KIM: Describe your sound in five words or less.
JASSEN: Blood, sweat, and beers.
STEVE: Straight-up rock 'n' roll.
JASSEN: We're just a rock band -- we didn't reinvent the wheel or anything with what we're doing. We're just four kids who like to...sweat and go out and have a good time, you know, look at chicks. Play rock and roll.
KIM: What do you expect out of the kind of crowd who's gonna be here watching you guys perform?
STEVE: Well, there's probably gonna be more people than usually show up to watch us play, so that's a plus. I hope they dig it. That's the only thing we can really think about, is just go out there and do our thing and hope that it wins them over.
TRACY: What kind of crowd listens to your music?
JASSEN: We've been out with so many different styles of tours. We started out with Papa Roach and then we did Blindside for a little bit, like Christian hardcore, and then right after that we went out with Saliva for, like, a month. Right after that, we went out with Alien Ant Farm for a month. You know, we've been out with Hoobastank, Evanescence -- we went out with them for, like, a month. We've played with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Ginuwine...
KIM: Serious?!
JASSEN: Yeah, we've played with everybody! We're very versatile. [Laughs.]
KIM: How open are you guys to signing autographs for fans and hanging out after the show?
JASSEN: We stay every night 'til the janitor's mopping up.
STEVE: We're really good about that. We've gotta give back to the fans, you know.
JASSEN: One kid at a time...
TRACY: Are you guys working on some new stuff at all?
JASSEN: Yeah, we've got a few ideas. We've got a lot of old stuff too that we're remixing, and we're gonna go home here for about two weeks. Then we're gonna start another tour with a band called Seether. During those two weeks I'm going to be doing a lot of writing and stuff like that.
KIM: Do you guys write collaboratively?
STEVE: It's just different -- sometimes someone will have a skeleton and bring it, and then everybody else will kind of cut it up and do it and then we'll make something out of it. Or sometimes they're finished songs [and] maybe little things will get changed. Each song is different.
KIM: Do you write the music first and then the lyrics, or vice-versa?
JASSEN: A lot of times I'll write the guitar first and then I'll come in with lyrics afterward -- just noodle around in my room and bring it to [the band] and make a song out of it. And then I'd record that on my crappy little boombox and then go put it in my car, 'cause I only had a tape player before it got stolen, and I would just kind of hum along as I was driving around town and put words after that.
TRACY:What's a messed-up story that's happened to you guys in the last month?
STEVE: Not having a tour -- a black cloud has been following Die Trying's head. [Laughs.]
JASSEN: Our RV broke down, so we missed the last two days of the [Alien] Ant Farm tour. We shipped our gear, my bin with all my clothes... My camera got stolen, two of my cars got stolen, I went home and my house got broken into, my tattoo stuff got ripped off. That's all last month -- the whole damn thing, man. [Laughs.] And then Hoobastank crashed the motorcycle.
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