Interview & photo by Rachel Jablonski
Preparing for this summer's Ozzfest tour which will begin in July, A Life Once Lost made a stop in Iowa City on their brief headlining tour with Cephalic Carnage, Through the Eyes of the Dead, and Scarlet. Prior to the show, which would turn out to be a greater success than the band had anticipated (ALOL show review), I spoke with ALOL drummer Justin Graves.
Rachel: You have been on tour basically nonstop since Hunter came out last year. How do you handle burnout from being on the road?
Justin: You don’t really. When you get home you just sleep as much as possible and recharge. Being on the road gets tiring and all that, but once I get home I’m bored.
Rachel: How do you keep pumped up from day to day?
Justin: Some days aren’t as crazy as others. It all depends on how many people are at the show and how wild the crowd is. If you have a crowd full of lethargic, lazy mother fuckers of course it’s not gonna make me rage as hard. Either way I try to go all out, but it doesn’t always work that way when the other end of the concert isn’t giving back to you as well.
Rachel: You’re headlining this two month tour with Through the Eyes of the Dead, Cephalic Carnage, and Scarlet. You’ve done a lot of bigger shows, like Sounds of the Underground tour, in the past year. How does it feel to be headlining smaller, more intimate shows again? Do you prefer this type of show or do you like the big stage?
Justin: At the level we’re at right now, we’re not like the hugest band. We’re headlining Gabes Oasis on a Monday night and we’re not expecting a crazy show, but either way it’ll be fun, you gotta give it your all. I’m more excited to play Ozzfest this summer. That’ll be more exciting to me.
Rachel: What are you looking forward to most on Ozzfest?
Justin: Playing in front of a lot of people, playing with a lot of other bands that we’ve toured with in the past. Everyone’s getting the notoriety that they deserve. Staying on a bus will be cool.
Rachel: Have you ever had a bus?
Justin: Well, we’ve pretty much always had a van. We toured once on a bus in Europe, so that was cool. But this will be sweet.
Rachel: Are you prepared to withstand the heat again this year? What’s the best way to keep cool throughout the day on an outdoor summer tour?
Justin: You kind of just fry. You find anywhere you can with air conditioning or a sprinkler or something. Dump as much water over you as possible! I’m sure our bus will have air conditioning; you can always go back there, hide underneath tents, stuff like that. You just do what you can. It’s pretty insane.
Rachel: Do you wear sunscreen?
Justin: Not really, but I should. I’ll just get cancer one day inevitably.
Rachel: I love the concept of the "Vulture" video. Who is the guy trying to escape in the video? What is he trying to escape from?
Justin: The impression I get from the video is that the guy is being tested on, kind of like a government experiment, so he’s trying to escape from that. Kind of like a forced lab rat. In reality, the guy is an upcoming L.A. actor who has been in Law and Order, CSI, and some shows like that, random parts.
Rachel: How did you get onto the Headbanger’s Ball compilation that recently was released on Roadrunner Records?
Justin: Well we were supposed to be on the last one. I won’t go into details, but there is a certain band who sucks, who broke up immediately after that, that ended up getting our spot. We were on it, but then we got booted for them, they suck, they broke up, and if anybody knows who we are you can figure out who it is. So this year we got a spot. And I think it’s a lot better this year anyway.
Rachel: Yeah, it’s good. You have really been pushing “Vulture.” What’s next?
Justin: “Vulture” was our first single and then we have a single out called “Rehashed,” which has a video out that was shot live from the Sounds of the Underground tour. We’re going to have a new video come out too. We’re just trying to push as many songs as we can in as many ways as possible.
Rachel: What’s the song for your next video?
Justin: I can’t really get too crazy about that yet.
Rachel: “Pain & Panic?”
Justin: It’s not going to be “Pain & Panic” even though that’s a good song. It’s not just me, there are all of the guys in the band, there are labels, there is management, and a lot of people who have, I guess, a right to put their two cents in. So not everything everyone wants goes.
Rachel: You’ve toured so much that I imagine you might tire of playing the songs off of Hunter. Do you? Do you guys throw in songs or covers that are not on the album during your set?
Justin: On this tour we have some extra songs from this record and the last record to make the set longer. It’s different right now playing a longer set. It gets a little old, but they are our songs and you’re going to hear them 100,000 more times so I guess I gotta get used to it.
Rachel: Who do you want to win American Idol?
Justin: I don’t even… that would be a question to ask my mom.
Rachel: [laugh] Ok, are you working on new material at all? What are your plans for a new record?
Justin: We’re always jamming on ideas whether on tour or when we’re at home practicing when we’re between tours. Being on Ozzfest this summer we’re just going to keep writing and then after that we’ll have more writing time. So sometime in the later half of this year we’re probably going to start writing blocks and come up with a lot of new stuff. That’s really as far as we can say right now. Hopefully a new album will come out, at the latest, next spring or summer. We have lots of rough stuff going on, it will mold up nicely. We aren’t playing any new songs or anything yet, but its there. Everyone can just expect ALOL on the next level.