SEVENDUST Drummer: 'I Had A Really, Really Rough Few Years'

Blind Joe of Northern Edge Magazine recently conducted an interview with SEVENDUST drummer Morgan Rose. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Northern Edge Magazine: So you got this new record label. It's your record label, 7Bros. Records. Can you tell us a little bit about what you guys are trying to do with that? Are you gonna release your own stuff on that or are you looking to..?

Morgan: It's kinda interesting. We actually tried to do this on our last record, and we went kinda with the approach of almost having an investor. I mean the label that we had before did have a name to it, and they did have some people that had worked in the industry before, but as far as really understanding what we were about, we kinda looked at them like, let's use your money to fund this project, and we'll do it as a partnership and go with it that way. And, uh, it didn't work out. You know, I mean, I'm sure that most people that, if they did get the last record, they realize that there wasn't a lot of them out there, there wasn't really any press for the record as far as any hard marketing. We did as much radio stuff as we could do, and pretty much kinda ran the thing ourselves, and it wasn't at all what it was cracked up to be. We thought the freedom was gonna be something that would make us feel happy and we just didn't get any help. So this go-around, we went out and we did the typical thing again with shopping the other labels and, you know, the offers were out there. But again, we got into a position where people wanted us to change and we just kinda felt we had changed enough over the latter part of our career over at TVT that we wanted to get back to the roots and do it the way that we thought was the right way to do it and what most of the people that grew up listening to us wanted us to do. So we had to kinda give in on those deals and decided to shop ourselves towards Warner Music, and ended up with probably the best situation that we could ever even want. I mean, we've got an arsenal over there of people working for us now that are, I mean, these are hard core people. . . So we ended up getting the best distribution, the best radio department, and the best minds behind us, and it's just an incredible feeling. I mean, it's unreal to be where we're sitting right now. We got a long career, and a pretty testy one, when it comes to our decision making so we're really hoping that this is the one that's gonna make us feel perfect, at the end.

Northern Edge Magazine: A lot of rock bands see one hit, two hits, you know, and then they disband because they don't have the right promotion, or they just don't have the right songs, and you guys seem to be solid all the way through. How do you do it?

Morgan: Hey, it's really been weird, I mean, we grew up together, you know. I put the band together strictly on a friend basis. It had nothing to do with whether anybody was good or not. It was more because we'd all been in bands before and we were kids, you know. But early on I just realized that playing with the shredder in town was gonna lead to an ego issue, so I just put together a bunch of guys that I had fun having some beers with, and that was it. And that's the way that we've stayed. Obviously the lineup is not exactly the same as it was. Clint is over with DARK NEW DAY and Sonny Mayo is with us now. Sonny was a guy that we grew up with and we're still close with Clint. You know, so, I mean, it's really weird. We were off for seven months as far as touring goes, and we just went out and did five shows, and I swear, man, I needed those five shows worse than I've ever needed it in my life.

Northern Edge Magazine: What was the inspiration behind the new album?

Morgan: You know, it's funny. I'll try to cliff note this as much as I can because, you know, I wrote the majority of the lyrics on the record and to be honest, I had a really, really rough few years, you know? I guess I can just go ahead and go into it because sooner or later that's what's gonna happen. But I haven't done any interviews for this record. This is like the first interview that we've done. There's been a few to set up the shows, but this is the first one that I've really…that I decided I was gonna say anything about it. But, I divorced my wife [former COAL CHAMBER bassist Rayna Foss], and went through the custody thing with my child, who I have custody, full custody of. My grandfather passed away, my father was arrested and is in prison, you know, so…I got arrested myself, before any of this was going on so it was like, with all this going on, you know. John wrote all these songs and calls me up and says, "Are you ready to start writing a record?" And it reminded me of that movie "Less Than Zero". I almost felt like just looking at him and saying, do I look like I'm ready for school? I just wasn't at all ready to do anything so, I did what I usually do and I grabbed a notepad. I went to Office Depot, grabbed a spiral notebook and got in my car and put on the tracks and just waited for the one that would hit me. That I could just put a word down to. And while I was sitting there, I just realized that I couldn't believe that I hadn't lost my mind. You know, I couldn't believe that I hadn't really melted down completely, and been put away. Because I felt like I needed to. I mean, I went to a shrink one day and the shrink told me, there's no reason why you should be handling this right now. And so I ended up spilling it all out on…kind of a cliché thing to say, you know, I let it spill out on the paper, but, it was the first time I really ever did that. I mean, I've written plenty of songs where I'll grab a topic and say, ooh yeah, I feel really strong about this topic, but I ended up pretty much writing an entire record on someone losing their mind.

Read the entire interview at Northern Edge Magazine.