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.

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.

The thing I like about the band [Dead Child] is that there's no pretense. We aren't even trying to be artists or poets.

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.

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.

I'm looking for anything interesting in the guitar playing, songwriting, artwork, and production. If you look at the stack of CDs on my desk and in my car, you'll find a very wide range of music under the umbrella of metal.

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.