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Chris Henderson: The National Guard actuallyapproached 4 or 5 different artists. Out of all of the bandsthat they asked, we were the only one of those band’sthat actually nailed it. We’re a very pro Military band, soof coarse we were naturally one of the bands that theyasked. That’s how that opportunity came up. We’re veryproud that we did it; we get to serve our country in ourown small little way. It was all about raising awarenessfor the National Guard.RAG: The band wrote and recorded the new albumwhile literally living together. Do you feel that thismade for a more productive experience as far assongwriting was concerned? Do you think that youwould ever do it again for a future disc?Henderson: I definatly think so. Would love to try it again.It’s usually how we do things anyways in a roundaboutsort of way. It wasn’t really that big a deal. I mean wetravel together, living together on the road. Living in ahouse made it even better because you didn’t need totravel. No stress of moving around or different situationsof dealing with all sorts of different people daily. Just thefive of us, our sound guy/Pro Tools Engineer, and ourProducer.RAG: Some fans feel the new album is a lot heavierand has a darker vibe to it than previous albums.Henderson: If you dig through the lyrics, it’s actually alot brighter than it’s ever been before. Musically it’sdefinatly a lot heavier because tuning wise we did tunedown. Just to do something a little different that we’venever done before. I mean we all knew what the nextCreed record was going to sound like right? That’s whatwe were trying to avoid. So we just tried to experiment.RAG: Do you feel that some of the heavier band’sthat you’ve toured with may have also beared someinfluence on the band’s overall sound and approachto songwriting as well?Henderson: Not bands that we’ve toured with I don’tthink. Not songwriting wise anyways. I don’t think thatwe’ve ever toured with a band heavy enough that we’veappreciated the music as much as we appreciate thestuff we grew up listening to; you know what I’m saying?With the exception of Sevendust that is. That’s a bandthat we really, really, really did appreciate as songwriters,but we don’t write like them at all. One thing that we diddo was we tried to take a cue from their live show. Notnecessarily taking it from them, but learning from their liveshow because they’re such an intense live band. So we justtried to take what we could from them on that level.RAG: The band has a very distinct sound. When youhear one of the band’s song’s on the radio you knowalmost instantly who it is. What element(s) do youthink have created this signature?Henderson: Well first we have a singer with a reallyunique voice. Nobody sounds like Brad and Brad doesn’tsound like anybody else. There’s nobody that I’ve everheard that sounds like him, and since I’ve been in thisband I haven’t heard anybody else that could do it. Thereare other people that can do other people out there, IIN STORES NOWmean there are so many Kurt Cobain rip-offs out thereright now that’s its pathetic. I mean there are some goodsongs that are there too... But Brad doesn’t do that, hecan’t. He just sounds like himself. He can sound like theguy from Skynyrd if he wants to, but that’s really notrelevant.RAG: A lot of people know the band has more of aballad band due to hits like “Kryptonite,” “Be LikeThat” and “Here Without You.” Is there a song thatyou personally would hope the band would beremembered for musically and lyrically?Henderson: I hope that the band would be rememberedfor all of work, for both the lyrics and the music. I thinkwe have a pretty good shot too. Like you said before, wehave our own sound and don’t really sound like anyoneelse. You can’t say when 3 Doors Down releases a song,you can’t say oh that’s the new Nickelback, or here’s thenew Pearl Jam, or is this Nirvana? You can’t really dothat. So when you hear a 3 Doors Down song it’s like,wow, this is 3 Doors Down, so that in itself is going tohelp us be remembered. I think that we’ve also beendoing this for so long that if anyone else did sound likeus I don’t think anyone would get it. Maybe they wouldsay, ‘hey you sound like 3 Doors Down, get some newmaterial.’RAG: With Greg Upchurch the band is currently ondrummer number 3, replacing Daniel Adaire who leftthe band before the release of the Seventeen Daysto join Nickelback. What brought Greg into thepicture as being Daniel’s replacement?Henderson: When Daniel decided he was leaving weactually had open try-outs. We were just on the roadwith Puddle Of Mudd and they had their own inner-bandwww.RAGmagazine.com | 33