It is I, Maris The Great! You shall now enlighten me, pathetic mortals! How did Switchpin come into being?

PAT: It started with Landon and myself. Landon was in Sickbox and 4 Head Scream. We got together and started a project that originally was called Problematic. Originally, Stevehed (Aggressive Persuasion) was going to sing for it, but that didn’t turn out too well.

Yes! I remember him saying the music was too heavy for him.

PAT: Yeah, we were doing some pretty heavy shit. We were being influenced by Slipknot and Mudvayne – stuff like that.

How did you, Chris, go from Penitent Promotions to being in the band?

CHRIS: Originally, I formed and played guitar in Faze, a couple of years back. Man…I had the singer and the drummer both living in my basement. We practiced in a garage that I built strictly for that band. They eventually booted my ass out (Laughs). Anyway, while I was in Faze I met Steve Leflar, who was originally in 4 Head Scream. Him and I became really close friends. After Faze booted me out, Steve asked me to help 4 Head Scream, which I did. In fact, I eventually became their official manager. That led me to eventually become Steve’s personal manager.

Sounds like a nice, gay romance in the making

CHRIS: I called it Penitent Promotions. I wanted to get back into a band situation, but wasn’t sure if I wanted to return to playing guitar – mostly because I wasn’t that good at it (laughs). I taught myself how to play guitar with Faze – which is why I probably was kicked out, cuz I sucked! (more laughter) So when Landon would come over to play with Pat, he kept on saying he wanted to do samples. I was like, “fuck, how hard can that be?” So I started doing samples, which eventually turned into sequencing and keyboards.

How did Jon get in the band?

CHRIS: We asked Jon to join as a guitarist, but his lazy ass never showed up to the audition (laughs). So then we asked him to come try out for vocalist. He did show up for that, had an awesome growl, so we kept him. Landon knew Tano from Typecast, so he asked him to come on down.

JON: Well its sort of a weird thing. You see I was in a band called Incite, formerly Strange Dayz, now called At Life’s End. I basically got fired around the end of September of 2001. I was getting engaged, living with my girl at the time, and I was really into starting a new life, marriage, children yip yap yip yap!, so it seems (Laughs) Landon heard from a former band mate of his that I could play guitar and have been for many years. I was asked to try out for a”side project” with Landon, Pat, and Chris. I basically flaked out on them and never tried out. They had a singer they were jamming with buthe left for another band, so Chris called me up and said hey we need a singer badly! Things started not working between myself and my fiancée, so eventually I started jamming with them in the beginning of November of2001. Got kicked, dumped, joined the band! Simple really (more laughter).

The fact you sold out The Bluebird on your very first show is now almost legendary. Tell me about that experience.

CHRIS: Jon knew how to get us into The Bluebird. We played with bands we liked and that had a really good draw. It was an awesome show. It had like, 400 plus people there. A lot of people were pissed off that at our very first show, we played The Bluebird. We definitely had some backlash from it.

PAT: A lot of the reason that show did so well was the other bands. We had Fomofuiab, Mindstate and Sickbox on the bill.

So what did Jon know that got him in the venue?

JON: I had a working relationship with N.I.P.P and their staff for a year and a half prior to that show. I pretty much just begged them for it. Finally, they said “O.K, you can play it.”

CHRIS: Jon is known at N.I.P.P as Peter Ore’s stalker (laughs). When he calls, they don’t say Jon Novak from Switchpin is on the phone, they say “Peter, your stalker is on the phone.” Peter knows exactly who it is. Why? Because Jon calls him once a fuckin’ week and bugs him to the point that Peter finally says, “Just get him off my back and give him a fuckin’ show.” (Everyone laughs)

Then your second show was with Chimaira

JON: Yeah, it was with Chimaira, 36 Crazyfists and Diecast. It was almost max.cap. That’s when the controversy surrounding us kind of started. Everyone was upset because we were nobody. Why did we get to open up for a national act? I remember Tano and I were going out to promote the show with fliers and comp tickets and people were like, “Oh you fucking rock stars, who the fuck are you?” It was all coming from people we knew, people in bands, people I’ve known for years.

How did you react?

JON: I was like “fuck them if they don’t like us” (Laughs)

Let’s go down the list of who has joined the band and who has left, because frankly, My Greatness is confused. First off is Tano, who joined as a second guitarist. Originally, you were in Typecast, Tano. Why did you leave?

TANO: I was kicked out of Typecast the first time. I helped form Dig Six Down with Joe and Gary. I eventually got Joe in Switchpin. We got that going, but I eventually went back to Typecast again. That was going great for awhile, but I got tired with all the shit-talking that was going on behind the scenes with the band. I eventually was asked to join Switchpin. I met Landon on the Internet, so he asked me to come and try out. Here I am now.

PAT: With his B.C. Rich and his Ski Slope jacket. (Laughs)

CHRIS: What’s funny about Tano… and I shit you not…for three weeks Tano comes over and rehearses with us and he didn’t say a word to me or anyone else. He also wouldn’t say good-bye. He’d be there, rehearse, then you’d hear the engine of his car as he drove away (laughs).

TANO: I didn’t think you liked me.

CHRIS: Why?

TANO: You were an asshole to me

CHRIS: Ahh…I was a complete sweetheart….after about a month, he lightened up and was OK.

TANO: I actually said “good-bye” to everybody BUT Chris. I didn’t like Chris at first cuz he was a dickhead. He wouldn’t talk to me when I first joined the band. I got the impression he didn’t like me. But I grew to love Chris and now I’ll let him suck my dick every once in awhile (Laughs)

Another controversy you had to deal with was kicking Landon out of the band. Why would you do that to such a sweet, tasty little guy?

CHRIS: Landon wanted to go in a musical direction we didn’t. He wanted to go real technical. He is a phenomenal musician. I wouldn’t knock the kid for anything he wants to do because he can play any instrument. However, we are moving in a more melodic direction and he didn’t want to do that. As a result it started to get ugly. We told him in our last rehearsal together that it wasn’t working out. We were growing apart. There were more and more arguments. Writing new songs was becoming really difficult. It got to the point where it wasn’t fun. Writing new songs was like pulling friggin’ teeth. With each little note, someone was getting pissed off that that note was there. Instruments were getting thrown on the ground. We all talked about it and eventually we told Landon that we felt it was better if we tried it without him.

Did you just say “You’re fired!”

TANO: I had to tell him he was fired. I didn’t know how to do it cuz it was a weird situation to me. I felt bad about it because I was brought into the group by Landon. But the guys were coming to me about everything he was doing. I didn’t notice a lot of it cuz I was the new guy in the band. But they were getting really irritated with him cuz he wanted the drums his way and wanted the guitars his way. Don’t get me wrong, I love Landon, but he just wanted everything his way. Everybody was too afraid to tell him. I got fed up and told him in an email that he was no longer in the group. I regret it because I wished I would have told him in person.

So then there was Sisk

PAT: Sisk came in with a crate head covered in plaid (laughs), it was hilarious. He was wearing a wife-beater and khaki dockers. The first thing he busts out on guitar is 311 (mimics funk guitar). He’s all hopping around like Les Claypool (more laughter). But when we jammed together it was really good and a lot of fun.

Then why did he leave?

PAT: It was hard to write guitar parts with Sisk. I probably shouldn’t be the one talking about this, but he was more into the 311 thing and we were still in our SOULFLY, throw the fuck down, get it out of your system, heavy shit, kind of music, so we let him go.

How did you get rid of him?

TANO: It was me again.

(Everybody laughs)

JON: Tano pretty much called him, told him it wasn’t working out, but that he was a cool guy and everybody loved him. Sisk was like, “I wasn’t feeling it either, I understand.” He was a complete sweetheart about it. He came over that day and hung out with Chris and Pat on the porch all day.

Is it just me or is Sisk just about the sexiest bitch around?

PAT: I don’t know, but we got into some nipple grabbing and shit. (Laughs)

How hot.

PAT: (Laughs) No, this is like, extremely painful, world war two kind of pinching.

Sounds like latent homosexuality trying to rear it’s head.

PAT: If it is, it sure is painful.

(Much laughter)

JON: He’s a mountain climber. You probably would like that, Maris!

Oooh, that’s even hotter. Is that why you asked him back into the band as a bassist?

PAT: It was kind of an instinctive thing. Us letting him go previously was not done with any negativity. We were kind of in a pinch and knew he was a bad-assed bassist. In fact, he was the first one to call when we made it known we had to replace Sean. Our last show with Sean was August 9th, 2002. He had previously let us know it would be his last show. It kind of sucked because we were in the middle of recording our CD. Six hours after Sean was out of the band, Sisk showed up with his bass. Since he knew the songs from playing them previously on guitar, he was absolutely phenomenal on bass.

Then why did he leave the band for a second time?

PAT: He just didn’t have the time to commit to it full time. He has a wife, kid, his own business and he’s going to school. It was all taking up too much of his time. At the time we were just beginning to go on the road, which of course we now do much more. Also, I think Sisk would rather be a guitarist than a bassist.

I’ve never been fully clear on why Sean left.

CHRIS: To this day, I’m not 100% sure why he left either. He certainly was a lot of fun and is the sweetest guy. Ultimately, I think he just had other things to do.

PAT: A lot of things culminated to the reason Sean left the band. He had a lot of personal stuff going on with bills, a new job and some other personal stuff. The final straw might have been having Joe come into the band. I think he was a little apprehensive of Joe.

OK let me take a deep breath and brace myself…(clears throat)…Ahem!…OK..Tell me about the saga of big, butch, hotter than hot, Joe.

CHRIS: After Sisk left, Tano says he had this guy named Joe who played guitar. We were having a party at Switchpin City, so Tano was going to bring him over to the party so we could all meet him. Joe had roadied for Tano at the Chimera show, but we didn’t know who he was. We didn’t know he was the “Joe” Tano had mentioned. All we knew was the same guy who had roadied for Tano comes over to the party and gets smash-ass drunk. Then, all he did was make fun of Pat’s girlfriend’s ass-crack and my girlfriend for one reason or the other. Pat and I were “That guy’s a fuckin’ dick!” We didn’t know he was the guy that was going to be our new guitar player (laughter). So as he’s leaving, he’s like “fuck this place and fuck all of you!” (Laughs) I’m like, “that guy’s never coming over to this fuckin’ house again!” So a week later, he brings over all his shit and is playing guitar for us (more laughter). We sat him down and were like “Ok, you can be in the band, but you’ve got to stop being such an asshole.”

So why did he leave?

JON: There were a lot of reasons why Joe was eventually asked to leave Switchpin. For one, he wasn’t happy being in the band anymore. He likes playing a certain style of music, which for the most part is heavy and somewhat technical. He didn’t like or want to play the new songs we were writing. It became a hassle when we would try to write new material. For the last six months we have been stuck in a rut coming up with new song ideas. We wrote some stuff, but it wasn’t much and took a lot of bitching and pulling hair to get it done. Joe became even more unhappy after our tour back in July. He changed a lot and shit happened on the tour that made us all look at things a little differently. He is trying get his life in order and he moved into a new house with his girlfriend. He also got a new job, is trying to get things taken care of and wasn’t into the band any more. There was a lot of tension between Joe and the rest of Switchpin during practices, shows, touring etc. It’s really sad cause Joe is a really close friend of mine. We worked together at the same company for a year. He got me the job because I was out of work and I was in serious trouble financially. He and I were like brothers at one point. We were the closest out of everyone in the band.

Did he receive a call from Tano as well?

(Everybody laughs)

JON: No, I told him he was no longer going to be in Switchpin. He took like a man and wasn’t a dick about it. I was shocked and also gained a new respect for Joe, cause most people think he is an asshole cause of some shit he used to do in the past. Joe is a cool mother fucker and I will always be his friend. Thank you Joe for all the awesome memories I will have.

So are you going to replace Joe?

CHRIS: No. We love being a five-piece. Now that Tano is the only guitarist, he’s worried that if he fucks up, everyone will notice. We were like, welcome to the friggin’ club. If any of us fucks up it’s noticeable!

Now that brings us to G-Off. Tell me about coming into the band and replacing the beefy, mountain climbing Sisk.

G 0FF: Well first I was in Typecast with Tano. I remember talking to these guys all the way back at Sean’s last show that I didn’t like the musical direction Typecast were heading in and that maybe I could possibly play with them. I decided to wait and see how things changed with Typecast. There was a lot of angst with that band. I figured if was going to leave the most hated band in Denver, I could go to the second most hated band in Denver (laughs). So one night they told me to meet them up at Ecks Saloon. I went and got really drunk with them. They gave me a CD and told me they had a show in two weeks.

How did the show go?

G OFF: I played like shit.

What are you like when you’re drunk?

G OFF: I don’t get too crazy.

Have you ever done anything crazy sexually while you were drunk?

G OFF: No.

Have you ever had sex in a public place?

G OFF: Yeah, The Ogden Theater a couple of years ago.

Wow. That’s hot. Where at?

G OFF: In the balcony. This girl climbed on top of me while I sat in the chair.

Wow, that’s even hotter. Were there any other people sitting in the balcony at the time?

G OFF: Yeah.

SIZZLE!…Did you cum?

G OFF: Yeah.

Would you let me watch you have sex with a girl?

G OFF: No.

No?!? You have now insulted My Greatness! I bet Sisk would let me watch him. So anyway, how did you first get into playing bass?

G OFF: I just got kind of thrown into it. Back when I started with Typecast they were looking for bass players. The one’s they tried out all sucked. I got tired of seeing all these bassists, so I just dropped the guitar and picked up the bass.

Let’s talk about your EP “Redemption.” How do you see it in retrospect?

PAT: I don’t hate it. I think we could have taken a little more time with the post-production. But whose complaining? “Follow” has been going crazy on MP3.com for the last year. One month we had like, 6000 plays, so the production quality didn’t matter all of a sudden. A good song is a good song.

CHRIS: We want to get into the studio to record our new stuff. We are going to hopefully do so before the end of the year. We have a lot of new songs people have GOT to hear. We want to shop the songs to the people we can shop them to.

You are starting to move in a more melodic direction with some of your new songs. What’s the reason behind the change?

CHRIS: What happened was we were submitted to Roadrunner Records. The head A&R guy said a lot of good things about us as well as giving us some good, constructive criticism. At the time, Roadrunner was picking up a lot of Nickelback type of bands. They said we were pretty much just too heavy. That seemed strange to us because they’ve got nothing but heavy, fuckin’ bands, but anyway, we stepped back and looked at our music. Don’t get me wrong, we do it for the music, but we all want to be rock stars too. We decided to diversify so that we can get farther with the labels.

The change brought about the opportunity for Jon to sing.

CHRIS: Yeah, at the time Jon was not a singer, he was just a straight screamer.

Jon, how have you evolved as a screamer turned singer?

JON: I have no fuckin’ clue, man! (Laughs) One day we just started jamming. Joe was in the band, but Sean hadn’t yet left and It just happened. We changed our tuning to drop A because of Tano’s playing style, so for whatever reason, I could vocally conform to it better. I would practice singing in my truck. Pat and I would normally only listen to nothing but Death Metal all day, so that’s what I had in my head. So I started listening to bands like Staind and other groups that had good singers. I’d also listen to Ben Harper, Sarah McLachlan and Coldplay. I listen to all those bands because they are a good influence on me. I hear what they are doing and it sounds real easy. I started practicing and soon I could hit all those high notes. I’m working on my low notes – I don’t hit those too well. I got little, raison nuts. (Laughs)

Speaking of your genitals, you’ve had some problems with your wiener. Tell me about them.

(Everybody laughs)

JON: (Laughs) Well…my dick is small…nobody loves me (more laughter)…No, I’ve had some kidney problems recently. I actually have had problems since I was 21, but they’ve become more prominent in the last year. I started having kidney stones at the age of 21, then had them here and there. But recently, they’ve gotten worse. My lifestyle is terrible. I’m sober for the most part now, but I was drinking like a fuckin’ siv. From the time I moved in with Chris in November 2002, there was probably not a day that I wasn’t drunk from November through March of this year. I used to do a lot of drugs too. I eat horribly. I have a disgusting, fat body.

I think you’re kind of like a big teddy bear

(Everybody laughs)

JON: If I were gay, that would mean something! (laughter)…anyway, I’ve had two surgeries this year. Recently I had one – oh man, that fucked me up. I was off work for a week.

This one was serious

JON: Yeah, when we got back from the tour, I was pissing blood. I had to make a trip to the emergency room, but I had no idea it was this serious. Basically my left kidney doesn’t work like its supposed too. So it builds up a lot of toxins and calcium and it creates stones that wont break up by them selves. I had to have a stent put between my kidney and my bladder. It was extremely painful. No matter how many drugs I took for it it just didn’t feel good. I pissed blood for months, or since july. And it wasn’t just a little amount of blood. Playing shows was hard, working, anything was just painful. So I had it finally removed in mid September and the problematic stone was removed. I was placed on all sorts of medication etc… about 2 weeks later I started to feel sick, and had high fevers, cold sweats and was in serious pain. I went into work early, and then left to go to the doctors, well I had 105 degree temperature. They started freaking out cause a lot of the blood tests came back showing a major infection that spread to the blood from my kidney. Fragments of the kidney stone they broke up in the last surgery got stuck and blocked up that area, creating a serious kidney infection. My body was reacting, they packed me with ice in my bed, they had me hooked up on some many drugs and monitors. They thought I wasn’t going to make it thru the first night with the fever as high as it was. I wound up staying in there for 5 days. Pretty fun stuff. I am doing ok now, I still have the infection but its slowly going away. I am all better now! Woohoo.

You also have an anxiety disorder. Tell me about that.

JON: Yeah, I have a chronic anxiety disorder. I went to an E.R. two years ago because I couldn’t breathe and the veins were popping out of my forehead. My fiancé at the time took to the hospital. She didn’t know if I was having a heart attack or what. So, they put me on Xanax and that just made me chronically depressed. So, I deal with it myself. I smoke a little weed here and there, drink a little beer. I’ve been fine.

Yeah but the nature of being in a band and touring is stressful. How do you deal with it?

JON: I sleep! (Everyone laughs). When we went on that last tour I was tired. I could not get enough sleep. There wasn’t enough time in the day to sleep. I was snoring…fuckin’ G Off was spraying water on me and I didn’t even know it (laughs). I’m just one of those guys that sleeps a lot.

So what lessons did the band learn from going on tour?

PAT: We learned we want to tour again. We didn’t want to come back.

CHRIS: To be honest, if we had more money, we’d probably tour full time. The only thing holding us back right now is the money. We all have day jobs, mortgages and stuff like that. I have two children. But to be honest, we could go out to the East Coast, as well as the West Coast and play tons of shows. We’ve got hookups on both coasts. We could tour the goddamn country if we just had the money and the time to do it. Our first tour really gave us a taste of what it’s like and we loved it. We desperately, desperately want to get back on the road.

Didn’t you have a problem with the police on that tour?

PAT: We got done playing Jerry’s in Bakersfield California. These three people invited themselves into our van. We had actually met one of the kids the night before, but nobody had invited them. They just kind of got in the van and wanted to hang with us.

CHRIS: It was my fault probably. I was the one driving the van and I didn’t want to cause a scene at the venue, so we took them to our buddies house, where we were staying. It was a one bedroom apartment. There was him, our band, and the other band Imprint, who we were touring with. Plus, there we a couple of friends of ours that met up with us in California. The problems started when some of the people wanted to party and some of the people wanted to sleep. At some point, the kids wanted to be driven home, but nobody was in sober enough to drive them.

PAT: I ended up throwing them $20 for a cab ride.

CHRIS: Pat did the good thing. My attitude was that I didn’t care how they got home, but they had to leave. Our buddy, who had let us stay in his home didn’t want them there in the first place. So the kids went down stairs and broke into the rental office of the apartment building. The police were called. Jon was so pissed off at all the fighting, that he went to go sleep on the bus. His kidneys hurt, he was pissing blood. (laughs). So Joe goes out to talk to everybody when the police suddenly arrived. He tried to hide the kids in the bus so they wouldn’t get busted. In the end everyone got pulled out of the bus, including Jon in his underwear. Chad from Imprint got pulled out in his underwear too.

JON: I got yanked out of the van with only my shorts on. Joe started yelling at the police. They said “Do you have a problem?” and he was like, “Yeah, it’s three in the morning and I’ve got a fucking flashlight shining in my face!” (laughs). So, I’m trying to tell Joe to mellow out and the cops yell at me “Shut up!” So we’re all standing there and the cops run everyone’s ID. Eventually, everything got cleared up. Chris and I tried to calm Joe down, and eventually I went back into the van. Then Tano comes out and he is pissed. He’s like, “fucking, fuck, fuck everyone, I hate everyone!” And I was like, “Just go to sleep man.” So he gets in the van. Joe comes out and gets in the van too. I still can’t sleep though, so I went back in the apartment and fell asleep in a chair.

PAT: I got a great video of Jon snoring in that chair.

JON: I apparently make funny noises when I sleep and Pat got it on video. It was an interesting night. I had no sleep, I was on codeine, I was pissing blood, everyone was pissed off (Laughs). The next morning everyone was quiet. We all looked at each other and were like, “Sorry, can we go now?” (More laughter).

PAT: I got some good karma from it though. Those kids never gave me back my $20.00 cuz they got arrested. So a couple of weeks ago we were cleaning out our practice space. After the tour, we cleaned out our van, threw everything in our practice space and let everyone pick up their own shit. We found this backpack, but didn’t know who it belonged to. We all just figured it belonged to someone in the band. Eventually, Chris and I opened it and there was this two gallon, unopened bottle of brandy! It must have cost, like $60.00 or something. The backpack had belonged to one of those kids from Bakersfield (laughs).

Let me change the subject and talk about Korn. Chris you have a connection with one of the members.

CHRIS: Yeah, my cousin is Brian Welch who is “Head” in Korn. Yes, we’re close, we talk all the time, and he’s heard our stuff several times. He is attempting to shop us in several places. If something comes out of it, great, if nothing comes out of it, that’s great too. I’ve got two different attitudes about the whole thing. One is I would really like to do it without their help. Any success this band has had thus far is 100% due to the commitment and hard work of this band. The other philosophy is I’m getting really old. As the saying goes, “Use every avenue you have.” This is one helluva avenue. So, anytime we have new stuff, I send it out to him and get his opinion. Whenever they are in town, we go see them. Him and I will hang out and drink with each other. We bore the hell out of everyone because all we talk about is family stuff. I like to bring the band as much as possible because there is no better motivator than being backstage of an arena with some huge-ass rock star. Seeing all the women, all the booze, partying on the tour buses and at the hotels is absolutely great. There is no better motivator.

Chris, a little known fact is that you are the creator of the Nu Hardcore e-list. What was the reason behind forming it when there is Colorado Heavy Metal e-list?

CHRIS: It came about because I saw a lot of Metal bands on the Colorado Metal list show absolute hatred toward what you would call Nu Metal and it was starting to get on my nerves. The person who initially put the list together is a genius and I think it’s a great vehicle for people to connect with each other, but it seemed like there needed to be a place for bands that didn’t fit into the whole Death Metal, “Buttrock” scene. Plus, I feel the Colorado Metal list is too heavily moderated. So I decided to make my own list, call it Colorado Nu Hardcore and not moderate it at all. I won’t touch it. If people say something, they have to eat their own words and deal with the retribution. I’ve pretty much stayed with that philosophy. I go on there and edit some graphics once in awhile and I’ll delete spam, but anyone can post anything they want. If someone goes on there and says “Switchpin sucks,” I leave it up.

Switchpin are among the hardest working in the local scene. What advice do you have for other bands trying to move up?

CHRIS: My advice is to bands is get off your lazy fucking ass and start fucking doing something. Everyone is this band works at making Switchpin bigger. Jon, Pat and myself live in this house together. Pat and I go to work at the butt ass crack of fuckin’ dawn and we get home around noon. Starting then, we both sit down at our computers and from that point until midnight, we work on the band. We network with people, we talk about the band, we hook shit up. Pat is the master of connecting with people out of state. He is the networking guru and he isn’t afraid to ask for things. If you want to be successful, go out and ask for shit. The bands that were pissed off at us because our first show was at The Bluebird, and our second show was with a national…you know how we got that? We fuckin’ asked for it! We begged for it.

PAT: And once you get that show, you go out, every fuckin’ day and hang 1000’s of fliers, print 1000’s of things all over the fuckin’ Internet, and beg your mom, dad, uncles, brothers and sisters to come to the fuckin’ show. Then you start impressing people with your fuckin’ draw. At that point it gets a little easier. Another thing you do is be fuckin’ cool. I’ve seen so many bands play a show, load up their vans and take off. Either that or they start drinking and hang out with their clique. They don’t go out and meet people that came to their show. They don’t go out and say hi to all the kids that came because it was an all ages show. They don’t introduce themselves. One kid may have seen your band because he was there to see someone else. Maybe he liked your band or maybe he didn’t, but he will more than likely end up your fan if you walk up to him and be cool. He may even end up on your street team or being a part of your road crew. But it all starts out with being cool, going up to people and introducing yourself.

CHRIS: Another thing is making good with your obligations. We try our hardest to not cancel shows. We had Jon in the hospital the day after we got off tour. But we had a show in Greely. We didn’t cancel it though. Jon couldn’t play it and as it turned out, Joe didn’t make it either. We still played it.

How?!?

CHRIS: We did an instrumental set, just the four of us. The next night we had a show at Cervantes. Joe made that one, but Jon was still in the Hospital. So again, we did it pretty much instrumental. Major, major thanks go out to Stone of TripCage and Donovan from Autopsy Commision. Both of them did a half a set each with us, totally improvised. They did a killer job and saved our asses. Thank you both of you, we love you to death. Point is, don’t cancel your shit cuz it pisses people off.

Is there anyone else who has helped you guys out, you’d like to thank?

CHRIS: Yeah, there is a girl named named Erin. She’s hot so we call her Hot Erin. She has helped us out so much. She started working with me in Penitent Promotions and has worked with us in Switchpin. She does all the shit no one else wants to. Same thing with Tano’s girlfriend Karla.

You are sponsored by Jager. Do they really help you guys out?

PAT: Oh yeah, Jager sends us tons of shit; full size posters, promo gear like T-shirts and shot glasses. It’s all branded with Switchpin logo. They hooked it up so we could all go to the Ozzfest. We met a lot our idols and band we love like Kill Switch Engage.

Jon, you took offense to Steve from As We Speak talking shit about your Jager sponsorship when they did their interview with me.

JON: Well personally, I don’t have a problem with any band out there. Every one of them talks shit. Steve just had the balls to do it on tape. The problem is he kind of pigeonholed my band. And when he pigeonholed my band, he did it to me, and I took offense. Yeah, we’re sponsored by Jagermeister, which is an alcoholic beverage and yes I know Steve is straightedge, but we’re not slamming it down anyone’s throat. We promote responsible drinking, we would never buy or get alcohol for underage kids. He made it sound like we are selling out because we are sponsored by Jager. I picture this guy seeing us like we’re jamming a fuckin’ funnel down some kids throat. That pisses me off, because I don’t fuckin’ do that.

A lot of bands are pissed off about his rant against local Metal.

JON: His bullshit about a Metal/Hardcore rivalry is a bunch of fuckin’ bullshit. He is the one that is creating it. The music all came from the same, goddamn place. It came from fuckin’ bands like Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk Railroad and Black Sabbath – bands like that started Rock and Roll. Metal and Hardcore is all Rock and Roll with distortion, we’re all doing the same crap. I have the same fuckin’ problems that kid does. If I picked his brain and he picked my brain we’d be singing and talking about the same things. I have a problem with rape just like he does. I sing about child abuse, I sing about molestation. I sing about all sorts of shit. It’s not about selling out. Our music isn’t about playing to a certain kind of audience. We’ll play to any kid out there that wants to listen. If anyone has a problem with if then fuck you. Don’t fuckin’ listen to our music and don’t fuckin’ come to our shows. You can kiss my big, white, hairy ass. And if Steve has a problem with me he can come right up to my fuckin’ face cause we’ll address it. I’m not afraid to tell him or anyone to fuck off if you have a problem with my band.