I'm still in the Midwest, but I'm in Columbus, Ohio, so I'm three and a half hours away from everybody. That's one of the reasons we're not as active as we'd like to be - it's an expensive chore for me to go down there just to talk or something.

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.

There are so many things that kept forcing metal back down to the underground. It survives everywhere on the planet.

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.

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.

I think the majority of the people in the band still play in other bands, because we're not that active. But for me, it's the only thing I want to do and it's the only thing I'm focused on. I've always played in a couple of different bands at once, but now I'm only interested in the Dead Child stuff.

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