Tell us a bit about the new material you've got for your next album.

Zack - "

Jackie wrote it all and she would love to tell you about it right now."

Jackie - "That's not true! (laughter)."

Zack - "It's the same as all the other material that we write - we all just write it! (laughter)

Jackie is the wordsmith, though. She's the one that weaves the narratives."

Max - "It's a little more vocal heavy thanks to

Jackie."

Jackie - "A little more vocal heavy, a little harsher vocals, more screaming."

Zack - "It truly is where we would like to be."

Jackie - "Yeah."

Max - "Definitely more proud of it than anything we've done in the past, so we're excited."

Zack - "I think the bad reviews that we got on the vocals are the best thing that ever happened to us because it kicked her in the ass whether they were right or not to..."

Jackie - "Just change it up."

Zack - "...to get her going and like, 'fuck you guys if you don't like 'em; I'm gonna sing even louder'. I couldn't be happier. It's a lot different now on the writing side just because before we were just instrumental with vocals splashed on and now it's much more vocally... we actually have a plan going. At least she does. I don't know about him."

Max - "I have no agenda."

Jackie - "Zack makes a cameo on the vocals."

Zack - "Oh yeah, I scream. Hard to do, I know. (laughter) I know, I know. Yeah, it's my first vocal appearance and no one's going to notice it, which is exactly what I want."

Max - "I sing less. I'm just a backup vocalist now, which is exactly what I want. (laughter) Sparse. In the background. I just want to play my guitar."

When can we expect the album to be released?

Jackie - "Well..."

Zack - "When Warner Brothers picks us up."

Jackie - "We're probably going to record in 2010 and hopefully it will be out in 2010."

Max - "That's what we're hoping. We just recorded essentially half of it and it's either going to be a demo or half of it, if that makes sense."

Zack - "Either half the album or..."

Max - "...a demo."

Zack - "Or half the album. (laughter) Either way, we're going to fucking record it."

Jackie - "We don't really have a plan. We're writing. We're like almost done, but none of the vocals are really developed, except for these two songs that we're going to play tonight, so I don't know. I'd say we're maybe sixty percent done. That sound about right?"

Max - "Yeah. We have the basic formulas for almost all the songs down."

Zack - "Writing wise."

Max - "Yeah. But we've got to sprinkle a whole bunch of stuff on top of that."

Jackie, I understand you wrote the intro for the next AGALLOCH album. Could you tell us a bit about that?

Jackie - "That's correct. Those guys have been fans of AMBER ASYLUM and GRAYCEON for a long time and GRAYCEON had the opportunity to play a couple of shows with them last year and we had a blast with those guys. They've been really supportive and they asked a couple months ago if I was interested in doing something on their next album and I was like, 'yes!' But then when it came down to it and they started writing the album, they're like, 'okay, we actually want you to write the intro to the album.' I was like, 'okay! No pressure!' But I worked on it and they loved it. It's a cool piece and the songs that I've heard so far, what they've been writing, are pretty awesome, so I'm looking forward to it. I'm doing the intro and then I'm working on one other song that I think is the closer, so I think I'm on the intro and the closer."

How do you juggle time between GIANT SQUID and GRAYCEON?

Jackie - "It's really easy right now because Aaron from GIANT SQUID is living on the East Coast; he's going to the Joe Kubert School of Illustration, so GIANT SQUID has been doing stuff kind of consolidated in small periods of time when he's off on winter break or he's off on spring break, summer vacation. But my day to day normal activity is with GRAYCEON 'cause these guys both live in the city and we've just kind of been in our groove for the last few years, practicing and writing every week and playing shows every two to three weeks, so it's been easy juggling for the most part."

What's the reaction a lot of people give to the band with the cello? Because as far as Metal bands with cello, pretty much the only one anybody knows is APOCALYPTICA.

Jackie - "Right."

Zack - "Ask

Jackie how much she looooves APOCALYPTICA! (laughter)."

Jackie - "Shut up! (laughter)."

Zack - "Oh Lordy, she loves them!"

Jackie - "Well, people are taken aback. I mean, sound people are always looking for the direct out of my instrument or out of the amp, so I just have to tell them to treat it like a guitar and mic the cab."

Zack - "So glad I don't play cello."

Jackie - "And then people in the audience I think are... I don't know. I think they find it refreshing that it's just an instrument, a part of the band, not there as a shtick, it's not..."

Max - "It's not there to put icing on the cake."

Jackie - "Yeah, like 'wouldn't it be cool if we just had someone playing this note the whole time?' It's just..."

Zack - "It's not the picture you see with the Metal band with the girl front singer, you know, like the gimmick type shit - it's actually a part of the band instead of a gimmick, which I think is great. Like cello's the best instrument I think ever. Piano and cello are the most brutal instruments ever. They could go from heartbreakingly sad to just smash-your-face-into-a-wall beautiful."

Max - "It's a pretty dramatic instrument."

Zack - "But it's not like we write these songs and then just throw some cello on them, like the cello's there the whole time. The three of us play together, you know. We don't even think 'holy shit, we have a cello!' We just have the three of us. Like, 'all right, that part's good, that part sucks, that part's good.'"

Jackie - "Yeah, we don't think about it too much."

Zack - "It's not a gimmick to us, it's not a shtick to us, we don't even think about it. The only time we think about it is when other people (say) 'oh, you have a cello in your band' and it's like, 'oh yeah, we do have a cello in our band!'"

Max - "I actually like APOCALYPTICA."

Zack - "I do, too."

Max - "Or I like one of their releases a lot. 'Cult' I think it's called. I think that's a great album, yeah. It's original material for the most part, isn't it? It's pretty good."

Jackie - "It's just our ongoing debate about APOCALYPTICA. (laughter) They say 'I love them!' and I say 'I hate them!'"

Max - "There's one that I like. They're obviously virtuoso musicians."

Zack - "I just think they were better without a drummer. (laughs)."

Max - "I do, too."

I just think they never should have done vocals.

Max - "Actually, I've never heard them with the vocals."

Zack - "Drums and vocals can go."

Max - "When I saw them live, I think it was just the four of them playing cello. (pauses) No, no they had a drummer."

Zack - "It's not that the drummer is bad by any means. I think the fact that the cellos were playing the percussion was what made it not gimmicky for me - they were hitting and you could hear the bows hitting the cellos and drum like it was percussive. It was great. And then they added a drummer and it took away from the cellos. I guess we're never going to open for APOCALYPTICA now, but I don't really care. (laughter)."

Eh, they're Finnish and the Finns tend to be more laid back - they probably won't get too upset.

Zack - "They were our springboard, dammit! That's the whole reason we formed this band! To open for APOCALYPTICA! (laughter)."

You'd better be careful - you have to sleep sometime and Jackie's going to be upset. You're going to wake up, you're going to put your shoes on and you're going to find a poisonous scorpion in there or something. (laughter)

Zack - "Absolutely not."

Jackie - "No."

Zack - "We're telling you what we've always said to each other. (laughter) It's true."

Now for something completely off the subject - recommend a book for our readers and tell us why.

Jackie - "Goodness."

Zack - "A book! Oh my God..."

Max - "I was just talking about 'The Road' today by Cormac Mccarthy. 'The Road', have you read that one? Cormac Mccarthy is one of my favorite writers. American writer. He's famous for 'The Road', 'No Country For Old Men', a bunch of others. Beautiful, bleak, dark, powerful story, though I'm talking about 'The Road', in all of his books. They just recently made it into a movie starring Viggo Mortensen. I saw it - the movie does not do it justice. I think it's a beautiful piece of art."

Zack - "I'm going to go with 'Walter The Farting Dog' because it's a lesson that everyone can learn.

Max and I share a band called WALKEN as well and our bass player/vocalist had this potty book called 'Walter The Farting Dog' and it's basically the time old tale of don't judge a book by its cover. A family adopts a dog named Walter... well, they name him Walter - he wasn't named Walter before and it farts a lot and they're all bummed because they don't know what to do with it and it's a super, super gut wrenching tale of 'should we kill it? Should we throw it outside? Should we just send it back?' And then one night, these robbers come in and they're about to rip the place dry and then all of a sudden, Walter the farting dog comes out and just lets one rip 'cause he's been holding it the whole time because he feels bad that the family's so bummed on his fucking gas and he wants to stay 'cause he loves his family. And these robbers come in and he finally can't hold it in anymore and he just fucking cuts this level ten fart and the burglars actually pass out and the family wakes up and realizes that Walter the farting dog is truly the hero of the family and that kind of where it ends. I think they set it up for a sequel, I'm not sure. I don't know what they'd call it, but I think that's got my vote right now. (laughter)."

(speaking to Jackie) It's up to you to save this segment now. (laughter)

Jackie - "I know! How can I go up against that?!? (laughter) Uh... (laughter) Thanks, Zack!"

Zack - "It's true! I swear to God, on his fucking toilet, he's got a book called 'Walter The Farting Dog' and it's amazing."

Jackie - "Well, a book... I would say 'Twilight' but I'd just get eye rolls from the boys. (laughs) How about 'Start Where You Are' by Pema Chodron. It's a Buddhist book and kind of teaches you how to train your mind to not think so much and I appreciate that because my brain just kind of bounces off the walls non-stop and it's nice just to be able to sit down and not think about anything. (laughs)."

Wow.

Jackie - "I know! (laughs)."

No, I'm just kind of tripping out 'cause Mike from YOB, when I interviewed him a couple weeks ago had something along the same lines.

Jackie - "Yeah, I think sometimes our brains can just get a little a little too active."

Max - "Zen - the art of nothing."

Jackie - "Yeah, check it out. Stop thinking so much."

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Zack - "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."

Jackie - "Just thanks for the support; we appreciate it." [FIN]