MUSHROOMHEAD Vocalist Talks Label, Lineup Changes

antiMUSIC's Morley Seaver recently spoke with Jeffrey Nothing, vocalist of MUSHROOMHEAD, about the band's new record, "Savior Sorrow", and all the other changes in the band, including a new vocalist, new record company and new makeup. A couple of excerpts follow:

antiMUSIC: It's been a little while since the last record, 2003's "XIII". What's happened since the end of the tour for that record and the sessions for this one?

Jeffrey Nothing: We had a member leave and we were dropped by Universal, which was kind of a mutual thing because we thought they didn't really do anything for us on the last one. So there were a lot of changes. We toured a lot for "XIII" but we didn't start making "Savior Sorrow" until about a year and a half ago which puts us on tour now.

antiMUSIC: How did you find [new singer] Waylon?

Jeffrey Nothing: We had his band for a couple of weeks on our tour and we had a show in his hometown and then we took them for 13 days. After that tour they were looking for a place to record their new demo and they chose our studio. And as we were recording, J mentioned how much he sounded like him when he was doing the heavier stuff and we thought so to. So we just asked him to join and that was on his birthday. And that was two years ago and "Savior Sorrow" ended up coming out on that day so it's kind of a crazy coincidence in a way.

antiMUSIC: How did the energy change when he came aboard?

Jeffrey Nothing: I think it was a big change. But when we first formed, we really didn't want any boundaries as far as vocals or anything. And J did some great work with us but he was kind of one-dimensional because he stopped rapping and pretty much wanted to be a hardcore voice. And Waylon can flat-out sing and harmonize with me. There's times you can't really tell on there who is singing instead of being kind of obvious.

antiMUSIC: How do you and Waylon work out the vocal lines?

Jeffrey Nothing: Waylon had never been in a band with another singer and I had been there with J. So there's really one time where he had actually read my lyrics and then he wrote his after that. Otherwise we just always presented the song as we saw it as a whole. With Waylon, he's really good melodically but he'd come up with some words that I'd say to try and think a little deeper and maybe go for the fifth or sixth idea and he was happy with his first. Sometimes I'd just take what he had written and write it as if I was going to sing it but just write it with him in mind singing it. So I wrote a couple of songs completely on the record but it's good to have the clay to mold and another tool to use.

Read the entire interview at this location.