The first song I’ve ever heard by Bad, was “When I Die.” That song’s style seemed very theatrical, almost like a song in a Broadway play. Was that what the group was trying to create, musically?

Aaron: Yes it was, it still is. We’ve just gotten dirtier and more rage filled, but we call ourselves Dark Rock Opera, because we sing about real life, as if it was a play. It’s a great coping mechanism, quite similar to an out of body experience for a young child facing abuse. We can say, “this isn’t really our lives, we’re in a play”… It also makes for a very good listen.

LaRissa: “When I Die” originally started as an acoustic song, mostly written by our former guitarist, Alex Ungerman. He sent it to Aaron as an idea, and Aaron completely transformed it into an awesome theatrical song with four key changes, and wrote some of it as well. The band was going for exactly what you said, something dark and theatrical.

Where did that musical direction come from? It definitely has a classic rock vibe to it…like something Bowie or Queen might do.

Aaron: I’m not saying that we’re the most unique band in the world, but I want to try to stay away from comparing ourselves to anything… People spend so much time in boxes, I’ve managed, in my mind, to stay out of one since this band started… But if I had to compare it to anything, I would definitely say we like to view ourselves as Queen possessed by the demon, Legion

LaRissa: I think the Denver music scene has been so full of pop-punk bubbly music, that it was time for someone to rebel. We wanted something different and dark, because we knew that there were people out there, just like us, who were tired of the same old stuff. We’re trying to reach out to people who don’t get reached out to often.

How did Aaron became the vocalist?

LaRissa: Having Aaron transition to front man was a very quick, easy decision. He did half of the vocal parts anyway and had already had experience being a front man. It was easy. But the hard part was thinking people wouldn’t like us without Carter, without his ‘gimmick’. We were blessed when we found out that just as many people, and more, started coming to our shows with Aaron as the front man.

What was it like making the transition to lead singer, Aaron?

Aaron: I stepped up into vocals immediately and we played the show. We struggled for a very long time to reclaim our place in the local scene! It wasn’t until we released our single, “Needles and Pills” that we proved to the world that we were better off without him. That song blew up, hard and fast.

Have you seen Carter’s penis? What was it like?

Aaron: I’ve seen it. Wasn’t my cup of tea.

That doesn’t tell me anything! I want details!

Aaron: What details do you want?

Well first off, was he cut or uncut?

Aaron: Uncut. And excessive amount of foreskin!

Hmmm….intriguing. I can work with that. Have you seen it erect?

Aaron: No I have not. I tend to close my eyes during intercourse

Then you worked with another zesty, hunk of man: Jomosexual. Tell me everything about him and his ween.

Aaron: He has a very hairy chest and tells us all the time that his penis is very large. You can decide if that’s an indicator of whether or not it’s actually large. But I saw you get him alone in the bathroom, did you find out or were you shut down?

You are correct. I saw him urinating. He let me look for a couple of minutes, before he realized I was enjoying it too much and put it away.

Aaron: Well, what did you think?

Jomo has a very nice penis. It looked plump and confident.

Aaron: Great

I haven’t seen Seth or your penis, yet. But I did see both of your buns on my favorite website www.isanyoneup.com

Aaron: Oh yeah we were, but you’ll never see my ween Maris. I only show my privates to the zombies I have promiscuous sex with… sorry, I’m not a tease.

Well hello! What kind of sex do you think I want to have? You’re just bitter because Seth has a nicer buttocks than you. Is that why you removed the picture?

Aaron: We didn’t remove it. The isanyoneup.com website went down for a while, then when it went back up our picture wasn’t on there anymore!

This is an outrage! So let me ask talk about your music again. Some of your songs seem to cover rather intriguing topics. For instance, “Needles and Pills”

Aaron: “Needles and Pills” was about my beloved cousin’s addiction to meth, and how it quickly killed her soul. She had come back from California just before I wrote it, and she instantly went through meth recalls the first time we hung out. I wasn’t there when that happened but her little sister witnessed it (she’s the one that got the most fucked up in all of this). Then I went and visited her in the emergency room, no one else was there and she was asleep. The doctor came into the room and told me that she had developed a very bad case of pancreatitis and would most likely die within a few years. He then left me to tell her that once she woke up. I was just so pissed at everyone involved… and mostly sad that Jess was making all of these terrible decisions. She always said she was gonna get clean, then months later she’d be gone. That time she disappeared, fell in love with another user and months later found him hanging from the ceiling (no one truly knows if it was murder or suicide)… Fuck… Everyone’s fucked up, but meth takes things to a whole new level.

“Good Kids Die”

LaRissa: “Good Kids Die” was written about my Uncle Ryan. He was seventeen when he died, which is how old I am now. He was very tall, very big kid. He wore size 17 shoes. He always wore a Superman shirt, and that’s why Aaron and I have Superman tattoos on our wrist (which my sisters have as well) and that’s where the line in the song comes from, “This tattoo in the sky says good kids don’t deserve to die”. He started college when he was 13, so he was almost finished when he died. He was an actor in various independent films and commercials, and he had a ridiculous amount of friends. He was driving home from Bible camp one night, and his car crashed into a guardrail. It scooped up and split open the top of his head. I miss him. A lot.

Aaron: He really did accomplish so much though and it was beautiful. You can read about his life at http://westpresburbank.org/weremember/ryan/RyanMemorial.htm. He had a relatively graphic death. It taught me that no matter what you do, or how hard you work, you’re really only guaranteed this day. Death is a fucking cruel mistress. I try everyday to live my life in honor of Ryan Fury… Out of everyone in the world, at least he seemed to have it together. I have dreams about him sometimes, Riss tells me he’s talking to me!

You have been privileged a view of life, few mortals enjoy. Another song that intrigues me is “Angry Song.”

Aaron: “Angry Song” is about my brief brush with alleged demon possession when I was 15 years old. It’s about my life in high school, my life as a homeless runaway, and how I eventually got locked up in Gemini. All of the story is guised in a lot of violent, and frequently satanic undertones as I felt my mind was forcefully abducted by Legion. The biggest question in the song, which is never answered (my music always asks questions but supplies no answers, it would be a lie if I tried to answer most of these questions) is “WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T GOD WANT ME? WHY ON EARTH DID MY FATHER GIVE ME TO THEM?” I hate talking about this. A professional later suggested that I suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to a very abusive household situation. I might have split personalities, but I don’t really care. He pops up in my head from time to time and pulls the strings, but I can usually keep him down.

“Cigarette”

LaRissa: I’m very new at guitar. I just learned six months ago. I write songs just about every day, but when this album was being made, I had no way of bringing my songs to life due to the fact that I didn’t know how to play. It was very difficult having specific ideas in my head that I couldn’t get out. But now I know how. I will have plenty of songs on the next album, but for this one, I have the song “Cigarette”. This song has honestly caused me a lot of hurt from the day I started recording it, more than two years ago. I feel like there’s something special about the song, because I never knew it could mean so much to so many people. From the day I started recording it, Aaron helped me record it in my house, and my entire family ragged on my voice and how awful I was sounding. It was the worst time period of music for me in my life. We brought the song back, but in all honesty, I would like to re-do it the way that I originally wrote it, which was like a blues song, weirdly enough. I’m still unsure about how to feel about that song.

You both auditioned for American Idol

Aaron: To me it was kind of bullshit.. I sat right next to that James Durban fuck and he was such a cocky asshole who acted like he was so much better than the competition. Then when he got in front of the camera he just started crying and talking about how much this meant to him. FUCKIN ASSHOLE! Also, our audition was last in the day, but they didn’t even end up showing it. They made it look like that same Durban fuck went last, even though we were there for 16 hours and he was only there for five…. FUCKIN ASSHOLES!

LaRissa: American Idol was a dream of mine for over half of my life. When Aaron and I went out there, I already knew 100% that we’d be sent home instantly, and I was fine with that.. When the judges pulled us out of the group of people we auditioned with and told us we made it, I just cried. It was my seventeenth birthday and it was the best present. Aaron and I paid a lot of money to get our first vocal lessons, we worked out to get our bodies and voices in shape, and got through three rounds, preparing for the fourth, which is the TV audition that everybody sees. The producers honestly loved us a lot, and I couldn’t believe how much the camera crew followed us around. When we auditioned, we did a duet that went very well, but when we sang separately, they weren’t feeling it as much, and Steven Tyler told us we should be in a band. Well. There ya go. I guess we’re already doing what we’re supposed to.

Aaron: Yeah, we’ll still probably audition every year until something better happens… It’s a fun process, but at the end of the day, it’s a pop competition, and I couldn’t see us ever getting anywhere in it while being ourselves.

Tell me about the “Tour from hell.”

LaRissa: The Tour from Hell is self-explanatory. It started out with a bit of sexism. When I was the only girl in the band, I was treated very equally. But now that there’s two, it’s a little different and much more difficult. We first played in Albuquerque and that was the best part, then it all went downhill. Our lead guitarist ended up driving four hours in the wrong direction, wasting a lot of gas money. We got stuck in Tuscon, Arizona at 116 degrees with no AC in the van. We went to San Diego, California and tried selling CDs on the boardwalk, and found out that the biggest douches in the world live in California. We went to Hollywood the next day and performed in the burning hot sun for hours to raise some money, and our bassist, Kevin, ended up getting us stuck in a parking garage for about a half hour, and no one walking by would help us. I got a phone call on the tour finding out that my sister, who had been sober for a few months, did meth again. We played a show in Fresno, California at a DIY venue with a bunch of punk kids who hated us. I won’t even share my opinion about punk kids. But the venue only paid us $15. The worst night was when we were in San Francisco. Public restrooms don’t exist in that city unless you buy food from a restaurant, and Melissa and I really had to pee. We peed under a semi truck and a cop approached Aaron, telling us we could get a ticket from it. But the cop was really nice and went away. Aaron ended up getting very angry from that experience and had a huge outburst in front of everyone toward me. It made everybody extremely scared and upset, so a few of us got a hotel room. The hotel caught on fire. From then on, a couple members flew home, one stayed in California, and the rest of us were stuck in California with a broken-down van. The Tour from Hell.

Aaron: It was a rough time. For the most part a lot of the kids seemed into the shows, but we came across a lot of bad luck, or karma… We brought a lot of it on ourselves. We had a lot of canceled dates and off dates, which we spent getting drunk, vandalizing everything, and pooping on everything. We came back from the tour with no intention of breaking up, but definitely face to face with our mortality. For the first time in my experience with Bad, we felt no longer in control of our own destiny… possibly even cursed. The band saw a side of me out there that nobody should ever see and I try every day to keep it down. Near the end of the tour, Seth explained to me that if I don’t get help immediately he will leave Bad. We have no doubt that we can succeed, but it dawned on me that if I don’t get help, what will even be the point of my success? Sure we’ll help a lot of people, but we also might help them destroy themselves.

Don’t you have a DVD coming out?

Aaron: We already have a live DVD out with Showdown Media (they did an amazing job). Our tour DVD is going to be a bit more home grown. We had a friend named Jack come out and film non-stop. He won’t be censoring anything or holding anything back. I’ve kind of given up on the desire to save face. That just won’t ever happen for me.