1. Do you guys get to choose where you tour? if you do, what makes you want to come back to a place?

James: Actually we have a booking agent that handles all that for us and we don't really approve of scheduling with our current booking agent, however there are places that we have played in the past and that we recommend to our booking agent that we like to go back to and play and it seems to be the places that always best for us are in the heartland, in the midwest ya know staying away from new york and LA anything in between that is what works for us.

James: ya know for me personally, columbia will always be home i've got family there, a wife and daughter, a home so Columbia will always be home for me and I think i can speak for the rest of the band as well that's where we make our home and that's where it will always be.

James: Well not often enough unfortunately just keeping up with e-mail and day to day business dealing with reps and stuff like that is fairly time consuming but I know Mitch (the bass player) is very active in working our Myspace site and myself I try my best to keep the fans posted on our official message board (crossfadeonline.com). So we try to get on at least once a day depending on travel and where we are and what we've got going on it's hard to do it but we try to do it everyday.

4. Do people always recognize you out in public or do you get to keep your privacy?

James: Fortunately for me i get to keep my privacy i'm the guy with the ever changing hairdos so it's very rare that i get recognized.. typically i'll get recognized at a show or at a venue something like that. the lead singer Eddie he's more the face of crossfade so he gets recognized more but me and mitch are pretty low key, low profile so we get to maintain our privacy pretty well.

5. what were your regular full time jobs before you became full time rock stars?

James: The last full time job I had before rockstar i was a foreman at a landscaping company in Columbia, SC and let me tell you working outside in the heat is awful. (laughs)

6. At the Greenville show you had another guitarist on stage, would you like to elaborate on that or will we have to wait for the official notice??

James: no.. i'd be happy to elaborate on that. we've got a new member in the band his name is Les Hall he's actually an old school buddy of Ed and they've known each other from middle school on and he has toured with howie day and trey anatasio and now we're fortuante enough to have him in our camp and tomorrow night will be his fourth show we'll be in Fflint Michigan playing the Machine Shop tomorrow night. tomorrow will be his fourth show with us and we're just as happy as we can be with this guy he's just a phenomenal player, great musician, just a great guy and we really really love having him on board. i think the fans are really going to enjoy the new show as well . it's definitely going to have a bigger guitar sound so we're happy about that.

7. How many hours of sleep do you get when you're on tour? and what is your favorite thing to snack on?

James: hours of sleep are few and far between (laughs) average anywhere from four to six a night sometimes we get lucky enough if we get a day off like today we have some downtime we can catch up on rest but probably about six hours is average. and favorite snack food for me personally it's anything more savory and salty i don't really have a sweet tooth so you know chips.. crackers.. whatever.

**from Nanners- Addison, OH**
(James: did you just say Nanners? Me: Yes. James: (laughs) that's our good friend Deanna. (in the background "Hi Deanna")

James: make up the set list.. well we have our basic structure it depends on how long of a set we have to play. if we're opening up for a band out sets are obviously shorter, if we're headlining we usually play about an hour and twenty minutes so we just try to with the new album out inncorporate as much new music as possible and also try to play the singles from the first record. ya know obviously we'll never be able to stop playing "Cold" because it's such a fan favorite (laughs) so we play that one every night. so we try to mix it up and get a lot of new stuff in there as well.

James: (laughs) oh lets see i think one of the last ones, the last memorable one when we were touring with Seether and Dark New Day last year. we played a show and of course we came on stage right before Seether and they came out and they had these funny looking suits that looked like fat women and they came out and danced on our stage and hit us with silly string so to retaliate we had our tour manager, we got a grill and got about four packs of hotdogs and we had a little cookout on their stage while they were playin' and we just sat around and grilled hotdogs and fed the fans hotdogs while they were playing. it was a lot of fun.

James: right now on the album... we're all so proud of this new record..but for me personally right now my favorite is falling away because it sounds like a bit of a deviation from the normal Crossfade sound and also features Mitchy doing some vocals which ya know he's a great vocalist as well and it's got kind of a different feel to it so i think right now that's my current favorite.

11. If you guys were the rockstars that you are- what do you think you would be doing?

James: i probably would still be a foreman for a landscaping company back home that's for sure. yeah i'd probably still be doing that.

"I don’t think any of us set out to be trendsetters as far as a new style of music. We wanted to play the music we wanted to play and it’s a lot of the people we took from." - Mitch

Crossfade is currently on the road on a headlining tour and re releasing their self-titled debut album in celebration of going gold.

Crossfade will be a dual disc release that features a CD audio side and a DVD side. The DVD will include in-depth interviews, their acoustic performances of songs such as "cold, " so far away," and "colors." The dualdisc will drop in stores this Tuesday May 29th. Their headlining tour began last week with Strata and they are hitting cities all over the US until the end of April.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with the entire band to talk with them about the tour and everything in between. This band is a truly humble, talented and honest group and I suggest you head out to a show near you. Their live shows are amazing. You WILL NOT BE disappointed!

Ed: My first instrument was a nylon string classic guitar and my mother bought it for me.

Mitch: My first instrument was a B.C. Rich warlock pearl bass and I bought it with my own money because my mom wouldn’t buy me crap like that (laughs)

James: My first instrument was a set of used vintage ludwick drums that I found in a little rags paper back home called the Carolina trader they were gold and I had to work odd jobs to save up allowance and bought them, paid $200 for them and found out years after I had gotten rid of them that they were worth a lot more than that because they were vintage sparkle like a 1967 ludwick kit. I wish I still had it.

Mitch: That was when you were a man whore it only took you six months to make that $200 (laughs)

Tony: My fist instrument was actually a set of drums too. Yeah I started out playing the drums when I was very small. And they were given to me (laughs)

Ed: I started on piano. Took lessons on piano played for about four years… yeah lessons (laughs)

Mitch: I took guitar lessons for like two weeks one time when I was 12 then I didn’t touch anything until I was like 14 and picked up a bass and actually joined a band the same day and learned from the guitarist in the band pretty much everything.

James: I actually took drum lessons for about two months and also was in the bands in school in the performing bands, jazz bands. I had a little bit of formal training but nothing past high school.

Tony: Vocal training. Chorus all the way through high school and middle school and a vocal coach.

Ed: The biggest influence on me are Metallica, Soundgarden and Yngwie Malmsteen.

Ed: Don’t worry about him (laughs) who? (jokingly repeating my response) Metallica, Soundgarden and Faith No More.

Mitch: Kiss is my all time. I saw Kiss I knew that’s what I was going to do. They just blew me away. Their show and production was just incredible.

Tony: Three Dog Night. No not that old but I do like Three Dog Night (Starts singing) One is the loneliest number (laughs)

SN: When did you decide when to make music a career and not just a hobby and what made you want to do it….to take that dive?

Ed: To make it a career instead of a hobby…..I guess we were like sixteen seventeen years old we decided to get out of Columbia and go to Atlanta and start to learn more about music and be a band.

Mitch: That’s when we actually tried to start getting a record deal or at least start playing out and start making money at it as opposed to just sitting in our living rooms and jamming together and stuff like that.

Tony: Always knew it. By the time I was three years old I knew I was going to be a rock superstar. Living large, big house, five cars, with my rent charge.

SN: Did all of you always know that you wanted to be musicians? Like when you were three or five for example what did you want to be?

Mitch: I wanted to be a dentist for a little while then I threw that out of the window and knew it after that so pretty much all of my life.

Ed: I wanted to be a veterinarian but my uncle took me out doing some goat scooping

Ed: I decided that day I wasn’t going to be a veterinarian any longer and probably a year later when I was about 12 when I picked up a guitar thought that was what I might want to do.

SN: I grew up on a farm and I still don’t know what goat scoping is (laughing) What do you think you would be doing right now if your music career didn’t take off? Do you still think you would be trying to make it happen?

SN: People think that when you have a record deal you are rich and have made it but it’s not true.

Tony: not even close…nah now if this was 1982 maybe. Usher or Nelly or one of those cats they usually get huge advances to start a career.

Mitch: I think they change everyday. Every new thing that pops up that’s like wow I can’t believe we did that! Then it becomes what’s the next step. What’s the next thing to look forward to? It’s never ending. You don’t ever see the light at the end of the tunnel. You just kind of see the next horizon to get to.

Tony: We played Conan then we played Kimmel then Leno. So of course our next goal would be Letterman and SNL.

Tony: I remember you spent a long time on that song. It was like three different songs wasn’t it and then you put it together into one?

Ed: (The) chorus was all kinds of crap man. (laughs) It was the hardest part of the song.

SN: Do your lyrics reflect personal experiences or those of your friends and family?

SN: What is your favorite song to perform and why?
Ed: My favorite song to perform would be “Death Trend Setta.” It’s our heaviest song; it’s a lot of energy above. Kids dance around like maniacs and that’s when all of the 15-year-olds chicks get thrown over the barrier. (The rest of the band laughs) They are nuts!

Tony: My favorite song to perform is “Disco.” Its heavy song and it has a hooky chorus to it.

SN: What do you want your fans or people to take away from your music? Any certain message that you’re trying to send out?

Ed: just that there is always something good in everything that’s bad. And that no matter how bad it gets it always gets better because things can get pretty damn hard.

Tony: One song says well its not so bad y’all together we all fall, just at long as we get up we’ll stand tall we shouldn’t waste another day thinking about the things we forgot to say.

Tony: Yeah that’s about getting something good in something bad. Eddie is a pretty good lyricist for stuff like that.

SN: How do you think you have grown as a performer and musician since first started playing?

Mitch: Just from playing everyday especially since we have been on tour for almost eight months in a row of nothing but playing music almost every night. Six nights a week you have to get better. If you don’t get better than something’s wrong. That in turn makes the tech guys better makes the sound guys better. So just everyday is just an improvement on the day before. You know there is a few days here and there that things might go right but that seems to be about it.

Ed: Also learning before we played people didn’t really know our songs or who we were. So we kind of had to not really be something that we weren’t but you know we couldn’t just be what we were and (have) people accept that. We had to win the crowd over and do crazy things to get their attention. But now I have found that they know us and that they love the music and have come for that we have changed in a way. We play the music and they help us with the show. You know what I am saying…..we instead of us doing all of the work.

SN: What do you think sets you apart from all of the other up and coming rock bands?

Tony: Well maybe the whole thing that does set us apart is our drive. I mean a lot of bands have drives but our drive is extra special.

James: I think the fact that you’ve got three vocalists that can sing so well together and so clearly and distinctively that you can listen to the record and understand every lyric. A lot of bands out there you listen to their stuff and have to go hunting for the insert on the inside to read the lyrics. So for me I think the one thing that sets us apart is the fact we have three vocalist that sing so very well together.

Mitch: I don’t think any of us set out to be trendsetters as far as a new style of music. We wanted to play the music we wanted to play and it’s a lot of the people we took from. It’s got its Metallica and who ever in it. We weren’t out there to make some kind of album that was something completely different. We wanted to be out here making music that people liked. That’s not necessarily something that you get form a new style of music. So we just wanted to play music that we love and hope people will love it too.

Ed: and all these new exciting girls! (Whole band laughing) and to be 2500 miles from home and three hundred people in the crowd know every word of your album

Tony: at the House of Blues last night I guarantee there were more than 300 people singing cold

Ed: ohhh yeah! I’m talking about all the songs. (Jokingly) Let me finish my sentence!

Tony: ohh I am trying to rebuttal sorry! I am not supposed to be talking at interviews am I?

SN: Looking back now on the first record what do you think you will do differently on when you record your next album?

Ed: Well we are definitely going to record at a major studio for sure. You know that’s probably the only thing that I hope is going change. Hopefully we will produce the album and record the entire thing ourselves. Then take that into a studio and have a technical producer help us get the sounds down. But that is probably the only thing that I hope will change.

Mitch: and musically I think you know a lot of things will be very different and a lot of things will be like this album. Like a lot of heavy stuff and a lot of stuff that we couldn’t really explore on the first album just because its not what the record industry wanted to hear. Stuff will be a little different this time than before on our musical side.

Ed: On the last record I did a lot of lyrical writing without influence. Then it will be our professional band it will be what we do for a living. Its what we can all concentrate on. (For example) For someone to say, “Johnson couldn’t be there at a certain time” and stuff like that. Now that we do this for a living we can actually do everything together.

Mitch: big thornly fans, big clutch fans, monster magnet, Disturbed. Disturbed rocks!

James: and a plethora of unsolicited CDs we get in every city we go from young up and coming bands wanting us to hear their stuff. Sometimes its great, sometimes it rocks but a lot of times it sucks really bad. But we still listen to it and give (it a chance)

SN: What’s your least favorite band? One that you wish would die or go away?
Mitch: I don’t think we should ever answer that because we might end up on tour with them at some point.

Ed: Well you know I would probably never go buy tickets to a Billy Ray Cyrus concert but you know.

Tony: He’s already gone bro. He had an achy breaky heart that broke all the way to the bank. He’s got money.

Ed: I don’t own any of the Hootie and the Blowfish records but you have to admire what they’ve done.

Tony: We want all of them to live on and on and let them send their message out. Whether it sucks or its good or whatever.

SN: Is there anything you know now about the music business that you wished you would have known when your first started out? (Any lessons learned the hard way).

Mitch: Having to run a business out of a moving vehicle is something you can’t just learn you have to just do it everyday and learn form your mistakes.

Tony: Its all been very informative. We have learned a lot. I mean I didn’t know much about the music business at all. I saw bands getting signed and then all of a sudden you think they are rich and I always thought that too until you actually get into it. Then you realize that you have to build it up.

James: Just because you see a video on VH1 or MTV doesn’t mean that those guys are rich by ANY means. (Band laughs)

SN: I have about $15 to my name right now so I know what that is all about… I work for a corporation myself!

SN: I always feel bad when people think bands are rich just because they are on a label. My friends Greenwheel had their gear stolen and these kids at a show were all like Its OK you guys don’t have to worry about it you have a record deal you can go buy new instruments. Its just not true people just don’t understand. They had to take out a loan from the label I do believe…

James: Yeah it doesn’t work like that. We have to watch every penny out here on tour. We have to really keep…Thankfully, we have a tour manager that does it for us but I mean he really has to keep his eyes on every penny. Where it goes, how its being spent is it a worth while expense, is it something we can do without.

Tony: No doubt and they’ll get worse. The more money you make the more they take bro.

Tony: You make a little bit of money off the first record but your second record is when you start to know you’ve done well. When you start to really see profits from it. Different things like bigger advances on the record and that kind of thing. We took a real small advance on the first record. I don’t want to get into too much detail you know. We have been struggling for a while but we still get out there still kick that ass every night. We say our prayers at night. We all pray before we play. Guide us in the right way take this boot (points at his boot) and put it right up whatever town’s ass we are in. (laughs)

SN: You have been compared to a lot of bands what do you think is the weirdest you have been compared to?

Ed: P.O.D was kind of weird. Nickelback. Not that I think our music sounds like Nickelback at all. It was just a big roar about us that was what we sound like.

SN: I cannot stand Nickelback at all and I love you guys so I do not see that comparison being true!

Ed: Well we appreciate that! Not that that’s not cool (being compared to them)….

SN: Where do you see yourself or where do you hope to be 5 years from now?
Mitch: In a big fat ass house, on a fat ass lake….retired (laughs) sitting on my fat ass!

Tony: If we are all getting along. If we are not getting along we will be like brothers and will be on four busses.

James: and the crew….the underlying peasant crew guys…we are going to get them on a little bus.

Ed: I just see ourselves continue to grow musically and be on our third album by then.

Mitch: There is no end in sight for us. We don’t have a master plan of what will happen in five years. I think its just making the business bigger and better and more profitable and doing it in walkers.

Ed: Yeah still on the climb up and hopefully have a little money in the bank. Not going out MC Hammer style. I can’t really see doing anybody doing that maybe except Tony.

Tony: Gee Thanks but no. I have learned my lesson about money. You get a little bit don’t spend it all.

Tony: I leaned my lesson the hard way about that. But I ain’t going to say if I have 50 million dollars I ain’t going to have some bling!

SN: Do you have any last words or anything?
James: Buy our stuff cuz we ain’t got no money! (laughing and the rest of the band laughs) Merchandise on sale now!

James: We are taking Strata with us we are very excited about that those guys are a great band.

SN: Ohh what do you think your next single will be?
Ed: Colors…..if there is another single.

Tony: I wouldn’t doubt three or four singles off this record. I think colors is going to shoot straight up quicker than cold or so far away.

Tony: Our popularity is growing and plus the song is just so bad ass. When it hits airwaves and goes national people are going to really relate to that song.

SN: Yeah my sister says that whenever she hears it she wants to find you and give you all hugs and say its OK (laughing)

JANUARY 2004

Interview

Crossfade Back Stage Pass Interview
Interview by: Debbie Seagle - January 27, 2005
SOMA - San Diego, Ca

Always a rock pilgrim on a groove quest, I try to find myself in the neighborhood when something interesting is happening in the world of rock so I can sniff out what’s going on behind the concert stage and share it with all of you. Our readers should be the best informed on the nuts and bolts of the music business. If you are an aspiring musician, maybe we can help you to navigate your way to the public consciousness by taking away some of the mystique, and the veil of mystery surrounding “the biz.”

Today I find myself at the “Winterfresh Snocore Tour,” put on by the good folks at MTV2. This two month winter lifestyle tour has showcased quite a few heavy bands since its inception, and this year’s line up is no exception. On the bill are Chevelle, Helmet, Crossfade, Future Leaders of the World, and Strata. I thought I would drop in on Crossfade, and give you a little glimpse of their action. With their debut album on a rocket ride on the Billboard charts and their single “Cold” the #1 Record of the Year on Active Rock Radio, I figure these guys have something going on. I climbed aboard the bus for a talk with lead singer and guitarist Ed Sloan and bassist Mitch James. Also hanging out in the background (but not talking) was drummer James Branham.

These guys are a story in themselves. Talk about your self made men. They didn’t wait for fame to come to their door selling magazine subscriptions, they stormed its house and took it prisoner! Building their own recording studio in Ed’s garage and getting themselves hooked up with independent A&R outfit “Taxi,” to get them to the foot of Columbia’s door. It was just a matter of scaling the building with their music after that – and that’s exactly what happened. Here’s an excerpt from our meeting and an insight into the band’s beginnings, how they got their name and their process of morphing into a label-ready commodity.

DS: When I think of the Carolinas I think of Country music. What’s the rock culture like there?

Mitch James: Rock is bigger than country there. There’s a lot of country there. Its not really a country place, or as much as you would think it was. Not as much as Nashville or a lot of the Midwest. Its more a top 40 than anything else. Like any other market, top 40 is the king but it’s a fairly good place for rock music.

DS: I was readying over your biographies and Mitch, I understand you decided to become a bass player after attending a David Lee Roth concert?

DS: Since I’m sure none of our readers have ever heard of anyone having an epiphany at a David Lee Roth concert, you absolutely have to talk about that.

MJ: Well, it didn’t matter who it was playing, I just saw Billy Sheehan play for the first time and I’d never heard him before. I think he started doing TV commercials after that so some people actually saw his chops but that night he did a five minute bass solo that just blew everyone away. Steve Vai was on stage with him, so if that tells you anything, I knew I was going to be a bass player because Steve Vai didn’t impress me as much as Billy Sheehan did.

DS: Oh-oh. As a guitarist I’d have to take issue with that, but we’ll leave that one alone. So, I’m sure you guys dreamed about being a band when you were kids, like most of us did.

DS: How similar or different is Crossfade from the band you imagined you’d be in back in those days?

ES: I think very similar. I think the thing that got me into music was Sound Garden and Metallica and I think always in the back of my mind I’ve had kind of their feel and just the way they wrote songs and just the whole aura of those bands. You know, every song had something to it. They always had something to say that was really poignant, you know? I think we’ve always tried to stick to that. Just write music that reminds of that.

MJ: The only difference from when we first started as a band, or when we first realized that we wanted to be musicians and not just guys in a band, I think may have been more apt to play a tune that would make musicians in the crowd perk their ears up and try to be steadfast to not selling out. We finally realized that its better to have the 98% of people who aren’t musicians in the crowd to like you than the 2% who are.

DS: So you said “musicians,” as opposed to “playing in a band.” What’s the difference there for you?

MJ: I don’t know if I meant it any different but I think, you know, anyone can start a rock band. Three chords and you can get up and play something. I think we were more into what we could impress people with or a really odd time signature that people can really bounce their head with. You know that’s the kind of stuff, when I listen to a band, I’m like wow, you guys are awesome, as opposed to “God, that’s a great song.”

DS: What about being a working and touring musician, were there any surprises for you there? As far as being out there on the road and being backed by a label.

ES: Just how easy and how fun its been. We’ve got a really good crew and a really good label that allows us to shelve off anything we’ve got in our minds to do, you know the business aspects of everything.

ES: Oh yeah, the label’s been great to us and the crew that we’ve got here, we just kind of wonder about and wonder up on stage and play and get off and that’s it and we don’t have to worry about anything else and I think that I never expected that. I expected it would come after years of touring and getting your crew all built up but its been easy from day one.

MJ: That’s exactly right. I mean, we can count our blessings every day. There’s thousands of bands out there who aren’t signed, who can write just as catchy hooks but never get the connection or never get the two people in line that can get them somewhere. That happens a lot so we consider ourselves really lucky as a group.

DS: Definitely, ride it out because it’s a special thing. I’m always fascinated in the stories about how bands come up with their names. You started out as a trio called “The Nothing,” right?

DS: And after adding Tony to the band you changed the name to “Sugar Daddy Superstar,” which to me doesn’t sound real . . . heavy. But then to “Crossfade” after getting signed to Earshot Records. So lets go through those names. What’s the meaning of them and what went into choosing them. Group effort?

ES: Well, The Nothing, I was a real big fan of that movie The Never Ending Story and The Nothing was in the storm in the story and that’s where that name came from. We spent weeks and week looking for a name and finally just decided on that. No real reason in particular.

MJ: It sounded kind of dark and foreboding like the music we were playing at the time.

ES: Um-hm, it was definitely dark and foreboding. And then six years later we started to play, because of the reception we were getting around town was kind of minimal, because we were such a heavy band and didn’t play out too much, we decided to start playing cover songs to get the funds for making records and also started to write songs that were a little more poppy. Sometimes we’d play out as The Nothing and play really heavy and sometimes we’d play out as a cover band and a little more of a poppy band and we played as Sugar Daddy Superstar. Eventually The Nothing got phased out and Sugar Daddy Superstar was the main band because that was what made most of the money and we had that name all the way up to the showcase with Columbia Records and the head of Columbia said he’d love to have us as part of the family but we had to change the name because he hated it. He literally said he hated it.

ES: And we said no problem. So it took us about a month. We had a list of about 150 names. We were called “Upshifter” for about four days, thank goodness that changed, and Crossfade, you know it’s a technical term in the recording software we use and it passed all the legal checks so we became “Crossfade.”

Think you have a rock star inside you dying to get out? Don’t be afraid to do what it takes to make your music and make it work. Who knows? Its been known to happen . . .

FEBRUARY 2004

Interview

Mitch James Interview
Interview by: A. M. Sefic 2/24/04
Transcribed by: Michael Logan & Johnny Roberts

This Columbia, SC modern rock band is making big waves already, and their debut self titled record has not even been released to the masses! [Disc drops April 13th and is well worth the wait!] They have been in the top ten most popular searched out bands on the Metal Refuge for weeks, and remain so to this day. Their first single "Cold" made a huge impact on radio the first week out being the "#4 Most Added song in the Active Rock format only to be topped by new songs by Damageplan, Trapt and P.O.D." Mitch James (vocals/bass) called the Metal Refuge to let us in on what is going on with his band, and how he feels about their rising success.

Mitch: I was 14. I was actually in highschool with some friends of mine, one of them was a real virtuoso on guitar. He said “We are trying to get some guys together to be in a band, and we need a bass player.” So I said “Well hell, I got a job and nothing else to spend my money on.” So I went ahead and bought a bass. I borrowed an amp from a friend of mine and I was in the band the next day. That didn’t mean I was any good, it just meant I was in a band. I think we learned every Metallica cover tune there ever was, and every Megadeth cover tune.

MR: So do you think Metallica has been a big influence for you as a band, or just you personally?

Mitch: I think the band as a whole loved being on the verge of mainstream, Metallica had that thing about them where they had no videos out, yet everybody knew who they were. They weren’t sell-outs, and we liked that about them, and we liked other bands like that. That’s what we wanted in life was to be those guys, or other bands like them. Even Pantera, you know, just bands like that, which were kind of skewed and not known in mainstream. They had stuff that wasn’t ready for modern rock back then, and those kind of bands were what we strived to be.

MR:I hear a lot of modern rock in your music, which I love. How would you define what type of music Crossfade is playing?

Mitch: Well, I think it’s a very strange mix. Me and Ed, who is the lead singer and guitar player, and Tony, who is another singer and also a DJ, we were all singers of bands when we started. So we all have our own style, I’m more of a heavy, growling singer like the Cradle of Filth stuff. Tony is more melodic; he is one of the karaoke guys. He can just walk into any place and the ladies will just melt when he is singing karaoke to them. Then Ed of course, you can hear Ed’s voice. He has amazing talent; he can play all kinds of instruments. He’s got it, he was born to be a musician, and his voice is incredible.

Mitch: Yeah, we all like the heavy stuff. We all like the classic rock, from Foghat to Queen.

Mitch: You know what I mean though; the redneck rock, to the real headbanging heavy stuff, like Pantera. All of those kind of bring their own thing into the band. When we write a song, Tony has got his voice, you know, where it makes you happy to be hearing it. My voice is like the grunts, and barks. I don’t know if you can tell which voice is me in the songs, but mine are in the heavy parts. Of course then Ed has got a mainstream sounding voice.

Mitch: Not on the CD. Like I said we were all lead singers at some point, so we all like to step up, we’re not shy. We all have songs we have written; we have a catalog of 70 plus songs at least. So on any given night one of us might step up and sing 2 or 3 songs that nobody has ever heard before.

Mitch: Yeah they have, they have always been supportive. They have wondered at what point it was going to either stop being a hobby and become something less important, or become something that was going to pick up my life.

Mitch: Yes, almost anywhere recently, my parents and Ed’s parents. Well a lot of them have at some given time, but especially my parents and Ed’s. They are at almost every show that is close by.

MR: Ok. Now you produced the album yourselves, you recorded it in your own basement studio. For the people who would try to do the same sort of thing, can you list some of the equipment that you had to use?

Mitch: Well to be up front with you, Ed is the man as far as the recording goes. Mostly what we used was a badass computer. We would record everything through the computer. We had some compressors and some effects units. We used Cakewalk. That was the recording program that we used; A little bit of Pro Tools, and then you know, some really good microphones and a lot of time making it sound like shit before it ever sounds good. You record something twenty times and it finally sounds right. Sometimes you don’t realize what you did to get it, and it’s hard to find it again. Trial and error you can’t do when you are spending 45 to 75 dollars an hour in a studio. You can just goof around all day at your house for free.

Mitch: It took about nine months. We already had all the songs written. “Cold” was one of the last songs that became part of the CD, “Cold” and “So Far Away”. Most of it was just getting the band together and picking apart the songs. You have a producer to do it, you have an outside ear to kind of say “Whoa that sounds like crap stop before you go any further.” We would go off on a tangent for like three weeks on one part, and then finally realize that the part just wasn’t working.

MR: Were there times when you were really hitting the wall and wanted to pull your hair out, or did it go pretty smoothly?

Mitch: It was always smooth it was just a matter of juggling our personal lives and our band lives, and on top of that spending that much more time in the studio recording stuff. I had no idea if it was going to be worth the time or effort. Being in Columbia, we had no clue if anybody would ever hear it, or have the opportunity.

Mitch: Ed found this thing on the Internet called Taxi.com, and we recommend it to anybody. Its just a bunch of retired music executives and A&R guys, and what you do is pay them an up front fee for the whole year, and you send them songs for about 5 dollars a song, and they critique them. One guy, in his genre of music, he will get the songs and listen to them as many times as he needs to, and he fills out a form. He will be straight with you, he will say “the song really blows”, “this song has a good hook, but the singer sucks.” you know, They tell you what you need to hear as a musician trying to get your stuff further. It just so happens that our manager now, Chris Long, is the one who was listening to our stuff. He heard the song “Dead Skin”, which is one of our older songs on that CD, and he loved it. He called us as a guy who had been in the business and said “I really like your stuff.” He kept in touch with us for several months, and kind of egged us along and told us what he liked about something. We were still there through the company, and he would make sure he got the phone. At some point, he said “I’d really like to fly out and see you guys play, and see if you are as good as you sound on CD.” So he flew out to Columbia and saw one of our shows and loved it. Maybe two weeks later he actually offered to be our manager. So at that point, anything was great if someone from LA was wanted to be our manager.

Mitch: He, well…um, we wont give him all that credit. We’ll say he new the right people who knew some people, and he got us to the avenues that we needed for people to hear it. Actually, um, Don Ienner - President of Columbia Records.- actually heard us. He and Matt Pinfield from Columbia Records heard us. It started circulating around there, and they decided to give us a call, and flew us up to New York for a showcase. And that’s pretty much how it happened. They were sold as soon as we played for them.

Mitch: Haha, um, well not really. We’ve been on hold for almost a year now. And Ill tell you, the quick story to how that is we got signed in November of last year, and they said, uh, ‘Everything’s going great, and probably by February you can quit your jobs, you’ll get an advance, and we’ll get you rollin…’ Well, all the craziness going on with the record business right now, got kinda crazy right then, and all of a sudden we didn’t know if we were going to have a label anymore. And like a third of the people we were working with actually got canned. So it was nice that we were still on the label after that point.

Mitch: Yeah it does, especially when you’ve been working so long and you are so close and ya know something has always been in your way, and you finally get there and then all of a sudden something like that happens, its just very scary. So we didn’t.. well… we all had to quit our jobs, and then I actually had to get back to work, and I am still kinda working…I'm not really wide open yet but hopefully we wont have to go that route anymore.

MR: Alright, writing the songs, getting the music down… who gets the ball rolling? I mean how do you all start, and who takes over?

Mitch: Ed will usually come up with an idea, one of us will say [inaudible], and maybe three weeks later it may show back up, and all of a sudden he’s got a second part to it, and all of a sudden it rolling, then, ya know, he may add some words at that point for it, and as soon as you know, its something catchy. You start building on it, you drop what you are doing and you start on that song, and at some point it will go recorded on the computer, which makes it a whole lot easier for everyone to take home and give it a listen and figure out what needs to go next, or how to arrange something, but usually Ed is the one who takes control and works with it once we show him which ideas we think are worth saving.

MR: And then he passes it down to everyone else and you put down your ideas to it?

Mitch: Mostly. We’ve all written some lyrics. He wrote the lyrics to “Cold.” Some of the other songs are kind of a hodge-podge of, ya know a piece of paper I brought in one day, and Brian and Tony will have a piece of paper, and all of a sudden all these things are stuck together, even different songs - we will pick a part out of a song, the music and the words, and all of a sudden it fits this song really good, so..

MR: Great! Alright, well what would you say is the greatest challenge you’ve had to face in your career thus far?

Mitch: Oooh, uh… I would say just, just getting people outside of our circle to hear our stuff. I mean, around here we’ve always had a following, we’ve always had people who have said “Y’all stuff is incredible, it hits me somehow, and we feel it.’ And we never could get that to go past a certain point. And ya know, that’s what we’re finally see. We see that light at the end of the tunnel now. All of a sudden we are on 52 radio stations I think I saw today, and you know its every corner of the United States. So, ya know its something we’ve always wanted to do and never could do, and its almost, we kinda gave it up, like we never thought it was going to be - that we never thought it would be that big.

MR: Yeah…I think its interesting too that one of your first thoughts was to send your music to someone that would critique it. Most of the time people would start sending it out to labels hoping for the best, but it seems like you wanted to really just make your stuff really really good before you sent it out to the big guys.

Mitch: Yeah well that’s what we wanted. We hear music all the time, and we’re the biggest music critics out there, being in a band. It doesn’t even have to be our kind of music if we like it, we know its good music and we’ll listen to it, or we know its going to get somewhere and there are so many bands out there that are good, but don’t have… there’s not hooks in their songs. They have something that someone likes, but they are missing that one thing, whatever that thing is, and it keeps them from getting somewhere, and we got tired of being that band, so any help we could get from somebody we took it.

MR: That’s right, and often times, I’m assuming that the criticism is not always positive?

MR: Your first single is “Cold”. It seems to receive quite a lot of attention, everyone seems to be looking for it on the internet, requesting it on the radio. All of the songs on your disc in my opinion are worthy of being a single. What made you guys choose “Cold” above the others for a first single?

Mitch: I think, really the message. I think a lot of the other stuff has some not quite so obvious messages. I think this one is pretty much straight forward. I mean, you can pretty much take the scenario and use it to however you need to, but its really saying exactly what you think it says. You know I just… I’ve been a shit, I’ve been cold to you, there’s no excuse for it and it just seemed like that kind of message was easy to get across. It was the first one that perked up the ears of the label, which is the real reason why it’s the single, but I think it was a unanimous decision by everyone that was the song to hook everybody in, and then maybe the rest of the songs can follow.

Mitch: I think “The Deep End.” I really like “The Deep End,” just the message, the grunge…the power of the chords, the strength of the voice. It just seems like that song I enjoy more. It makes me jump up and down, and just, I feel that one.

MR: Awesome, now lets talk about the personality of your bandmates. You get a maximum of TWO words to describe your bandmates. Lets start with Tony (vocals, keyboards and samples).

Mitch: Haha, ummm, ok. Tony is the ….he's the superstar. He’s the one that like to get up front and show everybody he’s the man.

Mitch: Yeah, he likes to be up front. He’s not a show off, and he’s not a badass, but he knows how to get the crowd going, he likes to stand right up there cuz he knows he’s gonna get a reaction.

Mitch: Uh, he’s the wild one. He’s like animal on the muppets. And he’s the drummer also, so that kinda fits. Just the wild one, so that’s what you expect from him.

Mitch: Ed is the more, laid back. He’s very predictable, you always know how he’s gonna react to something, and you know he’s always going to come out with a song that’s better than the last one he wrote.

Mitch: Haha, well Ill tell ya... well how do you do this without tootin’ your own horn?

Mitch: I would say I’m the one that holds it all together, as far as musically, the one who… ya know the bass is always the primary instrument [inaudible] for everything else.

MR: Ok, touring plans for the upcoming year. Do you have any? And do you know who with yet?

Mitch: We do not know who with. We’ve had some big names run across our plate, not as offers, but as possibilities.

Mitch: Yeah, that would be nice. We’re actually playing two shows with Josh Todd from Buck Cherry who’s got a new single out on modern rock stations too, so we’re playing a few shows with him to start it off. As far as with the dates, well we’re not sure. We know its going to be fairly soon, and it will probably be a one day's notice. They are probably gonna say “Get ready to jump on this tour with this band, but you know, we've had several people, you know, even Staind…

Mitch: But you know, trying to play with those kinda bands is very scary being the first time we’ve been out for more than 8 or nine shows at time.

MR: Well, I think you could really do it. Even with bands like, ya know Cold, Revis, or Three Doors Down.

Mitch: Yeah, I love, love all three of those bands. Three Doors Down is not one of my favorite bands, but I think they are fantastic musicians, and they are doing exactly what we’re doing. They are writing tunes that people just relate to and love; and I really like Cold and Revis. Fantastic singers in those bands.

Mitch: Hmm, my dream tour… I would have to say, somewhere between Metallica, and, well you know you cant really go wrong with Metallica and Ozzy if that ever happened again. Haha.

Mitch: You know, we’re big fans of Korn, we’re big fans of Disturbed. Any of those guys, ya know every year… any of hose guys we’ve idolized, playing with them would be a dream.

MR: Well you know Disturbed does their “Music as a Weapon” tour, so you never know!

Mitch: Yeah, actually, I’ve heard that name has been mentioned also. I've always worried about playing behind them or playing in front of them, because I've seen their live show and it was amazing. And we’ve also played a couple of shows with Saliva. They’re very nice guys, so that wouldn’t be a bad thing either.

Mitch: Um, not nervous, I’ve never been nervous about talking or being in front of people, the only thing that makes me nervous is the fact that it might end before it gets started, and that would just be the worst kind of news. Nervous, no… what’s the word I’m looking for…

Mitch: Well, excited, but always wondering if something could happen to screw that up, I guess just a little cautious.

MR: How has life changed for you now that you have signed with Columbia and about to release your debut, self titled record?

Mitch: Um, well not a lot has changed as far as my mentality. You know, I’m excited, I’m looking forward to doing things that we have not had the chance to do before . I'm the same old guy. I'm never going to be, you know we’re not assholes, we’re not going to be the guys that walk around going “Yeah, we deserve this, blah blah blah” because you know there are 10,000 bands out there that deserve it more than 90% of the bands out there on the radio do.

MR: You are married. How is your wife going to handle you being on the road for God knows how long?

Mitch: Well she’s had plenty of time to get to where she is, and I think it was all... It was not cool at first. It was something that we had to convince her that it was going to be worth it, and I think finally, after seeing some of the press and, you calling me up, and Matt Pinfeild calling the house, that kinda stuff, I think she is beginning to realize that this is real this is not some small endeavor, and we’re not going to be eating bologna sandwiches for a year, and you know not paying our bills.

MR: Well, that’s all I got for you, is there anything at all you would like to tell your current fans, and your perspective fans.

Mitch: I’m just very excited to be here, I feel humbled to be at this point when so many people deserve it, and we just happened to be there at the right moment when it happened. And nobody give up because you know, someday those people might be up, you know, living the dream that we always tried to live, and we’re finally getting to live it.

DECEMBER 2004

Interview added 12.01.04

Ed Sloan Interview
Interview by: Adam Swiderski
Contributing Editor, Underground Online

In an increasingly crowded hard rock genre, Crossfade stands out for their individuality and independent spirit - the band recorded its debut record on Columbia themselves, in their own studio. And they rock harder than any big-money outfit you're likely to find. Now they're experiencing their first taste of major label success, hitting the road full-time and continuing to melt people's faces with their high-voltage rock. They're teaming up with us in a pretty cool sweepstakes, but in the meantime, we caught up with lead singer Ed Sloan for a little Q and a lot of A.

UGO: I read an interview from back in February with your bassist in which he said something about how everybody hadn't been able to quit their day jobs yet. With the release of the record, has that changed?

Ed: It absolutely has. We've been on tour for about five or six weeks now, and all of us have been unemployed since. So we're finally out on the road, just doing our thing, man.

UGO: Are you enjoying that? Have there been any surprises in terms of that lifestyle?

Ed: No, not at all, man. We've all just really been enjoying the hell out of it, and enjoying meeting all the fans, and going to different cities. Of course, money's always an issue, but hopefully, in the future, that won't be too much of one.

UGO: Now that you guys are touring and all, you're probably playing some bigger venues and things like that...

Ed: I'm sorry, man, we almost got in a wreck in the RV. I missed what you were saying.

UGO: I was just asking about the difference from a musician's standpoint in terms of playing bigger venues, which you're doing now on the heels of the record, versus playing more intimate club settings.

Ed: Oh, it's amazing, man. You know, the first show we went out and played, which was in Manchester, there were, like, 20,000 people there. And before that, we had probably played in front of five or six hundred, max. Our first show out, it was incredible, man. We just couldn't believe it. Ever since then, we've been kind of spoiled, with shows in front of 8000 to 20,000 people. Every now and again, we'll have a show with a capacity crowd of 300 in a little club, and you get a different feel from those clubs shows. It's just two completely different feels - and both of them are great. But it's definitely good to finally be out in front of some really big audiences.

"When it comes to the club shows, and the people are right there in front of you, and they're packed in like sardines...those are the shows that I get my jitters. But the big shows, man, we're all just really cool, calm and collected."

Ed: You know, I was so surprised that, for that first show, and for the big shows ever since, I get very little nerves. When it comes to the club shows, and the people are right there in front of you, and they're packed in like sardines...those are the shows that I get my jitters. I don't really know why. But the big shows, man, we're all just really cool, and calm, and collected.

UGO: Have you had the opportunity now through this touring and everything like that, to meet or work with any artists that kind of made you step back and say, "Wow?"

Ed: Um...well, Dimebag Darrell of old Pantera and new Damage Plan, it was cool to meet him. He's always been a fantastic guitar player, and we've always loved him. Really, the guys in Damage Plan were the first guys we've met that we've really been in awe of, like, "Hey, I can't believe we're meeting these guys." Everybody else has been, like, pretty much, in the new crowd. Puddle of Mudd, bands that have been around for just a few years. You know, it's a lot different than somebody you've known for so many years and come to respect, you know?

UGO: Sure. So, when you met Dimebag, were you able to talk to him just like a normal guy?

Ed: Oh, yeah. He was completely cool, man. We hung out with him before the show, and told him all the stuff we liked about all his music, and just hung out. It was really cool.

UGO: Was it hard to convince Columbia, a major label, to let your debut record consist of songs you had produced yourself, in your studio?

"To be honest with you, what we recorded was really a demo; we never intended for it to get out to the rest of the country."

Ed: To be honest with you, what we recorded was really a demo; we never intended for it to get out to the rest of the country. We were hoping to re-record it and go into a big studio, but the night they heard us showcase and told us they wanted to sign us, they said that they liked the album as it was and just wanted us to keep it and re-mix it, and didn't want us to re-record anything at all. You know, it was kind of bittersweet. It was good that we didn't have to spend all that time away in another state, away from our families, recording, but on the other hand, it would have been nice to get in a nice studio and re-record everything professionally. But, you know, it turned out OK.

UGO: Are there any particular points now that you listen to and say, "I wish we could have revisited that?"

Ed: Actually, no, there's really not. We had enough time...you know, doing it on our own, we had enough time to listen to it so many times and decide that well before we actually printed the thing. So we made all those decisions long before it got to Columbia.

UGO: Is that something you're looking to continue doing, producing things yourselves?

Ed: Yeah, I mean, even currently, in the RV, we have a little mini-studio set up in here, we're recording as we speak. So hopefully, by the time it rolls around for the second album, we'll have everything finished and won't even need to go into the studio. But we've definitely left that option open for us.

UGO: When you guys are recording, is it primarily analog, or do you use a lot of computers and software?

Ed: Not really, man. You know, we've just got a nice condenser mic, and we run it into a compressor, and straight into the computer, and we just track it in SONAR. We don't really use many effects. Vocals, we use compression, for the guitars, we use compression and some effects, but it's really just pretty clean and simple.

UGO: The whole "indie rock" label has been applied to a particular style of music. Does it ever tick you off that you guys very much have that independent spirit, but that label has become associated with a type of music that doesn't fit what you're doing?

Ed: No, man, not really. We did try for a long time to associate ourselves with the indie labels, just to try to get in somewhere. But no, it's not bad, at all.

Ed: It's really not a musical hotbed. There really aren't too many bands. Or, maybe I should say there really aren't too many great bands, at least not many that I've heard of. I don't really know if there's too much left to come out of Columbia right now.

UGO: Did you find that - the fact that you were one of the biggest bands in Columbia, if not the biggest - to be beneficial, or detrimental given that there wasn't much of a scene?

Ed: Well, to be honest, the way we consider local scenes, as far as with other bands and competition...you really have to have an active scene, where there's a lot going on, and there's bands playing all the time, and you're kind of competing for fans, and that kind of stuff. But we really...we never played out live in Columbia. All we did was stay at the house and record music, write the best music we could, and try to get it into the right people's hands. We never really had the opportunity to be out there in Columbia fighting for fans and trying to get noticed in our own hometown and all that kind of stuff. So it didn't really have anything to do with the scene in Columbia and other bands like that, you know?

UGO: Nowadays, there are a lot of heavy rock bands out there. Do you ever feel like you have to somehow make yourself stand out?

Ed: You know, this whole album was really recorded...we did what we felt, and we felt what we did, and it felt good. We didn't try to mold any cookie-cutter shapes or take after any other bands, you know. A lot of the reviews we've received lately, folks are always comparing you to Nickelback and P.O.D....you know, the latest and greatest. They're always trying to pin that on you. But, you know, we just did what was in our hearts, man, and that's what came out.

Ed: Not at all. We've got a big emotional attachment to this album; we've got a lot of faith in it, a lot of pride in it. And there's really nothing that anybody could tell us about it that would bring us down...especially comparing us to great bands like that. At least they're not saying we suck (laughs).

UGO: In terms of songwriting, how much are you influenced by what you're listening to at a particular time?

"We've got a big emotional attachment to this album; we've got a lot of faith in it, a lot of pride in it. And there's really nothing that anybody could tell us about it that would bring us down."

Ed: Very little, man. Me, personally, most of my influence, I still get from back in the day, you know, listening to (Metallica singer James) Hetfield, and Faith No More, and all that stuff back in the grunge era. I still draw all my inspiration from that. Very little new stuff - I think I receive very little influence from that. Don't get me wrong - sometimes, it creeps into your writing, and you don't even know it.

Ed: For this album, it was pretty much...I would bring to the table most of the lyrics, and the melody, and the guitar stuff, and then we would all get together and the rest of the guys would perform their stuff around it. And then, we'd split up the vocals between Tony and I. So I'd write most of the stuff, and then we'd all blend in together.

UGO: Listening to the record, there seems to be a stylistic difference between the more straight-ahead rock and the DJ-inflected, more hip-hop influenced tracks. What's the balance like there? Is there any push-and-pull, or is it pretty organic?

Ed: No, it's really all organic, man. It's whatever the song feels, and a lot of those songs, it's just...as we're in there, it just felt good to do it like that, it felt good to throw some of that stuff in there. It's really just how it feels, man.

UGO: Because Tony (DJ and vocalist Tony Byroads) came in after the band was kind of there, didn't he?

UGO: A big part of your bio talks about Taxi (an independent A&R service), and the part that played in your success. Did you find them through the Internet?

Ed: Yes, that was through the Internet, you know, five years ago, searching around for ways to get the music out to other people.

UGO: Were you very active on the Internet before that, in terms of trying to use it to further the band?

Ed: Constantly. Every day, at home, or at work, just spending as much time as I could finding different record labels, who was accepting submissions, and just ways to help us out online. Just anything, man.

UGO: How do you feel about the way music is changing thanks to the Internet and technology? Is it a positive thing?

Ed: I think it's absolutely positive, man, especially in the wake of online piracy and all that stuff. It gives people an option, if they do want to get their stuff digitally, it gives them an option to do so while still paying for it, instead of always having to go out to Kazaa and all that kind of stuff. I think it's great, man, and it's a wonderful way to promote your band, and a lot of people are starting to respect it more, as far as the industry, and that kind of thing.

UGO: Do you do a lot of interacting with your fans, in terms of forums and things like that?

Ed: Oh, yeah. We've got a couple of forums that we check every day, and interact with the fans. On our web site's front page, there's an e-mail address that we check from the RV every night, and respond to e-mails as much as we possibly can. And keep an active link going.

Ed: Really, man, like one percent of all the posts and e-mails have been negative, and the other 99 percent have been absolutely wonderful, people telling us how much the songs have changed their lives, how much they love the album, and that kind of stuff. So it's been really positive.

UGO: When you hear something like that, does that ever give you pause, that people feel like your songs are changing their lives?

Ed: Oh, it absolutely does. You know, it wasn't the intention when we wrote the song; it was just what came out. And it's really cool to know that other people are feeling things from it and receiving benefit from the songs, instead of just listening to the songs. You know, it's really cool.

Ed: You know, the way I feel about it is...if people are going to be honest enough to go out and use it just to find out if they like something, and then act on that, and go buy it if they do, and get rid of it if they don't, I think it's great. But I know the vast majority of people who use it don't do that. So, I think that...like, on our site, we provide 30-second clips of each song you can listen to, and I think that's enough to figure out if you like a band and you can order the CDs. You know, I think it's...I really don't like it. I really don't think it's a good thing, because I think anywhere there's potential for abuse, people will abuse it. But as far as MP3s and the future, I think other formats are going to come along. I don't know that MP3's going to hold the market for too terribly much longer before something new and incredible comes out.

UGO: We have a bet going in the office over whether, in the future, the concept of the album is going to exist, or whether people are going to exploit technology to release individual songs. What do you think about that?

"If people are going to be honest enough to go out and use it just to find out if they like something, and then act on that, and go buy it if they do, and get rid of it if they don't, I think it's great."

Ed: Yeah, I definitely think that's in the future, man. Especially as a writer. I've often hoped for the day when I could just write a song, put it out on the Internet, and just sell it. I still think people will enjoy getting the CD in their hand, and looking through the liners, and reading the lyrics, and all that good stuff. But it's definitely going to elevate.

UGO: As a writer, do you think that writing albums - i.e., ten songs in one collected release - is something you're going to want to keep doing?

Ed: Yeah, when I talk about putting individual songs out for people to hear...you know, there are other styles, and other types of songs that I write, that other guys in the band write. But I always want to have an album out that's a cohesive unit of a bunch of songs or a bunch of ideas that are a collection of how you're feeling at the time. I always want to have that, and want to get that from other people, but there are other songs that have nothing to do with anything else, that are kind of just throw-offs...you know, a song here, a song there, that would be cool to be able to put out there on their own.

UGO: Alright, final question: If you could have super powers, what would they be, and why?