Interview With Evan
April 14, 2003, rockconfidential.com
What's up, man? I know you're in Chicago in the middle of a tour...Your new CD is out. Tell me about it.
"Kill or Be Killed"...just as the Biohazard book is being written, it's just another chapter. It's an installment of how we feel about what's going on in our lives and what's going on in the world right now. It's like Biohazard's albums chronologically place the emotional, political, physical, and spiritual biography of the band. Our last album came out on September 11, which will forever lie on our hearts. From that point our anger turned inward and became sorrow and then back to anger. A lot of our new record speaks about what hate is like.
I've read several reviews that say your new album is like a rebirth for the band. What do you think about that?
Definitely. We used to focus on metal riffs - that's the way we started. We've evolved through several things. People glorify others that commercialize things - makes it really cheesy, really popular. We went through that phase in our career watching all these bands like Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, make zillions of dollars off of something that at one time was our natural style. We were innovative and new. Us...we made $50 off of it, you know what I mean? We never got into this for the money. Nowadays the music business is very calculated. Bands set out to make records to make money. We came from the old school...you made music to get your voice heard and to make a change. That made you want to be in a rock band. You wanted to go on tour and you wanted to see the world. Back in '87 and '88, things were very different. MTV didn't govern every single thing that everybody sees. Clear Channel didn't have a monopoly on the rock music you're gonna like. They didn't tell you what bands you were gonna like.
Do you think your record label now is more open to just letting you be a rock band and not worrying about all the bullshit that goes along with a major label?
We've never had any creative control put on us. Nobody ever told us to tone it down. We have fans. When you hear stories about a record label wanting a band to do this or that it's usually because they dont' have any fans and they're trying to mold them. We have our hardcore, die-hard fans and we know how to reach them. As far as the record company, our record company sucks. They don't fucking do anything for us. Our record company gives us money to make an album, but they have gotten us zero mainstream press outside of the metal world. They don't fucking do any marketing, any promotion. We made them hire Jamie from Hatebreed to market our record because he knows the kids better than they do. My experience is just terrible. They exploit...it's people making money off your own shit.
Did you have a different opinion when you first started?
I like being on a major label. Even if they didn't know shit from shineola they at least put a ton of fuckin' money behind you and said, "Hey, how do you guys want us to market your record?" We wanted our posters up in skate shops and motorcycle shops and they would just do it. Sanctuary don't do anything.
Why? Are they signing up too many bands too soon?
There are too many bands. How many bands has Sanctuary broken? They haven't broken a single band.
They're after established acts...
They sign established acts and I don't think any one of those acts that have signed with Sanctuary have had their record sales increase. I know for us through Sanctuary, they fuckin' went way down in the U.S. We sell a lot more records in Europe. We're on a different label. In America, your gross potential to sell records is way more than Europe. Europe is a much smaller market than America. We sell more records in the smaller market in Europe. New York is a hundred times bigger market than Knoxville - that would be like us selling more records in Knoxville. Our album sales have never waned in Europe. There's no commercial radio in Europe. Here, people are like, "Fuck, I better buy that because it's on the radio." I get emails from a lot of fans that don't even know we have a new album. It kinda sucks, ya know? It's counterproductive. We've never stopped working for ourselves. We don't give up - even if the record company does.
So what kind of promotion do you feel you need for this album?
Obviously no songs will get played on the radio from this album. There are fans and street marketing campaigns that if an album is coming out they'll have posters on every fuckin' lamp post in America. They spend the money on that shit. I don't think Biohazard is the greatest band in the world or anything, but I think we're very serious and heartfelt and honest about what we sing about. It's real. All the fake shit out there that sells, the truth eventually shines through. If kids that like hardcore know that we're out there, we'd probably sell 20.000 more than what we're selling. There are so many kids that don't even know we exist because we're not on MTV. In a perfect world MTV would turn around and say, "You know, Biohazard really invented a lot of this heavy shit that's out today. We should really take a look at their new video." We'd make a really hardcore, straight-up video and they'd make it a Buzz Clip. You know how that fuckin' works? When one of us dies or is involved in some horrible tragedy like Joey Ramone or something like that...Or if we broke up. Then people would ask, "When are you getting back together? I always loved that band." It's like when someone dies people have to buy their albums. Bullshit! You don't even like that guy.
So how's the tour going?
The tour's great. We're having 500, 600, 700 people a night. The package is phenomenal. This new record has helped us in a lot of ways. We've aligned ourselves with a lot of new, young, hot acts. Because they're new they're getting a lot of shots to do things like Ozzfest and getting played on the radio. We've formed a little family - us, E-Town Concrete, Sworn Enemy, Most Precious Blood. We just finished touring with Hatebreed. In Europe we just headlined the Resistance Tour that was 2-3,000 people a night.
I've had several people ask and I never saw an official reason why...Why did you have to postpone your tour earlier this year?
I was having a lot of bad migraine headaches and screaming on stage every night was just making it worse. I just had to take a break man...just needed a break. Everybody made a big deal about it. If everybody that asked about it would come to our show, we'd have 5,000 people a night at our shows. Everybody cares about the controversy over cancelling the tour, but it don't fuckin' matter because they probably wouldn't have come anyway. They're too busy saving their money to pay $100 to see Ozzfest...to see a bunch of bands that paid to play. You know it costs $75,000 to play on Ozzfest? Every band on the second stage pays plus they have to kick in for the advertising. Why would you pay to play? Well, it's justified because you're in front of this captive audience. They could make it back in t-shirt or record sales. This year's lineup is the weakest I've seen for Ozzfest. We played at the very first Ozzfest. It was two shows - one in California and one in Arizona. It was experimental. We call every year to play and they always say it's "pay to play" and they only want new bands.
I don't know if you've seen the site, but I interview rock acts along with porn stars. I know you've got a thing with Tera Patrick...
She's right here holding my hand, bro. Things for us are going great. She's out touring with me just enjoying life. We're just two people, a man and a woman, ya know? She's in a terrible lawsuit with her former company Digital Playground. She's not actively working in the business right now. She's opening the door for me right now while we're going to get breakfast!
I featured her in an interview not too long ago - it was done through email when she was in Germany.
An email interview? It was probably not her. You can say that her former company Digital Playground would do all those things and say what they wanted her to say. She never did any of that shit. They're still operating her website that she has nothing to do with. She's never been paid a dime for it. She was never paid for any of her movies, nothing. I'd like to see the email address you sent the interview to. Tera doesn't even have a computer. She's never done an email interview her entire life. You can just call them Digital Fakeground. Their whole thing is a fake. When she was at the awards show in Germany she was on the phone with me the entire time. She was in a hotel room with her ex-manager who is in the process of ripping her off for $5 million. They asked her to sign a contract on an airplane without an attorney present that gave them the right to exploit her name and likeness forever and ever. They're only obligated to pay her less than what a janitor would make.
A lot of people are curious about that whole case - especially you two. They're asking a lot of questions and I don't know the answers. What are they asking about? I got an email the other day that was curious if you had a run in with her dad.
Where did you hear that? Who was it from? That was taken out of context. That's really a very funny story. I had never met her dad. We were sleeping in her house and her dad had just flown back from Hawaii. Her dad's name is Dave. The building manager is also named Dave, who I had an argument with earlier that day over a parking spot. I just got a new Hummer and it didn't fit in the parking spot. It was like 4:30 in the morning and somebody was trying to get in the door. They didn't have the right key. I'm from Brooklyn - if somebody's trying to break into your house you pull 'em inside and you baseball bat 'em to death. That's the only time you can legally beat someone to death...if they're breaking into your house. That's kinda a fantasy of mine.
Yeah, but make sure they're IN the house when you beat their ass!
Not outside! If you beat 'em up outside you gotta drag 'em inside. So, I hear somebody trying to open the door. I'm half asleep and get up and say, "Who's there?" Nobody answered. I said, "Who the fuck is there!" Nobody answered. I crack open the door and say, "Who is it?" They say, "It's Dave." I pull the door open thinking he's the fuckin' landlord and looking to beat the piss outta him. I said, "Who the fuck are you?" and he said, "I'm Dave...Tera's dad." Then I was like, "Oh...come on in." Me and her dad are like best friends.
Questions like that are floating around everywhere.
Dude, it's all gossip. The worst one out there is AVN.com. There's nothing real on there. It's all propaganda - all shit written by their writers. It's written to back up the companies that pay for their website. Everything that's written about Tera and Digital Playground is bullshit because Digital Playground pays AVN every month. The worst website in rock is Blabbermouth. That is 100% bullshit. Everything I've ever read about myself on there is totally false. Those people are fuckin' ninkompoops. They're morons. I emailed them and said I wanted to talk to someone over there and set the record straight on some things. They never emailed me back. They're probably scared.
What are some things out there that bother you that you want to set straight?
Everything. They just make up things...Like Evan and Tera are doing porno movies together. Gossip originates from people whose lives are so boring that they have to make up things about other people's lives. If it was true it wouldn't be called gossip, it would be called news. This stuff comes from people who have no friends. Then they get new friends - Jenny, Montell, Ricky, ya know? I don't mind people talking shit about us. They more people talk about you, the more people want to be you or be like you. If people hate on you, it's because they're jealous. Period. They just keep making us more famous, bro.
Big thanks to Evan for taking the time for this!