It was pretty common to form bands that only lasted a few years. Slint was my favorite band that I was in at the time, and I didn't realize that I was bummed out about it until quite a while later.

Now since I've gotten back into it, I've been listening to a lot more of the 1990s death metal type stuff.

We aren't trying to make poetry or anything beautiful. It's just a rock show. We just want to enjoy playing loud. That's just about it.

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.

To be honest, just trying to get everybody together in one room to get our picture taken for the back of the album, it took so long just to organize that.

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

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