I was into Metallica when they first started, like when Kill Em All came out.

Punk came along and grunge made guitar solos uncool.

People like a story that has a lot of blood, sweat and tears. But I don't think the Slint story really has that.

Louisville was also good place for being able to make whatever kind of music you wanted to. You didn't have to worry about renting a practice space or figure out when another band would be in there or worry about if your stuff is going to get stolen.

I don't know if it was related to the type of music that we were doing at that time or what, but Todd Cook actually just turned to me and was like, "You know what would be a great name for a metal band? Dead Child." We talked half-jokingly that we were going to do a band. I guess as time went on, I started writing songs that were more metal sounding, and it just evolved from there. It actually started with the name first, and then the songs came second.

We made basement practice songs.To have them presented in such a huge fashion today - like at Primavera, where it's thousands of people in a festival environment - is surreal. I never thought some of the songs would ever need to be projected at such a volume or to such a wide span of people.

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.