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.

As far as specific bands from the 90s death metal era, I love Death, Carcass, Possessed, Morbid Angel, Gorguts, Autopsy, Atheist, etc.

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.

When I was really young, I was really into Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden and those kinds of bands.

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.

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.

We were pretty normal - suburban kids having a good time playing in bands. We were silly. We weren't dark, intense, humorless people. Humor was one of the connecting forces among us. It was more like camaraderie.