3/7にNottinghamで行われたインタビュー記事がこちらに出ています。
とても長いので、メンバーチェンジに関する部分と、ギターに関する部分を抜粋してご紹介いたします。
ほかにも色々語っていますので、ぜひ元記事をご覧ください。
OneMetal: OK, I’m going to have to get this out of the way, and it’s probably the question you’re expecting the most… what’s the truth behind Travis and Nick?
Corey: (laughing) Yeah yeah. Well it’s kinda like a really long story. But, over time, things just kinda weren’t working out, and we did a headline tour of the US and about halfway through Travis just said he wasn’t going to do the next tour, so regardless we had to think about getting someone to fill in, then once we started playing with Nick we just knew it was the right thing. At that time though we didn’t know whether it was going to be Nick specifically or somebody else. We just knew it had to be somebody new, and for the benefit of moving the band forward we had to do it. It was either moving forward, not going backwards or just falling apart. It’s just something we had to do to move everything forward in a f*****g positive way.
OneMetal: Are there truths in what we are hearing about the way Travis was fired, was it amicable?
Corey: Well we were on a tour so we had to do it over the phone. We were just like ‘Hey we’ve decided to go on without you’ and stuff, and he was like ‘Yeah, alright whatever…’ Something was going to happen it was just whether it was coming from us or from him. Things were falling apart, and we just kind of pulled the trigger first, just to get it done, move forward and get the new guy settled in and comfortable. It’s been working really great with Nick and when people see the show they will see why.
OneMetal: Yeah Nick seems to be fitting in well, are the fans ok with it now?
Corey: Well at first fans were unsure as to what was really happening as to Travis sitting out the tour and stuff. But when we dropped the news, people were really kind of taken away. The benefit we had though was having a new song that we recorded with Nick, so we were able to make the announcement and say “Here’s Nick”. Once the song came out everyone was like yeah alright, it’s all kinda cool.
OneMetal: We’re talking Shattering The Skies…
Corey: Yeah, yeah. Once that came out everyone was really cool, and you know changing a member after such a long time, people get attached to a lineup and so changing members can always take some getting used to. Nick’s been with us now a number of weeks, more and more people have seen us and I think he’s really settling in. People are diggin’ it so it’s all cool.
OneMetal: Talking of guitars, I want to talk to you about Jackson. You guys have been associated with Dean for a number of years, and now you’re with Jackson and we hear you have another signature coming out?
Corey: Yeah, yeah… well I was with Jackson before I was with Dean. That was like when I started off, but at the time Jackson was owned by Fender, and it was really hard being like a new band, to be able to get the gear I wanted. But then I got introduced to Dean who were full on, like whatever I wanted to do, so I jumped at that opportunity. So we did that for a few years, but then at the end of last year we just weren’t happy with how our stuff was being made. We’d had our signatures out for like a year and we were totally unhappy at how that was being handled. It was just like, “here’s your signatures and we’re not going to do anything for it”. We were just really unhappy, and just didn’t see eye to eye about how things were being done. So we were like “you don’t seem to really be into it, so we’re just going to leave”. So we both left, we didn’t have any deals, Matt started playing his Les Paul again, and I went back to my Jackson’s again, cos those were always just our favourite instruments. I mean with my Dean signature I tried to pretty much model it off how my Jacksons played. The company had changed though, and Jacksons have always been my favourite guitars, even when recording some of our other albums I always used them in the studio because they played so well. So I was very stoked that I could rejoin, and they are totally on board and I get to design my own signature. I get to design my guitar and they are going to release it next Winter at the next Winter NAMM.
OneMetal: Presumably you are going to be over there launching it then? Any insight into what we can expect?
Corey: It’s just a bad-ass guitar. It’s a flying V, and it was kind of like my original idea for my Dean, but they like had a lot of reservations in doing what I really wanted. But with my Dean, the design came out alright, there was just a lot of stuff on that wasn’t right. They just launched it so quick I just didn’t get a chance to sort out some of the details. I ended up living with it for a while, but I ended up “this has gotta go, and this has gotta go”. So I had a friend who had like Photoshop, and he like made a photoshop guitar of what I wanted, and I went to Jackson with it, saying this is what I want to do, and they f*****g loved it. They took my original idea and made it a little more extreme, or streamlined, classier. They put that Jackson f*****g edge to it, and I’m pretty f*****g stoked and overall it plays amazing so I’m pretty f*****g happy. You see it on stage as I’m playing the prototypes.
OneMetal: Would you class the guitar as being for guitarists, or for fans of the band… or both? Certain signature models seem to be so f*****g expensive that it’s got to be only diehard fans going for it.
Corey: Well, the thing is with Jackson. I mean I don’t know how it’s going to be launched. But there’s going to be different versions. I mean the most expensive will be like $1200 and then there will be a cheaper model at like $400-$500. Otherwise there would be no point. I mean there’s always going to be fans of the band that are like, “I started playing guitar because of you and Matt”, and they’re going to want to get the guitar and whatnot. I mean most of the guys buying them are going to be teenagers, and what teenager is going to spend like $4000 on a guitar. I mean, we could do it for like a limited edition of like a hundred of them, but the actual stuff that is going to be mass produced will be really well made affordable guitars that everyone will be able to get their hands on.
OneMetal: One final question though on the guitars. When I started out playing, the only ones with any kind of signatures or “artist” series were Fender, with the likes of Clapton, Stevie Ray sort of thing… but now it seems everyone has one. I mean there’s even an Avril Lavigne signature… do you think the signature market has been cheapened now?
Corey: Yeah, I mean, like certain companies, every f*****g person seems on their artist roster. I mean ESP’s got a lot of them, and Dean keeps pumping them out. I mean they may be good players, but I don’t see the benefit to the company. I mean some of them don’t have much of a following and unless it’s like a really cool guitar people aren’t going to want to buy it. But it’s cool with like Jackson, because there’s not like a s**t tonne of signatures, and all the guys that do have them, you can definitely tell why. I mean they definitely have their own thing. It’s really cool as I guess they just don’t give them, to anybody. They seem to be far more selective, with the likes of Phil Demmel and Mark Morton.
OneMetal: Yeah, and like with Demmel you have the Demmelition, are we going to get a cool name for yours?
Corey: (laughing) Well that works out really well with his name… I did think about it, because the last couple of tours everyone has started calling me King, because like my middle name is King, so there was like the Jackson King V’s but they already have that so I can’t use my middle name. So up to now I haven’t thought of anything clever, so hopefully something will jump out or happen, or I’ll end up using my initials like I did with Dean. It’s still a little ways off though before I need a decision on that.(laughing)
