Cold – Interview [2003]

How does Year of the Spider differ from your previous albums?

Lyrically, vocally and musically we spent a lot of time on it and we’ve had more time to focus on those things and make them as good as they possibly could be.

What, other then true life experiences, influenced your writing for Year of the Spider?

It’s pretty much all there in the lyrics if you listen to the record and read the lyrics its pretty much all self-explanatory – I pretty much drew from every personal part of my life on this record, from my fans, relationships, people going away, my family.

Do you think the internet has helped you as a band reach a larger audience than you would have with traditional media – mtv, radio, print press? Or do you think it hurts band eg. illegal mp3’s?

The internet definitely has. When I was younger rock stars appeared and disappeared. Now you can keep in touch with them, post to them, it bonds them and keeps you closer to them. As far as mp3s I’m not down with it, it’s bullshit.

After the first record Cold seemed to take on a “Gothic” look, Most of your fans label you as a “Goth” band, are you ok with that label, and do you think that may prevent you from gaining more mainstream fans?”

On every record, cold changes the music style a little bit, we change our personal styles a little bit because we grow into different people as time goes by. We have a lot of goth fans and a lot of rock fans. I don’t think it really matters to us the way we’re labeled.

What are you doing to ensure the new material is able to make a clear connection to past works and up to the standards of Cold?

Actually we’re not doing anything we’re just making sure the setup for the record is the best we’ve ever had, we just want to tour and let people hear our stuff. We think this is the best material we’ve ever written and there’s always influence from past records on our new records.

Can you talk about the soon-to-be-released video game and the new song being written for it?

The new video game is Espionage and it’s a special ops game but the guy in it has mind control powers. The song in it we really wrote for ourselves but it can describe the video game and what’s going on with this guy. It’s about finding out about yourself and finding out that you have powers.

What do you feel your music has to offer in today’s oversaturated musical climate?

Cold’s always written music for ourselves and for the people around us so I think originality is what we offer.

Will COLD be putting out an acoustic EP like you have mentioned in the past as wanting to do?

In the fall hopefully. We were thinking about putting out 4 or 5 songs and have all our friends from other bands come and work with us on it, so yeah, we’re trying to do that still.

If music wasn’t an outlet for you, how would you release your pain and sadness?

Buy a gun.

How was the recording process like for YOTS as opposed to the recording of Cold’s previous two releases? Does the environment affect the way that you all write or is that type of thing irrelevant, from Jacksonville, to Seattle, to Los Angeles?

Definitely working with Howard Benson he created a new environment for us and it was an environment where we could relax and take our time and do what we had to do and we had no distractions.

How have you personally feel you’ve handled the stress and responsibility of signing a recording contract?

It’s a learning process and at this point I feel that I pretty much understand everything about it and I understand how things are supposed to work.

Could you fill us in on what’s going to be on the forthcoming DVD?

The DVD will be from the making of the year of the spider until now. It has the making of the year of the spider, the stupid girl video shoot, and the storytellers’ tour we just did.

The next single for Y.O.T.S, will it be voted for again by the fans? Or will there be a different way of choosing it this time around and do you have an idea, what the next single will be already?

No the band will pick the next single from the year of the spider

With so many cold fans saying that your music and lyrics have saved their lives, does it sometimes scare you that your music has affected people in different ways? And do you think it can be dangerous for your music to have such an effect on people?

For the first question I think that’s a very good thing to save someone’s life and they’re still here. I don’t think there’s anything dangerous about affecting people to where they don’t want to slit their wrists.

Are you ever afraid that your new direction of music on ‘The Year of the Spider’ may counter-act the way fans from previous releases look at the band?

The other tracks on the record besides Stupid Girl are dead on what the previous records were about, so no.

If this album doesn’t achieve commercial success (i.e., higher sales than 13 Ways…), what will that mean for Cold?

If it doesn’t achieve commercial success I guess that’s up to the record company.

I know Cold are big fans of Tool, how does it feel to be touring with Maynard in A Perfect Circle on the Lollapalooza tour?

That’s one of the main reasons I wanted to do lollapalooza, to see those guys play every night.

Which song on Year of the Spider is dedicated to the fans?

It’s “whatever you became”.

What are your thoughts on musicians like Serj Tankian (System Of A Down) and Tom Morello (Audioslave) speaking out against certain political and foreign policy issues? As a musician yourself, do you feel it’s right to do so?

I don’t agree with them saying 9/11 should have happened. If you wanted to be a politician be a politician don’t be a fucking rockstar. And if you don’t like the way we do shit, go home.

Was there more pressure involved with the writing process for YOTS, I mean, obviously, the way the industry is nowadays, there is even pressure for multi-platinum acts such as Creed and Linkin Park.

The pressure was created within ourselves there was absolutely no pressure from the record company.

What has been your proudest moment or achievement so far with Cold? And on the other side what has been the worst?

The best achievement is helping kids and on the other side, the worst is absolutely nothing, maybe not achieving the success that we initially thought that we should have by now.

What was the small venue pre-tour like to you as compared to the larger venues? I know the fans were excited to get to hear acoustic versions of the songs.

It’s very intimate and the kids were able to hear the stories behind the music we were doing, larger venues we don’t have as much time on the stage so it’s harder to do all that in a shorter period of time.

What is “Wasted Years” about?

“Wasted years” is just about my drinking problem and feeling that I wasted my whole life up until now.