Rob: I want to start this off by saying that I’ve never had the chance to hear anything from Throttle Junkies. I do own Scars, Redefine, and True Self, though. To be honest I first heard about you guys after Zakk Wylde came onstage to help you guys on “Halo” one day. After that I was hooked. I hear the progression the band has made over the years but I still don’t have that original record as a reference point. How would you describe that first album, and how would you compare it to True Self?

Shaun Glass: Well, what’s kind of weird is, I think Throttle Junkies is very under-produced. We used an engineer who was more famous for Nirvana, Jesus Lizard, ya know, Alterna-Indie Rock scene. He’s a great guy and had a really good name, but he was more of an engineer than a producer on Throttle Junkies. That album was really done raw, fast, low budget; for what it was, I think the music sounds really good. I think our former singer, Ryan, at the time, wasn’t really very well prepared. There are some moments on the album that I love, but I think that if some of the vocal production and performance was better that I’d be able to love the album. But, hey man, I meet bands each day that tell me they love that album, so hey, to each his own. It’s a piece of art that people can grab and love. I’m not ashamed of the album or anything, it was our early roots. Musically it’s way more straight up Heavy Rock; I don’t think it was as heavy as where we went on Scars. 

Rob: Now, I know this might be kind of cheesy and cliché using the album title, and for the record, I did like everything you guys did with Ryan in the band, but do you think SOiL has found it’s own true self with AJ now? Do you think the sound he brings to the microphone helped the band find a stronger groove?

Shaun: Very much so. I’m proud of Scars and Redefine and Throttle Junkies. I think they’re all great albums, I’ll always stick by ‘em, and they’re a huge part of SOiL history. I think on True Self, all 12 of those songs still sound like SOiL, when you compare to those old albums. It’s definitely still the same band. I kinda look at how when you listen to the first 2 Iron Maiden albums with Paul Di’Anno, they were Iron Maiden, but when you heard Number of the Beast or Piece of Mind it was like, “Wow, this new singer made this band even more than it was.” I think that AJ brought that next element to the sound of our band with his ability to do the heavy stuff and the melodic stuff…you listen to a song like “Forever Dead” and “Give It Up,” that is pretty intense, heavy stuff, and then you put on “Let Go” or “Hear Me” and those songs are beautifully melodic. It just shows the variety of AJ’s vocal style. Lyrically I think AJ’s lyrics and overall view are a lot more positive. True Self is definitely more of a positive than a negative.

Rob: You had just announced only a few days ago that you guys will not be playing with In Flames and Lacuna Coil on their Winter tour and will instead be going on the road with Shinedown. I’m a fan of pretty much every band I just mentioned and I really don’t care which tour I get to see you on, but what prompted the decision to switch tours?

Shaun: It was weird because we’re on this Mushroomhead/SOiL tour right now and it’s gonna go up until about mid-November. We were going to do Lacuna Coil, SOiL, and 36 Crazyfists. We were totally down with it, we confirmed it, and then a few weeks ago Lacuna Coil pulled the tour because Danzig offered them the “Blackest of the Black” tour and they really wanted to do that, for different exposure, and this tour got scrapped. Then they say they’re doing this tour but there will be a 12-date run of In Flames and Lacuna Coil, and SOiL was invited on, and we were cool with that, and then politics got involved and things got a little unorganized and it was really not looking like a great tour. It was only 10-12 shows. So then Shinedown was getting off the Rob Zombie tour and they got in touch asking what we’re doing. We’re really good friends with Shinedown, we did some touring with them on Redefine. They made us an offer, it really worked out, it’s a bit of a better slot as direct support so we’re only opening up for one band, not two. We’re really good friends with Shinedown, I think musically our bands really fit, and it would be a better choice.

Rob: While we’re on the topic of touring I wanted to ask you about the people you see in the crowd each night. I know that attractive people and ugly people live together all over the globe, but there is no denying that some places are just full of ugly. What part of the world has the least attractive people? And just to make this a fair question, which part has the best-looking people?

Shaun: Some of the places in the south, like the Carolina’s, have some scary people. You definitely see some primitive there.

Rob: What about the best-looking people?

Shaun: I would say New York, Chicago, all the major cities, all of Europe.

Rob: One more thing on touring before we move on: You guys made the decision not to play the venue where Dimebag was killed. I think it was in very good taste, but others disagree, they say you are screwing the fans over in that area. I don’t want to put anyone in a bad mood, but I’d like to know a little more about that decision and what your reaction is to people who have a problem with it. Personally, I don’t live in that state, and so I’d never have a reason to visit that place, but I wouldn’t’ step foot in it if someone paid me.

Shaun: I could never go back there. I can’t go there as a musician and do what I do, knowing that a friend of mind was killed there. No fuckin’ way, man. For me, honestly, I think that place should be leveled. No disrespect to the owner, but that’s not really a great memory in Rock ‘n’ Roll, ya know? Who’s to say who’s to blame? There’s a million fucking reasons, there’s a million stories, but man… That place should not exist. If anyone takes offense, I’m sorry to offend you, but that’s how I feel. I honestly can’t go into that place. I physically would not be able to walk in there, bro. Right before this interview, I had Far Beyond Driven on; not a day goes by that I am not hearing his fucking records. Whether it’s at a club that we’re playing in, in someone’s car, on the bus, or before we go onstage. His music is eternal; he’s the new Randy Rhoads now, man.

Rob: The lyrics of “Forever Dead” jumped out at me when I first read them and reminded me instantly of Dime. Was there any connection when you guys were writing this song, or any of them, to what happened to him?

Shaun: Actually, I even had to ask AJ what it was about. It’s actually not about Dime, it’s about a friend of AJ’s that passed away. He wrote the song about a friend of his that was battling cancer. It’s weird, the coincidence, the tie-in. I don’t think we’d ever write a song about Dime called “Forever Dead.”

Rob: Well, I took it differently, I thought it was more of a bitter song directed at Nathan Gale.

Shaun: Well hey man, that’s the beauty of music, man. To each his own. If you’re in your car cranking that song and you feel what you feel, or it’s conveying whatever, that’s what music is about. I mean, as a kid I never wanted to know what [Judas Priest’s] “Ram it Down” was about, especially now! ::laughs:: “Hell Bent For Leather” and shit. ::laughs::

Rob: ::Laughs:: We’ll just assume he’s talking about their costumes and move on.

Shaun: ::Laughs:: Fuckin’ right.

Rob: You also have Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory doing guest vocals on “Forever Dead.” How did you guys hook up with Burton and what was it like working with him in the studio?

Shaun: Burton’s in the bridge section with AJ, and the outro is Burton. I’ve known the Fear Factory guys forever. When we were down in L.A. doing the record, the place we were living in, we had set up squat in this building. It was exactly across the street from the recording studio. Burton and them were getting ready to do a tour and he was in L.A. getting ready for a Fear Factory tour. So he was hanging out with us for like 2-3 days and after rehearsal and shit we’d go out for lunch or whatever. I asked him to do some classic Burton C. Bell vocals on the song; it’s my favorite song on the album. AJ showed him the parts and in the end we kinda let him go free-form, and it was classic Burton with that “HUH!” It was cool to have that classic Fear Factory tinge for like 30 seconds.

Rob: You guys had over 20 songs written for True Self, while only 12 ended up on the album, will we ever be hearing any of the cut songs in the near future?

Shaun: There’s like one more song that we actually demoed that we may put out there, it may end up on a B-side or something. There’s like 2 or 3 songs that I thought were really good that may make it on the next album, but we’ll see what happens when we start writing for the next one. It’s funny because 2 or 3 of the songs on True Self we had written with Ryan still in the band but he never put lyrics to them. It’s interesting when you get a new singer, coz we write the music and then we give it to AJ and then he puts his spin on them. 

Rob: Another song on the album that really stuck out to me was the album closer, “One Last Song.” To me, it sounds like SOiL was trying to do a softer, almost ballad-y type song but just couldn’t hold back the heaviness. I love it, am I even close to being right on that though?

Shaun: Yeah, we let it rip with the ending. Adam does a guitar solo [at the end] and we recorded it live and we were like, “Yeah! Keep going, keep going!” He wanted to make this epic, Led Zeppelin kinda, “Call of the Ktulu” Metallica ending. Adam wrote the music for “One Last Song” and when I first heard it I didn’t know if I liked it, and then it grew on me and I liked it. It sort of has a System of a Down feel to it. And then AJ put his lyrics to it. It’s a cool album closer, ya know? If you look at the last 2 albums -- Scars had “Black 7” and Redefine had “Obsession” -- and they were all really cool, dark, epic tracks. We wanted to make sure we had that again; it’s sort of like the SOiL formula. 

Rob: “Give It Up” is an awesome song, it’s my second favorite on the album next to the title track, and it’s a true fight song. 

Shaun: Yeah, it’s about never giving up, and never letting anyone ruin your dreams.

Rob: What was the worst fight you’ve ever been involved in, even if it wasn’t physical? If it was physical, how bad did you have to bust the guy up?

Shaun: Once in high school there was a fight outside of a party I was at and I ran up to see what was going on and my friends were in a fight with the neighbor. I punched this guy and knocked him out and then all of a sudden someone came up behind me and hit me with a baseball bat. I was fuckin’ knocked out. I think that was the worst fight I’ve ever been in. Usually I did pretty good on my own. ::laughs::

Rob: The baseball bat is kind of like cheating though.

Shaun: Yeah, I got hit right in the back, man, knocked my ass out. It is what it is. 

Rob: We’re an independent magazine in NJ just trying to make it. Print media isn’t a very thriving industry anymore so we’re making the shift over to digital distribution. We’re not going to be a webzine, what we’re actually doing is making the mag available as a downloadable file that people can read in its entirety just like a real magazine, not just some interviews and reviews scattered around a website. We’ve been at it in print for 3 years now, and we’ve always tried to cater to the locals as much as the national acts. What is some advice you can give to bands, or anyone for that matter, that’s struggling along, trying to make something out of a dream?

Shaun: The best thing for new bands is really hope, and focus on what you want to sound like. Don’t worry about trends, because trends will come and go. You don’t want to sound like H.I.M. just because every girl at Hot Topic has a H.I.M. shirt. You don’t want to sound like Avenged Sevenfold because that’s what’s on TRL. Be yourself, focus on what’s around you, but don’t try to sound and look like every other band. The world doesn’t need 30,000 Killswitch Engage’s. I think a band should really just focus on being true and writing songs that they really love and not try to emulate other bands. 

Rob: Lastly, I end every interview by simply asking if there’s anything we haven’t touched on that you’d like to address. Any plugs or inspiration words for our readers?

Shaun: I just want to say that I appreciate everything our fans do, and to people out there that read this that like hard music, be open-minded. Don’t judge bands, don’t think that SOiL is “this or that” or we don’t fit in with “this” sound or “that” sound, ya know? Pick up True Self and I think there’s something in there for everybody who listens to Rock and Metal.