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

When I was younger and bands were formed that way, out of friendships rather than anything else. It wasn't like we put up want ads.

Punk came along and grunge made guitar solos uncool.

I listen to every type of metal under the sun. I'm not very discerning.

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.

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.

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.