There are five of us. We've all played in various bands together, in different combinations. I know that Todd [Cook] and Tony [Bailey] are my favorite rhythm section - they're just like a unit. I guess we've all just played together in various capacities, so when the band was coming together, it was sort of like we just chose members because they had similar sensibilities and also because they're just cool. We all got along real well.

When we woke up every morning, one of our things was, "Let's go put a new sign in the back window of the van." Those are the different signs we had up in the back of our van, so that the people behind us could have something enjoyable to look at.

You can go to any small town in America, there's going to be a metal fan there. You can't say that about post-rock.

In my entire life I never set out to do anything ground-breaking or pioneering, and I'm not going to start anytime soon.

I was young, but to me that was underground music. I had never heard anything like Venom or any of that stuff growing up in Louisville. That was sort of the only weird records I could find. All that stuff would be in the import section. And sometimes there would be some sort of goth type of stuff. But that was the stuff I was attracted to.

Punk came along and grunge made guitar solos uncool.

I was into the music, but the idea of showing up places on time or having to tell people when you're not going to be somewhere - that just didn't even cross my mind.