JOB FOR A COWBOY Frontman Admits To Illegally Downloading Music

Robert Gray of Ultimate-Guitar.com recently conducted an interview with JOB FOR A COWBOY frontman Jonny Davy as part of a series entitled "Hit The Lights." Topics of discussion included the band's new album, "Ruination", the CD's lyrical content and artwork, and illegal downloading. Several excerpts from the interview follow below.

On "Ruination"'s politically based lyrics:

"I grew up with a single mom, and she just took me around. My family is Dominican Republican, and all of my family from that country is extremely political. They'd take me to rallies and protests — I was roughly eight-to-ten years old, and didn't know what the hell was going on. I would just hold signs on the street (laughs). Actually, my great grandfather was the president of the Dominican Republic, so I was somewhat bound into that. When we wrote 'Ruination', I already had that political blood in me I guess. When writing songs, the U.S. presidential elections took place, and of course, coverage of that was everywhere. How much in people's faces it was was almost a mind-fuck, so I think that's one of the reasons why I went down a much more political route with 'Ruination'."

On drummer Jon Rice:

"When it comes to metal, Jon is a little elitist. He's one of those guys who's a mammoth computer, and knows everything. He's a metal encyclopedia. His influences range from everywhere, I think, and he can play just about anything on the drums. Many death metal drummers have difficulty in grooving, and attempting to have feel to their drumming. In other words, Jon isn't a drum machine, and is actually a legitimate, awesome, all-around drummer. With 'Ruination' you can definitely tell, I think."

On how "Ruination" differs from "Genesis":

"With every album, I think we'll likely mature. We'll venture in different directions, grow older, and have different influences. 'Genesis' had the same pace to its songs, and was just pretty modern death metal. 'Ruination' is a little more quirky, I guess. A lot of our older fans from the 'Doom' EP (2005) will enjoy this, I think, as well as even the newer ones. With 'Genesis', we almost lost some fans due to the huge change. With 'Ruination', we'll likely make some older fans happy, along with newer ones."

On the music video for "Regurgitated Disinformation" (see below):

"We actually went to Philadelphia. We just played in a really small club, so that we could convey the energy prevalent at one of our shows. 'Regurgitated Disinformation''s music video will be solely black and white, and will be released really soon. I'm really stoked about the way the video came out — it looks awesome, I think. It was a pretty crazy show (laughs),with stage dives, and craziness occurring non-stop."

On whether he endorses illegal downloading:

"I wouldn't say I endorse illegal downloading. I don't really think illegal downloading affects things too much, especially when you're an underground metal band. Downloading, and finding ways to get albums heard, is almost like the new era of tape-trading. I can't complain — I definitely do it myself."

Read the entire interview from Ultimate-Guitar.com.