After 15 years, 311 is still rocking with the best of them; not bad for a band that was ruling the college charts in the '90s. I got a chance to talk with Chad Sexton, the drummer and tent pole of the band, about their new album, Don't Tread on Me.
UGO: I heard you guys just had trouble with the tour bus.
CHAD SEXTON: We had a truck driver who was two hours late, so it pushed us back.
UGO: You going to fire his ass?
CHAD: He was a replacement anyway. He doesn't realize there's like 80 people out here relying on him. But yeah, no big deal. We're just beginning the tour and everything.
UGO: How is the tour going so far?
CHAD: It's going great. Lots of excitement out there. We're out there with Papa Roach and Unwritten Law and they're having great shows too. The fans just love our show. Everyone seems to be walking away happy.
UGO: I hear that some fans aren't super happy with the new direction of the music.
CHAD: Yeah, I think it's good. I think it's a new direction for our band. We kind of did this record like we do every other record, just to see what comes out of us and try to make them into songs that have some kind of consistency to them. We think we did a good job; it's a nice package. We spent a lot of time getting fat sounds up on it and everything. We're real pleased with it all around. The quality and the music-writing and the artwork of the record as well, so we're real happy.
UGO: How was it working with [producer] Ron Saint Germain again?
CHAD: It was great, man. He's like a best friend. We know each other so well. He brings a lot of energy and a lot of expertise to the table. Another good project and it's good to be done. We spent a lot of time on it.
UGO: What made you guys want to work with Ron again?
CHAD: Ron's a really great engineer. He's one of the greatest guys to work with because a lot of the guys are very particular, very secretive and just whatever, but he's just really open. He wants people to learn from him, so we learn so much on each record. He's the best engineer, and we wanted our music engineered and mixed by the best. We think he's on top of his game as far as all of the analog stuff is concerned and we're still doing our records analog, so it seemed like a perfect logical combination again.
UGO: How come the record is called Don't Tread on Me? Have you guys been treaded on recently?
CHAD: We took it from the song title. We wrote a song "Don't Tread on Me" and we wanted to sum up the record that way. It was just a statement, not really directed at anybody or anything. We've had a great life for the last 15 years. We're happy we're still going. It makes a great topic for discussion and we didn't have a better title, actually.
UGO: What made you guys decide to base "Long for Flowers" on your older song, "Drifters?"
CHAD: It was as simple as Nick hearing the instrumental and saying, "I kind of like that song." We wanted to see how it turned out and we think it went well.
UGO: Besides obviously drumming, what do you think your role is in the band?
CHAD: I'm the one that wants the record to be executed personally. I'm kind of a freak. I guess my role in the band is I want to balance it out.
UGO: Do you guys think that rap rock sound was played out by other bands in the past ten years.
CHAD: The change in our direction actually has been a progressive one. It wasn't a left turn because if you go back to our other records you can see that there's less and less rap on each one. We just do it logically and naturally, we're not "hey man, the real style this year is no rap, so we better not do any rap." We don't think that way. We just do an album like we do any album. We just sit down and write it and see what's there and try to make some consistent songs out of it. We all feel a certain way so we talk about it and we just come to a natural conclusion.
UGO: How you all getting along on this tour?
CHAD: Perfect. We've been doing this for 15 years so we're basically fucking married. We really don't have anything to complain about. We're very happy people. We travel in style. The band has disagreements, just like any relationship has disagreements. But the thing about us is we can communicate and come to conclusions and then execute those conclusions. It's all minor shit but some of our opinions are completely opposite in the band. However, we deal with it and what comes out is like a perfectly balanced idea.
UGO: What video games and what movies do you have on the bus?
CHAD: We just picked up that Tombstone movie. I bought a lot of old kind of early '90s, late '80s movies with people like Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
UGO: How about videogames?
CHAD: We're kind of separated on the buses. On the one bus, it's James Bond: Goldeneye and on my bus, with me and Tim, it's NASCAR.
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