If someone is feeling out of sorts or detached it's a great time to bring them in and restate why we are here and what we are trying to do.

There were some initial instruments I had when I was young and made some trade-offs. Maybe a guitar I bought in a flea market. They weren't the greatest guitar but they would be cool to still have them. Other than that, not as a professional.

I'm realizing this more and more that it's one thing to get involved with your own political beliefs and stand behind you believe in personally.

If I'm not in an environment where I can record, it's great to be able to write something down, to be able to know how to do that, to be able to write notation. You grab a piece of paper and there it is. It's the cheapest recording equipment you can buy: a piece of manuscript paper and a pencil!

We're always in that head space about the audience and less about us at that moment.

First and foremost, with everybody we wanted to see if they can pull off the songs, play them correctly, and that they it felt right musically. That's something Mike [Mangini] did, it felt like the band. He really gets the style and delivers in a powerful metal way.

We're not the kind of band who writes an order abundance of songs and picks from them, we usually write for the album.