Interviewer: I'm backstage at Projekt Revolution with the headliners of the day, Linkin Park. What's going on guys? Introduce yourselves...
Mike: I'm Mike.
Brad: My name is Brad and I play guitar.
Interviewer: Guys, I gotta start off this interview. Years and years ago, I went to Fletchers, which is in Baltimore. There was like, 250 kids there and uh, you guys were outside helping kids get inside, on your guest list, just adding kids right and left. What is it like just, jumping from where you were at, so quickly, getting to where you're at today?
Brad: Well, the cool thing about, even with all the cool opportunities we've had since then, and growing and becoming a bigger band, like, everyone in the band has basically stayed the same, you know, stayed real cool except for
Mike. And he's really just gone through a personal transformation for the worst, with all the success, I mean, uh, maybe this isn't the appropriate time to air all these grievances, but you know
Mike: It's always a good time to talk about this...
Brad: You know, if you could return a call every once in awhile, you know, it'd go a long way. That's all I want to say.
Mike: Well, if you, I mean if it was worth it, I would call you back (laughs, to interviewer) He just, he's so mean to me when we get on the phone
Interviewer: No love, no love
Mike: No love
Brad: No, I mean, it's awesome. We were talking about before, you know, we have the best, we think we have the best fans in the world and um, when we were playing a small show, which we actually just did a couple weeks ago, or when we're playing a big show like this, the most important thing for us is to try to have that contact with our fans, whether it's through LPU or our signing at every show. That kind of direct contact with people who got us here is really what drives us.
Interviewer: Project Revolution, that kind of was your baby as a band. How hands on are you today, with this tour?
Mike: Well, we're hand on with everything we do.
Brad: Two hands on. (laughs) You know it's great to be two hands on at all times. Actually, nine. That's what they're saying these days. Um, no, you know, we're really involved in, uh, you know, this tour is bigger than we've ever done it before. You know, the groups that we've included and just the whole scale of the show. It's really a festival now, in the truest sense and uh, it's fun for us just walking around and watching other bands and uh, kinda participating in it, just as fans. You know, these are bands that we love. Korn and Snoop are bands that we look up to and there are so many other bands on the bill that are just on the cutting edge of what they're doing, whether it's Ghostface or The Used. It's just, it's an awesome, eclectic bill and you've got uh, a diverse, open-minding fanbase that turns out to see the show everyday so it's a great thing.
Interviewer: Now were you guys hands on with picking the actual bands, like Snoop and Korn?
Mike: Absolutely. As you can probably see, just looking around, it's a great family atmosphere. Everybody's like, really getting along well and um, from beginning to end, from the beginning of the second stage to the end of the night, on the main stage, it's just a great show every night. We're loving it.
Interviewer: Your latest disc Meteora. Do you guys plan on doing something like Reanimation with this disc?
Mike: (Laughing) Um, people keep asking that.
Brad: I don't think we'll repeat ourselves neccessarily, but we're always looking to do projects that are outside the box. You know, whether it was Live In Texas um, which was the live concert cd/dvd, or some of the things we have up our sleeve for the end of the year next year. You know, we're um, definitely going to putting some stuff out, I think, that the people don't expect because I think those are things we tend to gravitate toward.
Interviewer: Now, from those days when you were playing in front of 150 kids to you know, last year playing in front of 100,000 to tonight's show? Has it grown to that you know, the kind of haters of the world who want to come up to you and say negative things?
Brad: Um, no, you know. People are entitled to their opinion but, we try to surround ourselves with positive people and we're always trying to do positive things in the world. There's always going to be people who have negative input or output. We just feel really blessed to have what we love to do, what we would do for free, as a career. What we try to do is find a way to give back, whether it's the charity stuff on the last tour or just giving back creatively for our fans, doing cool things to try and surprise them and uh, really just try not to take it for granted and to enjoy every minute of it. That's all we can do.
Interviewer: Well guys, thank you so much for coming and hanging.
Brad: Thank you for having us.