MUEN: All of you perform with so much energy throughout the entire show. How do you keep up the ability to do that night after night?

Um. Physically I don't know, I guess doing it consistently. I know if we don't perform for a long time like a couple of weeks, we definitely feel it. There's so much energy in the songs it's hard not to have that on stage.

MUEN: I've always wondered this. Ryan White of Resident Hero has performed at every show that I have seen singing So I Thought with Lacey. Does he travel with you or is he local here to Los Angeles and just comes for the L.A. shows?

He's local to L.A. and we have done tours with Resident Hero in the past so he would travel with us. It's such an honor for him to come on stage and sing with us. He's been such an important role in our band especially early on when we were first starting in Austin, TX and Resident Hero gave us so many shows because they had already established themselves before they moved out to Los Angeles and we would open up for them. He is one of my strongest song writing influences.

MUEN: Currently you are on tour with Seether. Haven't you toured with them before? How is this tour going so far?

Yes, we did the SnoCore Tour in 2006. It's going great the turn out every night has been amazing. It's so great to see familiar faces come out to all the shows. It's always a pleasure going out with Seether because they are great guys and a great band.

MUEN: You've had to add shows due to ticket demand right?

Yeah, it's really cool!

MUEN: I attended the Family Values Tour in Irvine, CA in September of last year. Do you remember how hot it was?

(Laughing) Yeah.. Definitely. I remember standing outside the bus and shaving my head cuz it was so hot.

MUEN: Is that the biggest tour you've been on?

I think Family Values was the biggest we've done to date and we were so fortunate to have gone out with Korn. It's so cool they are such a heavy hitting band.

MUEN: It seems as though you are always on tour, which is great. Which show or tour is your personal favorite?

Umm that's hard to say I've been asked that question before. But it's difficult to say because each tour has its qualities so it's hard to pick out a favorite. I can pick out favorite moments of each tour.

MUEN: How do you cope with being on the road so long? You've been on one tour after another haven't you?

Yeah we do we tour consistently. Actually I have been doing this since I was 17 years old. I don't really know anything else except for High School. For me, this is normal. I feel more at home here than I do at home now. Our band and crew together collectively make up a great group of friends.

MUEN: What kind of gear do you use?

I use Paul Reed Smith Guitars. I have a couple Robin guitars also. Live I usually use the Paul Reed Smith guitar because it's such a great live guitar. I use THD Amps. Jared uses Paul Reed Smith also and he uses Diesel Amps. Our Diesel guy in Los Angeles is so cool. He and our sound engineer work together a lot to find out tones and figure out sounds that we need. I use a custom ISO cabinet designed by the guy from Diesel and our sound engineer.

MUEN: Your songs confront past traumas of neglect, addiction, and dysfunction but you are really trying to send a positive message to the people who listen to your music. What would that message be?

Um the message is a message of hope. The fact is everyone has been scarred or burned in the past. Even now people are still being hurt but the thing is you really can become a much better person because of those things. We just want to address that there is always hope. You can always rise above whatever situation you are dealing with and you can always come out on top. It just takes a certain perspective.

MUEN: I read that Dave Navarro makes an appearance on the album. What songs or song does he appear in?

He appears in "There For You" he has a guitar part in the background of the chorus.

MUEN: Howard Benson produced your debut album. He has worked with some amazing artists. What was he like to work with?

He was really great. The way he works is really fast. Dealing with him and dealing with his team especially because he has a system that they go through it was really cool to watch how efficiently he makes records. As far as the sound structures go and stuff like that it was cool to see. His whole thing was he wanted to get the message of the song across more than anything else. When we were discussing the record before we actually started working with him we wanted everything to be clear and those are good things. And he was like you know no one is going to care what the high hat sounds like you know people want to hear the words. I want this record to be one of those records where you can listen at the beach with a crappy radio listening to it in mono and still understand what's going on as far as the message of it and the feel of it. That was his approach to producing the record and I think that was a great approach. There are some things that I wish would of happened differently just because those are our songs those are our babies we are very particular about them so with some things I'm disappointed but overall I'm very proud of the record and I'm very excited. I learned a lot about song writing.

MUEN: What are your views on mainstream today? Do you think it has gotten better?

Um..I don't know, honestly I don't listen to a lot of new music. I hardly ever listen to the radio. On the road we never hear the radio because in the bus CDs are playing. I think music is going in a good direction from what I've seen. Sometimes there is a lot of music out there that is sterile. Kind of cookie cutter. Maybe some people say that about our band and that's fine. Everyone has their opinions. I'm just speaking my mind.

MUEN: Do you like other genres of music other than what Flyleaf does?

Definitely.Yeah. I like everything from Nick Cave and Tom Waites and everything in between from Incubus to the Beatles. The Beatles are probably one of my favorite bands. I love Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and that whole era of music. I like to think of myself as well rounded but at the same time I can be very snobbish about music but I have to remember that is someone else's creation you know.

MUEN: I kind of noticed that some of the kids are listening to classic rock.

That's so cool because I think with that era is what's coming around such revolution and I think that had to happen again and so like the grunge era like the early 90's stuff. I guess I'm waiting for that to come around again cuz that was such a good era of music.

MUEN: Flyleaf will be part of the Use Your Voice Campaign and you are now selling your EPs at your shows to benefit this organization. A percentage of the proceeds go to help people get back on their feet through World Vision right?

That's right. The whole proceeds of the EP we're selling go to World Vision. It's such an amazing thing. The way World Vision works is that the money goes to the community and the community decides how to do stuff, they have a system. It's not like World Visions decides what goes on they give the power to the community to decide what to do with what they have. The things we witnessed while we were there was so unbelievable the way things are operating there. People are making smart decisions with their resources that they are getting and becoming self sufficient and in time not need World Visions help anymore. That's what they are working towards. It's so cool to actually see it working. We saw people who took like one chicken and turned it into a whole farm of animals that they are making money from and helping the neighbors with it.