Do you do any exercising on the road?
Aside from playing, not really. I try to stretch out somewhat extensively before we play, just obviously to protect my muscles. But for the most part, not really. I tried doing that, and it’s really difficult. I did it for a period of time, and I was working on my arms and my chest, and I noticed it affected the way I played drums, and not in a good way, so I kind of stopped.
I think I was pushing myself a little. I think if I was in a situation like that I would have to get into the groove when I’m not on tour and upkeep it while I’m on tour. I notice I started to loose my ability to move quickly, because I’m a decently slender dude, and it made things more difficult if that makes sense. I don’t know if I would have to acclimate myself and then go on tour and upkeep it that would be fine, or if it would always be that way, but I’m not 100 percent sure. I’m not going to mess with it, because I don’t wanna fuck with what’s working for me. (laughs)
Just by reading the press release on The Tropic Rot, I can assume the whole album is about how much you hate Florida. Is that true?
(laughs) Not really. Jeff [Moriera, vocals] kind of has his meaning, and he’s super secretive about it, but the way I take it is a lot of people envision Florida as being tropical and a hot touristy spot for a lot of people that you’re surrounded by happiness all the time and no bad things go wrong. People don’t take into consideration that there are people that live there that have normal lives that don’t pay attention to those aspects and yeah, have pretty fucking shitty things going on. I’m not saying that we do, but bad things happen everywhere.
No tropical escapism fantasy going on in Florida.
Exactly.
But is there a particular fascination with weather? The last album’s cover art was glaciers and you recorded in Sweden, and this was done in Florida and it’s The Tropic Rot, and there’s other things, like The Opposite Of December, of course. Do you guys just think about weather when you’re coming up with concepts? (laughs)
It’s really funny, because I’m not so much involved with the concept aspect, I’m involved with more orchestration of music and helping arrange and help completing the song. As far as that stuff is concerned, I wouldn’t have the best answer because I would probably be in the same boat as you and ask the same question, (laughs), and be like, ‘Yo what’s up, why’s that shit always have to do with like cold and hot.’ I didn’t even really think about it until right now, but you’re totally right.
As far as the last record, that was a complete coincidence, because our friend, this painter Brian Montuori, did all the artwork for it. We sent him a copy of Versions and said, ‘Do whatever you do, or if you have pieces or whatever, whatever you hear listening to this, create some art around it.’ And that’s what he created. You’re totally right though. Hot and cold. (laughs)
