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I sat down before the show with Morgan and Mercedes Lander and we had a cool chat. Both of the sisters are lovely and charming young ladies. They are very funny and wellspoken. They commented on how cold it was and that they were freezing. They were on the bus wearing their coats and trying to beat the Syracuse chill and as the day came to an end it just got colder. They thought that I was crazy for not wearing a coat. I told them I was used to it, but when I came back later for the show, I had my coat. (I'm used to the cold, but I'm not stupid...)
They also informed me that Jennifer Arroyo was not feeling well and that she had been getting sick the night before and between songs she would duck behind the speakers and puke. (But let me tell you, during the show you couldn't tell she had been sick, she was slammin'!!!) We talked casually for a few more moments, had a few laughs and got down to business with the interview. Here it is:
 Mercedes (Drums), Me, & Morgan (Guitar/Vocals) |
Tom: First off, Welcome back to the 'Cuse; Do you remember the last time you were here? It was a torrential downpour, but the show rocked. It's good to have you back in the Salt City. This is the second stop on this leg of your tour and I just want to start out by saying thanks for the stop here. A lot of bands skip this city and play elsewhere in the area. Morgan: We've been here before; the last show we played here was amazing so we wanted to come back. Tom: It seems that the Canadian ladies like us. Bif Naked kicked off her tour here as well. She was great. As fellow Canadians, have you ever done any shows with her? Morgan: No Mercedes: No, I've seen her play before in London, when there's nothing else to do on a Friday night. …Lets go, why not, right? Tom: Yeah, she's pretty cool. So, you have out a new EP entitled Safe. It includes a KMFDM remix of the song "Safe" from the album Oracle, as well as some live material recorded at the House of Blues. Did you actually get to work on the remix with Sascha & Bill of KMFDM or did they just bring it to you when it was done? Morgan: First of all, we chose them because there renown for the whole industrial remix thing, and KMFDM has been around for a long time, and they do what they do really well. We pretty much just left it in there court. |
Mercedes: They would call and tell us it sounds like, "Blah Blah Blah," or "can I do this?"
Morgan: They're pretty much the experts in that kind of thing, we do the metal aspect of things and we were gonna get a remix, so…
Mercedes: We don't know anything about techno...
Morgan: …all those bleeps and bloops, it turned out amazing. We were more than happy.
Tom: Any idea when you will be releasing a new full-length album?
Morgan: Hopefully soon. In the next few months we will be getting back to business, I guess.
Tom: Do you find a lot of time to write new material on the road?
Morgan: NEVER. There's too many distractions. Its way to tough, we don't have a back lounge studio.
Mercedes: We don't have a record company that gives us money to do that…(laughs)
Morgan: Not like Tommy Lee who has his traveling circus of drum machines back there and everything…
Mercedes: I've actually seen that before too. That drum machine area, it's crazy. He had a separate bus, a studio bus.
Morgan: A bus that's just "Whoo", it's a studio!!
Tom: It must be nice!!
Morgan: Some people can just afford that; we just have way too much fun on the road.
Mercedes: He also played drums for Motley Crue and sold fifty million records…
Morgan: I guess that helps!
Tom: Yeah, that helps a lot! I know that "back in the day" you got a lot of shit for being really young girls making heavy music. But now, after several years of touring with some of the heaviest bands on Earth and getting to do your thing in front of a lot of people, do you think that the attitudes of a lot of people have changed and that you are finally getting the respect that you deserve from the Heavy Metal community?
Morgan: Not as much as I think we would like. It's not on par with the respect that a lot of other bands get, but its a lot better than it was before, I think, because we're a little older and more mature, and actually gone out to prove, you know, threw live shows and relentless touring, we're actually a band that, ya know is based on a career, not a novelty act.
Mercedes: The people that, ya know, were wearing little skirts and lots of make-up are not in the band anymore, so…
Tom: What do you think of the recent resurgence of older Metal bands and of Nu-Metal?
Morgan: NU METAL SUCKS!!! It's not my thing and I don't think it ever will be. There's just a lot of monotony going on in music these days in that genre. Everybody sounds the same, and you can do the "Running Man" to their music, you have to have a friggin' DJ and a friggin' BLAH BLAH BLAH.
Mercedes: It's just not cool.
Morgan: On the other hand, with heavier bands getting exposure, it's good for the scene because there's always gonna be a kid that wants something more. So with the resurgence of real Metal, like Shadows Fall and that sort of thing is good for them to get something on MTV. It kinda helps everybody else out.
Mercedes: There are a lot of good bands out there lately.
Morgan: …like Shadows Fall and Killswitch Engage.
Mercedes: There are a bunch of great new hardcore band coming out. Lots and lots of good stuff.
Tom: Yeah, we just had In Flames come through here recently.
Morgan: Yeah. There's hope for metal yet.
Mercedes: I saw them on tour with Slayer and I saw them again when they were in Detroit, they put on a really good show.
Tom: You have toured with Pantera, Co-headlined the OzzFest side stage with Soulfly, as well as co-headlining the Sno Core tour, toured with Slipknot, and now you are out on tour with Biohazard, but I understand there not going to be here tonight?
Morgan: I don't know what happened but Evan had to be taken to the hospital for what reason I don't know? They didn't end up playing last night, they were ready to go and he's not feeling to well right now.
Tom: What is the largest crowd that you have ever played in front of?
Mercedes: Probably 60,000 people in Germany's Rockum Ring in Rockum Park. That was crazy…
Morgan: Dynamo Festival... that was pretty big, where, like, 100,000 people show up and just wanna rock! Also this year, the Donnington OZZFest. That was like 70,000 people, it was pretty crazy.
Tom: In all the tours, what is the funniest, craziest, or most bizarre thing that has happened to you?
Morgan: I thing the craziest funniest thing are going to happen on this tour, because we have Sworn Enemy on this tour, and those guys are out of control.
Mercedes: Yeah, those guys are out of control!
Tom: Now, speaking of touring, Jeff Phillips has been playing guitar on tour with you but you still consider yourselves a three piece band.
Morgan: Well I mean for now, I think, uh, the ways things have worked out we haven't had the opportunity to go into a studio and record as a cohesive unit. Only time will tell what's going to happen…
Mercedes: We're one of those bands, you never know what we're going to do next. We can completely surprise somebody…
Morgan: We happy now where things are at. Jenn and Jeff have been only able to show their talents live, so we'll have to see how things gel in the next year, we definitely love Jeff, and we love Jenn, and love the band and we're actually finally something whole.
Tom: The last time you came through here, I understand that your parents were traveling with you?
Morgan: Nope...
Tom: Someone told us that the one lady that was there was your Mom…
Morgan: They probably came to the show because we live so close…
Mercedes: They didn't come to Syracuse last time.
Tom: Ok.
Mercedes: It was probably our merch girl: Robin, She gets mistaken for our mom all the time even thought she's only like 10 years older then me. I don't know how that could have happened, but she gets pretty upset over that.
Tom: When you are out on tour, what do you do to keep yourselves busy between gigs?
Mercedes: Nothing…
Morgan: Yeah, we're lazy...
Mercedes: We don't do anything, except for tour.
Morgan: A lot of times we go and try to find some fun things to do…shopping's always good. We like to go to grocery stores… we have a George Foreman grill. We go to the grocery store, get a slab of meat and sizzle that shit up.
Tom: So none of that vegetarian bullshit for you guys?
Morgan: Nah, we're all meat, all the way.
Mercedes: New York strip steaks…
Morgan: You can make fun of Eighteen Visions for that, they're vegetarians.
Tom: Nah, I wouldn't make fun of them for that.
Morgan: Oh, do it! It'd be funny. (Laughs) What goes better? Metal, Meat, and beer.
Tom: That's it.
Morgan: It's the three essentials right there.
Tom: Yeah, you're in Syracuse: the Straightedge/Vegan Capital of the Universe. I grew up listening to a lot of metal and a lot of punk stuff. It was a lot of getting drunk and going out and slammin'. Now all of a sudden it's like you can't eat meat, you can't drink beer, and you can't do drugs. (I'm not saying do drugs, but you know…)
Morgan: It's a life style that some people choose. That I can respect. I just don't have the discipline to do that, know what I mean?
Mercedes: We do have a lot of straightedge friends, and people that are fans of ours.
Morgan: Yeah, we have a lot of straightedge fans. I respect "the edge" but it's not for us.
Mercedes: If you're straightedge, and you only listen to a band because they're straightedge, that's just retarded. I just wanted to say that.
Morgan: Music is music and if it's good, you should be able to listen to it no matter what you're into, or what you believe.
Mercedes: I listen to straight edge bands… If they're GOOD. But a lot of them suck.
TOM: (whistling and trying to look innocent) (laughs) Who do you consider to be your influences?
Mercedes: We listen to music in general, anything that has guitars…
Morgan: Yeah, anything good. A lot of guitar oriented, Guitar driven stuff. Growing up we've listened to a lot of…
Mercedes: Late 70's, early 80's metal…
Morgan: AC/Dc, Van Halen, KISS, things like that. That's the music we grew up with. Our parents were big music fans, but they were never musicians or anything like that. We took off with that and developed our own tastes, and branched into more metal stuff.
Tom: What bands or performers do you listen to when you are not playing?
Mercedes: You'd probably laugh at me, I listen to a lot of pussy stuff.
Tom: That's funny. Look at me, what I look like, and I listen to a ton of Hank Williams and Johnny Cash...
Morgan & Mercedes: That's COOL music!!
Tom: Well compared to what my band plays… We play more like what you play.
Morgan: Music is there for people to listen to. That's the whole point, if you like it then it's good. I'm trying to think, the last cd that I bought was the new Otep cd.
Mercedes: The cd that I bought was a band called Forward Cycle from California somewhere, I guess.
Morgan: We like our metal in large doses and large quantities.
Tom: If you could pick out the bands to play with for your "Ultimate Dream Tour" which bands would you pick and why? (They can be alive, dead, broken up…)
Morgan: That would be like 30 bands.
Tom: So it would be like a festival type thing for you?
Mercedes: Metallica in 1987…(Silence)
Morgan: That's it?! I'd throw Pantera in there, Slayer, but obviously we'd be opening up for them. Um, I'm trying to think…I'd throw Alice in chains in there, I'd throw Biohazard in there for Jenn, and some Life of Agony and Gorilla Biscuits for Jenn, she'd like that. Oh, and the Cro-Mags, she likes them too. I'd have to put Nirvana in there…
Mercedes: Helmet…. Darkest Hour…. some crazy Swedish metal.
Morgan: And bring At The Gates back… put them on there.
Tom: Do you have any final thoughts or comments?
Morgan: Well, thanks a lot. Thanks for coming today. Thanks to everyone. Pick up Oracle. It's not what you think.
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