AMERICAN HEAD CHARGE Keyboardist Says Bus Mold Was Contributing Factor In Guitarist's Death

Blasting-Zone.com recently conducted an in-depth interview with AMERICAN HEAD CHARGE keyboardist Justin Fouler and bassist Mr. H. C. Banks III. Several excerpts follow:

Blasting-Zone.com: What was the main motivation behind the group's departure from DRT Entertainment?

Justin: "I don't know, but if you find out, could you let me know? If you make any headway with that one, let me know because I'm sure a few of the other guys in the band are dying to know what happened with them. I think they went into some type of relative rich guy hiding…that's what I think they did. I actually haven't heard that much from them. There's a song that comes to mind…I think it's by THE STEVE MILLER BAND…it's called 'Take The Money And Run'. That's DRT's fuckin' theme song."

Blasting-Zone.com: How did the group become involved with Nitrus Records?

Mr. H. C. Banks III: "We had been demoing for (legendary producer) Rick (Rubin) for about a year and a half. We had a lot of songs and were getting no feedback from Rick. It wasn't no feedback, but it was few and far between. We were given no direction, basically. We'd get faxed one line of notes for the songs and we'd send ten or twelve songs at a time. We'd wait for six weeks to two months to hear back from him. There was this huge lag in the communication chain… we were waiting, waiting and waiting. We were obviously not on his priority list whatsoever. He was busy working with THE DIXIE CHICKS, R.E.M., THE BEACH BOYS, THE BEATLES… (laughs) and we just got sick of waiting. So we were talking with our manager, who is the head of Nitrus, and we decided that even though it's a conflict of interest, that it was better to not sit in limbo and wonder if you were going to continue to lose your audience. We had forty five songs… we were done with writing. We knew we had a record in there and obviously we did. We were just sick of waiting and in the end, we said, 'Will you let us go?' The quickest thing he did in eighteen months was get us paperwork within three weeks, ya know? It was like, 'Wow, you just answered all of my unanswered questions, didn't ya?'"

Blasting-Zone.com: Did the conflict on interest ultimately become an issue?

Mr. H. C. Banks III: "It was pretty apparent after a while. It was an indie label and there was cost cutting and corner cutting, shady figures… I don't wanna talk shit, but I'll talk shit, ya know? There was a question of where the money was coming from. Was it DRT or was it Nitrus? To this day, we can't get a straight answer about where our money is. I haven't gotten paid one fuckin' dime for 'The Feeding'. I don't know where the money is and no one seems to be able to tell me. So I've got a kinda bad taste in my mouth about record companies now. Thank fuckin' God in 2007 record companies are almost obsolete. They're like travel agents. They're being edged out, ya know? With the right amount of knowledge and a little of who ya know, the start-up capital and a distribution deal and a good publicist, you need a fuckin' label anymore."

Blasting-Zone.com: When (guitarist) Bryan (Ottoson) passed away, was there ever any doubt the band could continue?

Justin: "I think that…it was more that we had to and we knew it was possible, so we just did it. The grieving process has lasted for years now because in that immediate moment, you're in shock, ya know? You don't know what's happening to you or anyone around you or your life. You're just blindsided by something like that, so you end up doing things that are totally outside of your personality. We just wanted to keep it runnin', so we kept it runnin' at our own consequence, ya know? We ended up not getting any of that grief time and pushing it to the side…and dealing with it later. And that's really screwed us up (laughs)."

Blasting-Zone.com: At this point, what is your least favorite aspect of touring?

Justin: "Bad buses and bad traveling situations. We've had some pretty horseshit luck with buses over the years. Like the one stretch when we were in Texas for thirteen days with no generator in the middle of summer. That was just last summer. And then the breakdown of the same bus…the rear end went out in Tuscaloosa during Hurricane Rita. We also had severe mold problems in one of the buses. We all got sick from that. That was actually a contributing factor in Bryan's death. It's a little known fact that he actually had pneumonia from the mold on the bus. We've also been out without a tour bus and that just leaves the door even more open to things that are bad and wrong, inconsistent and displeasing. Not that were comfort pigs or anything, but there's just a certain amount of humanity that has to be met to travel and live in a different city every day. But part of being a professional is learning to deal with that stuff as it comes to you and not letting it upset you when stuff goes wrong."

Read the entire interview at Blasting-Zone.com.