April of 2008 - RAG Magazine

everything. I’m not saying that we’re defining anything; we’re just putting it all
together in a way that we find suitable. One time, somebody told us it sounded
like Pink Floyd and Tool had a kid! I was like ‘wow,’ that’s pretty cool! I’ll take
that…
Evan: That was me.
Josh: You were not ready for this!
RAG: The new record Volume 2 is a lot different than Volume 1. A lot
of people feel that it’s much heavier. Was it ever a conscious decision
to move away from one sound and try something else or is it something
that just happens?
Evan: As far as the progressive nature of a band, you are going to change
naturally. You can’t keep writing the same song over and over. Both you, and
the audience, are going to get bored. I mean, you can do that — there are
bands that do it— but we’re not one of them. As far as Volume 1 and Volume
2, they’re called that for a reason. We had so many songs coming out of the
gate with the first album, but we couldn’t have a double album. It would be
cool if you could, but I don’t think that a lot of bands can get away with that.
So we just kind of split them up. I think that’s why Volume 2 does sound
different, but they’re basically supposed to go together. Volume 2 was different
because we had more time with it. We had more time to think about our ideas
instead of just trying to get it out there as soon as possible. Like with writing
songs like “Ten Ton Brick,” where, they are also heavier. I think with bands it’s
good to evolve; you don’t want to just keep writing the same song over again.
Josh: I think too, that as a band, we’ve grown together, so it made a difference
when we were making the record, that everybody had a chance to shine,
without trying to steal the show, or doing a solo. There are some really great
bass parts, and I think that everybody has these really great parts that really
allow each person to shine without trying to overshadow anybody else. We’ve just
grown together a lot as a band from being on the road. Personally, I feel that
Volume 2 is a lot more mature; it’s a little bit more refined, like a nice Chianti.
RAG: Aside from “Rapture,” which came out a few years ago, “Ten
Ton Brick,” has become the track that is garnering Hurt a lot of attention
right now. The song is addictive. What do you think is it about this
song that makes it stick in people’s heads?
Evan: Paul’s guitar riff.
Paul: It’s kind of a different sound than the rest of the stuff that we have out
there, and that’s probably because it was written more recently. So, it stands
out a bit from everything else —and it’s more straight-forward; it kind of has
that “one listen” quality where you can hear it once, and kind of get the
groove. Whereas, when you listen to a song like “Rapture,” you really have to
listen to it a bunch of times to get into it.
Josh: A lot of Volume 1 can be very slow paced as well. For “Ten Ton Brick,”
to come out and kind of have this grooving, pumping thing, we were excited
about it! All of us want to play all different kinds of music, and we love all
different kinds of music, so we plan to explore all different areas. Hopefully, as
we move forward, we’ll continue to keep doing that. People will probably say,
‘oh they’ve changed,’ or they might like it, or they might hate it…We’re proud
to be doing that. When this song came out, it was fun for all of us, this
pounding kind of song; even playing the song live is a blast, when the dragon
comes at the end.
Evan: Actually, the reason everyone likes “Ten Ton Brick,” or at least why I
like it, is because it’s an amazing song! It’s a really great rocking song, and
how can you deny that? People say it’s nice, and I enjoy hearing that feedback.
When we first heard it, we got that feeling, ‘ok, this is going to go on the
radio.’ It’s just a great feeling when you can sense that just doing the drum
track. We didn’t even have vocals or anything yet, but we just knew that this
song was really gonna do something. It’s feels awesome and amazing.
RAG: You guys have an EP called the The Black Market EP, which was
released online, and has also been sold almost exclusively at your
shows. Would you guys ever consider releasing this EP as a normal
disc?
Evan: We released that EP ourselves, and that was because we weren’t
getting any support from the record label. So we said ‘screw you, we’re going
to release our own thing.’ The label is not supposed to know about that, so
we’ll probably get in trouble for it, eventually. We did it to try and support
ourselves since the label wasn’t giving us any support. We’ll probably be
putting out a White Market EP as well for Volume 2. It’s a way to get our B-
Sides out there too, and there are extra songs on them. When we recorded
Volume 2, we recorded extra songs that aren’t on Volume 2. We want to
keep giving our audience (we have such a die-hard, wonderful fan-base) new
stuff to keep them interested in us.
Paul: The White Market EP has acoustic stuff as well. When we go to radio
stations and do acoustic performances, people always ask us ‘where can
I get that?’ So, we found some of the better performances, and now, you
can get them.
RAG: As with a small handful of bands (Yellowcard and Blue October)
J plays the Violin. Hurt is really the only band in the scene that has
emphasized the violin as a big part of its sound. What made the band
want to add this element into the mix?
Paul: I think we use it because J grew up playing the violin, and it’s just like
a natural instinct for him.
Evan: J didn’t even want to do it. We had to convince him to do it. He was
like, ‘I can’t play violin and sing at the same time!’ But, he was wrong! He can!
Paul: I think that J thought [playing the violin] was unsexy. Isn’t that what he
said?
Evan: I told him that nobody was doing that except for Yellowcard, Blue
October, and some other bands. And he does looks sexy when he plays the
violin!
Josh: J was a classically trained violinist (since he was a kid). Classical
music has always been a part of J’s influence. So it was just natural that [the
violin] would go in there. J played a lot of violin on the record, and then, it’s
just fun live. We mixed in a lot of different influences. J also plays the banjo
live when we play, “Alone with the Sea.” So, we just try to get a lot of different
things in there, just to make the sound diverse. That’s what it’s all about.
www.RAGmagazine.com | 45