ZAO is as infamous for its amalgam of hardcore and metal as its constant line-up changes and ensuing drama. After seven years of constant turmoil and a string of seminal metalcore albums, drummer Jesse Smith left the band he co-founded as a teenager. Dan Weyandt (vocals), Scott Mellinger (guitar), and Russ Cogdell (guitar) found themselves with a renewed sense of spirit, and after enlisting bassist Shawn Koschik and drummer Stephen Peck, they recorded one of their most ambitious albums to date. The Funeral of God is a concept album of mass proportions, and the band is vigorously and consistently touring for the first time in years, proving once again to expect the unexpected from ZAO in all aspects of its being. I spoke with Mellinger late this past summer, and found him to be a very candid and cordial man with a sense of passion for his music and his band.

By Chad Olson

www.zaoonline.com

Promo shot of ZAOChad Olson: Are you in West Virginia?

Scott Mellinger: No, actually the band… Everybody in the band is based out of Pennsylvania now.

CO: Oh, so you’re all in Pennsylvania now. Okay.

SM: Yep.

CO: Okay, so you never were in West Virginia before?

SM: No.

CO: Ah, okay. How did you come to be in the band back in 1999?

SM: I actually have been friends with Dan and Russ for a long time, and I did my own couple of local bands and stuff. And I was in a local band that kind of started called Creation Is Crucifixion, and they just kind of knew me from that. Being friends with them and stuff, when Brett [Detar] left [to form The Juliana Theory] they were looking for somebody and asked me to join.

CO: Okay. So you met up with them through that sort of scene and stuff.

SM: Yeah, like I got into like the hardcore, and those guys were doing it, too.

CO: Okay, cool. I’m going to, up front here, if you don’t mind, I’m going to dig into some possibly touchy subject matter. I know that lots of people are wondering about some of this stuff, so I’ll just go with it. Uh, tell me about Jesse Smith leaving ZAO.

SM: Well, it’s kind of not as touchy as everybody thinks. [Laughter] What happened was the last couple years he just really hasn’t had an interest in being in ZAO, and I think that was the cause of a lot of the, you know, stress and drama that he incurred on the band and on himself. And, I mean, he had family stresses, too, where he was married and had two kids. You know, being in a hardcore band, you’re not going to be making enough money to support a family. And I think a lot of that stress kind of ate at him for a long time, and being in a band just wasn’t really what he wanted to do. I don’t blame him at all, none of us do. I just think that kind of took over his personality in turn, and kind of caused some rifts in the band and stuff. It wasn’t really like he’s personally like this guy that none of us like, but what the band did kind of turned him into that. What happened was it was kind of a more mutual thing where I really didn’t want to do the band if it wasn’t going to be fulltime and be totally sustainable, and he didn’t want to do the band anyway. So, it was kind of like mutual.

CO: Okay. I’m going to touch on some things here, but did his comments about Solid State Records, and Brandon Ebel in particular, in that interview from your short European tour in December of 2003… Did that have anything to do with him leaving?

SM: Ah, no, actually not at all. Before that we decided, but… That was definitely something that, when I found out that he’d said that, I kind of got… I wasn’t very happy about it, and I don’t think anybody in the band was. But that definitely wasn’t a reason for him leaving.

CO: I think I speak for many people when I say that I was shocked that he left. I think a lot of people figured he pretty much owned the name since he was the only original member, but he didn’t, huh?

SM: No, actually, he didn’t make up the name. The very first singer, Eric Reeder, made up the name. I mean, that’s still a little bit of a touchy subject. See, I don’t know really how that works out. Like he was in the band for the longest, but he wasn’t the exact original member. I just think, too, with Dan and Russ in the band, the band that everybody came to know was the one that they were part of. So, legally, I don’t know how that stands up, but he quit, too, in theory. So legally if you resign, you’re resigning the rights to the name pretty much.

CO: Not to beat a dead horse here, but I’ve got a couple more. [Laughter]

SM: No, that’s fine.

CO: Okay. One thing that was interesting about the interview where Jesse slammed Brandon was that he was complaining about the crappy contract that he signed when he was young, but he failed to mention that you guys went on, after (Self-Titled), to sign on for two more records, "Parade of Chaos" and "All Else Failed". Do you have any insight into that complaint by Jesse when in fact, you guys re-signed with them for two more albums after that? If things were so bad, why re-sign with them?

SM: Exactly. [Laughter]

CO: [Laugher]

SM: A lot of the stuff that Jesse kind of said and complained about was really not any beliefs or feelings that any of us had. That again, when you have a person in the band that has that much of a presence, and people are going to actually talk to him all the time, you can’t always be like, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” He’s going to say what he wants to say, and he said a lot of things that none of us felt. Honestly, he signed back with Tooth & Nail, and all of us did, because of the money they offered us. For him to complain about how he didn’t make any money on the label is kind of ludicrous. [Laughter]

CO: Do you stay in touch with Jesse at all?

SM: Uh, I haven’t. He’s actually called Russ twice. Like I said, there’s no grudges, no hard feelings. If he wants to talk, that’s totally fine. The real problem all of us had was more business, not really personal.

CO: Okay. Do you and Russ still have the side project, Jade Meridian?

SM: Yeah, actually we do.

CO: My question kind of – and I think I would obviously know the answer to this – but my question was why not go under that band name instead of ZAO after Jesse left? Do you feel like ZAO is more of who you are rather than that project? Or that people would identify more with the name ZAO and give you more recognition as opposed to going under a different moniker?

SM: Actually, we felt like with… Jade Meridian’s like a complete turnaround style of music than ZAO is. If you listen to the new ZAO record… Jade Meridian’s not metal or heavy really at all; it’s more like Foo Fighters rock. So, we never ever had an intention to use that anyway.

CO: Again, maybe I’m just reading too much into things, but I found it interesting that Dan came back immediately after Jesse left.

SM: [Laughter]

CO: [Laughter] Is there a correlation between the two?

SM: The easiest way to answer that is that Dan actually owns his own tattoo shop; he owns a business. The only way he was going to do ZAO was if he could be proven that it would be stable and never break up and not be this like wish-washy thing With Jesse in the band and the certain stresses he had, it was that; it was unstable. We didn’t know if he was going to quit or this or that. When Jesse left, I think it proved to Dan that he knew that the band was going to be stable. I mean, if we weren’t going to do it for real, I think we would have broke up and just been done with it. But since all of us had the interest and really wanted to work hard for it, he saw that it was going to be like a real thing for a change.

CO: That’s cool. If there’s anything else to tell me about Dan coming back, that would be cool, and then the question is why did Josh Ashworth of Society’s Finest leave ZAO?

SM: I think we’ll go back to the name ZAO with that. I personally did not feel that, without Dan Weyandt in the band, it would have been ZAO. There’s no way I would have felt comfortable doing the band with Josh singing and still calling it ZAO. I think personally that ZAO, and the heart and soul of ZAO, is Dan and his lyrics. Without that, I don’t think it is ZAO, and having Dan come back was definitely the only way I would have kept doing it this way. 

CO: How are you going to change people’s perception that ZAO is a time bomb that could explode at any given moment and disband yet again? Or do those worries kind of fade with Jesse gone?

SM: Oh, they’re gone. They don’t even exist. I think, too, that’s what we’re trying to do with the tours we’re doing, and being out there as much as we are, and doing all the interviews that we are doing – to show people that this isn’t that at all anymore. All that kind of, you know, whatever… [Laughter]

CO: [Laughter]

SM: All that feeling of breaking up here and there is never going to happen again.

CO: I saw you guys at Cornerstone Florida, and you guys sounded great.

SM: Awesome.

CO: Yeah, and maybe I sort of imagined this, but I sort of had this feeling that the crowd was a bit apprehensive, kind of to welcome you guys back, maybe because of your past inconsistencies. Have you sensed that at all on any of the tours or talking to people?

SM: Oh, definitely. Right at first there, I mean, I even had apprehensions about it. Like it was exactly what I wanted to do, but at the same time I was worried about how people would perceive it or how they would think. Yeah, there was definitely that at first. I think the first like two weeks of the first tour we did with this lineup, people definitely didn’t know what to expect. There weren’t as many kids coming out to the shows. I would have to definitely credit the fans that did come out for making people realize that it wasn’t a joke and it was for real. The fans that came out, we tried to show them, even if there would be 50, 20, it didn’t matter; we wanted to prove that this is a real thing and we love it and we’re doing it for real. They would see the show and see that we were what we were, and then go online and tell other kids that this is the real thing now.

CO: That’s cool. Okay, I think most of the uncomfortable stuff is out of the way, so… [Laughter]

SM: Ah, dude, that was fine!

CO: Good.

SM: I’ve had so many worse questions. [Laughter]

CO: Good, I’m glad.

SM: That was cool.

CO: Well, tell me about working with Ferret Music.

SM: It’s great. It’s actually the most comfortable thing we’ve ever done as a band. [Laughter] [Label owner] Carl [Severson]’s just kind of like a very, very close friend. All of us feel like a family with Ferret and the band, and I think he treats all of his bands that way. It’s really cool to see a label that’s actually getting a little more of a name for itself to still be so grassroots.

CO: How long has Ferret been around actually, do you know?

SM: Yeah, they’ve been around since ’96.

CO: How did you end up signing with them?

SM: Actually, what happened was Jesse was still in the band, and the contract with Solid State was finally up. We were just kind of shooting around different labels. At one time, when we did start doing this again with Jesse in it, there were people that did give a sense that they wanted to make this a real thing. So we were looking around at labels, and there was just something about Ferret. We’ve known Carl for a long time, and we talked to him at first to find out if he would be interested in signing ZAO, and thank God he was. We kind of wanted to show the faith that… I mean, I think that a lot of kids think that with ZAO it’s like this money grubbing thing, and all we ever do is for money, and the reason why we signed record deals with Solid State was for money, which is half right, but at the same time there is a true art you want to do. And with Ferret, I think it showed kids that that wasn’t the case anymore, that we were going to a smaller label that would do a little more for us and help us out than a bigger one.

CO: Is the deal with Ferret a multi-album deal or…?

SM: Yeah, actually we have two more records with them.

CO: Two more records, so three total.

SM: Um hum.

CO: Okay. Was there a lot of interest from other labels before you signed with Ferret?

SM: Yeah, I think what happened was we talked to Ferret while we were supposedly broken up. So I don’t think a lot of labels knew we were back together or cared. To be honest with you, I wouldn’t have expected a lot of labels to be interested with the jumpy past of what ZAO was. If I was a label, I’d be scared to sign us.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: [Laughter] So, now we can be on Ferret, and prove to people that this isn’t, you know, whatever. Maybe after two, three records there’ll be more interest or whatever.

CO: I remember back in 2001 there was a pretty strong – at least from the sense that I got from some people – that you guys were possibly going to sign with Century Media. Did that just fall through, or never come to fruition, or was it not true, or…?

SM: No, we actually had talked to them for awhile. I think what happened was the A&R that worked for them that we were in contact with and stuff was just showing us that he wanted to work really hard for the band. And there again there’s the instability of how it was before, and we didn’t know we were going to be this solid of a band and actually be on a label like Century Media, and push us as much as they would push us. So, I think what happened was we just kind of bowed out of it for their sake so they wouldn’t sign a band that would break up.

CO: Was the new record released in Europe on Roadrunner Europe?

SM: Yeah.

CO: How does that work exactly? Is it just like they distribute your record in Europe, and Ferret is the rest of the world, or just America, or…?

SM: Actually, I think Ferret does just America, and we go through Roadrunner in Europe and Japan and I think, possibly, Australia, too. But I’m not sure. I think what Carl does is he just licenses the record for them and they distribute it over there and stuff. They’ve been, honestly, really, really cool about everything. I mean, Roadrunner’s a pretty huge name, and when we found out we were going to be on Roadrunner Europe, we were all really excited. Our manager’s been in touch with their company and stuff, and they’re excited about it, too. So, it’s pretty cool.

CO: Yeah, I hear this is your fastest-selling record. Is that right?

SM: Yeah.

CO: That’s crazy.

SM: Yeah, I was just completely blown away! We were just thinking, like you said, with all the drawbacks and all that stuff, “Who knows what’s going to happen?” But…

CO: Yeah. What do bassist Shawn Koschik and drummer Stephen Peck bring to ZAO that it hasn’t had before?

SM: Well, I hate saying it all the time [laughter], but definitely number one would be stability.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: [Laughter] They want to do this as much as all of us, and we all put 110 percent in. I think Shawn has a very unique talent for a lot of different things. He works with computer-based music programs like Reason and stuff like that, so… The very last song on this record that has the string arrangement and the piano, he did a lot of that. His bass playing is just phenomenal. I don’t know if you’ve noticed in the past or not, but I actually played bass on a couple records.

CO: Yep.

SM: Bass is just such a low, background type of thing. We wanted to have a bass player that had a presence on this record, and I think he definitely proved himself on there.

CO: Okay.

SM: Stephen has kind of this… There’s just this groove about the way he plays, and there’s a real traditional style in the way he plays, too. I don’t know, it kind of… It’s not necessarily like it lowers anything, by any means. But I think it makes our songs a little more understandable. I think that with Jesse he was a little more flashy, and he kind of did stuff that took away. But Stephen plays with us, and he plays the songs like they’re supposed to just be played. He does a little stuff here and there, but just more of a coating than taking away from the song.

CO: They were in Seasons In The Field with Dan, right?

SM: Yeah.

CO: Okay, what have they been up to since, for the past five or six years? Or did that band continue after Dan joined ZAO, or…?

SM: Actually, Dan and Russ were in Seasons In The Field, and when Dan and Russ left to join ZAO, the band broke up. Stephen kind of went and got a local job, then he went to film school in Florida for awhile. Then when he came back from film school, me and Russ, Stephen, and Shawn just started doing the Jade thing.

CO: Oh, so Stephen and Shawn were in Jade Meridian with you guys, too?

SM: Oh, yeah, yeah.

CO: Oh, okay. I didn’t realize that.

SM: Yeah, they still are. That’s kind of like where we decided to have them join ZAO because we knew that we could play with them so well.

CO: Okay.

SM: It worked so well, and both of them liked the heavy stuff that ZAO would do. So, we were like, “It works too good, in my book, not to try it.” So it worked out.

CO: Tell me about your singing on the new album. How did you end up doing it?

SM: I kind of got more interested in it just from doing the Jade stuff. I’ve always enjoyed that style of music, and having singing vocals, a little more than the screaming. But I understand that ZAO’s that style of band, so it’s going to be that way. “But,” I thought too, “just to do something new and different that we haven’t tried before. I’ll throw it in there and see if it works. I don’t want to overdo it, but just put it in there and see if it works out.” Everybody in the band enjoyed it. I showed it to the label and they liked it. So, I just really worked hard [laughter] to not sound like crap, and did the record. I got confident in singing from doing the Jade stuff, so I was a little less insecure. So, I tried it, and hopefully people enjoyed it.

CO: Yeah, it’s so different for you guys. I mean, Dan’s vocals are still prominent, and it’s not quite “pulling an Embodyment.” [Laughter]

SM: [Laughter] That’s funny, dude!

CO: But it is different for ZAO. How has Dan’s reaction been to that new element?

SM: Ah, he actually is the type of guy that enjoys working with people instead of being by himself. He was one of the main encouragers to me to sing with him and stuff. On the parts that I sang, I helped with the lyrical content and everything, and he was really into that, bouncing ideas off of each other. But Dan’s been really cool about it. I think, too, with this next record, that we didn’t get to do on this one because of lack of time, we want to bring Dan’s singing a little bit back into it. Maybe have me and him do things together and stuff like that. He did sing a little bit more on Parade of Chaos I think that record was so rushed that I think Dan could do a lot better than that record. Maybe the next time we’ll try a little bit more with him, too.

CO: How have the fans reacted to your singing and that different element of ZAO?

SM: Well, I haven’t seen too many negative comments at all, so I think they’re pretty cool about it. I think the fact that we kept it so minimal, and that it’s not something overbearing, that helps.

CO: And you’re enjoying doing that?

SM: Ah, I love it! [Laughter]

CO: Cool. That’s awesome. A couple of the songs on the new disc are new versions of a couple of mp3’s that were circulating on the Internet awhile back when Josh Ashworth was in the band.

SM: Uh huh.

CO: I believe “Praise the War Machine” is a new version of “She’s Not Leaving, She’s Not Breathing”?

SM: Yep.

CO: And “The Rising End (The First Prophecy)” is a new version of “21st Century Thriller”?

SM: Yep.

CO: Okay, are the lyrics reworked by Dan, and why did you decide to keep those two songs?

SM: Well, originally… [Pause] [Laughter] This is so weird, I guess I’m going to have to go back a little bit more. When we started doing this again at first, Dan was still in the band. And those two songs were written with Dan originally.

CO: Oh, really?

SM: Yeah, and he had slightly different lyrics than what are on there now, and we recorded versions with him on it. When things started getting weird and we wanted to go full steam, and Dan was a little worried about the job thing and the instability, we had Josh come in and… Instead of having him sing somebody else’s lyrics, we just let him join and go on his own. When Dan came back, it was the same thing. I don’t want somebody singing somebody else’s lyrics. Dan kind of kept what he had from the originals, but worked on it and reworked a little bit of it. So, yeah, he first originally wrote the lyrics and sang on it, and when Josh came in we let him to do what he wanted to do.

CO: So those songs have been around for a couple years or so then?

SM: Yeah, definitely. I think it’s been about a year and a half or two years.

CO: Tell me about the video for “The Rising End (The First Prophecy).” [www.ferretstyle.com/therisingend] What’s the concept? What’s going on in the video? Does it have anything to do with the lyrics? I’ve seen it, I’m just trying to figure it out.

SM: [Laughter]

CO: [Laughter]

SM: Me and Dan have to tried to figure it out for ourselves.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: We went to Chris Sims about doing the video, and he wanted to hear the record. He wanted to be in charge of the concept and the idea of the video. We were totally cool with that. I enjoy having other people’s perspective of things, so we let him go ahead and do whatever he wanted to do. He picked “The Rising End…” to do the video for. He came up with the idea of Jesus wanting to commit suicide, and God being upset with Jesus for wanting to commit suicide, and banishing him to the earthly realm again. That was kind of the first idea, but then Dan and I watched it a little more. Dan got the idea that the two figures – one’s supposedly God and one’s Jesus – I forget how Dan said it. It was really cool, and I don’t want to mess it up. It was something to the affect humanity was the Jesus figure, and then the godly figure was God rejecting humanity kind of. So, the Jesus figure, instead of being Jesus, it was like all of us, humanity. And he was rejecting him back into the Earth. It was something to that affect. That was a little more of an idea. Our video is a little more hard to understand. If I tell you the first way that Chris thought of it, I still don’t really get it.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: But Dan’s idea, I was really like, “Wow! That does make more sense if you look at it that way.” [Laughter]

CO: [Laughter] This is your first video, right?

SM: Yeah.

CO: Did you wait this long merely because of label support, or lack thereof?

SM: I think, yeah. When we were on Solid State, they didn’t really have budgets enough to do something really cool with videos. Just with technology coming more easy, and digital video, and certain programs you can do at home with computer editing and stuff. With Ferret, they did have a budget enough for it, and at the time with Solid State, we didn’t want to do something that looked crappy or cheesy. So we just opted not to do a video because we didn’t want it to look bad or anything.

CO: Is the new video being serviced to MTV2 for “Headbangers Ball,” or is it getting rotation anywhere that you know of?

SM: I don’t know if it’s in rotation yet, but I know they submitted it to Fuse and MTV2. Hopefully it’ll be on soon. I think they’re going to try to get it on there for The Dillinger tour we’re going to be doing in October.

CO: I’ve heard you say that the reason ZAO’s music is so accessible while still being very extreme is because you guys don’t listen to just metal all the time, so your songwriting incorporates more pop sensibilities. I think that’s so true. Can you elaborate on that any? Is there anything to add to that?

SM: Uh, I don’t know. [Laughter] We’ve always done that with the band. I think that’s kind of a downfall of other bands. Some of them do it great. There’s a lot of bands out there that do that metal sound perfect, and I don’t think we could do it as good as them, so why do it? None of us really listen to metal at all. I did when I was younger, and I still have an appreciation for it. I do have records in my collection by Metallica, Megadeth, and stuff like that. But I listen to more like 70’s rock, and even some rock of today, more British rock. I think what we always have tried to do is put songwriting in our songs that can coincide with those styles of music, but still make it as heavy as we can.

CO: Tell me about working with producer Eric Rachel. Does he primarily work with Ferret bands?

SM: In the last couple years he’s done a lot of Ferret bands. He did a lot of stuff with Deadguy. He did a Deadguy record. What else did he do? [Pause] He did a lot of Victory [Records’] bands, too. He did Atreyu, the record before The Curse. He worked with Skid Row, too, so that’s kind of cool, but… [Laughter] Eric is honestly one of the coolest and down to earth guys we’ve ever dealt with. I mean, Barry [Poynter]’s really cool, and he had really good ideas and stuff, but I don’t think he really got the aspect of the dynamic of heavy music. Eric’s been doing it for so long that he just knew how certain tones would sound good with certain things, and how a drum part might work better here if it was played this way. We definitely went in there, instead of trying to produce it ourselves. On the last couple records, me and Jesse were listed as producers. I think with this one, I went in there with an open mind and kind of wanted something new and wanted something different, and let him kind of give us more direction. He was great. He made everybody feel very comfortable, and it was probably one of the funnest studio experiences I’ve ever had.

CO: Was it quite a transition after working exclusively with Barry Poynter for the majority of ZAO’s career, or…? I mean, you said it was easy, but was it a lot different?

SM: Ah, they kind of have the same personalities. They’re real cool, real laidback. I kind of like that. I wouldn’t want to be doing a record with a stressed out producer or something. There were little differences, like we did this whole record to a click. We definitely did a little more Pro Tools stuff on this record than we did before. With Barry it was more like, “Let’s feel this part; let’s just record it. Ah, there might be a mess-up, but it feels cool, so whatever.” And this record was a little more, “Let’s try to make it as good as we can get it without it trying to be too computerized, but still let’s work really hard on making it solid.” So that was a little different, but it kind of fell into place real easy.

CO: Okay. The new album marks the first time, that I’m aware of, that Dan has shared lyric writing duties with anyone since he joined the band. How did that come about, and was it difficult for him to let go and share responsibilities that he’s held so dear in the past?

SM: Ah, Dan’s mentality is that he’s very laidback; he’s really cool with anything. He’s actually the one that had Gabe – which is one of the songwriters – come in with him. He saw some of Gabe’s writing, and I think he got very interested in it. It kind of inspired him to write some of his own songs. So, he was really interested in bringing Gabe into the fold with him, and writing with him and Gabe back to back, and feeding off ideas. Like I said before, he loves the camaraderie of writing together with people, and this time he had read Gabe’s stuff, like I said, and loved it, and it kind of helped him to write other things, too. So, it was natural for him to kind of bring him in.

CO: That’s Gabe Felice, right?

SM: Yeah.

CO: Is he a roadie? Does he help you guys out on the road and stuff?

SM: Yeah, he has. He actually came out and did guitar tech for us on a couple tours.

CO: Okay. Tell me about the concept of the record and how it came about.

SM: The concept of the record is kind of humanity rejecting God to the point where God decided to let himself die and stay away from humanity. But Dan actually had a dream about that happening. I don’t remember the exact dream, when he was talking a long time ago about it. But it was kind of along that end. He just built it up from what it started out to be from his dream. There’s like a quote in the record, too. At face value, it’s God rejecting humanity and dying. But at the same time, there’s a quote we have where you don’t really appreciate something until it’s gone. I think that’s kind of the overwhelming sense of the record. People don’t appreciate the fact that there might be a God that you can just feel love from. A lot of Christians take it for granted too, where they’re just like, “Ah, there’s a God, and if I do this, I can ask forgiveness. That’s okay.” You know, that might not be the case all the time. I think there’s a play on that, too.

CO: Tell me how you decided to incorporate strings and piano and female vocals into “Psalm of the City of the Dead.” How did that come about?

SM: We originally wanted to do more than just female vocals, like have five or six people singing there and make it real chorusy. The original name of that song was going to be “A Chorus of the City of the Dead.” What we wanted to portray was like all of these lost souls singing on Earth because there’s nothing left or whatever. But we wanted that song to be a little more eerie and beautiful at the same time, and female vocals to me are probably the prettiest vocals you can have. Especially with the piano and the string arrangements, we just wanted to make that song very epic and beautiful, and kind of give you this weird sense of loss but be very strong at the same time. Do you know what I mean?

CO: Uh huh.

SM: That’s kind of where that came from.

CO: That may have been more than most ZAO fans were able to handle. [Laughter] It turned out to be a great song. Like you said, it adds such a huge, epic flair to the album. But did it feel like a gamble at all at the time?

SM: Oh, yeah. I think the whole record felt like a gamble sometimes.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: [Laughter] Especially when I would sing. I would be in the booth singing a part, and I’m like, “Ahhh, I hope people don’t think this sucks!”

CO: [Huge laughter]

SM: [Laughter] But yeah, we definitely felt there was a gamble. But at the same time, as artists and musicians, if you don’t push yourself to different things, why even do it? You know what I mean? You have to kind of bring in new things. Yeah, if your fans turn against you, you really don’t want that. But I think, too, there’s a lot of people that are appreciative of the fact that we do different things and we’re not the same all the time. Yeah, we felt like we were gambling, but it’s worth it for the art, I guess.

CO: The woman who sings on that song – Sara George – is she Stephen’s girlfriend of fiancée or something like that?

SM: Yeah, she is.

CO: Okay. Um, alright. We’ll kind of delve into something else, back away from the new album. I’ve got some other stuff to talk about.

SM: Okay.

CO: Uh, how do you feel about the “Christian band versus Christians in a band” debate?

SM: Ohhh.

CO: And, I’ll go on.

SM: Okay

CO: And do you feel the Christian marketplace serves a purpose?

SM: Well, I think… I’ll start off with the first thing, the “Christian band versus the Christians in a band” thing.

CO: Sure.

SM: I definitely think there are bands out there that basically use Christianity as their only message, and that’s all they want to do. They don’t even care about the band aspect of it; they just want to play songs that glorify God, or whatever. Then for us, personally, that’s definitely not the case. I’m in this more because I love music. I think a lot of us are starting to grow as individuals and be more open-minded. I think a lot of Christians in Christianity, they kind of close-mind themselves and preach and push things onto people that really, they shouldn’t do that. I guess we consider ourselves Christians in a band, but at the same time I… It’s just so weird! I definitely think the way it is, with a Christian band they’re mainly for being a Christian band. For us it’s being people that believe in God in a band.

CO: Okay.

SM: It’s just a little different aspect Our songs are written from more personal things, and things that anybody can relate to. You don’t have to believe in God to relate to our songs And then the whole Christian industry… The sad thing is, in reality, all the Christian industry does is mirror the secular industry, and I really… At first, I definitely think there needed to be something like that because being from a Christian band, you really didn’t get a fair shake and nobody really wanted to give you any attention. I think that’s why it did start, but it pretty much turned into the same industry now. You have the same gripes, the same things that happen with struggles in secular music that happen in the Christian industry. So, I don’t see a real big point to have it now. I don’t know, that’s definitely a really weird subject.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: I’m really glad that we’re on Ferret and we’re kind of out of that thing because it definitely can turn things really weird. It’s kind of weird, too, that your record sales are different in the Christian market than the secular market. They’re all records, so why don’t they just count them all together? [Laughter] That’s a whole crazy, big deal or whatever.

CO: Is your new album available in Christian bookstores, do you know?

SM: I actually am not sure.

CO: Okay.

SM: I don’t know if the title scared them off maybe. I don’t know.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: I don’t know. [Laughter] I haven’t been to any of the Christian bookstores in our town, so I haven’t seen them in there. I suppose it would be. I mean there again, it’s kind of a sense of people seeing something and taking it at face value and not getting it. They’re just closing their minds off. It’s sad that that’s what’s happened with a lot of Christian music.

CO: You guys recently toured for over two months straight, and to my knowledge, the band hasn’t toured that extensively or so consistently for quite some time. I guess you kind of touched on this a little bit, about Dan’s tattoo shop. He’s able to take time away from there as long as he knows that things are going to be stable on the band end, is that the case?

SM: That’s definitely the case. He knows that all of us are in this for the real deal, and we’re all needing to play as much as we can to show that the band’s a force. And he’s ready to do that now. He knows that everybody’s ready to do that.

CO: Okay. You’re going to Europe for a couple weeks next month, is that right?

SM: Yeah!

CO: This will be what, your second time over there?

SM: Yeah.

CO: Are you pretty stoked?

SM: Ah, I’m very excited. Especially this time because we went through an actual booking agent that lives in Europe and brings bands over. People over there totally want to follow our music. I know before with Tooth & Nail, their distribution in Europe wasn’t very good. People were having to pay the import price. Now, we finally have a record over there. I’m very excited to see how it’s changed.

CO: I see you’re going out on tour this fall with Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die, Misery Signals, and Whyoming. What can you tell me about that tour?

SM: It hopefully will be the biggest tour that we get to do this year. I think it will be, definitely. I’m a huge fan of every band on that tour. That’s the weird thing; none of us listen to metal really, but we definitely can respect our peers. Especially Dillinger Escape Plan, they’re doing something that I don’t think anybody can do. You know what I mean? And I’m extremely excited to be on tour with those guys and Every Time I Die. I think it’s going to be a great tour.

CO: Yeah, I’m in Florida, and I hope to catch you guys at House of Blues in Orlando. That would be a cool show. Do you have any touring plans beyond that right now?

SM: The only thing that we’ve talked about is possibly going to Japan in December.

CO: Oh, wow.

SM: We want to do something next year that we’ve always wanted to do. I don’t know if you’ve heard of The Juliana Theory or not…

CO: Oh, yeah.

SM: …but we’ve been very close friends with those guys ever since I joined ZAO, Brett being in the band. We’ve always wanted to do a co-headlining tour with those guys because we’re such close friends. You know, not necessarily that our fans are the same, but I think there’d be some Juliana Theory fans that would maybe like ZAO and some ZAO fans that would like them. So, we’ve been wanting to do that for a long time, and we’re finally going to try next year.

CO: Awesome. As we talked about a little bit, touring was a well publicized point of contention for ZAO, but apart from that, in retrospect, do you see any of your past albums as being sub par due to conflicts within the band or disagreements or anything?

SM: Oh, I definitely feel that. I think the time constraints we had and not having a huge budget makes you not get to try different things you want to try. And Jesse didn’t live within that base that we have, and it was like a three hour trip from where we lived. We weren’t able to practice as much as we should have practiced when writing records. And just the stresses. I came into recording with some of my songs, and Jesse would have ideas and have a couple songs of his own. When you throw stuff together, I just don’t think it works out. That’s why I think this record is so good, because we actually were a team and worked on it for three months. All of us had our parts in there, and all of us really, really worked hard. Hopefully in the future, we’ll have a little more time to record. But yeah, I think that last couple records we’ve done, I haven’t been pleased.

CO: How long did you have to record the new record?

SM: We did this record in a month.

CO: I’ve got a couple fanboy type questions, I guess. [Laughter]

SM: Ah, that’s cool.

CO: Wasn’t Liberate te ex Inferis supposed to have a running theme from the movie Event Horizon in the artwork? I thought I had heard that before that came out.

SM: Here’s the… I’m going to probably ruin everybody’s perception of that record right now.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: Everybody’s going to hate me for it.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: What happened with that record was we wrote a bunch of songs and put them together just like any other record. Then we watched that movie, Event Horizon, and thought some of the samples from it would be really cool. The whole Save Yourself From Hell thing actually, the title of that came from us, but the whole Dante’s Inferno thing actually came from Jason Parker, the guy that designed the layout.

CO: Yep.

SM: So, in reality that record’s not even a concept record whatsoever! Every song on there has kind of a different meaning. “Savannah” is about a porn star that wrecked and killed herself because she wasn’t beautiful anymore. “If These Scars Could Speak” is about one of Dan’s close friends that was raped. “Skin Like Winter” is about the false things of the Church. Uh, “Kathleen Barbra” is actually about Dan’s mom. So, there’s like all kinds of different things that the songs are about. So, it really never had a running theme at all, but then when that layout came out, people thought there was this weird concept. But there really wasn’t! [Laughter] It’s kind of weird because you don’t want to let people down. If you listen to the record and you get that from it, that’s awesome! We didn’t really try to do that, but I know a lot of people have gotten that weird, like you just said, the whole Liberate thing or Save Yourself From Hell or whatever. That’s cool. It kind of shows how neat it is to see other people’s perspectives on everything.

CO: So the intention was never to actually have the artwork have to do with, like… I thought I had heard that there was actually going to be artwork or maybe even movie stuff in the artwork. But there was never the intention of that?

SM: No, uh uh.

CO: Okay.

SM: We just thought some of the samples were very strong. [Laughter] That movie in itself is pretty intense.

CO: Yeah. Tell me about the significance of song titles like “Kathleen Barbra,” “The Ballad of Buddy Bigsby,” and “Man In Cage Jack Wilson.”

SM: Uh, oh.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: It looks like I’m going to tear it all down again.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: Well, we were watching a really, really weird movie on HBO, and there was this part in the movie that had a guy in a cage. And we were sitting there joking, and the end credits were, “Man In Cage: Jack Wilson.” And we were like, “Ah, that might be funny. Let’s name it ‘Man In Cage Jack Wilson.’”

CO: Okay.

SM: “The Ballad of Buddy Bigsby” was another joke that Jesse kind of came up with, making fun of that name for some reason. I don’t know where it came from. You know, we’d be making fun of somebody and we’d call them that or something. So, that’s kind of a joke type meaning. What was the last one?

CO: “Kathleen Barbra.”

SM: Oh, that’s actually Dan’s mom’s name. So, that song is about his mom, how he’s like “I have a gift for you, the only gift I have to offer,” saying that he’s a vocalist in a band and he can write a song about his mom, that effect.

CO: Take me from start to finish as to how a typical ZAO song is written.

SM: Well, I think me and Russ actually get together at his house or mine and get some basic riffs. And once we find one that actually sounds cool and we are stoked on, we took on that kind of to get a feel for what would maybe flow. We always try to make sure that things flow in and out. We kind of get some kind of a structure or some kind of a skeleton involved. And we’ll bring it into practice and throw what we have out to see if other people might have ideas for it, elaborate on things, change our parts to something somebody else has that might work out in that area. Kind of just do a group thing; usually that’s how it goes, with everybody writing.

CO: Does Dan get much input in the music?

SM: Actually, on this one he didn’t, but he has. The song “Autopsy” on Save Yourself From Hell, he actually wrote that guitar part. He was just playing it in his room, and I was like, “That sounds kind of neat. What if we did kind of a faster rock part on the back?” Yeah, it kind of worked out from there. Dan has had a little bit of musical input in the band. He’s actually a pretty good bass player, so he showed me ideas when I played bass for the records.

CO: What are you listening to these days?

SM: Well, as we speak right now I have Black Sabbath and The Who and Tom Petty in my CD case. And I have Muse Absolution in my CD player. [Laughter]

CO: Okay.

SM: Yeah, I just listen to a lot of weird rock.

CO: Who would you say are your personal influences musically or whatever?

SM: I would say Zakk Wylde, Johnny Cash, John Christ from Danzig, and Jimmy Page.

CO: Cool. How did you get started in music, you personally, Scott?

SM: Well, my grandfather played guitar, and I when I was little I would always just end up playing chords just watching and learning from him. I think it like touched my soul when I saw him play. Music had always done that to me, even when I didn’t know what music was and didn’t care. I’d get a song in my head and sing it and really get into it. When I was around eight years old, my grandfather actually bought my first guitar for me and showed me how to play it. When my parents saw that I was getting really interested in it, they got me into lessons for about a year and a half. Then from the lessons I just kind of went on with what I’d been playing and started writing some songs. I’ve had a lot of people that have loved music in my life, and they’ve shown that love to me.

CO: How old were you when you started taking guitar lessons, do you remember?

SM: 12.

CO: 12. Okay. What do or don’t you like about music today, or the music industry, or whatever, your thoughts there?

SM: The one thing that I despise the most is denying the heart and soul. I think the whole thing that makes music beautiful is the fact that it’s coming from somebody’s heart. It came from somebody’s soul, and it touched them. You have so many bands now that just write what the next band that got big writes, and they kind of wanted to get big. So it’s really empty and contrived, and I think music was meant for something more than that. Just to see that emptiness in music kind of bums me out. There’s a lot of bands even on the radio, you know they’re just doing it for the money and the paychecks and the managers. They always hide behind that lie of, “Oh, I’m such an artist!”

CO: [Laughter]

SM: But yet you’re playing what everybody else is playing. Because if that wasn’t the case, you’d be where we are and killing yourself on the road! [Laughter]

CO: [Laughter] That’s good! Is there one song or one lyric or one album that sort of defines you as a person or ZAO as a band?

SM: You mean our own?

CO: Yeah, your own stuff.

SM: Ah, wow.

CO: That’s a tough question.

SM: Yes.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: I would say the best song that would show what we are as a band is “5 Year Winter” because the structure of it’s very simple musically, and lyrically it’s personal. I think everything that Dan writes and everything that we feel in this band and the reason that we are a band is because of personal things that happen to us. Just with the pain of everyday life, and anything, like when you’re not a popular kid, that we feel, we can put that into our music that we play and write. I think that’s the main thing: personal stuff. [Laughter]

CO: Okay. Now, your answer to this question might be “5 Year Winter,” I’m not sure. But, is there a period of the band or album or song that you would say is sort of a defining career statement for ZAO up till this point.

SM: I would say “5 Year Winter.” You’re right. I think that’s just the one song that no matter what, every single person knows.

CO: Really?!

SM: Yeah, and I would hope that this new record, there’s a couple on there that maybe would come to that status. But, as it is right now, every time we play a show, the one song that everybody goes insane for is that one.

CO: Even more so than “Lies of Serpents…” and “To Think of You is to Treasure…”?!

SM: [Laughter] Uh hum.

CO: Really?! Wow!

SM: Yeah. I mean, you would think quintessential ZAO would be “Lies of Serpents…”

CO: Yeah!

SM: That song definitely is a great song. I think there’s a lot of people that do feel that that song is the best. I think that’s a big song, but for some reason “5 Year Winter” is the one where you can’t walk; there’s kids on stage that are trying to break it.

CO: [Laughter]

SM: [Laughter]

CO: That’s crazy. I would have never guessed that.

SM: Yep, yep.

CO: Do you have any plans for the next record yet?

SM: Ah, Dan actually has like nine songs written lyrically. I don’t know what they’re about yet or anything. But we definitely want to just kind of build on what we did with this record, maybe even put a little more singing vocals and stuff into it now that we’ve seen that people aren’t against it totally. [Laughter] We want to make sure that we do this real, and we want people to not think that we’re fiends or anything. It’s just us. We’ll probably do a record that’s as heavy but as different as this one.

CO: Okay, cool. So the rest of the year for you guys would probably be, as far as things going on, first Europe, then the Dillinger Escape Plan tour, then you’re thinking about Japan in December, did you say?

SM: Yeah.

CO: That would pretty much sum up things coming up for you guys?

SM: Uh, I would say. [Laughter] Totally.

CO: Okay. Hey, [laughter] I’ve got another sort of bizarre question for you, but…

SM: Yeah? [Laughter]

CO: Why isn’t your website updated very often?

SM: Ah, dude!

CO: [Laughter]

SM: That’s making me upset, too. We – and this is the sad part – are not really rich guys. We can’t really afford to have a guy come in and do an awesome website. But the beautiful thing is that Portland, who works for Ferret, is an amazing web designer. He’s been so gracious to do it for us. But in fact, he actually works for Ferret and stuff and doesn’t have a lot of time on the side to do that. So, it’s coming along really slow, but it’s definitely getting there. It’s all been done, it’s just…

CO: I’ve only got a couple questions left. I see that you’re finally tying the knot, is that right?

SM: Yes!

CO: Have you and Melissa been together for quite awhile?

SM: Yes, we’ve been together for eight years.

CO: Yeah, I thought I remembered meeting you – and she was there – at Cornerstone ’99. I used to work for HM Magazine.

SM: Oh, okay!

CO: So, that’s the first time I met you, at Cornerstone ’99, so…

SM: Wow!

CO: So when’s the wedding?

SM: It’s May 28th.

CO: Okay. Cool. Awesome, awesome. Congratulations.

SM: Thanks very much.

CO: Uh, last question: do you have any closing comments?

SM: Oh, probably the same one I give everybody. I feel like an idiot, but I don’t think people understand it enough that in this band, anyway for us, having people listen to your band and have fans is a blessing. And we would just like every fan and everybody that gives anything to ZAO to know, we appreciate them more than they’ll ever know.

CO: Cool.

SM: We always try to make sure that’s very strongly said because I don’t think a lot of bands show enough appreciation for the only reason they’re in a band in the first place.

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