Another Sunrise: Jeff Pilson on Dokken's Return to the East

When the classic lineup of ’80s Hard Rock legends Dokken – singer Don Dokken, guitarist George Lynch, bassist Jeff Pilson and drummer Mick Brown – reconvened in 2016 after an 18-year break (and plenty of splits and reunions before that) to perform a string of dates in Japan, it marked the return of a musical partnership that created magic in the genre’s heyday despite an ongoing internal soap opera of personality clashes and missed opportunities. For at least a few short days, the four musicians who comprised the band’s most successful era were back. Now, Italian label (and longtime ’80s music champions) Frontiers Music are gearing up for the April 20 release of Return To The East Live (2016), an album/DVD/Blu-ray combo culled from the band’s performance at the Loud Park Festival in Japan and (on parts of the DVD) a warm-up gig in South Dakota. In addition to featuring bonus acoustic studio recordings of “Heaven Sent” and “Will The Sun Rise,” the collection is bolstered by the inclusion of “It’s Another Day,” the first brand-new studio song from this lineup in two decades. Although a killer version of Dokken currently exists with Don and Mick still behind the wheel, Return To The East Live (2016) proves that there will always be something truly special about this earlier incarnation. 

Now in Foreigner after a celebrated stint in Dio, Pilson was in high spirits when I recently connected with him to discuss the new Dokken release, the possibility of future plans for this version of the band and what makes them still relevant after decades of intense ups and downs. 


I love the new studio track. What were the logistics involved in getting that song together?

When we originally did our Beast From The East [live] album in 1988, we were going to record a new song live at the show along with the rest of the stuff and debut it on the live record. We did actually write a song, and we recorded it, but we weren’t happy with it when it got done. (laughs) We thought, ‘Okay, let’s try that again.’ To make a long story short, we also realized, ‘You know what? It’s just not practical to try recording a song initially live.’ Good theory, but it doesn’t work out in practicality. But before we did the tour, George and I got together and wrote the music for it with it being a new Dokken song in mind. We wrote the music and we were very happy about it, but then we didn’t actually get a chance to work on it until we got back from Japan – at which point, we sent it to Don and Mick. Don suggested we speed it up, which we did and we liked that. Then, he came in and just nailed his vocals in what was one of the most painless Dokken recording sessions ever. (laughs) It just happened very naturally, very organically and quickly. We’re all really happy with the results, and it just turned out great. 




For the live record and the sets you did in Japan, what was the level of difficulty – if any – in selecting the songs you ultimately performed during that run?

It wasn’t very difficult, because we decided early on, ‘Let’s just do music from the ’80s heyday; let’s kind of keep this to the ’80s version of the band.’ That’s why I brought back bass pedals and keyboards and that kind of thing. We knew there would be none of the ’90s material that we did together or material from any of the other versions of Dokken. We kind of had a good idea already of what we were going to do. We did add in a couple of different songs that we thought would be interesting. On the first show, we did acoustic versions of ‘Will The Sun Rise’ and ‘Heaven Sent,’ which we also ended up doing in the studio as acoustic remakes. At the first show we did, we did them live acoustically, and we weren’t really happy with how that came out. That’s why we ended up just recording it in the studio, where we were very happy with it. But then when we got to Japan, we didn’t want to do an acoustic set there, but we ended up working up ‘Will The Sun Rise’ as a live track. We were really excited about that. Unfortunately, none of the recordings of it came out pretty good (laughs), but we were really excited about working up that track. To answer your question, most of it was pretty obvious and automatic [with] what we were going to play. It was exciting that we did ‘Dream Warriors,’ because that was one we didn’t always do live because it can be a difficult song. But we decided we’d go for and do the big ’80s songs and have fun with it.

This new record was done in Japan, and it’s coming out on Frontiers – an Italian label. I talk to a lot of acts from the ’80s that are now working with Frontiers, and there’s obviously a scene for this genre overseas. From your perspective, why does it appear that this era still resonates so strongly with folks outside of America?

For one thing, I think people outside of America tend to be a little less trendy. This is not a slight; this is just kind of an observation. Americans tend to be a little flightier and trendier. People in Europe and Japan in particular – and South America as well – tend to be very loyal. If they like something, they like it regardless of what’s hip, trendy or otherwise, and then they stay with it. A lot of this ’80s Rock didn’t penetrate into Europe as much the first time it came out; it took a while for that music to catch on over there. We had a certain amount of success in Europe, but not to the degree that it became. I think they’ve just latched onto the music, they love it and they appreciate it. They listen very closely. If they like something, they like something for life as long as you do a great job. That’s a great thing. 

You mentioned “Dream Warriors” earlier. I’m not alone in being introduced to Dokken through that song. When you look back now, how do you think that partnership with the Nightmare On Elm Street thing ultimately impacted the band’s career?

In a big way, because you’re not the first person to tell me that. There are a lot of people who did get familiar with us through that. Our managers at the time were really great. Cliff Burnstein, one of our managers, was really close friends with Wes Craven, the guy who did the Nightmare series. Those are the two who kind of concocted this idea. Not only was it a great thing to be involved in the movie, but the video that came out afterwards was the first time that a commercially released movie included a music video from the band that did the title song. That got us a lot of exposure. I would say that ‘Dream Warriors’ was a critical song for us as far as introducing us to a lot of people, and it is a very consummate Dokken-sounding song. It sort of established our sound with a lot of people, which was a great thing. 





Not terribly long after that, the band broke up. When that took place, did you feel satisfied that the band had indeed gone as far as it could? 

Absolutely not! (laughs) We did break up, but it happened as the result of Don leaving. I can remember having many a talk with Don. I would pull out statistics, like, ‘Only 41 albums went Platinum in 1988, and we’re one of them!’ I was really trying to sell the idea of keeping the band together for at least a couple more cycles. Our management was trying to do the same; they were dangling large monetary carrots in front of us. Money was one of the reasons that I thought we should stay together, but I also felt like, ‘No! We haven’t taken this as far as we could.’ In retrospect, having broken up then probably eliminated us from being part of the carnage that Hair Metal received in the early ’90s. (laughs) We were already gone by then. We did have a career after that; we were able to come back a couple times. That may or may not have happened had we continued then. Who knows? But I did not want the band to break up; I did think we had more to do. I thought had we done one more record, we could have really put ourselves in a much, much bigger position – which, again, would have suffered terribly in the ’90s, but maybe we would have had a better springboard to jump off of from there. 

My next question is the one you’re likely hearing a lot. Obviously, this new release features the classic lineup. Do you see a future for the four of you working under the Dokken banner?

You know what? You just never know. We talk about it all the time; we get along well enough now that we communicate pretty well. There are always offers coming in, and there’s always talk of it. A lot of it comes down to scheduling; it’s very, very difficult to schedule. One of the reasons the Japanese tour worked out so well is that they really, really worked around our schedules to make it happen. They wanted it to happen as badly as anybody. Foreigner happened to have a three-week break in that period in October [’16]. That worked out really, really well. There’s not a lot of that that happens. I don’t know how often our schedules would be able to coordinate so easily, but I would never say never, because the demand is still there and shows no sign of letting up. I’ll say that we’ll probably always entertain it and look into ways of making it happen, but who know when it is or if it’ll ever happen. We’ll just have to wait and see. 

What does the rest of the year look like for you?

Well, right now we have this Foreigner with the 21st Century Symphony Orchestra & Chorus record coming out this month as well as the Dokken record coming out this month. Foreigner is going to be heading to Europe in May; we’re also going to do two more nights with the symphony in Lucerne. We’re going to do two more orchestral show there, plus a European tour in the UK. Then in June, we start a tour with Whitesnake and Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening that’s going to go into August. That’s going to be a very exciting shed tour, and we’re really excited about that. A great night of music! I’ve been wanting to tour with Whitesnake for a long time – love the band, love the people. Then in October, Foreigner heads to Australian and New Zealand to do an orchestral show there, which is going to be very, very exciting. In the meantime, I’m trying to finish up two records. One is an album I have with George and Mick from Dokken and Robert Mason, the singer from Warrant. [The project] is currently being called Super Stroke. We’ve written 11 songs, and seven are completed. We’ve got four more left to put vocals on. That record will come out in early 2019. I’m also [producing] a second record with Last In Line, which is the original Dio guys with Andrew Freeman singing and Phil Soussan playing bass. I’m finishing up that as well this year [to be released in] early 2019. I’ve got a pretty full plate in front of me, and I’m just looking forward to everything coming out and hoping everybody loves what they hear. 

The internal ups and downs within Dokken have been well documented over the years. Putting that aside for a moment and just thinking about the creative aspect of the band, what was it about the classic four members that made it magical despite all the personal things that came up along the way?

It’s just musical chemistry, and it’s something that is still there. It was still there as soon as we got together and did some stuff again. I think it’s a combination of things. For one thing, George and I have always had a tremendously powerful musical chemistry. We’re very honest with one another. ‘That sucks!’ is not a phrase we’re afraid to use with each other. (laughs) But encouragement is also there, too. We’re of a similar mindset, and I think we respect each other tremendously. For the musical side of things, he and I have a lot of simpatico – something happens when he and I work together that makes great things. We haven’t been as involved in the lyrical side of things as we were in the ’80s. In the ’80s, we also wrote a lot of the lyric and melody stuff together. We haven’t been doing that as much with Dokken this time around – well, there’s only one song – but even with this Super Stroke thing we’re doing with Robert Mason, Robert and I are pretty much dealing with the vocal stuff. But George is great at that stuff, so that chemistry with him has always been a very solidifying factor. I have a great chemistry with Don, and Don has very unique ideas. You wouldn’t think on paper that it would sit with what George does, but it does. Maybe I have something to do with facilitating that, but I think more than anything, there’s just a common musicality that sort of threads this all together somehow. It just works. Mick is the perfect guy to play drums, and he’s got this great voice and also some great writing ideas. There’s just a lot of musicality between the four of us, and I think it’s that musicality that is the thread that makes our chemistry work. Music was always the easiest part for Dokken; it was the other crap that got in the way. (laughs)

*Portions of the above interview were edited for clarity. 

Dokken, 2018. Left to right: Mick Brown, George Lynch, Don Dokken, Jeff Pilson (Photo source: frontiers.it)

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EP REVIEW - Gang of Four: Complicit

“So… an EP with songs about sunshine and surfing, then?”

That was my initial thought when I received an advance copy of Gang of Four’s upcoming EP, Complicit, and peered at its cover. First Daughter Ivanka Trump is pictured smiling in front of American flags, while the release’s title (and, presumably, its Russian equivalent) takes the bottom. Naturally, the image has received quite a bit of major press in recent days. Not only is it a ballsy move for Gang of Four (currently led by guitarist/sole original member Andy Gill) to make in 2018, but it’s a surprisingly overt message by a band typically known to exist in a world of subtlety and grey shades.  

As just one example, let’s take Gang of Four’s 1982 hit, “I Love A Man In A Uniform.” On its surface, the tune works as a brilliant dance floor number that could (as least in superficial terms) be interpreted as pro-military. However, a deeper journey into the song reveals everything from a subversive dig at societal perceptions of male virility (“The girls/They love to see you shoot”) to the Village People undercurrent of the Disco-driven chorus. Of course, I could be totally off in this assessment, but that’s what has made listening to Gang of Four’s body of work such an unceasingly fun endeavor over the years: They deliver the records, and then it’s up to us to make of them what we will.

(“I think Gang of Four, over the decades, has sometimes been guilty of trying to be our own reviewers and trying to really spell out what we think [a song is] supposed to say,” Gill told me in 2015. “I think sometimes, you can take away some of the magic in things by over-talking them.”) 

What do I make of Complicit? Well, first of all, the cover is the least interesting aspect of this thing. What’s more intriguing is the fact that the EP’s three tracks (plus a remix of the song “Lucky,” which I previously discussed here) embrace the smooth and soulful Pop-focused (but no less incendiary) sounds of Gang of Four’s tragically overlooked early-to-mid-’80s period. “Ivanka (Things You Can’t Have)” could have found a comfortable home on 1983’s Hard, while “Lucky” sounds like a lost single off ’82’s Songs Of The Free (or even a missing track off Gill’s 1988 solo EP, Dispossession). It’s a peculiar turn for Gill and Co. to take at this stage in their career, as both of these aforementioned albums are often (and unjustly, in my opinion) viewed as their creative nadir. But if you’ve been paying attention to Gill’s version of Gang of Four over the last six years, then you know that he’s been steering the band in any direction he chooses. 

The music contained on Complicit might not turn on everyone who has 1979’s Entertainment! permanently embedded on their turntable, but those of us who appreciate all facets of the Gang of Four discography will find plenty to appreciate here. (Complicit also has enough distorted guitar bursts and electronic beeps to give the tracks a fresh edge - but as a general reference on the EP’s overall vibe, think “Sleepwalker” off 1995’s Shrinkwrapped mixed with “Woman Town” off Hard.) 

Considering that Gang of Four have utilized the talents of Dave Allen, Sara Lee and Busta “Cherry” Jones over the years, the bass is obviously a critical component of any Gang of Four release. Complicit is no exception, and the EP’s strongest moment comes courtesy of long-serving member Thomas McNeice’s raw and brutally funky performance on “I’m A Liar.”

Gill’s decision to carry on with the Gang of Four moniker has prompted a fair share of apprehension from fans in recent years (including on this site), but his previous output as the last man standing (including 2015’s What Happens Next) still offered strong hints that his vision of the band would eventually match – and quite possibly progress beyond – the band’s legendary early work. Complicit finally fulfills that promise and offers a fascinating teaser of where he might go with the next Gang of Four full-length album (due later this year). Forty years on, Gill is still gifting us with music that excites our ears and our minds.

Complicit is out April 20. 

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Let It Scream, Watch It Burn: Looking Back (and Ahead) with John Corabi

John Corabi (center) with The Dead Daisies (photo by Danny Jungslund)

Rock supergroup The Dead Daisies are the hardest working men in show business.

Since 2013, the Daisies have issued five records (four studio, one live) and built an international fanbase that grows with every tour. Of course, such feats are not at all surprising when considering the group’s pedigree. The Dead Daisies are currently comprised of guitarist/founding member David Lowy (Red Phoenix/Mink), singer John Corabi (Motley Crue/Ratt/Union/The Scream), guitarist Doug Aldrich (Whitesnake/Dio/Lion) and bassist Marco Mendoza (Thin Lizzy/Whitesnake/Bill Ward Band). Late last year, the band was joined by former Journey/Ozzy Osbourne/Bad English drummer Deen Castronovo, whose session work over the years includes his pristine performance on Hole’s 1998 album, Celebrity Skin. This incarnation is represented on the just-released Burn It Down, a blazing collection of tunes and easily the strongest Daisies recording to date.

In addition to celebrating the release of Burn It Down, fan of the band’s ever-busy singer have two more reasons to be happy these days. Earlier this year, Corabi released Live ’94: One Night In Nashville, a complete onstage rendition of his 1994 eponymous album with the Crue (plus “10,000 Miles Away” from the rare Japanese edition of the band’s 1994 Quaternary EP). In the not-too-distant future, famed reissue label Rock Candy Records will release an expanded edition of Let It Scream, the 1991 album from Corabi’s pre-Motley Crue outfit, The Scream. John and I hit on all these topics in the following interview.   

We connected around this time last year to discuss the Daisies’ live album, and here we talking about the new studio record. You guys work fast, man!

Yeah, it’s funny. I’ve been with the band for three years, and we’ve done four albums! That first year I was in, I really started working on the first record [with them], Revolución, in March. I believe it was March 10th, and we were done April 10th and went right on tour. Then, [former guitarist] Richie [Fortus] and [former keyboardist] Dizzy [Reed] got the call to come back to Guns N’ Roses, and we brought [guitarist] Doug Aldridge in. Literally in January [2016], we were back in the studio again; less than a year had gone by since the release of our last record. They’ve got this thing; it’s usually an album a year, like, ‘Let’s go! Let’s do it.’ But it’s working, you know? That’s all I can say.

With the current incarnation of the Daisies, you’re all spread out all over the country. How do the logistics work out - with not only keeping the band active under those circumstances but with the fact that you guys are writing songs together?

That’s the other thing that’s weird about the Daisies. With pretty much every record that I’ve done with them, we’ve gone into a studio with absolutely nothing written. Everybody just kind of comes in with riffs or just very minimal song ideas or a verse or chorus. We get in a room for about 10 days, we write and we get anywhere between 17 and 25 of what I call ‘maps.’ Then, we go in and we start tracking. As we’re tracking, we’re kind of changing things up and tweaking it as we go. Once we get it to, ‘Okay, here’s the format,’ I’ll go and start working on song ideas – melodies and lyric stuff – by myself or with a couple of guys from the band. Then, I’ll go in and start singing. Even when I start singing – especially working with [producer] Marti [Frederiksen] – the melody is changing as I’m singing and we’re tweaking stuff. There are times when I’m singing a song and Marti or I will go back and listen to it, and there will be a line or something that’s just like, ‘Ugh, I can do better.’ We’ll go back in the next day and tweak that. Then, I’ll re-sing it and move on to the next song. But with pretty much everything that we’ve done – other than the live album, but the three studio records – we’ve gone in with nothing. 

We’ve written, recorded, mixed and mastered each one of the records in a month, maybe five weeks. Pretty much everything with the band is very quick, but we also do it very quick because we know we’re so scattered. We’ll usually meet in New York to write, and then we’ll come to Nashville – now that we’ve been working with Marti – and work until the record is done. We don’t take any days off; we’re usually in Monday to Monday every week, from probably 11 or 12 until 7, 8,9, 10 at night. We do that every day until the record’s done.

I live in Nashville, but because the other guys are coming here, they’re all in hotels and away from their families. It’s costing money for the rooms, money for food and money for all this stuff. We’re aware of it, not like when we were younger. When we go to work, we go to work and we knock it out as quickly and efficiently as possible. It works for us.

Obviously, the big change in the camp since the last time we spoke is that Deen’s now involved. He’s always been such a versatile drummer – there’s obviously the Journey stuff, but he’s also done some amazing session work over the years – and he slays on this new album. What has been the greatest impact he’s had on the Daisies?

Deen kind of went through a little bit of a dark period a few years ago, and he had a little bit of a bullseye on his back. Other than David and me, he’s worked with all the other guys. He knew of the band and he was a fan of the band. Even though he’s still involved with [Journey guitarist] Neal [Schon] and doing some things with him, I think this is a bit more aggressive than what he’s done for the last 20 years in Journey, and he’s just having fun. He’s just happy to be there, and he’s really positive and upbeat about everything. The guy’s got a ton of energy. I didn’t think I’d ever meet anyone with more energy than [former drummer] Brian Tichy, but obviously I was wrong. Deen’s just happy to be here, and we’re just happy to have him. I’m excited about getting into rehearsals now – not just for his drumming but being able to have that other voice for backing vocals. It’s gonna be sick.

My favorite part of the new album is that one-two punch of “Burn It Down” and “Judgement Day.” How did those two particular songs come together with the vibe you guys captured? They sound like a live band jamming.

Yeah, but even when we tracked the other songs, Deen was the room playing and everybody was in the room with him. With every record we’ve ever done, everybody sits around while the drummer’s playing, and they just kind of play along and feed off of each other. This record was no different. So, there is a bit of jamming, especially at the end of ‘Burn It Down’ with that big, long, kind of crazy, Hendrix-y kind of jam. But ‘Judgement Day” was a little more involved. We kind of recorded that song a couple different times. We always believe in it, but we tried it, I wrote lyrics, I sang it and it wasn’t right. I re-wrote lyrics, sang it and it still wasn’t right. I think it was Marti or Doug who came up with an idea of, ‘What if we did the verses with an acoustic guitar?’ As soon as we tried it, we were all like, “Yes! That’s it.’ It kind of gave me a different vibe, and Marti and I sat down and wrote lyrics for it. It was like, ‘That’s it!’ But there is a bit of jamming as well with – like I said earlier – everybody sitting in a room together and feeding off each other.

I want to touch a little bit on the other new release you have – Live ’94: One Night In Nashville. We’re actually approaching the 25th anniversary of the studio version of that Motley album next year. For some people I know, that’s the only Crue album they have – and they still play it all the time. Everybody who does an album hopes to catch lightning in a bottle and have material that holds up 25 years later. In the case of that record and the fact that you have this live album that’s celebrating it, what makes that material stuff that really holds up after 25 years?

I don’t know, to be honest with you. The fans who appreciate the record always say, ‘You can play that record on the radio right now and it would still sound current.’ I don’t know how we did it or why we did it; it was just literally four guys sitting in a room jamming together, and we came up with stuff that we thought was cool. We went in and took our time with it. [Producer] Bob Rock did an amazing job. To be honest with you, the whole live record came about because I was out doing shows with my solo band and somebody just happened to yell up to me in like March something or other in 2014, ‘Happy Anniversary!’ I’m sitting there like, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ So, I asked a girl in the audience, ‘What does that mean?’ She was like, ‘Today, 20 years ago, your Motley record came out.’ I was like, ‘Oh, cool.’ We did the set, and I was talking to my manager, and then he mentioned, ‘Maybe you should go out...’ Motley was going out on their Farewell Tour. He goes, ‘There are a lot of different places in America where Motley didn’t play on that [original album] tour.’ We never played in Canada or South America, Europe, Australia. He goes, ‘I think a lot of people would be into it.’

I really didn’t want to do it, but I talked to the guys in my band and said, ‘Do you guys want to do this?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ They learned the stuff impeccably, and we went out and did a bunch of shows. I started 2015 doing it, but I’m like, ‘I don’t want to do this the rest of my life.’ There were still a lot of places where I hadn’t played that set, so I just said, ‘Let’s record it for posterity. We’ll do a record; that way, if anybody wants to hear what it sounds like, they can have it and listen to it.’

It’s just one of those things, man…When I was doing [my] Motley record [tour], it was advertised as, ‘Motley ’94 live show from top to bottom, blah blah blah.’ I would walk off stage, and inevitably somebody would come up to me and go, ‘I’m a little bummed, dude. You didn’t play any Scream or Union.’ I’m like [sighs]. So I just said, ‘Let’s knock it on the head.’ Maybe for the 25th anniversary, I’ll go out and do a few more shows, but I’ve got so much material – from The Scream to Motley to Union to my solo stuff and now The Dead Daisies. When I go out with my solo band, I play a little bit of everything, trying to make everybody happy. It is what it is, and I think the guys did a great job playing the stuff. I’m extremely proud of my son [Ian], who played drums on the album. I don’t know…I’m just moving forward and doing The Dead Daisies, the [Motley] live album is out and now they’re re-releasing the Scream album later in the year. At some point, I’ve got a brand-new electric studio record due solo-wise. I’m just keeping busy.

I love that Scream album; it’s one of my favorite records from that era to this day. Obviously, the Motley thing changed the course of your career. When you look back, do you get a sense that maybe The Scream has unfinished business or that a second album could have been a reality at some point?

Well, they did do another record without me, with a different singer. They changed the name to DC-10. It doesn’t sound anything like The Scream. Honestly, a couple of years ago, we were offered to go over to Japan and do a festival for an astronomical sum of money. We all kind of sat down and talked about it. Unfortunately, Walt Woodward III, our drummer from The Scream, passed away six or seven years ago. We were just like, ‘Man… no.’ That is what it is.

My biggest thing with The Scream was, I was noticing that the fans were paying these astronomical sums of money for the album on eBay and these websites. I just wanted the album to be out; if they want to download it, they can for 99 cents a song or download the whole record for $10 instead of spending $200 to $500 for a copy of the record. Just put it out and make it available to people [and] put it on iTunes. I’m just happy that Rock Candy out of London, England is putting the record out. They may add a couple of bonus live tracks to it, and we’ll see what happens. But it is what it is. I think it was a great album, it was a great band and it’s become this little cult album that a lot of people still would like to grab or they had it and don’t anymore and want to get it. I’m excited that it’s coming out again.

Everyone in the Daisies has been around this business a long time, and you all bring that experience and success to the table. You’ve obviously worked with a lot of different people. How has the experience of working with these current guys most impacted you as an artist and musician?

With every other record that I’ve done up to this point, it was like a year writing and preparing. With The Scream, we got a record deal and they put us in a room and said, ‘Go write.’ Then, we did the Motley record and took a year – maybe a little longer. We just wrote, and it was the same with Union. The one thing that I’ve learned is how to communicate with the other guys in the band. Yeah, we have our disagreements; we have our arguments or whatever, but it’s done on a more adult level than when I was 20-however years old back in The Scream. When somebody disagreed with me, my first inclination was to throw my fists up and just start swingin’ – as with the other guys in the band as well. We’ve kind of learned how to communicate with each other as older men, but I’ve also realized that it doesn’t take a year to do an album. (laughs) You can literally go out and just put your nose to the stone and just get it done. So far, every record that I’ve done with the Daisies has been very quick, and we’ve gotten great reviews on all the records because I think they’ve just been honest. We’ve kind of gone with our first inclination or our first gut feeling with things. We’ll write a riff [and we’ll be like,]’ ‘Yeah, this rocks!’ Boom! We tweak it and we go. Everything’s just been really honest, and I think that’s definitely one thing that’s changed my opinion on writing.

*Portions of the above interview were edited for clarity. 

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