Interview . Stone Sour w/ Josh Rand (guitar)

Interviewer: Laura . 14/11/2010 . city: Hamburg . venue: Docks

Punk76:How was your day so far, what did you do?

Josh: I've been watching the Big Four DVD, that's pretty much it.

Punk76: Do you watch lots of DVD's while being on tour?

Josh: No, actually this is the first time I sat down and watched TV. We only have one dressing room today and usually we have one non smoking and one smoking dressing room because the half of Stone Sour does some, the other half doesn't so since we only have one dressing room today it's the smokers room so I decided to sit down at the bus. I borrowed some DVD's and I had not seen this DVD, I actually went to that show so it's cool to sit back and watch it.

Punk76:While researching I didn't find a lot about your childhood. You grew up in Iowa, how did you get in touch with music?

Josh: Actually at a very very young age, I can't recall all the way back there since I've only seen by photos. My uncle who was like 5 years older than me was really into all the 70's heavy metal stuff so even when I was 3 years old I was into Kiss and actually I got to see Kiss perform when I was 5 years old.

Punk76:And that was your first show and contact with music?

Josh: Yeah, they were the first band and I still like them and that was my introduction into music. Kiss, Bob Seger, Elton John, Led Zeppelin.. you know, my parents didn't listen to Kiss but they lead us to the other stuff and those were the main bands that stood out, that I can remember.

Punk76:When did you pick up the guitar for the first time and what was the first song you were able to play?

Josh: I picked up an acoustic guitar from a friend of mine and the idea for my was to play bass because everybody else was playing guitar and drums and the bass player was kind of what was missing to be a whole band. So actually I picked up an acoustic, the first thing I learned was the intro to Metallica's „One“. It was some beat up acoustic, 4 strings and I worked up getting a bass but I started on a bass guitar. I learned all the Metallica records at that time up to „Justice“. And then I started getting into more of the technical players and learning that stuff so after doing that one day I picked up a guitar and I could shred on guitar and it was almost effortless. 'Cause I had worked on playing stuff like Billy Jean and stuff which on bass is very hard, so when I picked up the guitar and applied the same techniques it seemed to be a lot easier. It was just one of those moments, it happened and everyone was like „whoaa, you have to play guitar!“ (smiling) it was crazy. And at about that same time, too the friend who had given me the acoustic guitar, this older brother gave me the first Racer X album and I was just blown away by "Frenzy" the opening track because it's just him shredding for 1.30 minutes ad I was like „wow, that's a guitar“ and I never heard anything like that before. So it was a mixture of working on all those technical stuff and that album that made me switch to guitar.

Punk76:Did you ever take lessons or did you teach it yourself completely?

Josh: I'm selftaught but actually NOW I'm taking lessons.

Punk76: But you don't need them anymore, do you?

Josh: Well, the instrument can never be mastered. Because I made some radical jumps in my playing I feel like now the stuff that I skipped over, that was not cool or something, so I really wanted to go back and work on something in different genres of music. Berklee in the states des online courses so I'm taking classes and trying to get my master certificate. I made it through the cord class, the scales class, the classical rock so I'm still learning. And even if you get to the proffessional level everybody gets lazy but I kind of turned that around and I feel, like I said I really wanted to break down some of my boundries and in the future I would like to take some jazz courses and some blues which is completely nothing like I play (laughs) so it should be interesting.

Punk76: That's really awesome.

Punk76:Did you ever wish that Corey and Jim would quit Slipknot and just concentrate on Stone Sour?

Josh:I don't know (trying to find words) let's put it this way: I think both bands help one another. And actually having the breaks in between the bands means that either band burns out, it's not just oversaturation of the group. And I'm perfectly happy with how they react to one another. I do want to have the opportunity to have a back to back record, does that mean they have to quit Slipknot? I don't think that has to mean that they have to quit Slipknot. It would be nice because when we go away we have to rebuild again, even everytime we come back we're still rebuilding.

Punk76:While researching I found some of your older songs and some of them only were b-sides, did you ever think about re-releasing them on a record? For example „The Day I Let Go“ or „The Frozen“

Josh:They are all on the Digipack, we released pretty much everything. We like putting everything out there. I mean, we recorded it anyway so it's not until the last moment when we decide what to put on the record and what not and we're always putting all the b-sides on the digipack and now with Itunes you have access to the stuff anyway.

Punk76: On The special edition of „Come Whatever May“ there's a cover of the song „wicked game“ did you ever think about covering a song again?

Josh:Well, we've done a couple. We did „wicked game“ and when we did this little show in New York for the CD release party we did Tom Petty's „You Got Lucky“. So yeah, we've done that and me, Corey and Jim have done „Wild Horses“, we did that in Canada and that was on the specal edition, so there is some stuff out there.

Punk76.comYour new record „Audio Secrecy“ was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, why did you choose that place and didn't record it in your hometown Iowa?

Josh: Well the first record was recorded in Iowa, in Cedar Falls which is an hour ad a half north of Des Moines, the second album we recorded at 606 in LA, which is Dave Grohl's studio (from the Foo Fighters).

Punk76:Oh, nice!

Josh: So this time two things came up: 1 we didn't want to record in Iowa because we felt that there would be a lot of distractions, being at home and trying to do the record and second we didn't want to go to LA because at the end of the day most of us don't like LA and we've already been there and done that. And the producer who we choose to go along with, Nick Raskulinecz who also did Come Whatever May had moved to Nashville and as far as equipment goes and gear and the quality of studios they are just as advanced and have just as good stuff as LA, so we figured what better place to go than this totally chilled area, it was almost like being in Des Moines. It's really laid back and everybody's nice and it just seemed to be the right fit and the studio we recorded in, Blackbird Studio is considered as one of the best studios in the world as far as having the gear so that was another reason why we wanted to go there. And just to have a different experience, we had done LA we had done Iowa, so we even joke now possibly coming here, whena nd if we record a 4^th album coming over here and recording it in Europe.

Punk76:That would be awesome.

Josh: But we have to wait and see if that happens.

Punk76:To me Audio Secrecy was very surprising, I didn't expect so many slower and softer songs, do you personally like the softer songs more or the edgier, faster ones?

Josh:I like playing all the heavy stuff because that's what I bring into the band but with that being said that doesn't mean that I don't like the slow songs. The great thing about the slower songs is that, once again we're all about trying new things, progress and become more mature as a band so the songs are a new direction for us and I'm proud of them and at the end of the day it's only about having a great song. And I felt like this record has a lot of great songs on it and it's more diverse and more mature than the other two.

Punk76:Did all of you write songs for this record?

Josh:Yes.

Punk76:And is Corey the only one who writes lyrics?

Josh:Yeah, Corey is the only one who writes the lyrics, every so often one of us might throw out a topic and every so often to certain stuff I ask him to change certain lines.

Punk76: I wanted to ask that.

Josh: You know I'd be like „Can you come up with something else?“ but for the most part he writes the lyrics.

Punk76:What music did you listen to while writing and recording Audio Secrecy?

Josh: Crap.. uhm.. pretty much us (laughing) we were so into doing it. Wow.. I'm thinking if I even bought a CD while that time. Actually we were working so hard on that record but if I listened to something it would have been some classical rock because I took the classic rock course. So Led Zeppeling an the Who..I'm thinking of all the players I had to study because that's what I would be listening to if I wasn't working on our stuff.

Punk76:If you would have to choose a song for someone to hear who never heard your music before, which song would you choose that is a „typical Stone Sour song“ and that characterizes the band the best?

Josh: I think the song that shows what the band is all about would probably be 30-30/150. I just feel like that's our anthem and it's got twists and turns and it's vocals are very melodical and singable and it's riffy. Yeah, I like that one.

Punk76:Besides all your amazing talent, what makes Stone Sour an outstanding band compared to other rockbands?

Josh: I think it's just the diversity and we're not afraid to do whatever we want that's the one thing most bands to when they succeed, they are afraid to step outside the box and try something new because they don't want to backlash. And for us we've always been the underdog and we're still the underdog and so we don't care about that and it's truly about writing the best songs possible I mean the main thing when we went in to record this record was we didn't want to record Come Whatever May 2 and I think we did and I think that's the main thing that stands out. You can have a song as heavy as.. let's say „The Bitter End“ and then right after „The Bitter End“ there's the track „Imperfect“ which is acoustic and then there's stuff all in between. I think that's what separates us from everyone else and the fact that live we're one of the few bands that doesn't play the backing tracks, we're so punkrock it's crazy which sometimes can be horrendous when we're not on but at least we're real. So those are the two things I think, not being afraid to fail and always pushing the boundries and being a great live-band.

Punk76:I heard the rumour that you filmed the show in Brighton on the 7^th of November and that there will be a live DVD released, is that true and if yes when can we expect it to be in stores?

Josh: It's going to be interesting we're working that out. ABC owns the rights so I think the plan is that they're going to relase it and do like a web-broadcast that you buy a ticket for and then you have access to it. It eventually will come out on a full on DVD, I doubt it because they have the rights for it for 2 years. We wanted to do it because we thought it would be a cool place and the offer was there and we didn't really have a pro-shot I mean we have Russia, which was on the last record. But this was really done way better we really wanted to do it just for us to see it and to document it in case we don't get the chance to do another DVD . I think we're trying different marketing strategies this time instead of having a physical DVD there will be access to buy it digitally but that's still being worked on and we'll see what happens.

Punk76: Okay, perfect. Josh, thank you so much for taking the time!

Josh: You're welcome!

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