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

As I got older, it turned into hardcore punk. I started getting into more aggressive music.

My kids don't really like when I sing for some reason...but they like when I play guitar. So I started writing songs just playing guitar for them.

Personally, I love the cookie monster grunts. I like how they alienate listeners. We sound the way we sound. We're individuals. We don't all like the same music. Everybody contributes their own influences, style, and history.

We just have to plan everything in advance and concentrate it so that we get everything done in time. It's not as laidback as I wish it could be.

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'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.