Steve Henderson
11/04/06, 05:46 PM
I recently had a chance to sit down and talk with Lovedrug frontman Michael Shepard about everything from Nirvana to God, the writing process behind the new record, and just what happened to that damned major label deal we heard so much about. This is what he had to say about everything…
So first of all, I guess everyone wants to know what the current label situation is. What is the story with The Militia Group and Columbia and all that stuff?
Michael: Well, we signed a deal with Columbia after we released our first record on The Militia Group, and they are in the Sony system, so Columbia upstreamed us with plans to re-release our first record, Pretend You’re Alive, and then do a new record. It was kind of one of those slightly typical major label stories where things kind of fell through the cracks. Our situation was cool at first because we were working with a lot of great people, but unfortunately a lot of those people ended up leaving or losing their jobs because Sony was making huge cutbacks and stuff. So rather than getting lost in the menagerie of other bands on Columbia that were about to lose their babies, we just kind of went in there and asked to get out of it, and they were gracious enough to let us go because they didn’t want to hold us back. So essentially now, we are free agents again, and we have just finished recording this new record, Everything Starts Where It Ends, and we were kind of in this in-between ground with who to put that out with.
So is that still up in the air?
Michael: It is at the tail end of that period, you know. But yeah, we’re gonna put the record out with Militia.
Stoked about it, or is it a type of resignation?
Michael: No, no. I’m stoked about it. Everyone over there is a hard worker, and they are big fans, and good guys and gals, and I think they’ll do a great job, you know?
Are you kind of disappointed, though, after having dollar signs in your eyes for a little bit with the major deal?
Michael: Well, yeah. When we signed to Columbia, there were a lot of promises made – things you want to hear, and things they were planning on doing, honestly. But like I said, those people were out of the picture. So yeah, it was a letdown because there were singles on that first record that could have gotten pushed and it could have done something really huge for us. So it is natural to be bummed out.
Well, I know there were the songs that were issued as singles, but if you were going to pick a song to release, which would it be?
Michael: It probably would have been “Spiders” or “Blackout.”
Okay, so with all of the talented bands on The Militia Group at the time, did it surprise you at all that you were one of the first bands to be upstreamed?
Michael: I don’t know. I guess I was a little surprised, but mostly because it happened so quickly. We kind of went into the Militia deal with a mutual understanding of where we wanted to be. Lovedrug is not the type of band for whatever attitude wants to stay at some sort of hip, independent level. I don’t really care about that – I just want as many people as possible to hear about our music, and the bottom line is in this environment today, that takes a lot of money.
So basically, you’re saying you’re a huge sellout?
Michael: (Laughs) People call it that, but I don’t care. But yeah, unfortunately, the companies that have that money are the major labels, and whatever it takes to get the music out there. We can tour 365 days a year, which we practically do, and you can make so many fans, but it is a slow process. You can go through years and years of that. But if someone throws a million dollars at your song to put it on the radio, it’s a whole different ballgame.
It is interesting too, because you have these indie bands that work their asses off to work their way up, but then on the flipside, you have these bands that could have some success taking that indie route, but they go to a major right away, and they fall off a cliff. I guess that is the whole idea of the downstream, though.
Michael: I think what’s happening right now is that the major labels are trying to figure out what’s going on. Their old systems of breaking bands just aren’t working anymore, and they have to start thinking like independent labels. They have to think grassroots, and they can’t, and I think that is causing a lot of problems, too.
So, talking about the other Militia bands, how does it feel to be headlining over Brandtson? Is it weird at all?
Michael: We were actually just talking about that. It is funny, because about 9 or 10 years ago, the first band I started when I was like 16, we opened for Brandtson at this little nothing college in our hometown. And here we are 10 years later and they are on tour with us. They’re still wonderful people and we are so pleased that they would come out and open for us – it is really an honor.
On your press site, I see you guys have a rider now. Does that mean you are a pretty big deal or do you just like free stuff?
Michael: (Laughs) We have a rider because we were tired of showing up to shows, and having a promoter that thinks peanut butter and jelly is substantial enough. You go through a couple years of touring and eating crap, and then it’s like hey, let’s ask for something we want.
So now you can have your hummus and Chianti?
Michael: I don’t know about the Chianti, but I like a good hummus.
So you guys have obviously been touring on the same record for a long time now – is it getting frustrating yet?
Michael: Well, it has been a long time since we released anything. It is getting to a point to us where, I don’t want to say it’s discouraging, but you play a song 500 times, you just want to bring new stuff to the table.
Are there any songs that you are just absolutely sick of playing where if you never had to play it again, you would be happy?
Michael: It’s weird, you know. It is like an old romance. The love for it never goes away, but you can move on. So playing those songs – I don’t hate it, but I am excited to play new ones.
You guys are obviously from Ohio – a state not commonly known for being a fertile breeding ground for good music. How did you guys break out of here? What was your secret?
Michael: We really just had a smart work ethic from the beginning. You draw a circle on a map and you hit those markets as much as possible. And as soon as you can sell out those small clubs, you draw a bigger circle, and move your way out. We didn’t start out trying to conquer everything at once. We just said, hey, let’s play this club and do really well there. It’s lust laying a lot of ground work.
Lovedrug is a band that seems to have a devout following of fans and even fellow artists out there, but at the same time, you have yet to achieve a level of commercial success that some of your peers have realized. Does it ever get to a point where you just want to shake people and ask why more of them are not buying your record?
Michael: (Laughs) Yeah, I think I have definitely been at that point before. I don’t know – I don’t think there is an answer to that question, which is probably why it is so frustrating. If there were an exact formula of what to plug in, and make it happen, I would totally use it, whatever it was, because it would get us to a point where we could do whatever we want to do, and that’s what any artists wants. But yeah, I have been in those frustrating situation with bands we know, and we question why we aren’t doing this or that, but in the end, it’s our music and career, and it will go where it goes. As long as everyone that works for us is doing their job the best they can, and we’re doing the best we can, that’s all we can do.
One of the things I kind of noticed, is that when anyone talks about Lovedrug, you get a lot of praise for your live show. Is that something you keep in your heads when you record, to need to be able to recreate it live?
Michael: I would say that is something that was more of a conscious thought for the first record, but not so much for this one we just did. For this one, there was more that needed to be relayed and said with the music outside of the words, and that required a lot of instrumentation. So, it was more of a case of going into the studio and making the exact record I wanted to write, and then thinking how we were going to pull it off afterwards.
I read in your bio that it is a turnoff for you to turn on the radio and hear every band singing the same thing. Do you think that this is a rut or status quo that your band could overcome, or do you feel that it is hopeless that until you write that radio-ready pop song, you won’t be on the radio?
Michael: I just feel like it takes a little bit of gumption of the part of a record company with money to take a song of ours that might not talk about the typical subject matter on the radio and out it on the radio. I think people would react to it because it has happened in the past. There have been hit songs that have been just off the wall, and I think that needs to happen again. I’m not saying it can happen again – it just should happen again. It’s just frustrating because deejays can’t sit down and play what they want to play anymore. It’s now about who likes what, it’s about whatever shareholders are telling their brokers are telling the company accountants or whatever. It’s A plus B equals dollar sign, and they put that out there.
Do you almost think that your music is too smart for the general radio listening public? Or is it just a matter of getting the resources to get it played? If you were to get on the radio, do you think people would embrace it?
Michael: I think so. I don’t think it is too smart for anybody – I wouldn’t say that. I think the things we’re talking about in our songs and the immediacy of the music is very understandable and even elementary at most points.
So would you lump yourselves in with the “unlikely” commercial successes of Radiohead and Muse? Or would you consider your band a little more accessible?
Michael: I would consider ourselves a little more accessible. But it is hard to compare something like that because when you look at Radiohead, they got their foot in the door in the 90s, and they did it then with a hit song that they obviously now hate. So, I don’t know – it’s hard to say. But maybe it is just the evolution in the type of music that I like that’s happened over the last 10 years. If I pop in a record now, and I don’t like it, I’m just not going to listen to it. It could be the coolest, artsy-est thing out there and everyone thinks its great, or whatever hit magazine gives it umpteen-million stars. But if it doesn’t catch my ear, it doesn’t. So I think that has put me more in tune with having music that is kind of immediate, at least to me. But I don’t know where I would stand within the demographic of the population majority.
So, can you talk about the writing process for Everything Starts Where It Ends, and how it differed from the last album?
Michael: The first record was very much written in one sitting, and I say that in a sense that it wasn’t done in a short period of time – it took several months, but it was very much me coming back from my sabbatical from music and sitting in an empty apartment for two or three months writing songs. Pretend You’re Alive came out of that, and we started touring or whatever. But between the time where I finished writing that and six months ago, I have been writing songs. So this record is more or less a collection of life lessons that have turned into musical adventures.
So did you touch at all on the whole contract/record label ordeal?
Michael: There’s elements of that in there.
A little more subtle than explicit, though? No lines like, “Fuck you, Columbia Records”?
Michael: (Laughs) No. Because I don’t feel that way! I don’t feel like they screwed us or anything. It is just more or less an outsider looking in and I was writing songs about whatever was going on in my life at that time. That’s why this record is a little bit more broad.
So what made you want to do the tour EP idea? Do you worry about fans getting pissed that have to pay for a tour EP when they are going to get three of those same songs on the LP next year?
Michael: Well, the key was that we wanted to do this headlining tour to play new songs and get fans jazzed up for the record to come out next year. And we really didn’t want to come back through empty handed. We had Pretend You’re Alive, and our t-shirts or whatever, but we were really thinking of the fans when we thought of the EP because a) we wanted to give them a preview of the record, and b) give them some stuff they couldn’t get otherwise. There are 2 or 3 tracks on the EP that are b-sides or cover songs that they normally couldn’t get. I thought it was a good idea.
With regards to your lyrics, do you ever worry that your graphic or explicit word choice might limit your mainstream appeal? I think of some of the phrases on “Blackout” as being almost borderline morbid, but in kind of a cool way. But at the same time, it is hard to picture pre-teens singing along to “punching skulls on the bathroom floor” or whatever.
Michael: I don’t know. I have thought about it the same way as when I think of what type of fast food I would like to eat when I am driving through a city. McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell. It’s all kind of the same shit, but it gets the job done. (Laughs) So when I am writing lyrics, I don’t think about it too much. I guess it depends what kind of mood I am in.
I know that your film school background has led you to adopt a more movie-like feel to some of your songwriting. Would you say the new record is more or less cinematic than the old one?
Michael: I’d say it is a lot more cinematic. I think almost all of the songs on Everything Starts Where It Ends could be a short film or something. The stories are so specific and situational, and that makes them so picturesque, and I like that about them.
Now, is that something you miss out on with the major label now? If you had the bigtime budget, that might be something you would be able to act on and bring out more?
Michael: I mean, yes, because we would have more money, but no, because we actually just did a video earlier this month with a guy named David Johnson. He normally does our photography, and is an amazing artist. We just got together with him and did a video for “Ghost By Your Side” which is going to be the first single. It was a really, really great experience. And just because we didn’t have the budget we wanted, we were still able to get across everything we wanted to in the video. There are ways to go around it – I’m not saying it wouldn’t be easier if we had major label dollars behind it, but we are still getting it done.
I also read that you’re a David Fincher fan. What’s your favorite movie of his?
Michael: Yeah, I freaking love his work, and I totally dig the fact that he was into music videos before he got into film. And it’s funny too, because he has done commercials too that are legitimately awesome. Like, you would never think of looking at a commercial and thinking “yeah that is awesome” but if you’ve seen some of the stuff he has done, he has some really brilliant ways to get his point across. I just appreciate the way he does that. I’d say my favorite movie that he has done would be Seven, because up to that point, I had never seen a movie that had that type of grit, and raw attitude. It was incredible.
So if you guys were still on Columbia, he was going to direct your video?
Michael: (Laughs) Yeah, that would be nice. I would love to meet that guy.
Okay, so you talked about the cover of “Heart Shaped Box” – does it scare you at all to cover a band so revered as Nirvana? Does it mean you think you are as a good of a band as they are?
Michael: No, I’m not afraid to cover Nirvana. I think they’re amazing – one of my favorite bands. I wouldn’t say we’re as good as Nirvana, but we’re way different than they are.
Do you ever worry about fans coming up to you saying how horrible your cover is?
Michael: Well, the more pressing issue is people that come up to us after a show and ask what that new song was that we played.
People honestly don’t know?
Michael: Yeah, seriously.
It’s “Heart Shaped Box” for shit’s sake – how wouldn’t they know?
Michael: It’s a mellow version of it too. When we played it live, we rocked it out, but the version on the EP is kind of an unplugged sort of situation.
Okay, so finally, I heard a funny story on our forums where a user said that you guys played a song at Cornerstone one year that pissed a lot of people off. You know what I’m talking about? You guys played “Rape Me” by Nirvana?
Michael: No, I think we just played “Heart Shaped Box.” But that would have been brilliant. We played the “Heart Shaped Box” cover and I think it went over pretty well. I don’t know. The Christian kids gotta get out there and figure out what good music is all about.
Do a lot of people peg you as being some overtly Christian band because you sing about God?
Michael: Yeah, it’s funny. A lot of people come up and ask me about the spirituality of the lyrics, and my answer is just yeah, I think my music is spiritual. I think any music is spiritual. It has very little to do with what I personally believe in, talking about God or the Devil or something. I don’t know. We used to get that a lot more early on, but we don’t get that so much anymore.
Last question – someone asked if you would touch upon what happened with the band member lineup changes about the time that the first record came out.
Michael: Yeah, we have gone through three major stages to arrive at what is now the Lovedrug that is here to stay. The first was initially getting dudes together to play these songs I had written. That was cool, but when we got into a situation where we had to start touring, the guitar player wanted to get married and do that thing, and our drummer was a bit of an alcoholic, and didn’t want to do anything…
Is that Matthew you’re talking about?
Michael: No, that was our original drummer. And that is when we got Dave and Matthew. So those guys along with Matthew’s friend, who is also named Matthew, did the bulk of the touring for Pretend You’re Alive. At the tail end of that, it came to the point where they had to make some decisions. They both had family back home and kids and stuff, and we were just touring so much that they really didn’t want to be in that environment anymore. It wasn’t any sort of problem or bitter parting. They didn’t want to be a part of that anymore, so we went through the process of finding the right people, so here we are.
I guess that’s about it…just wanted to say thanks so much for your time.
So first of all, I guess everyone wants to know what the current label situation is. What is the story with The Militia Group and Columbia and all that stuff?
Michael: Well, we signed a deal with Columbia after we released our first record on The Militia Group, and they are in the Sony system, so Columbia upstreamed us with plans to re-release our first record, Pretend You’re Alive, and then do a new record. It was kind of one of those slightly typical major label stories where things kind of fell through the cracks. Our situation was cool at first because we were working with a lot of great people, but unfortunately a lot of those people ended up leaving or losing their jobs because Sony was making huge cutbacks and stuff. So rather than getting lost in the menagerie of other bands on Columbia that were about to lose their babies, we just kind of went in there and asked to get out of it, and they were gracious enough to let us go because they didn’t want to hold us back. So essentially now, we are free agents again, and we have just finished recording this new record, Everything Starts Where It Ends, and we were kind of in this in-between ground with who to put that out with.
So is that still up in the air?
Michael: It is at the tail end of that period, you know. But yeah, we’re gonna put the record out with Militia.
Stoked about it, or is it a type of resignation?
Michael: No, no. I’m stoked about it. Everyone over there is a hard worker, and they are big fans, and good guys and gals, and I think they’ll do a great job, you know?
Are you kind of disappointed, though, after having dollar signs in your eyes for a little bit with the major deal?
Michael: Well, yeah. When we signed to Columbia, there were a lot of promises made – things you want to hear, and things they were planning on doing, honestly. But like I said, those people were out of the picture. So yeah, it was a letdown because there were singles on that first record that could have gotten pushed and it could have done something really huge for us. So it is natural to be bummed out.
Well, I know there were the songs that were issued as singles, but if you were going to pick a song to release, which would it be?
Michael: It probably would have been “Spiders” or “Blackout.”
Okay, so with all of the talented bands on The Militia Group at the time, did it surprise you at all that you were one of the first bands to be upstreamed?
Michael: I don’t know. I guess I was a little surprised, but mostly because it happened so quickly. We kind of went into the Militia deal with a mutual understanding of where we wanted to be. Lovedrug is not the type of band for whatever attitude wants to stay at some sort of hip, independent level. I don’t really care about that – I just want as many people as possible to hear about our music, and the bottom line is in this environment today, that takes a lot of money.
So basically, you’re saying you’re a huge sellout?
Michael: (Laughs) People call it that, but I don’t care. But yeah, unfortunately, the companies that have that money are the major labels, and whatever it takes to get the music out there. We can tour 365 days a year, which we practically do, and you can make so many fans, but it is a slow process. You can go through years and years of that. But if someone throws a million dollars at your song to put it on the radio, it’s a whole different ballgame.
It is interesting too, because you have these indie bands that work their asses off to work their way up, but then on the flipside, you have these bands that could have some success taking that indie route, but they go to a major right away, and they fall off a cliff. I guess that is the whole idea of the downstream, though.
Michael: I think what’s happening right now is that the major labels are trying to figure out what’s going on. Their old systems of breaking bands just aren’t working anymore, and they have to start thinking like independent labels. They have to think grassroots, and they can’t, and I think that is causing a lot of problems, too.
So, talking about the other Militia bands, how does it feel to be headlining over Brandtson? Is it weird at all?
Michael: We were actually just talking about that. It is funny, because about 9 or 10 years ago, the first band I started when I was like 16, we opened for Brandtson at this little nothing college in our hometown. And here we are 10 years later and they are on tour with us. They’re still wonderful people and we are so pleased that they would come out and open for us – it is really an honor.
On your press site, I see you guys have a rider now. Does that mean you are a pretty big deal or do you just like free stuff?
Michael: (Laughs) We have a rider because we were tired of showing up to shows, and having a promoter that thinks peanut butter and jelly is substantial enough. You go through a couple years of touring and eating crap, and then it’s like hey, let’s ask for something we want.
So now you can have your hummus and Chianti?
Michael: I don’t know about the Chianti, but I like a good hummus.
So you guys have obviously been touring on the same record for a long time now – is it getting frustrating yet?
Michael: Well, it has been a long time since we released anything. It is getting to a point to us where, I don’t want to say it’s discouraging, but you play a song 500 times, you just want to bring new stuff to the table.
Are there any songs that you are just absolutely sick of playing where if you never had to play it again, you would be happy?
Michael: It’s weird, you know. It is like an old romance. The love for it never goes away, but you can move on. So playing those songs – I don’t hate it, but I am excited to play new ones.
You guys are obviously from Ohio – a state not commonly known for being a fertile breeding ground for good music. How did you guys break out of here? What was your secret?
Michael: We really just had a smart work ethic from the beginning. You draw a circle on a map and you hit those markets as much as possible. And as soon as you can sell out those small clubs, you draw a bigger circle, and move your way out. We didn’t start out trying to conquer everything at once. We just said, hey, let’s play this club and do really well there. It’s lust laying a lot of ground work.
Lovedrug is a band that seems to have a devout following of fans and even fellow artists out there, but at the same time, you have yet to achieve a level of commercial success that some of your peers have realized. Does it ever get to a point where you just want to shake people and ask why more of them are not buying your record?
Michael: (Laughs) Yeah, I think I have definitely been at that point before. I don’t know – I don’t think there is an answer to that question, which is probably why it is so frustrating. If there were an exact formula of what to plug in, and make it happen, I would totally use it, whatever it was, because it would get us to a point where we could do whatever we want to do, and that’s what any artists wants. But yeah, I have been in those frustrating situation with bands we know, and we question why we aren’t doing this or that, but in the end, it’s our music and career, and it will go where it goes. As long as everyone that works for us is doing their job the best they can, and we’re doing the best we can, that’s all we can do.
One of the things I kind of noticed, is that when anyone talks about Lovedrug, you get a lot of praise for your live show. Is that something you keep in your heads when you record, to need to be able to recreate it live?
Michael: I would say that is something that was more of a conscious thought for the first record, but not so much for this one we just did. For this one, there was more that needed to be relayed and said with the music outside of the words, and that required a lot of instrumentation. So, it was more of a case of going into the studio and making the exact record I wanted to write, and then thinking how we were going to pull it off afterwards.
I read in your bio that it is a turnoff for you to turn on the radio and hear every band singing the same thing. Do you think that this is a rut or status quo that your band could overcome, or do you feel that it is hopeless that until you write that radio-ready pop song, you won’t be on the radio?
Michael: I just feel like it takes a little bit of gumption of the part of a record company with money to take a song of ours that might not talk about the typical subject matter on the radio and out it on the radio. I think people would react to it because it has happened in the past. There have been hit songs that have been just off the wall, and I think that needs to happen again. I’m not saying it can happen again – it just should happen again. It’s just frustrating because deejays can’t sit down and play what they want to play anymore. It’s now about who likes what, it’s about whatever shareholders are telling their brokers are telling the company accountants or whatever. It’s A plus B equals dollar sign, and they put that out there.
Do you almost think that your music is too smart for the general radio listening public? Or is it just a matter of getting the resources to get it played? If you were to get on the radio, do you think people would embrace it?
Michael: I think so. I don’t think it is too smart for anybody – I wouldn’t say that. I think the things we’re talking about in our songs and the immediacy of the music is very understandable and even elementary at most points.
So would you lump yourselves in with the “unlikely” commercial successes of Radiohead and Muse? Or would you consider your band a little more accessible?
Michael: I would consider ourselves a little more accessible. But it is hard to compare something like that because when you look at Radiohead, they got their foot in the door in the 90s, and they did it then with a hit song that they obviously now hate. So, I don’t know – it’s hard to say. But maybe it is just the evolution in the type of music that I like that’s happened over the last 10 years. If I pop in a record now, and I don’t like it, I’m just not going to listen to it. It could be the coolest, artsy-est thing out there and everyone thinks its great, or whatever hit magazine gives it umpteen-million stars. But if it doesn’t catch my ear, it doesn’t. So I think that has put me more in tune with having music that is kind of immediate, at least to me. But I don’t know where I would stand within the demographic of the population majority.
So, can you talk about the writing process for Everything Starts Where It Ends, and how it differed from the last album?
Michael: The first record was very much written in one sitting, and I say that in a sense that it wasn’t done in a short period of time – it took several months, but it was very much me coming back from my sabbatical from music and sitting in an empty apartment for two or three months writing songs. Pretend You’re Alive came out of that, and we started touring or whatever. But between the time where I finished writing that and six months ago, I have been writing songs. So this record is more or less a collection of life lessons that have turned into musical adventures.
So did you touch at all on the whole contract/record label ordeal?
Michael: There’s elements of that in there.
A little more subtle than explicit, though? No lines like, “Fuck you, Columbia Records”?
Michael: (Laughs) No. Because I don’t feel that way! I don’t feel like they screwed us or anything. It is just more or less an outsider looking in and I was writing songs about whatever was going on in my life at that time. That’s why this record is a little bit more broad.
So what made you want to do the tour EP idea? Do you worry about fans getting pissed that have to pay for a tour EP when they are going to get three of those same songs on the LP next year?
Michael: Well, the key was that we wanted to do this headlining tour to play new songs and get fans jazzed up for the record to come out next year. And we really didn’t want to come back through empty handed. We had Pretend You’re Alive, and our t-shirts or whatever, but we were really thinking of the fans when we thought of the EP because a) we wanted to give them a preview of the record, and b) give them some stuff they couldn’t get otherwise. There are 2 or 3 tracks on the EP that are b-sides or cover songs that they normally couldn’t get. I thought it was a good idea.
With regards to your lyrics, do you ever worry that your graphic or explicit word choice might limit your mainstream appeal? I think of some of the phrases on “Blackout” as being almost borderline morbid, but in kind of a cool way. But at the same time, it is hard to picture pre-teens singing along to “punching skulls on the bathroom floor” or whatever.
Michael: I don’t know. I have thought about it the same way as when I think of what type of fast food I would like to eat when I am driving through a city. McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell. It’s all kind of the same shit, but it gets the job done. (Laughs) So when I am writing lyrics, I don’t think about it too much. I guess it depends what kind of mood I am in.
I know that your film school background has led you to adopt a more movie-like feel to some of your songwriting. Would you say the new record is more or less cinematic than the old one?
Michael: I’d say it is a lot more cinematic. I think almost all of the songs on Everything Starts Where It Ends could be a short film or something. The stories are so specific and situational, and that makes them so picturesque, and I like that about them.
Now, is that something you miss out on with the major label now? If you had the bigtime budget, that might be something you would be able to act on and bring out more?
Michael: I mean, yes, because we would have more money, but no, because we actually just did a video earlier this month with a guy named David Johnson. He normally does our photography, and is an amazing artist. We just got together with him and did a video for “Ghost By Your Side” which is going to be the first single. It was a really, really great experience. And just because we didn’t have the budget we wanted, we were still able to get across everything we wanted to in the video. There are ways to go around it – I’m not saying it wouldn’t be easier if we had major label dollars behind it, but we are still getting it done.
I also read that you’re a David Fincher fan. What’s your favorite movie of his?
Michael: Yeah, I freaking love his work, and I totally dig the fact that he was into music videos before he got into film. And it’s funny too, because he has done commercials too that are legitimately awesome. Like, you would never think of looking at a commercial and thinking “yeah that is awesome” but if you’ve seen some of the stuff he has done, he has some really brilliant ways to get his point across. I just appreciate the way he does that. I’d say my favorite movie that he has done would be Seven, because up to that point, I had never seen a movie that had that type of grit, and raw attitude. It was incredible.
So if you guys were still on Columbia, he was going to direct your video?
Michael: (Laughs) Yeah, that would be nice. I would love to meet that guy.
Okay, so you talked about the cover of “Heart Shaped Box” – does it scare you at all to cover a band so revered as Nirvana? Does it mean you think you are as a good of a band as they are?
Michael: No, I’m not afraid to cover Nirvana. I think they’re amazing – one of my favorite bands. I wouldn’t say we’re as good as Nirvana, but we’re way different than they are.
Do you ever worry about fans coming up to you saying how horrible your cover is?
Michael: Well, the more pressing issue is people that come up to us after a show and ask what that new song was that we played.
People honestly don’t know?
Michael: Yeah, seriously.
It’s “Heart Shaped Box” for shit’s sake – how wouldn’t they know?
Michael: It’s a mellow version of it too. When we played it live, we rocked it out, but the version on the EP is kind of an unplugged sort of situation.
Okay, so finally, I heard a funny story on our forums where a user said that you guys played a song at Cornerstone one year that pissed a lot of people off. You know what I’m talking about? You guys played “Rape Me” by Nirvana?
Michael: No, I think we just played “Heart Shaped Box.” But that would have been brilliant. We played the “Heart Shaped Box” cover and I think it went over pretty well. I don’t know. The Christian kids gotta get out there and figure out what good music is all about.
Do a lot of people peg you as being some overtly Christian band because you sing about God?
Michael: Yeah, it’s funny. A lot of people come up and ask me about the spirituality of the lyrics, and my answer is just yeah, I think my music is spiritual. I think any music is spiritual. It has very little to do with what I personally believe in, talking about God or the Devil or something. I don’t know. We used to get that a lot more early on, but we don’t get that so much anymore.
Last question – someone asked if you would touch upon what happened with the band member lineup changes about the time that the first record came out.
Michael: Yeah, we have gone through three major stages to arrive at what is now the Lovedrug that is here to stay. The first was initially getting dudes together to play these songs I had written. That was cool, but when we got into a situation where we had to start touring, the guitar player wanted to get married and do that thing, and our drummer was a bit of an alcoholic, and didn’t want to do anything…
Is that Matthew you’re talking about?
Michael: No, that was our original drummer. And that is when we got Dave and Matthew. So those guys along with Matthew’s friend, who is also named Matthew, did the bulk of the touring for Pretend You’re Alive. At the tail end of that, it came to the point where they had to make some decisions. They both had family back home and kids and stuff, and we were just touring so much that they really didn’t want to be in that environment anymore. It wasn’t any sort of problem or bitter parting. They didn’t want to be a part of that anymore, so we went through the process of finding the right people, so here we are.
I guess that’s about it…just wanted to say thanks so much for your time.