down to that, but that’s really what all matters to a band. Buy the record, come out to shows. It’s all industry people care about. They kind of decide our fate? It’s like the record label says, ‘How many kids were at the Project show? How much did they sell in merch? How many records did we sell for the week?’ That’s it. It’s all they care about. I think if fans really understood how vital that was, people would go out of their way. Our fans are starting to look out too, because I’ve been ramming it down their throats for a couple of years. It’s like, ‘Dude, if you want our band to stick around, you gotta support us and you gotta come out to shows. You gotta buy the record. You gotta make a strong showing.’ It’s exactly what I was saying tonight, because next time we come through we’re not gonna play a church or whatever this is. We’re gonna play a club. And we need those people to come out.

Andrew: Just knowing that they’re not God. They can sour me from the Christian experience and they can push me away from church. And they can make me say this and make me say that about blahblahblahblahblah, but they can’t really touch how I feel - that’s between me and God. And that’s why it’s about - relationship. Because if was just about relationships with people nobody would believe in God. It’s why, like I said, so many people have such a problem with Christianity is because of Christians. I know it’s cliché, but when you think about how goonie and stupid we are, and I use the term ‘we’ loosely, cause I used to be the goonie super-spiritual Christian guy a long, long time ago and I realized how many people that hurt. If I had things to do over with my band I’d probably do it a little differently. But this is the path that God has chosen for us and this is the path that He has given us. We keep going on as a band and I keep going on as a Christian because I don’t know what else I would be doing. This is what I’m supposed to be doing. Tonight is evidence, our show. I walked in here today and I was like, ‘Why is the show here? Why can’t we do it in a gym or somewhere it can be run like a rock show, not like a youth choir thing.’ That’s not disrespecting anyone at all, it’s just the fact of the situation. JfH's Sean: I know that we were one of three car loads that were here to see Project. That’s cool. I anticipated a lot of people being here just for us and it’s been that way on the entire tour. We all wanna play Purple Door again. They know that we have a big following. I just wanna make sure that everything’s handled on the up-and-up. The only way sometimes that we have power with these kinds of people is by the communication with our fans. If we’re powerful enough to demand that much following at a show then all of a sudden we’re respected. It’s unfortunate, but on the Christian side of things there’s just as many crooks. John: The worst part about it is it’s still a business. The thing is, in the music industry, you deal with label people on just the normal side of music and you kind of expect them to be crooks. This industry recruits the lazy and the leeches and the schmoozers and all that stuff. On the Christian side of things, if you’re naïve to it, you go into it anticipating it to be different. Well those people just smile a lot more. And they use Christian words when they’re trying to screw you. It’s true, man. It sucks. It totally sucks.

Andrew: All they’re gonna remember is Drawing Black Lines. *laughter* I’m just kidding. I have this joke I say sometimes at shows, ‘You guys know we did two [more] records?’ *more laughter* And every time I meet someone, ‘Dude where’s the fro? Dude, I love Drawing Black Lines.’ *laughter* We just scratch our heads and we’re like, ‘What did we do?’ John: I guess you guys lost some people on Truthless Heroes? Yeah, justifiably so. I had different aspirations for that record than what came out. There’s no such thing as a perfect record. You live and you learn. I think our new record is definitely a step more in the right direction. I’m happy with it. I don’t think it’s our best record ever. I think we have some really good music in us left, and not just good, because we’ll think its good, but because people will like it too. John: I was curious… With Songs to Burn Your Bridges By, what were you hoping to do with that record? Thematically and stuff?. Just try to tell people who were soured by Truthless Heroes why Truthless Heroes was the way it was. Know what I mean? We try to. John: What was your favorite song off there? Oh boy. Favorite song to play live is “Breakdown in ¾”. Favorite song to listen to… ”Shadow On Me” and “Safe Haven.” I love "Safe Haven." John: What is Shadow On Me about? It’s about being broken. It’s really simple. There’s some deep stuff on this record and there’s some real deep stuff you can grab a hold of. Because the concept is a little simpler, it’s not just me using some big words or something. Uh, what’s the legacy we wanna leave? We didn’t compromise. I know we have compromised along the way in some areas, sometimes out of stupidity or being naïve here and there. But now we don’t with anything because we know where we need to be and we know what we need to be doing. And we can’t change our sound or change what we do to cater to people, to cater to kids or the record label people or to radio people. We just have to be who we are. And I think in the end, if we stick to that from here on out, we’ll be very happy with the legacy we leave. Even if we sell five records on our fifth album. And that’s a terrifying thing to say. It’s much harder to do that than it is to just write songs that people wanna hear. Believe me, I can go up there and scream like all the other 10,000 metal-core bands that are out there or hit the same notes as most of the screamo bands and appeal to the scene kids. But we’re not scene kids. We think scene kids are trying too hard and their endorsement of certain bands being cool or being uncool fades. And it makes what those fans do a flash in the pan because they’re part of like a little mini-trend. And it’s no discredit to the bands that sound like that, it’s more just about ‘that scene.’ Though we’d love for those kids to come out to our shows because we like to talk to everyone, even when they’re sort of anti-our band. Our band exists on the edge of 'scene.' There are some scene kids that really like our band, and there are some scene kids that really think we’re stupid and we don’t get it and we’re cheesy. But if they sat down with us and checked out our music collection and saw what we were in to and where our roots are and how many hard-core shows we used to go to and blahblahblahblahblah, they would realize they’re just little kids trying too hard - wearing black make-up, black hair dye and lip rings and girl jeans. Eating pita bread and hummus. *laughter* But anyway, I could go on and on and on about all kinds of stuff.

Andrew: I just want to keep encouraging people to continue to support the band. We’ve been through a lot. We’re not really dwelling on what we’ve been through. Even though this is kind of what this record is about. I’ll keep hammering home the point to support the bands you love. Go out to the shows. Buy the records, don’t burn them. Buy the merch. But mainly buy the record and go out to shows. We need that support. You can join our myspace group, become our friends at www.myspace.com\project86. You can visit our website www.project86.com and join our forums or you can go to my website www.octoberthirty.com - which is today! I’m waiting on a template to update it myself so I can put up fan writings. Yeah! Thanks guys, I really appreciate it. That was good guys, I liked it!