MUEN: SO TELL US - HOW WAS YOUR VISIT TO NAMM? WE SAW THAT YOU WERE HANGING OUT AT THE "ENGL AMPLIFIERS" BOOTH.. SPEAKING OF WHICH, HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOU GET ENGL TO SPONSOR YOU ANYWAY, ISN'T IT RARE FOR THEM TO SPONSOR AN "UNSIGNED" ARTIST?

DAVID ALVAREZ: Namm was great! I tried out a lot of new gear and met some very cool people. Everyone has a different story on how they get signed or endorsed, the story with me and Engl is that Michael Berger (A&R for Engl) loves my music and believes in the future of what this can be become. And yes it is extremely rare in fact perhaps unheard of for an unsigned artist to be used in advertisements for major magazines throughout Europe for an endorsement like I was or included in their site with such heavyweights as I have been but honestly that is a testament to the music I created. I believe my little EP which recieves radioplay for each of the 4 songs on the EP is stronger than most LPs that are filled with very unmemorable songs. Honestly when I listen back to a song like Evil, I hear music that has no origin other than itself, which means most times you hear a song and you say this song sounds like this band or that song, with Evil and Crip and Into Nothing and Inside each song is so highly original the origins of those songs start from within and no where else that is what I imagine impresses Engl to the point they feel this is a new artist to be reckoned with and I make every intention with every ounce of my being to prove them right.

MUEN: HOW LONG AGO HAS IT BEEN SINCE YOU RECORDED "INTO NOTHING," AND "CRIPPLED SO HARD"? ... WE'VE BEEN ON THE NET QUITE A LONG WHILE NOW, AND GET TONS OF ADDS FROM BANDS, AND TO THIS DAY, WE HAVE YET TO COME ACROSS ANYTHING THAT "RESEMBLES" THE UNIQUE SOUND OF STOB ... CAN YOU EXPLAIN A LITTLE ABOUT HOW YOU WENT ABOUT RECORDING THESE SONGS, AND WHAT INSPIRED THOSE SONGS?

DAVID ALVAREZ: Thanks, this is something that I think is lacking in todays music, originality has become something of a dirty word for the last 5 years hopefully that will start changing but yes I defy anyone to tell me what Evil sounds like, if there is a song previous to it�s creation that sounds similar I defy someone out there to point it out to me. Thing is I listen to the radio now and I hear song after song after song by new bands and now by bands that have been around for a while that sound like older songs, take a little from here take a little from there and put it together and hope no one notices. It�s very difficult to always make highly original music in fact it is impossible we are all only human but it�s nice to hear every once in a while an artist /musician strive to find his or her own voice and not either be a parrot vocally or imitate other people�s styles. Into Nothing was recorded now believe it or not a little under a year ago and Crip was recorded a little over 2 years. But the thing is these songs continue to get new radioplay because of the nature of what STOB is which is a band that has gained massive success for an unsigned band but because it is unsigned doesn�t have the marketing machine of a major to get the song spread out all at the same time to every station and so forth so currently it keeps leaking slowly and gaining new dj�s and stations wanting to play it with every passing day even after all this time. What inspired me to record this music is the fact that this is the music I want to hear�I create this music out of a need to hear it. Truth is there would be so many more songs and in fact these very same songs would have been better recorded and mixed if there was a budget there but to this day there is no budget.

MUEN: WORLD FAMOUS KROQ AND OTHER RADIO STATIONS IN CITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY HAVE PLAYED YOUR SONGS SUCH AS "EVIL" ON THE AIR.. THIS IS PRETTY IMPRESSIVE BEING YOU ARE NOT EVEN SIGNED TO A LABEL AND (AT THE TIME) DID NOT EVEN HAVE A FULL BAND IN TACT... THAT'S PRETTY AMAZING... SO HOW DID ALL THAT COME ABOUT?

DAVID ALVAREZ: Kat from KROQ heard Evil on Myspace and contacted me a couple of weeks before she played it telling me she was spinning it on Jan 7th 2007, this date is embedded in my mind because it is the first time I received play from a major radio station. To me it blows my mind she would play that song because it is the most unique track on the EP not to mention sounds totally alien when compared to the rest of the music being played on KROQ but I think that has to do more with a need from people wanting to hear something different from the status quo. Believe me it took guts for Kat to play this music then she played it again during Coachella weekend which says a lot because that is a very high profile weekend on KROQ.

MUEN: SO WHO CAME UP WITH THE CONCEPT FOR THE ADVERTISEMENT THAT ENGL USES, YOU HAD THAT PICTURE BEFORE THE ADVERTISEMENT WAS MADE RIGHT?

DAVID ALVAREZ: The story is once I received the endorsement from Engl, I contacted Josh Separzedeh to make some artwork comemmorating the endorsement, I had worked with Josh once before just some shots of me rehearsing and he had been wanting to take new photos of me but this time in his usual style which is to make the photos into works of art instead of just ordinary promo shots. We had bounced ideas back and forth at each other and I let him know what I was looking for he then came up with the idea of the TV�s on the heads of clones�it fit what my music and concepts are about perfectly. The photograph was definitely his vision but it coallesced so well with my vision it was absolutely perfect. Engl loved the picture so much they used it for their advertising in major magazines spread throughout Europe.

MUEN: WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST EMO AND SCREAMO? AND ARE THERE ANY OTHER GENRES THAT YOU HAVE SUCH LOW TOLERANCE FOR?

DAVID ALVAREZ: Well, I never understood what Emo is about, I never understood the music nor attitudes behind it. I always saw it as whining and embracing weakness and it was totally anti who I am I just thought the whole movement was pretty stupid and am thankful it seems to be dying. (no pun intended) As far as Screamo is concerned, people that commit screamo try to mask it and say it�s metal but that�s bullshit, I am not metal, I would classify my music as rock mixed with electronics and that retro futuristic moniker will come more into view with the new music coming soon. But Screamo is such a waste because every song sounds like a carbon copy of another in the same genre. Same guitar riffs, same drum beats and worst of all same �melodies� of someone �screaming� as if they gargle with rocks and sing about bullshit, what a waste of life to listen to the same thing over and over again. That music is garbage.

MUEN: EXPLAIN WHAT THE SONG "EVIL" IS ABOUT, AND WHAT DID YOU USE FOR THE SYMPHONY AT THE END OF THE SONG?

DAVID ALVAREZ: Evil is a recurring theme of mine, like Into Nothing it is about the end of the world. I don�t mean this in a religious sense I mean this from the point of view of knowing human nature all too well and understanding how this society and other societies are run. If you think about it for a moment the truth is the end of civilization is inevitable, human population continues to grow at such an exceedingly overwhelming rate the numbers of us all makes it difficult for us to utilize the necessities of life. Food, water and land will be in extreme short supply and the numbers of people will make �money� worth nothing, this is what worries the people in power the most, their wealth will become meaningless.

Have you ever looked into exactly what the Federal Reserve is? It�s not a government institution, this is not a conspiracy theory it is an actual fact. The Federal Reserve which controls the United States� monetery system is run by bankers of the world....or �rich families�. Truth is people in power are people with the most money don�t you think that they see the trend of overpopulation as a threat to their way of life? Anyway the way things are run now it is inevitable that the world as we know it will come to an end soon� everyone�s reign comes to an end sooner or later whether by our choice or by nature�s so songs like Evil and Into Nothing are addressing those issues and basically saying live your life as fully as you can because this thing we call life is very beautiful . In a song like Evil there is this huge buildup towards the end and then a release, it is my way of expressing my thoughts about this world through music, the buildup you can say is a metaphor for all the wars and destruction that leads to the release where everything quiets down and in the background there is a rainstorm that is hardly audible but there�the rain signifies the washing away of It all�.which then leads to the symphony, this symphony symbolizes the soul, and how beautiful it is encased in all this madness.

That symphony is the soul of man. I used Edirol Strings for that symphony and I built it as if it were an actual orchestra, through overdubbing I created first the cello parts then the violas and finally the violins, it is my dream to do the official version with a budget and an orchestra.

MUEN: CAN YOU GIVE US ANY TITLES TO SONGS THAT YOU MAY BE WORKING ON, WHICH WILL BE YOUR NEXT RECORDINGS?

Dues Ex Machina is a title from one of the new tracks, I am very excited about the new music and can�t wait to bring it forth, it will be the first time I record music almost entirely in the studio...the electronics will be done at home but all guitars, basses and drums will be in the studio, also this will be the first time that I work with a producer in Marc Jordan who will oversee this recording. There will also be a new version of Inside 2008 this will be the final and official version of this song as from this moment on STOB is moving on to the next level.

MUEN: WHAT IS YOUR VIEW ABOUT THE GENERAL PUBLIC WHEN IT COMES TO SUPPORTING UNKNOWN ARTISTS ESPECIALLY HERE ON MYSPACE, WE ARE CONSTANTLY AMAZED AT HOW THEY SEEM TO SUPPORT "COOKIE CUTTER" TYPE BANDS, BUT ALMOST RUN FROM THE BANDS THAT HAVE ALL THE REAL TALENT...

DAVID ALVAREZ: I have no problem with people that want to support my music and don�t consider myself cookie cutter but I do think people tend to want to support what is familiar. I blame it all on TV, I have not watched TV in over 4 years, once you rid yourself of it you become aware of great deal of many things, you wake up. TV blinds you, it modifies you, it controls you. I think Al Gore said it best in a suprising interview I saw of him where he talks about TV as being a hypnotizer just like he used to hypnotize chickens on his farm with a method that is very similar to the way TV keeps you in a trancelike state on the sofa unaware you are being hypnotized and controlled.

MUEN: DO YOU FEEL THAT THERE ARE ALSO ISSUES WITH "OTHER BANDS" AFRAID TO SUPPORT ARTISTS WHO ARE MORE ADVANCED, OUT OF JUST SIMPLE ENVY? ALMOST SORT OF LIKE A "KICK YOU WHEN YOU'RE UP?"

SHAOLIN TEMPLE OF BOOM: I have had very weird experiences with bands in the past, including a band that invited me to play a show with them once and I considered it for a bit but ultimately said no... that didn't stop them from making banners and ads even in the newspapers here in LA that SHAOLIN TEMPLE OF BOOM will be performing with them. That pissed me the fuck off, it's obvious they were using my name to get the interest of industry and so forth to go to the show. If not why would they continue to advertise that STOB was playing if I had already declined? Anyway that experience burnt me on working with any bands and when STOB does shows it will do shows on it's own. This music is my vision I can't say that I share anyone els' vision so why would I want to promote a show with another band? If you do a show it's to share your vision with the people not to try and take fans and industry from that band to attend your show as well, that's lame. But if there are bands out there that are legit and have the same kind of vision then it makes sense to share a stage and I will consider it.

Continued...