Who in the band would make the best drag queen?

ERIC: We have actual photos of Dan, but I have yet to come out of the closet (Laughs)

JIM: We once went to a Halloween show, years ago, before the band even started. I was The Crow and Dan was Frankenfurter. I won best male, he won best female (Everybody laughs).

Every mortal musician has their own reason for being in a band. What are your reasons for being in one?

JIM: Because we are all alcoholics and we like chicks (Laughter). No, I’ve been playing music since I was a kid. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.

DANNY: I’m in a band because when I’m not in a band, I’m psychotic as hell

ERIC: For me, music was something I got into at an early age, back when Metal was considered cool. It was one of those things my parents hoped I would grow out of, but I never did. I just got more obsessed as time went on. Now that Metal has gone away, it pisses me off. Somebody has got to bring it back. Somebody has got to be responsible for doing that. Hopefully it’s us.

For the uninitiated mortal, how did MOORE come into existence?

JIM: We came together six years ago. I met Dan when he moved out from L.A. like, nine years ago. We got together and started up a band. We added on Robert on guitar but we couldn’t find a drummer for six months.

Didn’t you already know Eric?

JIM: Yeah, I’ve known Eric for years but I didn’t have his phone number. I got it from Barb Dye, the manager of his former band. We went over to his house and gave him a tape. He liked it a lot. Then we added on George as keyboardist…actually we added on George before that. He ultimately got married and moved to Vegas. A victim of the scourge of marriage (Laughs)

Then you got Dan, your current keyboardist?

JIM: Yeah, we got Dan… “Laptop”, but don’t call him that in the interview (Laughs)

I will call any mortal anything I want! How did he get this nickname?

JIM: The story behind his nickname is that we were getting on a bus, we were opening for Piston up in Salt Lake City, we get on the bus and Danny has a laptop computer on his lap. We already have a Danny (laughs). So I said, “Laptop” that’s your nickname! And it stuck like glue. (Laughs)

ERIC: We got lost and broke down. He had one of those navigator things that basically says where you are and where the nearest Triple A is. (Laughs) He hooked us up just like that. He got some relatives to come and get us and haul us back to Denver.

JIM: He hates being called Laptop though. (Laughs)

ERIC: Or “Lap Dance,” he really loves that! (Much laughter)

When I listen to MOORE, my Greatness hears Queensryche and Motley Crue. How close is that to your intention?

DANNY: Oh yeah. Queensryche, Motley Crue, Iron Maiden.

Some of your songs do have that kind of Maiden kind of “gallop.”

DANNY: Yeah, we’ve gotten criticism from time to time about it too. Whether it’s criticism or praise, a lot of the Industry people say, “pick one or pick the other.” Fuck that. We didn’t try to pick anything. We just play what we play.

Some mortal bands cringe when they are compared to a band that’s already established.

DANNY: I take it as a compliment. I really like those bands. If you were to ask me which of those bands I like the best it would be hard. They are all really cool. So if we sound like all of them, I think it’s great!

Is it the sound you were going for from the beginning?

JIM: Yeah, we’ve always been going for the sound (we have). Everybody is kind of a sum of their influences. Everybody in this band has pretty much all the same influences. Some people are much heavier. Robert is much heavier. He likes the prog-rock kind of thing, like Dream Theatre. I’m much more the Dio, Judas Priest fan. While I like Motley Crue, I definitely lean toward the Queensryche, Judas Priest kind of thing. Eric is a big Manowar fan. What is it called again?

ERIC: Brother of Metal, get it right! (Laughs) We do tend to wear some of our influences on our sleeves. Our first couple of albums had a little bit more of a pop kind of influence. We started to lean a little more into progressive and serious stuff just because of the way Robert plays. As far as my tastes, I (always) bought everything Metal. Anything from Poison all the way to Morbid Angel. As far as how I play, I was able to throw all of that into the mix. We can get really heavy, but with Jim’s vocal style, we were able to still keep a pop, melodic sense.

Since you formed, the world has gone through Grunge, Hip Hop rock and now Nu Metal. Was there ever a temptation to jump on a bandwagon for the sake of success?

JIM: Oh yeah, we had a lot of people that said “We really like you, but no one is buying that right now.” or the exact words we’ve gotten from Industry types is “It’s not in our business plan at the moment.” (Laughs) For years we’ve said, “Screw you, we’ll do what we want.” It never really entered our minds to change. I mean, just like anyone we’ve wondered about if we should try different things but by the end of the day we’ve always said “We’re us” and we do what we do. We’re happy.

Just simple mortal Metal heads huh?

JIM: We are Metal heads. Being into Metal is like being a biker. It’s a way of life. Once you’re a Metal head, you’re a Metal head for life.

DANNY: I have a recorder at my house. We can throw down tracks and try different things. Just like anyone else, we sometimes try different things. We’ll go “let’s try something that’s really selling to people right now.” We’ll add drums to it, bass and vocals. We’ll put everything on there and then sit back and go “what do you think?” We’ll go “fuck it. I hate it, throw it away!” (much laughter) It’s just the musician inside of us that wants to try different things. It’s kind of like wearing different clothes. You put on different things to see how they look and feel, but ultimately you put your leather pants back on because they’re who you are.

Let’s go through your discography. What can you tell me about each of your four releases?

JIM: Well, when we recorded our first CD, “Children of the Night.” We had written half the songs before we brought on the band. Assault and Battery has a great story how it came about. Dan and I went to L.A. for a week. At that time, the movie Natural Born Killers was about to come out. There were posters everywhere for the movie. It had that picture of Woody Harrelson all bald. When we were coming back on the airplane, I thought, “we should write a song about a serial killer except from the killers point of view.” So I pulled out a barf bag and started writing the lyrics. The fact the song started on a barf bag turned out to be apropos. (laughs).

DANNY: Jim and I finished writing that song at work. They called us in a couple of days later to talk to us because we had actually left the lyrics lying on a table and they found ‘em. (Laughs)

JIM: Then we got together with Eric. We were only together for about 3 months before we started recording.

How does the CD hold up to the test of time?

ERIC: It’s OK . There’s some stuff that’s a little light. All in all it’s a pretty good-sounding CD. We were the last band to record out at Avalanche (Studios). We were a little unrehearsed. It’s a little raw, much the way Motley Crue’s “Too Fast for Love” is. We have stuff on there that we play in our sets to this day.

DANNY: Children of the Night was actually the first song we ever wrote as a band. We’ve opened every show we’ve ever played with that song.

It really reminds me of Doro Pesch’s song, All We Are.

JIM: I’ve never heard it. Now I want to hear it.

ERIC: It’s pretty cool. It’s real “hooky.”

JIM: While I know who Doro Pesch is, I don’t have any of her albums and haven’t really heard her.

ERIC: That’s because you’re shallow and you only like looks (Laughter)

JIM: (Laughs) Because I’m shallow! I was only looking at her breasts. I’ve seen her breasts in “Metal Edge” (magazine) They’re good breasts.

Were you guys ever into Wendy O. Williams?

JIM: Oh yeah!

ERIC: I was more into prettier girls, but Wendy had a mohawk so you must have loved her! (Laughs)

JIM: I remember the first time I ever saw Wendy. It was on MTV in the video Prisoners of the Damned. God I loved that. Ever since then I was a big fan of hers. Finally, I found out she killed herself a couple of years ago. I was like, “no way, what was she thinking?” She had really great breasts, even if they were covered in whipped cream or duct tape. They were great.

Back to the CD releases, next was “Dance of the Damned.”

JIM: “Dance of the Damned” was an interesting recording. Musician’s Friend (a mail order catalogue ) has a 90 day money back guarantee. So we went ahead and got an 8 track recorder from them, they shipped it out to us, we recorded the album, and then sent it back saying we didn’t like it. So they gave us our money back! (Laughter) We had to use these walkie-talkies called “Super Sleuths” to communicate. It was hilarious! Eric was downstairs on his drum set and we would use them to tell him when to start playing (laughs). To this day, nobody believes that album was done on an eight track cassette.

In retrospect, what would you change about the album?

JIM: I would just change the recording medium. I love the album. More time to record would have been great as well.

ERIC: I would like to tone down that annoying, fucking clicky sound. That Rob Zombie type of background tambourine bullshit was a bit much. It was fine to fill it up and keep it going but it was annoyingly loud.

Next was “American Vampire.” Tell my Greatness about that.

JIM: That was the first album that LapTop was with the band. It was also the first CD recorded with MacIntosh computers. It was an interesting album to record, because the program the Robert used kept crashing, so it was kind of frustrating. Aside from that, it probably is my favorite album.

How did Lap Dance come to be in the band?

JIM: Well George got married to this girl who had all her family out in Las Vegas. He kind of didn’t want to go, but he loved his girl so he left. Lap Top was initially a big fan of ours. He came to all the shows. George approached him and said, “I think you should take my place.” Danny got so excited that he drank a ton of Jagermeister, threw up and passed out. They had to carry him out of the bar (Laughs) We were like, “Alright! That’s the man for us.” (Everybody laughs)

ERIC: He fit in right from the beginning. He had the right look, the right attitude. He fit right into the picture.

If he wasn’t in MOORE, I think he would look right in Throcult.

ERIC: Yeah, because he looks underfed (laughs).

Next album was your most recent, “Rhapsody in Blood.” I love Caligula 7/8. How did that come together?

DANNY: Robert started that off with a guitar riff and then we sat in on it. We really liked it right from the beginning. JIM was putting together some lyrics to it, but then said, “It sounds great as it is, without vocals.” He liked just listening to it. Originally it was called just 7/8 Eric came up with Caligula.

Why did you use that mortal’s name?

ERIC: I was watching dirty movies (Laughter) Caligula was just this really decadent…just this Emperor I could really get on board with (Laughs).

How has the writing process changed between that time and now?

ERIC: It doesn’t take years to complete one song anymore. At first, it was like five bitches in a hair-pulling contest (laughter). But then it got to a point…probably when George left, that the arguing simmered down (laughs). We’ve gotten to the point where we can flow and let things get done. We’ve cranked out quite a few decent things since then. We can write with each other now really well. At first, it was a little hard because we had all come from different projects, with different attitudes. To get everyone on the same page it took a little bit of time.

MOORE has a pretty well-established sound. Will new MOORE music be more of the same or is there a new dimension that will surface in your music?

ERIC: I would think new music would show we’ve evolved in a little bit heavier direction. It probably would have a progressive edge and some of our melodic stuff. I would think it would be heavier.

JIM: I’ve been toying around with the idea of doing a concept album. We’ve been thinking about it for a while.

What does each member bring to the band?

DANNY: I give the best head (Everybody laughs)

JIM: I take it in the butt and I don’t even squeal! (More laughter)

ERIC: For me, it’s not being a homophobe around these two (More laugher)

DANNY: Actually, I probably am the organizer of the band. As far as song-writing goes, I’m probably the least talented in this band. There’s big sparks of talent from everyone in the band, but little organization. I’m probably the glue in this band. I hold it all together

ERIC: He’s our big toe (Laughter)

DANNY: Jim’s balloon never lands. If anyone is gonna be in a bad mood, it won’t last for very long with Jim around. As far as lyric writing, Jim writes fantastic songs. Eric is the hammer, man. Hard Rock Metal just lives in Eric.

What about Robert and Lap Dance?

DANNY: Robert loves to play. He is our tech-head. He understands everything from computers inside-out to recording equipment inside-out. He has really good music theory. Lap Dance is actually my buddy. Him and I do all the backgrounds so he and I have to get together to do that. He is so incredibly mellow. He’s the calming influence. I’m an Italian whore. I scream and bitch at everybody. It just goes in one ear and out the other (laughter) Lap Top is the voice of reason.

MOORE hasn’t ever been as heavy on the keyboards as they could be. Is Lap Dance’s role in any new music MOORE does going to be more prominent?

JIM: We’ve been expanding his role. I would like him to do whatever he wants. If he wants to put in more big things, I’m all for it because I like keyboards. Some bands go overboard with the keyboards and it takes away from the heaviness. Lap Top has a good sense of what to keep out and what keeps it sounding mean.

Robert left the band for a period of time. Why?

DANNY: I don’t know that Robert left necessarily. From the time MOORE got together, we pretty much just hammered down for five years. I think we all just got to the point where we took a breather.

ERIC: Robert just got himself scheduled into too many things. He just didn’t have enough time. We all lost a little heart. It didn’t seem like there was gonna be a good spot for us in the scene for a while. Maybe we burned out a little bit. We needed to get away from it all and just refocus on our objectives. Robert bought a house and enrolled in school. He had a lot on his plate. It was a good time for us all just to back off a little bit.

Now that you are playing live again, from which album do you pull the most songs for your live sets?

DANNY: I am the set list maker. (Laughs) We have a tendency to sway toward the last thing we just did. We do that most likely because everybody is a little more excited about it.

How do each of you approach your instrument?

ERIC: Visually, it needs to be exciting. I definitely try to play the right parts for each song. I don’t try to be too much. It’s sometimes what’s not played that is best for the song.

DANNY: I came from a background of bass playing. I’ve played everything from Pop to Country. The reason Eric and I play so well together is we feel the same way. If I’m on stage, I’m a maniac. If you hear a mistake, I’m like, “Oh well, you just heard a rock and roll show.” If I’m in the studio, doing something that people are gonna be listening to the next 100 years, I become very aware of what’s going on around me. I just try to drive the bottom end.

JIM: I try to put melody in all my vocals. Melody and intensity.

What do you think of the “Cookie Monster” kind of vocals?

JIM: I’ll make a lot of enemies, but I don’t like “Cookie Monster” kind of singing. It’s not particularly singing (laughs). It fits into the overall mood of Thrash. I understand all of that, but being a singer, I’m gonna always stick up for actual singing. I understand those kinds of singers and why they do it. It’s just not my cup of tea.

JIM, you are a horror movie nut. Tell me some of your favorite films.

JIM: “Hellraiser”, anything by John Carpenter. Clive Barker is my favorite author. He’s the shit. I love zombie movies and I love vampire movies. I own them all. My house is the Vampire Smithsonian. Oh yeah, I also love “Starship Troopers.” It’s not a horror movie, but there is plenty of gore. That movie rules!

ERIC: “Spinal Tap” is my favorite horror movie, because that is the horror of my reality (Laughs)

If you were a muppet in The Muppet Show or Sesame Street, which Muppet would you be?

JIM: Super Grover!

DANNY: I would probably like to be Animal, but I’d probably wind up being…

ERIC: Miss Piggy? (Everybody laughs)

DANNY: No…Kermit.

ERIC: I think I look, act and play like Animal, so I’d have to be Animal. That or those two old men in the balcony that heckle the show (Laughs)