Lets talk about your asses. Eric, you were saying earlier today that you have a hairy ass. When you say hairy, is it hairy all over or more just hair between the cheeks?

ERIC: I think this would be a question better suited for my fiancé probably, but since she isn’t here, I think it’s one of those “hairy all over” deals and down the crack (Laughs).

Does that bother you and your fiancé, or are you OK with that?

ERIC: I do have it waxed once a week (Laughs)…no I don’t. It doesn’t bother either of us. It’s what I have.

NATHAN: I’ve never found myself caught in thought about my ass so as far as the aesthetic look of my ass, it’s a nice ass. It’s a basketball, tennis playing ass. It’s a biking ass. It’s all those asses.

RYAN: Well unlike Eric, my head and my ass are both bald so…(laughs) basically I’ve got a left buttock and a right buttock.

Are you happy with them?

RYAN: You know…they’re mine (laughter) so I’ll take responsibility for them. They’re all mine.

If you were going to put a tattoo on your ass, if you don’t have one now, what tattoo would you get?

NATHAN: There is an interesting paradox there. Because it’s my ass, I wouldn’t want to get something I really respected and enjoyed but then again, I wouldn’t want to get something I didn’t respect because it’s a tattoo and would remain on my ass. So there’s the paradox, right there.

And of course the ass of all asses, Kale, tell me about your ass.

KALE: Not to sound narcissistic, but I like my ass. I think I have a rather nice ass. Many people have told me that I have a nice ass. In fact, the first thing you said to me is “You’ve got a nice ass” (Laughs)

I remember that! (Laughs)

NATHAN: That’s the first thing you said to any of us. “I think your singer, Kale, has one of the best asses I’ve seen in a long time” (Laughter around the room)

KALE: I take that as a rather large compliment. I like to show it off. I think that Catalina (Denver Music Plus) said, the first time she ever saw us was at the Soiled Dove. In the review of us, she said, “This guy likes to show his ass a lot” (Laughs) That was the nicest thing she said about us (Laughs)

Is MAZARD progressive rock?

NATHAN: In a sense. I think that we’re progressive in that we’re definitely pushing the envelope. We’re leading toward something that’s different than what is already in existence. There are other bands that are doing that too, but the majority of what we see going on as far as popular hard rock and metal music seems to be falling into the same fold on a continual basis. What we’ve always tried to do is expand that. I think there is a lot more finesse to our music. There’s a lot more complexity. It’s more cerebral. Maybe that’s what makes it progressive. We’re one of the busiest bands that I’ve seen in rock music that isn’t a jazz band. Our backgrounds compliment that. As far as being a “progressive rock band”, we don’t go up there (on the stage) and do things for the sake of art. That’s a part of it, but we borrow from a lot of different genres. We still try to stay in a popular rock vein.

When people who haven’t seen you ask what type of music you play, what do you tell them?

KALE: The most common answer I tend to use, and has been agreed upon by a lot of people who have heard us is a cross between Stone Temple Pilots and Tool. That’s a very general, generic type of description. It goes a lot deeper than that because of the influences we all have. Nathan does most of the song writing, but the styles we all enjoy and listen too-you can hear that come out in how we play our music.

ERIC: Bands hate to define themselves by comparison. We all hate to do that, but collectively, STP and Tool are two of our favorite bands.

Technically proficient bands run the risk of being boring performers. How do you reconcile that on stage?

RYAN: Obviously, coming across strong on stage is a large factor. It’s a part of the entertainment industry. You’re not just selling the music; you’re selling a whole vibe. You’re selling visual as well as audio. You have to let people see that you’ve put your heart and soul in the music as well as having them hear it.

ERIC: One of the ways I look at it is if you don’t have any visual aspect to go a long with the music you’re presenting, especially in the format of where we play in Denver-you have these small little venues…it’s easy to fall into the background. People are going to be having there own conversations. If you’re not giving them something to look at from the visual aspect as well as the audio aspect, then their interest in you tends to fade quicker. There are a lot of great musicians out there, but some of them don’t have the stage presence or don’t have a live show that will keep you entertained.

New bands tend to try and sound like the bands that influenced them. At what point did you stop trying to emulate your musical heroes in favor of your own sound?

NATHAN: Influences help shape you when you don’t know what you are yet. It was only six months ago that Ryan said, “I think we finally have a sound”. We continue to write music along that particular route. Eric has a great jazz background and Kale has been singing for God knows how long. Ryan’s been into everything from metal too…midget kicking (laughs) I was into a lot of jazz and classic rock. Bands like Rush and Primus blew my head apart. Stylistically, as far as the writing goes, we were doing things to please ourselves in the beginning, but we came to realize more and more as we played out that to be recognized as a band or a unit, we had to develop a central style or a cohesiveness. You can’t develop an identity when you’re all over the map, musically.

How did MAZARD come into being?

RYAN: Time-line wise, it all started with us doing our own separate solo projects. At one point, Kale and I were in a band together. We were in (a band called) The Flow and another called Bathtub Gin. In fact, in that band, we had Nathan’s younger brother, Thad with us. He was playing lead guitar for awhile. We had a rhythm guitarist that ended up being a hardcore Mormon and moving to Utah (Laughs) So we decided we needed another guitarist, so at that point Nathan jumped aboard. So we had the two Frye brothers, Kale and a…drug addict. We went out to California, played “The Whiskey”, got rid of the drug addict, came back and met Eric, got him on board…

What happened to Thad?

RYAN: Thad left during the whole California incident.

KALE: All of us grew up around here. Nathan, Ryan and I all went to the same High school.

Eric, you mentioned to me earlier that you saw Kale’s wee wee once, and that you’d tell me about it in the interview. I’m all ears.

ERIC: Kale’s had this infinity for showing us his wang for quite some time. I remember one time, we were all crashed out on somebody’s floor, drunk from a night of partying. Kale walks out with his schlong hanging out his pants, fondling his nuts.

Oooooh. That’s hot!

ERIC: We were all like, “dude put your thing away”.

Describe his wee wee.

ERIC: Uh…I don’t know if I remember.

Straight guys always say that. Just concentrate. Surely you’ve got some memory. Something you can tell me.

ERIC: He’s uncircumcised, Maris. European, French fellow here.

Wow! Ok, is he heavily circumsized? Did you see a lot of skin or was the head poking out?

ERIC: Uh…I don’t know. I admit to being quite repulsed.

If you were gay, would you have found it appealing?

ERIC: No (Laughs)

What about his testicles. What were they like?

ERIC: Hairy (Laughs)

KALE: I had a nickname in college: “E-trunk”, because when you’re uncircumcised, it looks like an elephant trunk.

When did your CD, “So Delish” come out?

KALE: I’d like to preface the next series of comments…

This is your only CD, right?

KALE: No, there’s one other, but that’s another story. This is our only CD with Eric. Before we went out to California, we had another CD. It’s self-titled. It has five songs. Four of the songs on that are on “So Delish”. This CD is a self-produced masterpiece, if you want to call it that. At the time, we were trying to get what we felt were our most appealing and diverse songs out to the public. I think we all look back on that now understanding that a good album doesn’t necessarily mean diversity. A good album sometimes tends to wanna flow a little better. We’ve had a lot of comments. All the different styles that we jump around from on different songs…people didn’t really care to hear.

Really? I think that’s what I like about it.

NATHAN: I think what the CD shows is that we have a lot of range, stylistically. If you need to play somebody’s birthday party or something we can break down and do some jazz tunes, reggae or some salsa. That isn’t how you build an empire for a hard rock musical band. It’s not by playing other genres and being diverse. That’s what we’ve come to find.

RYAN: It’s kind of like jumping off a cliff. You don’t know what you’re gonna hit until the end (Laughs)

ERIC: Often, musicians are the most critical of themselves. We are very critical of ourselves on this one. Of course, we wish we’d done things differently. We like the newer stuff we have out. It has a harder edge. We have a hard time looking back at this album and appreciating it as much as we probably could. But it’s what we did at the time, it’s who we were at the time and…that’s us.

From a percussive standpoint, “Freeloader” is pretty damn impressive. Tell me about how that song came together.

ERIC: There’s a lot going on there. My nickname stems from that song. The guys in the band call me “Slasa”, or “Slasa-E”.

How did you get that name?

ERIC: I was learning that song. They (the band) were teaching it to me. They suggested that I come up with a little Salsa part at the beginning. A little Latin, Salsa kind of drum solo intro. I just busted out with that part you hear in the beginning. Ryan and Nathan were standing there and they were like, “Man, that was like, total Slasa! That became the name. There’s some Jazz, some Latin-Jazz (in that part) we played some wine bottles.

Was there a xylophone in there?

ERIC: Nathan played a Xylophone at the end.

NATHAN: That’s one of the nice things about producing our own album and having ample time. We spent four days a week, six to eight hours a day in a little hole working on it. We got some wine bottles, filled them up with different heights of water so that they would be the right tones. We got an air sprayer to fill in for percussion parts. If you listen to it closely with head phones there’s a lot of percussive stuff in there that we threw in there on the spur of the moment.

KALE: Producing the album was a very interesting experience but one we will probably never repeat. In retrospect, it would have been a lot easier to just go do everything in the studio and just get it done. Instead, we did the bass and drums in the studio and then, a year later coming back and doing the rest. It was a very long process. We learned a lot from it.

RYAN: The learning process was invaluable. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

“Give It A Try” sounded like a stab at soul to me.

KALE: Yeah, I sat in that little hole singing these parts. Nathan was the only other one there. We would do them over and over and over. He would be like, “Sing it this time like James Brown” We just kept building on it and building on it. We started out on one thing and just kept moving on. It was really a chance for me to explore what I was capable of and what I could actually do.

I hear a female on background vocals.

KALE: Nope. That was me.

Tell me about your vocal background.

KALE: My vocal background started in junior High school when I joined choir. That’s where all the hot chicks were. That was my only reason for going into choir. I got sick of band. I just kind of wanted to be with the girlies. So I started doing that, and actually had a good time getting up on stage in front of people. There was a thing about performance that I enjoyed and I carried it on through High school. In High school I did every kind of singing from a sixty piece choir to show choir and then down to a fifteen piece a cappella Jazz singing group. My background is actually bass.

I would think you would be baritone.

KALE: No, I was hitting the low notes. There are times when I’m still trying to expand my vocal range. It’s the uncircumcised penis that gives me that low voice (Laughs) Singing was just always a form of expression for me and I love doing it.

From a vocal point only, what’s your favorite style of music to sing?

KALE: Uh…shower style (Laughs)

Ryan, tell me about your musical background.

RYAN: Honestly, my background just consists of listening to a bunch of hard rock and thrashing around. My main influence when I was growing up and starting to play was Guns N’Roses. I got into Les Claypool once I got a little more into the bass. Obviously John Paul Jones. A little Rush. I like Metallica, Megadeth and all the hard rock from that time.

Is MAZARD heavy enough for you?

RYAN: It’s getting there (Laughs)

What about your background Nathan?

NATHAN: When I was a kid my dad was always playing The Beach Boys and The Beatles so I got interested or recognized harmony and complexity in music. I’ve always been interested in things that are dense, interesting and complex. I think that shows in a lot of the music that we’ve been playing lately. I played drums in a band for years and years. I’ve played bass. I play guitar now obviously, but I have a background with a lot of different instruments. I never took any lessons, it’s just something that’s just a part of me. It just happened. It’s not something that I tried to do. I mean, it’s something I pursued. You can’t get good unless you’re interested in your interests.

When you play leads live, the facial expressions you make on stage look like you are getting amazing head. Is that what you look like when you’re getting head and is playing a sexual thing to you?

NATHAN: It not that I haven’t grown accustomed to getting great head lately, but all those faces are really derived from two places. Initially it was a barrier. A great guitarist and friend of mine named Sean used to make faces when he played guitar. I played drums in a band and kind of adopted that animation as a way to put up an invisible membrane between myself and the crowd in my mind. It helped to ward off the early days of stage fright. Today it serves a very different purpose. When I write music, I’ve always taken on the American Indian belief that myself as a human am just a conduit for musical energy, And that this energy ends up as the songs that they become because of my particular set of tools and how they work upon this conducted energy. Now, my facial expressions are more a reaction to and with the emotion of the completed song- it’s spiritual in many ways, reaching for the satori and all of that; but sometimes I’m just flat out pissed! All of this is a great release, that’s why anyone is in a rock band.

Who, in hard rock, influenced you?

NATHAN: Definitely Rush. To me, Rush are like the trinity. They’re gods to me. They’re definitely my favorite band and essentially they are gods to me. A lot of Led Zeppelin influence, Primus, STP and things like that, whenever I’m in a rut or in a hole the thing I throw on is some Rush. Sometimes they can get too tight and almost too smart. They don’t have enough soul and they tend to be white and Canadian (Laughs) so you have to throw on some Art Blakey and the Messengers…but basically that’s my musical background.

What are your favorite three Rush albums?

NATHAN: “Grace Under Pressure” is certainly one of my faves if not my favorite.

They cite that as a very difficult album and time for them.

NATHAN: Yeah, and it’s too bad because they are very diverse in that album while still being very Rush. “Moving Pictures” you have to put in there. There’s no doubt about that. “Power Windows” and “Hold Your Fire” were kind of the two white Canadian intelligent albums that wouldn’t really be in there…probably “Signals”. That would be my third favorite, because of the experimentation involved in that album. “Signals” sounded kind of like a lot of different parts that were kind of shoved into different songs, which weren’t meant to be songs. They really figured out their identity during that album.

Before I ask you about your musical background, Eric let me ask you what your favorite three Rush albums are.

ERIC: “Moving Pictures” would be one because I think it was early on in High school when I heard “Tom Sawyer”, “YYZ”. Actually it was that song specifically that convinced me that it was time to start a Rock band and start playing Rock drums rather than Jazz drums. I’ve always been a big fan of “Farewell To Kings” and “Hemispheres”. I also love “Test for Echo”.

OK. Tell me about your musical background.

ERIC: I started playing drums in the fourth grade in an Elementary school band. talked my parents into letting me join band. I’ve been playing ever since. I had private lessons all the way through Elementary school. I played in State High school marching band. We were winning every year, State, for drums and marching band and high honors in Jazz and all that good stuff. I went to College on a musical scholarship. I dropped out though because I didn’t want to be a musical teacher. I go way back…mostly Jazz. In High school I was converted to rock and roll drumming.

It sounded like everyone had a lot of musical freedom and their moment in the spotlight on the CD.

RYAN: Everyone was happy enough with what happened. The way things kind of worked out with me is we were basically in there (the studio) to record the drums. When we were recording the album we set it up so that we were going to be doing the drums in like, two or three days. We decided that the number one priority was that the drums got set. “Everything” is the only song that I’m a little uncomfortable with. I was rushed through it. We were down to our last hour of studio time. I didn’t have the comfort of going for weeks on one song like everybody else did. Overall, I’m happy with the way it turned out.

How are MAZARD songs written?

NATHAN: OK we’re gonna use kind of the general concept that I just now thought of…

RYAN: He meets a girl, he breaks up with her, POOF! SONGS! (Laughter around the room)

NATHAN: That’s historically true, but that’s changing now. Basically, I just get everything at once in my head. Lyrics, melody, bass and guitar constructions and basic beat stuff- it all comes that way. All I have to say is if you got kids, make them listen to The Beach Boys and The Beatles. I spend my life- at work, going to the bathroom, driving my car, riding my bike; I mean all the time I’m thinking of what is flowing into my head. That’s the kind of thing that makes you realize that’s where you need to be- you need to be writing music if that’s what’s happening to you. I don’t ask for it and I don’t sit down, like some musicians do, and say, “I’m going to write now”. So what will happen is, I will get confident enough about musical portions and phrasing and things, and I’ll bring it to band practice. The majority of the time that I come in with these things they will take the basic concept and running with it. I help them adjust it along the way. What we create together, as a band, always ends up better than what I initially bring in.

Do MAZARD songs follow a certain path, idea-wise?

NATHAN: Well early on, (the songs) were more girl related. My God, what rock song is not some how girl related? As things have gone on, especially in the last…since we put out “So Delish”, songs like “Gemini”, “Carried Away” and “Super Genius”, you can tell I’m looking more at emotional/conceptual conditions. “Carried Away” is about my Dad; “Super Genius” is about my Grand father. “Gemini” is about a kind of general longing for a connection with another human being. There are a lot of almost union/archetypal situations that are starting to develop in songs. Allot of our new songs are about that type of thing. Things are getting much more deep and involved lyrically.

Oh yeah? What about the hidden song on the CD, The fish song? (Laughter)

KALE: That came about because we were on our annual substance abuse trip in the depth of the Colorado mountains, sitting around the bonfire. Slasa on the skin, Na on the acoustic bass, our friend Chris on the six string, and my pathetic ass on the harp. It just kind of came out (Laughs) Did I mention we were on our annual substance abuse trip? (Laughter)

Let’s talk about your audience. What kinds of people come to a MAZARD show?

KALE: We have seen everything from people who have come up to us and literally worshipped us because we played a Rush song or because we knew certain things about certain bands. All of a sudden they hear this and they go up to a whole new level of supporting us. Just because they heard this one thing.

I started supporting MAZARD just based on how you fill your pants out (Laughter)

KALE: Well thank you, Maris. Then there’s other people (at shows) that never make their presence felt. There are people who show up constantly, show a lot of support, and are very genuine people- fun to hang out with and talk to. People generally want to have a good time and they want to be entertained. They don’t want to keep seeing the same thing over and over again.

RYAN: I think they are looking for a connection. They are looking for something to connect to, either visually or the feeling the band has behind the song.

What are your feelings about the local scene?

KALE: I’ve only recently been exposed to the local music scene. A lot of that is thanks to Shane, from Junker Jorg. We played a show with them at Whiskey Bills, probably nine months ago. We sort of had a connection right away. He was the one that was always out there talking to people and networking. He sort of introduced me to that. Then I met Big Clem of Blister 66. I met Dan and Todd from Rocket Ajax, The Fox brothers from Erebus music, Russ Austin and the list goes on and on. It was sort of a culture shock to me. For the longest time we sort of went about everything we were doing on our own. It was very enlightening to realize it’s not as easy as you think. It’s a lot easier when everybody has common goals and their all working together on it together. As far as the local scene goes, I think what solidified my all my beliefs in the music scene in Denver was the benefit for Johnny from Rogue. It’s sort of one big family. Granted there are a lot of different musical styles. The family I’m particularly talking about is the hard rock/Metal scene. It’s something I see that’s coming along spectacularly well. There’s a lot of great talent in the scene. Everybody knows who they are. My only complaint is that everybody is playing too many damn shows. I can’t attend as many as I’d like! (Laughs)

Are there any plans for a new CD in the foreseeable future?

NATHAN: We’ll probably record something, three songs in length late summer, early fall.

Final question! A wee wee question. If you had to describe your wee wee by personality, how would you describe it?

NATHAN: I would say two words. I would say girth and sinew. (Laughter)

KALE: Personality? Well, I would definitely say it has one. It has a whole mind of it’s own. It’s like Gumbey’s Pokey without being a horse (Laughs)…as far as a personality goes… “Outgoing” (Laughs)

Eric?

ERIC: Mr. Winky is a jovial fellow (Laughs) Straight…Forward (Laughter) Out…Standing (More Laughter)… “Member”…of our society (Much laughter)

NATHAN: Did you just make that up?

ERIC: No it came off the… “Top of my head” (Laughter around the room) No… my little guy has quite a personality. It sings songs to me.

What songs?

ERIC: (singing) My buddy and me like to climb up a tree. My buddy and me, are the best friends we can be! (Laughter)

Ryan, what about you?

RYAN: Wow, I got to follow that up (laughs)… I guess mine is like a brand new college graduate. It’s just glad it got to get out and see the world a little. (Much laughter)