EIGHTEEN VISIONS INTERVIEW
July 17, 2005

Ed Martin for Prophecy21.com: How's the tour been going so far?
James Hart Vocals for Eighteen Visions: It's been good, we've been out foralmost three weeks now. The first two weeks were in Canada doing someco-headlining stuff with Misery Signals, then doing some headlining stuffwith Black Maria and He is Legend and Love Hate Hero just joined up in thestates. We just felt like we hadn't with Canada gotten a real goodopportunity to go up there and tour the country like we had in the past sowe wanted to go up there at least once on this record and be like, "Hey,here's Obsession. Check it out if you don't have it." Just to let kidsknow we'll be back more frequently and that we're going to try and makeCanada a higher priority then it was in this past year.

P21: Are you looking forward to the festivals that you have coming up inEurope and Japan?
JH: Yeah definitely. Japan, we've never played there so we're realexcited to just get over there. We got offered that festival and it's thishuge two day thing with like Nine Inch Nails and Slipknot, unfortunatelywe're not playing that day, we're huge Nine Inch Nails and Slipknot fans.The day we're playing we get like Weezer, Duran Duran, and Oasis. I loveDuran Duran and Oasis so I think it'll be great. It'll be a really goodopportunity to get over there and play for the first time especially sinceit's the biggest festival that they have over there for rock music and wedid end up getting a release for Obsession over there, which we didn'tthink we would because it was so late in the record cycle. I mean we'reabout to go in and start recording a new album, so we really thought it wastoo late to get it out. We're glad we were able to. The label knowing thatwe're going over there for such a huge festival kind of forces them topress a few thousand records for us over there, which is a greatopportunity. With the UK the Reading and Leeds festivals it gives us anopportunity to play to even more kids than we have which is great and wealready do really good in the UK as it is. It would be great to be ableto scale up next time and do some even larger venues and I think that theReading and Leeds things will definitely help. Then we're heading down toAustralia for the first time and we're really looking forward to that aswell.

P21: Is there anything that you don't like about touring in Europe?
JH: No, not at all...
Ken Floyd Guitarist for Eighteen Visions: Europe (laughs).
JH: See, we view Europe and the UK as two different things and that'skind of how everybody does over there. The UK is kind of its own entityeven though it is part of Europe. The fans in the UK are kind of rabid,like there a little bit too overbearing sometimes. The way that theyinteract with the bands it's kind of like psycho-fanish. Which is coolbecause those are the kids that are definitely going to come every timethat you play, but at the same time there the kids that sometimes get tointo your space that's the only kind of bad part. But overall they're agood thing.
KF: It's just that it's different to us because its overwhelming. It'sless humbling because over here kids are on the same level as us, but overthere its just like a whole different world and its just like an amazingthing to have a band come all the way across the Atlantic to play and forus to have fans that are all the way across the Atlantic feels kind ofamazing. It's just more overwhelming than anything.

P21: Have you been finding that since the release of Obsession you'vebeen getting offers for tours you wouldn't have before?
JH: Yeah definitely. With Vanity, our sound definitely changed from whatit was on Until the Ink Runs out, there was a lot more melody and itwasn't as chaotic and all over the place. When we were writing the songsfor the Obsession album which we started doing as soon as we finishedrecording Vanity we knew that we needed to tour with a different kind ofband, but with Vanity out the tours we were getting were for that soundbecause booking agents and managers and those people didn't know our newsongs we had written sounded like this. So with Obsession's release itimmediately opened up the gates. The first tour we did was with Him andKill Hannah, two more mellow rock bands and then a more commercial radiorock band like Lost Prophets and then doing stuff overseas with LostProphets as well. Its not every day that a band gets to do tours likethat and the new record definitely helped open doors for the kinds oftours we've wanted and been craving to do over the past few years.

P21: What's been going on with the new album?
JH: Well like I said when we're done recording a record, we start writingimmediately, we don't want to sit and stay stagnant. If we're not touringfor a few months after recording we have nothing to do but write.Fortunately for us, we were in a bus for like six months touring and webrought our laptops and the right programs to be able to record our drumsand guitars and vocals. Keith and Ken were writing songs like every daywe have material for probably like thirty songs and like twelve done withvocals already and probably another two or three more with vocal ideas.So, it's coming along really well. After we get back from theinternational tours we have about a month and a half to just polish thingsup and finish what writing still needs to be done and then we head intopre-production in mid-October and that's when the real weeding out processis going to begin with deciding what songs are going to make it and whatsongs aren't quite as strong and we'll sit around and make stuff strongerwhere it needs to be and get it right. The record's got a ways to go, butwe definitely have a big head start.

P21: What's the idea behind the video for I Let Go?
JH: It's just trying to be a feel good video like just go out and have agood time not caring about the problems that are overwhelming your lifenot letting them keep you from doing things or keep you from being a happyperson which is kind of what the songs about. The videos about just likea cool party everyone just hanging out having a good time. We had sometrouble with the video shoot because it like never rains in that part ofCalifornia and then it just decides to rain all weekend and what should'vebeen a one hour drive to Malibu turned in to a three hour drive and westarted really late so we had to cut some scenes we wanted to do. Sometime was lost for some scenes we wanted to have more shots of, but wecouldn't. We wanted to do this kind of thing where we all run out ontothe beach with the sun rising and give that kind of end of the world vibewhere the worlds ending and no one gives a shit about what's going on andthey're all just doing whatever they like and we didn't end up getting todo that. It ended up just being us running out onto a balcony in the rain.You kind of have to improv sometimes when things aren't working your way,like mother nature. All in all though, we had a good time and it was fun.

P21: Do you guys have any plans for a DVD in the future?
JH: We've been talking about it for a long time and I still can't say yesand I can't say no. We'd definitely like to try to release a DVD aroundthe same time as the new album, but I don't know if it's gonna be like alllive stuff. I'm sure we'll have like a live set or something whether it'sdone in New York or London, some big city that's always good to us, wherewe always have a great show with great crowd response. All the thingsnecessary to make a great live performance DVD. Also we have some B-sidesfrom the Obsession record that only got released in the UK and Japan, so Iwould love to throw those on there. We're gonna shoot while we're in thestudio and try to do the same kind of making the record thing that we didwith the last album. Making some more videos would be cool as well if wecould get a budget for that. We have a ton of different ideas it's just amatter of getting the budget together and making things happen.

P21: Thanks, is there anything that you want to add?
JH: No man, just thanks.