Ed Martin for Prophecy21.com: How's the tour been going so far? Max Illidge Vocalist for 40 Below Summer: The tours been going really reallygood for us. It's kinda like the perfect tour for us.
P21: How have people been reacting to the new material? MI: They've been going nuts. They rave about it. Everybody says they loveit, everybody I've asked. They all say they can't wait for the new recordso it should do good, hopefully.
P21: How does it feel knowing this will probably be your last time playingat Birch Hill a place that you've played so many times before? MI: Kinda sucks. I mean I wish we could play here for a long time many manymore shows. I mean I guess all good things must come to an end at somepoint and I guess this is one of them.
P21: Whats your favorite track on the new album? MI: Probably Taxicab Confessions.
P21: What are the main differences between this album and the last one? MI: I think we grew both as musicians and as song writers. Its more mature. I think its over all a little better album. I think over the last twoyears we all developed as musicians, but we developed as songwriters aswell. Also the sound of the record is really crisp.
P21: Are there any plans in the future for re-releasing Sideshow Freaks orthe Rain EP? MI: No.
P21: What's gonna be the first single off of the new album? MI: Self Medicate.
P21: How did you guys decide on it? MI: We played it for our record label, for our manager, for our radiopromoter and for a few other people whose opinions we value and they allsort of felt that that would be the best track to lead off with. It showsas a whole what the new 40 Below is. It's energetic, it's a heavy song,it's very aggressive and like I said it's got a lot of energy to it, but atthe same time a lot of people feel that it's very very catchy. And thatshows well what we do, which is play heavy, but catchy and melodic music.
P21: Are you going to be making a video for it? MI: Yes we are. We'll be filming the video in about two weeks.
P21: How'd you come up with the title of the new album? MI: Basically we were trying to think about the songs and what they meant tous and what we've been through in the last two years. We've went through apersonal holocaust in the last two years. And basically it's the morningafter this holocaust and here is what we have to offer you.
P21: How did you guys decide on Razor and Tie as the new label? MI: They had a good working relationship with our management. Ourmanagement also represents E. Town Concrete who are also on Razor and Tie. They had good things to say about the label. We had offers from a couple ofother places, but we just felt that it was a good fit for us.
P21: If you were going to play a cover what song would you like it to be? MI: We actually have plans to do one song. I don't know if I should say itthough because I don't want anyone to rip off our idea and cover it beforeus. Ahhh the hell with it we're looking at Alanis Morisette's Uninvited. That's a very very cool very powerful song.
P21: What bands have been some of your favorites to play with in the past? MI: Ill Nino have always been one of our favorites. We love playing withIll Nino. We did our first tour ever with them on the first record. We didour first ever major tour with them, The Jagermeister Tour. And now we'redoing this our first tour for the new album with them. So obviously you cansee we love touring with Ill Nino. At this point now we've done over 100shows with them. Skrape is awesome, they're a great band to tour with. Theguys from Spineshank too are amazing. It's great! I love touring with allthree of these bands. We will all tour again together, I guarantee you that. American Headcharge, I love playing with those guys. Drowning Pool on theJagermeister tour. I loved playing with those guys. Chimaira, love touringwith those guys. Although on this new record they might be too heavy for usto tour with them. Their new shit is totally brutal, but yeah we did have ablast touring with those guys. We definitely wouldn't mind touring withthem again. Flaw, we've only done a few shows with them, but we've beenfriends with them since before both our records came out. We're probablygonna tour with them next year. We had a great time touring with Mudvayne. Stone Sour awesome, Corey Taylor and Jim Root, we know them from Slipknot. We unfortunately never got to tour with Slipknot and as a lot of people knowthey helped get us signed in the first place. We never got to do anythingwith them though because as soon as we toured they went into the studios. The tour with Stone Sour was absolutely incredible though. Corey is one ofthe most unbelievable people you'll ever meet. For someone who's soldprobably five million records world wide hes one of the most down to Earthguys you'll meet. He'd be right out here with us havin a drink and justsittin if he were here. Just about everybody we've toured with we've hadagood time with and gotten along with. Those are most of the bands we'vetoured with and I'll tell you right now we'd go out with any one of themagain.
P21: What do you do to kill time on the road? MI: Smoke pot, drink, you know not really much. If we have a bus then weplay video games, but right now we don't have a bus. In the van there's notreally much you can do besides drive.
P21: Thanks, is there anything that you want to add? MI: After this tour with Ill Nino and Spineshank which will probably be overbefore this goes up we'll be going out with Mushroomhead and Motograter andthere's gonna be a different opener every few nights. I know a few nightswill be 36 Crazyfists. Theres definitely gonna be some good openers on thetour. Its gonna be a really sick tour. Everyone should make their way out . And come check us out live cause thats what we're all about. Jumping up onstage and gettin crazy with our friends and our fans. October 28th theMourning After comes out, go pick it up. Pick it up, pick it up just likeRedman says. To those of you that are reading this and don't haveInvitation To The Dance go buy that too. All the people complaining thatTraining Day didn't make the record, know that we're trying to get it on theJagermeister soundtrack. That's pretty much all I got man, thanks.