I got fed up with being in bands. I spent a couple of years touring the country in a smoked filled band, doing lots of drugs and being really unhealthy.
I’ve been making electronic music for twenty some odd years but, because I grew up playing in punk rock bands, when I started touring, I thought in order to be a viable touring musician I had to do it with a band. I would DJ or tour with a full rock band.
I remember being 18 and being fed up with everything - fed up with society, fed up with the political system, fed up with myself - and then you kind of go, 'Actually, this voting thing is amazing,' because you have a chance to change it, right?
I was in several bands before I joined Judas Priest. Being in those early unknown bands were the stepping stones, really, so I learned a lot in those short few years jumping from one band to another.
I think 26 is the turning point. I’ve got to make up for 10 years of living like a degenerate. I’ve suddenly become conscious of being unhealthy. You’ve spent every bit of free time since [the age of ] 15 in a pub. And suddenly you’re like, ‘Oh God, I don’t want to be this grey ghost sitting there with a pot belly. I’ve got to get it together.
When I was a kid, I was playing in various bands - amateur bands, garage bands, weekend bands, you name it, around the area. At some point, I just wanted to try the whole 'Beatle tribute band' thing, so I found a local band that was doing that.
I certainly didn't predict people who spent years actively disliking the band to all of a sudden like the band. That's pretty funny to me, and it makes playing live kind of interesting, 'cos we're doing lots of things that don't really have a lot to do with that record, and even presenting the songs off that record in a way that's a little more muscular and without as much of the sheen, which is what I think part of what people really liked [about Kaputt].
A lot of times, people ask us about being a country band, and we say, 'Well, we're not really a country band.' And we're not knocking country, because we like it, but we don't want to be limited.
I played in rock bands in college and then right out of college I moved over to Europe and lived in Ireland for about four years playing in indie rock bands. I love and miss being in a band, I still am in a band but pursuing that as a career I definitely missed it but I felt like that ship had sailed.
I spent most of my 20s playing music. I was in a band and we worked really hard and did not get very far. I was really close to being this guy who used to be in this band who is still playing and trying to get some recordings together, but I got really lucky. That's never lost in me, that I went through Saturday Night Live.
So, we went from being an Athens band to being a Georgia band to being a Southern band to being an American band from the East Coast to being an American band and now we're kind of an international phenomenon.
Being in a band can be really toxic to being in a relationship, considering all the touring and everything. Sometimes when you're on tour, it feels like you're living the same day over and over again.
We went from being a band that was recording songs in my bandmate's bedroom to a band that's doing extensive touring and had a record on the Billboard charts and everything happened insanely fast, but it's not something that I sought out. It just happened.
There are bands that make parodies of being in a band, like Spinal Tap. That's a big influence. They're making fun of a rock band, but they write lyrics that are better than real rock bands.
America is fed up with political correctness, and it is fed up with government that doesn't work. It's fed up with weakness being interpreted as wisdom.
The bands of perception vary greatly. There is the human band of perception. There are lots of different bands of perception. Simply because we are in one band of perception, doesn't mean others are not there.
I got to a crossroads in my life where basically I was asked to choose between staying at home and being with them, or being in a band and doing what I want to do.