RockRage Interview
RR (Rockrage): I got a chance to catch you guys performing; I believe it was this past Monday, on �Craig Kilborn�. Is more nerve wrecking to perform on national television opposed to doing concerts?
MC (duh!): You know what was weird? That kind of shit didn�t even dawn on me. What it was though was you go in there and it looks, I mean from what you see on TV and it looks huge in there right? It�s tiny. It�s like a tiny ass little stage and I have giants in my band.
RR: Yeah, especially Dave [bassist Dave DeRoo]. Dave�s a big guy.
MC: Dave�s a big giant and so is Tim. Tim, the guitar player with the dreads, he�s like 6� 10�. So, you know, what we were mainly nervous about is you walk in and it�s this like, it�s a mixed audience. You know what I mean? And at first they�re clapping, you know, �cause they have the cue stuff and they�re clapping, but you know what? Once we finished playing that song [�Giving In,� off their self-titled debut], they applauded afterwards and it was like deafening loud in there. They were like really excited and I can see that they were like stoked to be able to watch the performance.
RR: You guys were also scheduled to play the first U.S. version of England�s �Reading Festival.� But that got cancelled.
MC: Yeah. That sucked, �cause I was really looking forward to [it]. I guess some players didn�t come to the party, so. You know what I mean. It wasn�t able to go through.
RR: The band, in one way or another, pretty much [everyone] is associated with Jonathon Davis of Korn, who is your older half brother. But also I think Dave and Tim have played with him in the band SexArt.
MC: Dave played with him in SexArt. Tim wasn�t in any of those bands. Tim and Dave came out of a band called Juice. That was after SexArt.
RR: Okay, and then Kris Kohls, your drummer, was in Videodrone. They did some work with Jonathon.
MC: Yeah. They did some stuff with him. Our association with Korn has only come out of rumor and stuff like that. It had nothing to do with, you know, our record deal or anything like that �cause we�re on two opposite labels. You know, we�re not tied in with The Firm, which is their label, their management company, and all that. We�re not tied in with that at all, you know, but people want to talk about it �cause it gives them something to write about or talk about�we didn�t come up with, it wasn�t something that we considered on, played on to further our success. You know what I mean? The rumor got out and it just started this buzz about, you know �oh his younger brother�s band blah blah blah,� you know? But we had never planned to use that like a marketing tool or anything like I said, it just kind of came out. It is what it is. You know what I mean? But our record just came out and we�re having good sales. Things are going good. So it�s showing me that my songs [are] impacting on radio, as well as television now with, you know, the �Late Show� and we also did ESPN X-Games.
RR: There were a number of different labels bidding to sign you guys.
MC: Yeah. We made a demo that was pretty good and I gave it to one of my one of my A&R friends and that just kind of started a buzz, or like a rumor, and it just came up.
RR: What was it about Arista that locked the deal?
MC: Well, what we decided on was we needed a label that was going to stay out of our business. They needed to stay out of our record making process and let us do what we needed to do to make the record that we could tour on for a couple years. They laid out a good plan and everything just kind of seem to fit. A record label, it�s a big corporation, right? But really, when you find out about it there�s only a few different people that are going to be working your record and those people were cool.
RR: I read that there were some scuffles while writing the material for the new album. Were there any differences or complications in which direction the band wanted to go musically? I mean, your guitarist Mike Ransom played in a ska-reggae-swing type of band. This is a straight out rock band.
MC: He just did that band pretty much while he was in transit. You know what I mean? When he was trying to find a band he wanted to be in. That really had no affect on his style. He was always rock. So he kind of did his thing there for awhile. I was a singer/songwriter type of guy for awhile. We all just kind of came together. And when we went away to write the record, we all had little individual home recording studios in our room. None of us were selfish. If you had a cool riff, it�s like �Lets� check it out and try it out and see if we can make it fit with something else,� and if it sucks, whatever. We�re not going to cry about it. Sometimes I�ll come with whacked riffs to practice and was like �Dude, this is whack.� And I was like �Okay, back to the chalkboard.�
RR: You mentioned singer/songwriter, but I read at one point that you were a day care supervisor and thinking about being a teacher as well.
MC: That�s right. That�s what I was doing. You need a certain amount of hours to be qualified to even be around children all day long. It was a good job for me because it was only like three hours a day, three and a half hours a day, that I was working. So I had a little bit of pocket change to pay the bills and a lot of time to write my music.
RR: Is that something you might have pursued as a career if you weren�t involved in the music industry today?
MC: Oh yeah, for sure. That�s what I was going to do. It was either going to be teaching or rocking the stage.
RR: Cool. Well, so far you�re rocking the stage. I caught you guys at the pre-Ozzfest party here in Chicago, with Stereomud and everything. That was a good show.
MC: Thank you man. You gotta see it now. It�s gotten so much� even so much more. Ya know we�ve been out a little over three months now and our stage shows is getting better and better and better every night.
RR: Yeah and you guys are, later in the fall I think early September, you guys are heading out on the road with Disturbed, Drowning Pool, Stereomud, Systematic. So what can we expect from that? A bigger show you say, huh.
MC: What we give kids I think, what they want to see is they want to see me connecting. And not only just myself, but some of the other guys in the band are really coming out in the light and they�re getting their own little following of kids loving what they do on stage. If I can perform my heart, they can believe that I believe what I�m singing about, then that�s when you win and that�s when it�s a great show.
RR: As far as I can tell, everyone in the band has Adema tattooed on them. Whose idea was it and at what point did everyone realize that Adema was their final destination?
MC: We met and uh�. I got it. Me and our drummer went down and I was like �Let�s get this tat on our wrists.� And then he�s like, �Hell yeah.� He�s like �I�m down for this man. It�d the last band lI�ll be in�. And I was like �Yeah, metoo�. Cause I mean we�ve been through so many bands and been through the ringer. So we had to figure out how to, you know, if this is going to be the band for the rest of our lives? And I felt that way at the time, I still do. And then the other guys were like, �Fuck we wanna do it too.� So they did it, we all just did it.
RR: And what�s the meaning behind the name Adema?
MC: Adema is just us five guys doing what we do and expressing the feelings that we wrote on the record. That�s what Adema means.
RR: And the record has a more uplifting vibe than a lot of the nu-metal that�s out there. What�s your take on the direction of the metal scene right now? Cause I�m seeing more bands along your caliber starting to come out more than just the rap/riff-rock kinda thing.
MC: Yeah, I think rocks coming back more. It�s like the rap-rock thing is kinda, to me it�s played out. You know, I like it. I like some of it you know. But we�re rock, you know what I mean? And we want to make rock records.
RR: Okay so was �Giving In� the very first video you�ve ever made?
MC: Yep.
RR: So how was that experience?
MC: It was awesome dude. It was really cool. I mean we shot it in Los Angeles and it was a two-day shoot, 16 hour-days, and it was like cool ya know? We got to learn a lot about how the stuff works�
RR: I caught part of it. I�ve only seen it once, but I caught part of it where it looks like you�re kind of floating in front of the changing scenery behind you. Is that right? How does that work? Is that all a green screen?
MC: We used a dolly�we had three set rooms.
RR: Okay, and they just rolled you along?
MC: Yeah, and the dolly would go from left�or from�. you were constantly going to your right. For me it was, I would get on it and it would go from right to left. So, you know, visually it turns out different. So it looks like�it�s awesome cause it looks like I�m almost floating through the scenes. And uh it was just cool. It helped us�visually it helped to portray our show like what I was thinking in my head. You know what I mean? Like the set changes are what�s happening in my head. It�s kind of like supposed to be thought, you know what I mean?
RR: Okay and how much creative input did you guys have on that?
MC: Quite a bit. And then Paul Theodore, he came out and saw us play and then he wrote a treatment for us and then we just went from there. And kind of start adding things in and taking stuff out and�it was rad.