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Hello,
great to hear you, how are you? E:
Are you ready for work?
To
be honest this is not work; this is pleasure. E:
Well, the inspiration, from the musician’s point of view, is just to
write music. We just love that and we are always writing music. The
lyrical inspiration is only for Paul (Mendoza-vocals), he writes all the
lyrics. And you know he is writing about relationships, usually failed
relationships…. any kind of relationship, you know with your girlfriend,
your father, family relationships.
It’s
a good source of inspiration. Now, let me congratulate you on your new
record… I was the one who did the review and I was so surprised by this
kind of music. The promo CD fell to our hands as a melodic rock album and
you can imagine how surprised we were to listen to this kind of musical mixture. E:
It’s just heavy rock I guess…heavy melodic rock.
Yes,
we thought it was something like AOR. E:
Oh, like soft rock bands?
Yes! E:
(Laughs)
You
can imagine the surprise! How would you describe it to someone who
hasn’t heard anything from you? E:
It’s really hard to describe. I would just say a bit of Faith No More
and elements of Muse mixed in…
The
whole sound is so original. E:
It’s hard for us cause the radio people don’t know where to put us.
And the record people too don’t know where to put us. Sometimes they put
us in the “rock” section, some others put us in the “metal”
section. It’s hard because we are all of each, but we are definitely not
heavy like Machine Head.
By
the way I found some adds that characterize Unjust as nu-metal, and I felt
that it is so confining. Is it a trick of the label? E: We haven’t had much luck with labels. Like when we were looking for independent label out here, we had no luck with the major labels – we couldn’t find even an independent one cause there is no independent label here for our kind of music. There are either hardcore or punk, but really not rock independent labels, so they were not interested in us.
Don’t know if you are aware of that, but your first two records didn’t have distribution here in Europe. We did anything possible from here (Greece) but couldn’t get hold of them. Is this changing with Copro records this time? E:
I hope so, but everybody can only do what they can do. Copro seems a
little bit smaller than Mascot. But you know, this is how it is with
independent labels. You can only hope for the best – can’t change
anything.
We
got carried away here for a while. Would you please introduce the band
with a short biography? E: Hmm, well Paul and our original guitarist Russell started the band back in 1990, when they were kids. There have been a few line up changes – well actually a lot of line up changes – until I joined the band in late ’97, early ’98. One of the first demos called “One Day In ‘98”, I got a bunch of copies and went to Dynamo festival and hand it out – like 500 of them. And that’s when Mascot Records got interested and we recorded “Thin Line Emotions” in ’99 and then we recorded “Makeshift Grey” In 2001-2002 and that’s when Russell decided he didn’t want anymore and he left and we got Mickey on guitar. That’s part of the big change in our style. He started writing most of the music. 90% of the music is written by Mickey now and it’s the kind of guitarist that Paul always wanted. Paul has had a vision of “Glow” for a long time, but he wasn’t able to materialize it until Mickey started playing guitar. It’s a great combination in writing, Mickey and Paul.
By
the way, I saw your picture and I think you are really quite young. I
thought that this kind of music would be the creation of older more mature
songwriters. E: I don’t know…Paul is 26-27 and Mickey has just turned 21…
Holly
Shit! Really? E: Yeah, I think it’s part of listening to a lot of music and just being into music. I mean, I don’t think that age has anything to do. If you are professional musician and you listen to a lot of music, like Paul does…. he is constantly looking for the newest thing. Especially in English rock. He uses his influences, just right away. When we started he was 14 years old and it was weird for a 14-year old to write this kind of music.
Just
be listening to the CD and before reading the details, I thought you were
an English band… the sound is so English-like… E: Yeah, it’s the Muse influence.
What is the first response for the album so far? E:
Same as yours. People are pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately it hasn’t
surprised any major label. We’ve showcased our last two albums to major
labels and they think we are too original and non trendy – that really
hurt us. That’s when Bill Gould picked us up… he said that we have the
potentials to be one of the biggest bands around, but you know you know,
we don’t have that “Beatle haircuts” and skinny arms (laughs).
Yes,
I wanted to ask you about that. I know that it has been difficult for
rock/metal bands to sign contracts with big labels in the States. Is it
still the same? E:
Oh, yeah. It is ridiculous out here. But it will only help going out in
the street. It just takes a lot of hard work. We have just been in a three
week tour in the States and we can say that the only way that
really-really make it and keep your own band is to go out there and tour.
You have to play in people’s faces. Then you make them say “my God!
These guys are good”. But it’s hard otherwise to put make them listen
to the CDs.
I’ve
heard that you’ve been touring in general lately. E:
Well, this was our first US tour.
How
did go? E: Pretty well. I mean, the shows were small, it was preliminary tour, and the next one will be a little bit bigger. But it was great to see the rest of the US.
Was
it a headline tour? E: No-no we played with a few local bands.
Any
plans to play in Europe? E:
Well hopefully, if the
demand is great enough. I mean we’ve never toured Europe, we’ve played
a night in a festival. The demand just has to be there for us to come out,
cause it’s one thing to play small shows round here and another to fly
all the way to Europe. It’s really hard for us to get in descent tours,
coming from only such a small label, you know.
Which
would be the best group to tour with, if you had to choose from the whole
music history? (I think that Eric didn’t heard my question well, because
of the troubles with the line) E:
Hmm, that’s a good question. 36 Crazy Fists, who are good friends of
ours, our music styles match. On the extreme side, I guess it would be
“Muse”. It would be great to play with them, although I think we would
be very heavy for them. We could probably get away with the Machine Head
tour right there in Europe. They are good friends of us.
Are there any details about the album that you would like to share? Funny stuff, way of recording it? E: Actually this album went quite well. We basically have a formula for recording, which gets things done very quickly. I wouldn’t change anything. Listening back to the album I can say it is a bit on the slow side, so our next album, which is by 75% ready, is going to be a little bit faster. As for the actual recording process…. we have this formula and we will be sticking to that. We do a lot of our own demos on the computer at home. Record them live on the computer and we play and mess around with them and then we take them almost ready to where we make the recordings.
Do
you know the title of your upcoming CD? (I think my question wasn’t
clear enough) E:
I don’t have anything ready yet. There is a song that we play a lot
called “Sirens”. I can hardly say. There are seven songs and I can
hardly remember the titles.
Will
you release it through the same labels? E:
Yes.
What strikes at once when listening to the album are the remarkable orchestrations. Who is responsible for them? E:
Hmm, most of the writing is done by Mike and Paul. They bring in ideas and
then we work on them on the rehearsal. But the orchestrations come
naturally; it’s the way we write.
I’m
really curious to find out about your musical influences. Your personal or
the band in general… E: Hmm, well we all listen to a lot of different things. I’d say the Muse, which is a huge influence on Paul, and then English rock like Radiohead. I would add some more recent stuff… the new 36 Crazy Fists, Evanescence. Paul also listens to metal and stuff, like… my God, I can’t think any of the right now…
Doesn’t
matter. Give your three favorite records of all time. E:
(Silence) Oh man! That’s really hard to do man! I would say Dredge
as a big influence.
What
are the future plans for Unjust? I think that if there’s a God you will
become something like the new Metallica. Man, I have tried to persuade
people to find and buy your CDs here in Greece… E:
Oh, thank you very much. It’s hard for us. People see promise in us, but
it’s already our third album and we are going on our fourth and it does
get a bit frustrating, but we always gonna write and record music – no
matter how big or small it is. We had recorded “Glow” with our own
money. They didn’t want to fund us because they said we sounded too much
like Radiohead…
Oh
come on! E:
Well, is that a bad thing?
It’s
not bad at all, but your music is still so original. E:
Yeah it’s hard and I think that being original eventually really hurts
you! (laughs)
So
you are not earning much money from your music right? E: No, actually we pay a lot of money.
So
you have other jobs as well huh? E:
Yeah, we all have day jobs.
God, this is frustrating, you cannot concentrate on your art. E:
Yes it’s really hard. We cannot concentrate on our music, but that’s
what we do. We have our day job, we come home and go to practice, and
write music. It’s like two and a half jobs! (laughs)
Tell
me about you meeting Faith No More’s Billy Gould and signing with his
label in the States. E:
He was a fan of the band since he listened to the “Makeshift” demos.
And he asked to sign us at that point, but we were not ready to work with
him yet. Hmm, we thought we would get a major label deal. But evidently it
didn’t happen. I know he went on vacation in Spain for a while and when
he came back and listened to the “Glow” album he went “Wow” and
said he would help us in any way he could. That’s how we run into each
other. He is a great coach and we listen to him, despite being a very
stubborn band. If someone like him gives a piece of advice, we listen
(laughs).
What
is he up to? Does he compose anymore? E: He writes a lot of music, but is looking for the right people.
Because
he hasn’t released anything lately. E: No, he did something with someone in Iceland I think… but other than that no. He has a lot of original material as he always writes music, he doesn’t really cherish being a record executive type. On the other hand he does all he can to support his bands.
Is
there anything you would like to be asked, but I didn’t ask you? E: Just thank you very much. If it wasn’t for people like you, some people wouldn’t have heard for Unjust. Thank you for the support and hopefully we are gonna come through there in the fall. We see what happens, but we really need a bigger band to bring us along.
I
wish for that, and believe me, you have this support because you deserve
it.
by Alex Savatianos |
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