Letter Kills Interview - 08.21.2004
| Interview with Matt Shelton (vocals) Interview by Rob Todd | 08.21.2004 | Detroit, MI | Silverdome  First off, where did the name Letter Kills come from? Letter Kills is actually a biblical reference from the New Testament [2 Corinthians 3:6]. We were currently looking for a name that was really powerful and really strong back in August, 2002. We wanted something that kind of portrayed our music and was bold and when we saw it it kinda stuck out and when we saw the words “letter kills” used together it stuck out in our minds. It was very powerful and strong, it was something that when people heard they remembered we wanted something like that. What is the actual verse? The verse actually is, “the letter kills but the spirit gives life.” Tell us how your faith perspective goes into song writing. Actually, that’s all…it’s kind of just the fact that my personal faith and my personal beliefs anything a person believes in gonna effect the way they live their life, the way they think and as far as that goes it effects everything I do in my life and music happens to be one of the things I do in my life so if effects it that way. Just by my outlook on life, my outlook on things and things like that. But as far as everything else goes it’s pretty much just life scenarios and life cases that I come across—the way I live my life. What CD is currently in your CD player or MP3 player? Right now? Brad Paisley. Country music artist. So are you pretty open minded about all types of music then? I guess so, I’m pretty open minded except for some stuff like, eh, I guess I’m pretty open minded, I like it all. I like all music…’cause I’m around rock music all the time so I when I actually have a chance to listen to my own CDs it’s usually softer stuff, it’s usually like Johnny Cash, Brad Paisley, country music things like that or singer-songwriter stuff like Bob Dylan or Death Cab for Cutie or Bryan Adams, you know kinda softer stuff. What’s your craziest band story? Most of the crazy band stories come with—they’re usually around birthday times so when there’s a band’s birthday or something like that they usually bring a cake or it’s just weird that they know when our birthdays are. So when things like that happen to come around there’s usually the crazy fan stuff happening. We’ve had, somebody made me a turkey one time and that was pretty awesome, that was pretty cool though. Just recently back in Hershey, Pennsylvania somebody found out I like chocolate and brought a bunch of chocolate. But all that stuff, none of it’s really that weird. It’s mostly cool to find out that people are really that interested in what you’re about. What was your reaction to getting signed to such a large label (Island) so soon after starting the band, only three months? It doesn’t really make sense to me. I mean, all of us had previous bands and everyone knows people have bands for years, they work their butts off, we worked really hard at our music and that’s something we focused on. We really weren’t tryin’ to get signed and it just kinda happened and it took us all by surprise but we were very fortunate, very blessed to have the people we had supporting us. How did it happen? Did you send out demos or what? Actually we just went in and recorded three songs and at the time mp3.com was up and that was a great way for people to get music and we figured if, since we were a new band, we had a couple songs and everything we wanted to record them and get them online so even before we started playing shows and before we really started growing as a band we would already have fans, people would already be into the music and get that side taken care of. As soon as we put it up on mp3.com we kinda blew up and a lot of people got really interested really fast. Talk about recording the debut album as compared to previous material that your guys released. Recording the album, this our first full recording production that we’ve actually done in the studio at that time. Everything else we’ve done, it was all just recording things live to lay it to kind of hear things back. But as far as the album goes, recording The Bridge was a very awkward process because it was very natural. We had toured for a whole year previously to going in the studio with all the songs on the record so we were pretty sure about ourselves as far as what we were gonna do. It was just a matter of going in and plugging in and recording. It was just a matter of capturing everything we had done live for the past year and putting it on a disc. Was there any track in the studio that was really hard to finish, like it didn’t want to happen? There’s actually a track that didn’t make the record. It’s called “On Your Way Home,” it’s a B-side, we all loved the song but it kept seeming like we kept adding things to it. Adding more and more, it just seemed like it kept going and building and it seemed like it was never gonna end ‘cause we could add anything to it and it was very open musically. That was one track that, because of time and wanting to do stuff to it, it didn’t make the record. It turned out pretty good and it’ll be released on the B-sides sometime later. Is there date on Warped Tour this year that stands out in your mind? Yeah, there was a show in Virginia Beach. It was really awesome ‘cause there’s a hurricane down there right about now and it was raining all day long and there was flooding everywhere and we really weren’t sure what to expect with the show. We thought it was gonna be canceled or not gonna be canceled, we didn’t know what to expect. We were like, ‘oh great even if it does go on there’s a hurricane goin’ on kids aren’t gonna show up.’ Well it ended up bein’ like the biggest attendance we’ve had all summer long, we had a lot of support from our fans just from playin’ there the previous times we had and we had a really good time, we had a really good show. What bands are the most fun touring with and why? By far Story of the Year just because they’re like our good friends, like friends you hang out with back home you know. We hang out with them on a non-musical level just because we have a lot in common with them and we’ve kinda grown up with them as bands and everything. Goin’ out with them is kinda nice ‘cause it’s like bein’ at home, like bein’ with your family and your friends so we have a lot of fun, just sort of relaxed. It’s the same way with Sugarcult and Motion City Soundtrack. We were very fortunate this past spring to tour with both Motion City Soundtrack and Story of the Year and the same time and that was a lot of fun, we had a lot of laughs. Give us your reaction on the upcoming Fusion tour with Story of the Year, Lostprophets, and My Chemical Romance. We’re gonna be doin’ a tour this fall. It’s gonna be, I think, like around two, two and a half months long with Story of the Year, Lostprophets, and My Chemical Romance…it’s gonna be a lot of fun. We love touring with Story of the Year, they’re good friends of ours and anytime we go out with them it’s a crazy time so it should be cool. Tell us how it feels this year on Warped Tour with the new album as compared to last year without? It’s definitely, it’s comin’ along to the part where you see the benefit of what you’ve been doing, working of the past year, two years. That’s probably the coolest thing, the most rewarding thing about it all is just the fact that we’ve created this thing called Letter Kills. Up until now it was just us, people could watch it and enjoy it or not but now it’s something that people can take home and be a part of and they can come to the show, they can sing along and they can make it there own. What are your hobbies off-stage, what do you like to do when you’re not rockin’ out? I like to eat chocolate, I really like chocolate it’s really good. I don’t know, sometimes we play Xbox for a little while, we really don’t play it very often but if we have time and we’re bored we’ll play Xbox, it’s a lot of fun. We’ll play poker, it’s fun—Texas Holdum—I am the reigning champion. That’s about it we just hang out, have fun, read, listen to music very rarely ‘cause you’re around it so much and you just kinda like to get away and have piece and quiet. The other day it flooded in…Quebec I think we were, it flooded and we swam in the parking lot (Laughter). We all went out, it was like two in the morning and it was like [knee high] water so we all went out in our bathing suits and had a little swim party it was pretty fun, kinda gross (Laughter) but we didn’t mind too much. What is the hardest thing the band has had to go through? The hardest thing? For us it’s been…we’ve had to deal with a lot of—I don’t know—as far as songwriting goes the hardest thing we had to do—we don’t have to deal with it much anymore but when we first joined all five of us are so different and we all listen to totally different kinds of music so in writing a song it takes a lot of unselfishness ‘cause you have to be willing to get into five different styles of music and five different ideas. At first it was kinda frustrating, kind hard but then it ended up being our strength. That kind of provided us a way to write music that we normally wouldn’t write on our own which is really cool and that was really hard and then the other thing probably the hardest thing we’re getting, now that the record’s out, a lot of people because of the bands we tour with kinda thought we were a screamo band, ‘what were you doing,’ that kinda thing and now that the record’s out people can see we have nothing to do with that. Is there any particular prank that you’ve pulled on this tour that you’re particularly proud of? I don’t know, we’re not much of a prank band we just like to have a lot of fun. We’ve been really fortunate as far as not having any bad pranks pulled on anybody. Sometimes you’ll turn on—we have TVs in our bunks on our bus—you can go in before everybody goes to bed and you turn the volume all the way up and turn the TVs off and then when everybody starts to fall asleep and, because we universal remotes to all the TVs, you reach into their bunk and turn on the TV and it blasts really loud—that’s pretty funny! I think at least, they probably don’t. What’s you’re funniest moment on stage? Probably with Story of the Year and Motion City Soundtrack we had a show in West Palm Beach while we were playing Story of the Year and Motion City Soundtrack came out with a bunch of tables and chairs and boxes of cereal and milk and had breakfast our entire last song. It was funny ‘cause the whole last song I was out in the crowd and I was singin’ and stuff and I couldn’t see anything behind me. I turned around and there’s 10 people on stage having bowls of cereal so I went over there and flipped over the tables and knocked the milk everywhere. It was fun. What would you say to our readers? Don’t be afraid to listen to new things. And listen to music because it’s good not because it’s cool. |
