Cory Brandan: Yeah, we've had a lot of fun with it. It's been really well-received. Probably more well-received than the last four records. Well, the last three, at least. So we've been really happy with it.

Cory: It's not really anything that special. We were done with our [Solid State] contract and we wanted something different than what they were offering. I don't know if they really wanted us back anyway. *laughter* The truth is, you can't have loyalties to things like that, because on that side of the spectrum of being in a band, that's like business, you know? And the relationship between a band and a label is a business agreement, and if you're gonna run a business, which is basically what we're doing, we have to take the best deal. And that's what we did.

Cory: No, how could they? I mean, their job is to spend money and put our records on the shelves, and that's literally their only job. No label should have artistic input whatsoever. If you listen to all our records, you can see how they're all different. No two are the same. So that's us, 100%.

Cory: Hmm.... no. *laughter* I don't know, maybe. I guess it would depend on how you define mainstream. I mean, we're not mainstream, I know that. Not that we would mind it. I mean, we write music and I want as many people as possible to hear it. So whatever outlet we have to use to make that happen, we're fine with it.

Cory: Oh it's great. 100%. They're the best. They're really passionate about what they do, they really like Norma Jean. We are by no means they're biggest band, by far. They just love the band and they wanna put out our records and that was really important to us.

Cory: Not at all. This is our first headlining tour for this record. Our plans are to tour as much as we can until we know for a fact that it's time to do something else. I mean, we wanna push this record to its limit. So we're gonna continue to do that until we just can't anymore. And then we'll start writing. So even then, it'll be a little bit before we have a record out.

Cory: Every tour, we just look and see who's out there. It's usually bands we like. If we like them, then we wanna tour with them. So we talk to them. And that's pretty much how it works. Nothing changed from when we first started being a band and touring to now. We wanna tour with bands that we like and bands that wanted to work with us. That's how it works.

Cory: Yeah, good experiences every night. I mean, the best part of our day is on stage, so yeah, it's been great. A fun tour.

Cory: Whew...that list is so long, man. I can't... I wouldn't even be able to touch the surface. We all like different types of music, from country to heavy music to...you name it, we like it. We like a lot of stuff, so it's kinda hard to name like specific bands or whatever.

Cory: Yeah. One of the bands is Fear Is The Driving Force, and we have a record written, and eventually we'll record it, whenever that is. It's not something that is super important. It's just more of a fun thing to do at home. My brother plays in that band, and it's something we can do when we're at home - play music together and just chill.

Cory: I was doing a band called The Radio Sky, but that's pretty much done now.

Cory: Good question. Ask them. *laughter* I don't know, we just stopped playing. People wanted to do different things, but we had fun with it for a while. We do have a record. It's free, so you can just go get it online. So it's out there in the atmosphere somewhere.

Cory: It doesn't really have a name. It's just like a 'Hey, here's a bunch of songs we wrote' kinda thing. So, no name. Not really that important.

Cory: Yeah, actually. Jeff is sitting right over there, and he plays guitar in Fear Is The Driving Force.

Cory: Yeah, I played guitar for Living Sacrifice for a couple years, before Norma Jean. Uh...that's it, I think. *laughter* That's all I can think of right now.

Cory: Uh, like 2000-ish? Something like that.

Cory: Oh, okay. Cool.

Cory: Yes we do. We've announced one for May. We'll be out on the second half of this tour starting in May with a bunch of bands. Some awesome bands, different ones than this tour. And different cities than this one. Explosions II Part Two in May. So we'll be on tour this summer.

Cory: Drive to the next show. *laughter* We usually just try to chill out. Stay in the hotel or go to a mall or, you know, just whatever we can do to relax. We work really hard to be on tour, and we're usually pretty tired. So on days off we just try to hang and chill.

Cory: Yeah, it's a good idea. It's the ideal situation for the day off. *laughter*

Cory: No theme, really. I think we've tried to do themes before, but it really kinda limits you. You know, you get five songs in and then kinda run out of ideas for the theme. And we didn't wanna do that, so we kinda stayed away from the theme thing. But, the songs are open to interpretation to anyone that listens to it. We don't try to explain what our songs are about. I don't know, we like it that way.

Cory: One.

Cory: It blows away everything we've ever done, in my opinion. And that's from a listening standpoint, too. Not just, being in the band of course I'm gonna say that. You know 'Oh, it's the best thing we've ever done!' I'm gonna say that next time, too. But hearing it for the first time, you could definitely tell that it is something very, very unique and something that we've never touched on before, musically.

Cory: Buy our record, don't download it for free. 'Cause that's stealing.