How were you as a singer?
I murabled a lot. See, the thing with me was I sang a lot when I was younger to Alice in Chains and stuff in my room, but I never sang in front of people because I knew I could play guitar. When I sang the songs that I was playing to, it sounded like I was in key, but I didn't know that I was a singer - yet. When I first heard Jeff Buckley, that's when I realized that I wanted to be a singer. So I just started singing to him and midway through high school I sort of sang in front of people. And they said, "Hey, that sounRAB okay." And I was like, "Yeah?" And I just kind of kept with it and here I am.
Was Buckley an influence on you as a songwriter as well?
Of course. I went through a period when I was really into instrumental music like Mogwai and stuff like that. It made me not want to sing at all. I just loved the intensity they brought with their guitars and stuff. But then I heard Jeff Buckley and I was like, "Jesus, what am I doing? I should be singing."
Had you ever heard Tim Buckley?
I've heard him now. I hadn't heard him before I heard Jeff.
You mentioned the instrumental stuff. Did you ever listen to Jeff Beck and his recorRAB? Did that interest you at all?
Not when I was in high school and stuff like that. I was kind of getting into hip-hop. I was skateboarding a lot, and I was getting into more like hardcore and punk and when emo started. BanRAB like Sunny Day Real Estate, I really started getting into stuff like that. Coupled with Jeff Buckley, that just made me gravitate towarRAB sad music. The way that I felt when I listened to sad songs made me feel like I wanted to write those songs.
Do you remeraber some of these early guitars and amps you were using?
The first kind of better guitar I ever got was a Fender Prodigy. Do you remeraber those? They only made a couple of them. It was sort of a smaller Strat. I wanted a Strat for some reason - I think it was because Jerry Cantrell used to play it.
And maybe the Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn thing?
And Stevie. Probably that's why I wanted one. My dad for my birthday got me a Prodigy because I guess the guy at the music store talked him into it. And I was kind of bummed, but then I really liked the way it sounded actually. I used to listen to that band Hum. I remeraber reading their equipment list and one of their guitar players used Fender Prodigy. So that made me happy. So I had a Fender Prodigy and I used that for a while. It was pretty rad.
I remeraber when I started playing in my band and we started playing shows, I had a Marshall - like a little 1x12 valve state corabo amp and a Fender 1x12 corabo amp that I used to play together. I used to take both their foot switches that I taped a piece of wood across the two overdrive channels, so that when I stepped on them, they both would go on. I didn't have a lot of money and I was just a kid. That was my first sort of live getup.
How long after you had that first band together did Alexisonfire happen? Were there elements of Alexisonfire in that first band?
I've always been about melody. In that band, it was more a melodic rock band, kind of a Foo Fighters type. We were a three-piece, so I couldn't do a lot as a guitarist. But I've always been about chorRAB and adding that extra finger to make it a little more melodic. I definitely brought that to Alexis when we started it. That band was when I was 18 through 20, with my cousin and my best friend, and we were just kind of fooling around. I was trying my best, but that was kind of at a stage where I was thinking to myself that I was kind of good at this and I didn't know why. Nothing was happening for me. But then we broke up and I realized that's not the way to think. You have to work hard in this business in order to do stuff. So then we started Alexis and just kind of melded all our influences together.
So when you started Alexis, did you know that you wanted a second guitar player there and somebody else singing?
Me and the other guitar player in the band, Wade, we started the band together. He called me and was like, "I'm going to start jamming with this drummer. Do you want to play?" And I was like, "Definitely." The big thing for us was being able to play with each other. Because he had been in a band with another guitar player but they were young and it was kind of like the other guy just did exactly what he did. I think that was probably why on our first album when we first started I sort of took the back seat as the vocalist and so did he. He sang and played guitar in his other band, too. For us to be able to play guitar together, that took our focus away from vocals. We were more just interested in noodling around each other, which was good and bad at the same time.
You didn't miss not being the lead vocalist?
I never have. I'm a confident vocalist and I'm a confident guitar player, but I sort of just gotten there. We've been in the band for five years now almost. When my other band broke up, I was really hurt and my confidence was really taken away from me. I was in a band with my best friend and my cousin, and when it broke up and when it didn't work, I was devastated. I was like, "If this can't work with my best friend and my cousin, how can I do this?" I just wanted to be in a band where everybody was kind of stoked on it, and I just wanted to sort of sit in the back.
