Kelley Hayes – guitar
Jeremy Marshall - bass
Sam McCandless – drums
Terry - guitar
Fresh off summer tours with Tattoo The Earth and the Cypress Hill/Limp Bizkit Napster tour, the band Cold is now moving with a momentum all their own. The buzz surrounding this Jacksonville, Florida quintet eminates from one key component - talent. Shoutweb kicked back with Sam (drums), Terry (guitar), and Jeremy (bass) on the comfortable couches of CBGB's in NYC before their gig that same night at the reknown club.
Shoutweb: So you guys are a five piece now.
Jeremy: On the first record, Scooter sang and played guitar but he wanted to break away from that and just concentrate on vocals only. That's when we got Terry in the band. Terry grew up with us in Jacksonville and he was playing in local bands growing the same as we were. So when we were looking for a guitarist we decided to go back to our roots and find the best player.
Terry: It worked out just right.
Shoutweb: Tattoo The Earth was just huge this year.
Jeremy: I think it's going to get bigger and bigger ever year too.
Shoutweb: Was that a choice you guys made or did you just fall into that tour?
Jeremy: Actually, we didn't have much of a choice because the album kind of just gotten done and everything was ready right when the festivals were getting ready to start for the summer. So we were kind of late on everything but we kind of just got in there at the last moment. We did want to be on it.
Terry: It's a big tour so we definitely wanted to promotion from that.
Shoutweb: How was the response from the crowds?
Jeremy: It was surprising how many people were there who had our first record. Plus our newer record is on Napster so a lot of them had downloaded some of the songs so they knew it from that.
Terry: The response was a little surprising but it was a very positive thing.
Shoutweb: Were there any good stories from the Tattoo The Earth tour? Did you get any ink?
Terry: We weren't on there for the whole tour. We were just on there for three weeks and then we jumped on the Cypress Hill/Limp Bizkit Napster tour. Tattoo The Earth was great. We just had to play early a lot. For the Bizkit shows it was just us, Cypress Hill, and Bizkit so it was a better vibe.
Jeremy: We had to do what was better for the band. The Napster tour was a much better promotion for us because it was a more intimate show rather than a big festival atmosphere.
Terry: As far as the ink goes, I thought for sure I'd come out of there with something but maybe if we were on there longer.
Shoutweb: Three weeks is still a long time to be out when you're hitting so many cities.
Terry: We had a couple of drives that were like fourteen hundred mile drives. We started in Portland, then Kansas, then we went all the way to New Jersey.
Shoutweb: I was talking with Mick, from Slipknot, at the New Jersey show. He said he hadn't slept since Kansas. He didn't want to go to sleep yet because he had to force himself to stay up to check out Amen and Hatebreed on the second stage. He said that he kept missing the other bands sets.
Jeremy: I had to make a conscience effort, no matter how tired I was, to get up and stay up and watch the other bands. Otherwise you're just going to miss them. Once you wake up later in the day you say, "Damn! I shouldn't have gotten up!"
Shoutweb: That's what is bad about touring on a festival tour I guess.
Jeremy: Touring with a band on tour is cool though because you get to watch their set every night and study. You get to really see what a band's all about.
Shoutweb: With the festival dates, because you played so early, did you have to take off for the next city?
Terry: Sometimes we did. There were nights I wouldn't get to see Slipknot. I'd be so pissed because we had to take off for the next city and I would miss the other bands sets. They're great every night.
Shoutweb: Were there any bands you really dug on the tour?
Jeremy: All the main stage bands on Tattoo The Earth were just incredible.
Terry: Full Devil Jacket I like a lot. I didn't get to see them that much but I heard the album. After the tour I was like, "Damn, I didn't get to see them." They're awesome.
Jeremy: And Amen are good friends of ours. I had never seen them before. I got to see them only once because of the time of day that we were going on but the time I saw them they just kicked ass. I was very impressed. I liked them too.
Shoutweb: Casey Chaos is fun to photograph. He's always moving. First he's on top of the drum kit then he's climbing the stage.
Jeremy: Nothing seems to stop those guys when they're playing.
Shoutweb: So what is up with you guys and blood? Should you be called Cold.... Blood? What's all this talk about bleeding and blood.
Jeremy: The album title is "13 Ways to Bleed on Stage" and it makes reference to the thirteen tracks and how we give everything we have on stage. We pour our souls out.
Terry: There's a lot of emotion.
Jeremy: When we're on stage we're bleeding from the heart hence the title "13 Ways to Bleed on Stage". Please ever now and then there is some physical blood from flying guitars that sometimes hit people in their head. (laughter)
Shoutweb: What happened?
Jeremy: Well, Terry went to take his guitar off once on stage. He was standing on the cord so when he went to pull the guitar up over his head the cord just pulled it back and the head stock just bounced back and cut his eye open. He finished the rest of the song with blood dripping all down his face and everything for the rest of the set. It kind of added to the show.
Shoutweb: That is a photographer's dream... to catch those moments on stage.
Terry: Well, stick around! (laughter) That stage tonight is pretty small so we might be hitting each other. You never know.
Shoutweb: Is tonight an industry type of show?
Terry: It wasn't billed that way but I think it's ending up that way.
Jeremy: We're going to play a little bit early so that the industry people can make it to bed on their bedtime. (laughter)
Shoutweb: I know Ozzfest had a rotating time slot schedule for the sets. Did Tattoo The Earth do that as well?
Jeremy: They would not rotate it. They might rotate us within the first three or four slots but that was it. We never got to work our way down to where we were going on any time after 1:30 in the afternoon.
Terry: I think once we played at like 3:30.
Jeremy: Other than that they had us going on at noon or 12:30.
Terry: It was still packed though.
Jeremy: Yeah, it was still crowded. But we'd end up waking up with eye boogers and stuff and stepping out on stage. We've still got sheet marks on our faces, you know?
Shoutweb: THAT'S why Scooter is holding his face! I thought he had a toothache but now I know he was just covering up the sheet marks! (laughter)
Jeremy: (laughter) Yeah, we didn't really have a chance to wake up but it was good. We had a lot of fans out there.
Terry: We made a lot of fans too.
Shoutweb: I saw kids singing along and I was thinking, "This album isn't even out yet."
Terry: We kind of stood out a little on the Tattoo The Earth tour because pretty much 95% of it was heavy bands. Here we are, not very soft but not as heavy as Slipknot or anything.
Jeremy: We're a lot more melodic.
Terry: It kind of caught people's attention I think, which was good.
Shoutweb: Full Devil Jacket is a lot like that.
Terry: Exactly.
Shoutweb: They caught a lot of flack at that New Jersey show.
Terry: I think everybody did. The way that show was set up was the kids couldn't go inside the stadium until 4PM.
Jeremy: They were forced to stand out there at the side stage in this small area first.
Terry: People were yelling for Metallica and really were waiting to get in front of the main stage for those bands.
Shoutweb: You guys did really well there. I think the crowd was into it.
Terry: Thank you.
Jeremy: Thank you.
Shoutweb: And then we have the Napster tour.... the center of controversy. Do you guys consider it controversial?
Jeremy: It's not sharing. It is stealing. At the same time those shows were great. It was going off the Richter *every* single night. There were NO bad shows. It was all high energy every night. Everybody loved it. All in all it was a positive thing.
Terry: The tour was.
Jeremy: Yeah, the tour was. As far as the Napster thing, I'll just let it take it's course and see what happens.
Shoutweb: There are a lot of bands starting out that say, "We aren't big enough yet to have an opinion."
Jeremy: That's kind of where we are.
Terry: It can only help us. If you're a big band I could see where it would kind of piss you off. When people stop buying your record because they got it off of Napster then that kind of sucks.
Shoutweb: With your record just hitting stores today, is there any fear that the record sales will be effected?
Terry: To the fans, they love Napster of course. I mean, hell, free music! You know what I mean?
Jeremy: I talked to a lot of kids who came up and were like, "I heard your record. I downloaded it but I'm going to go buy it as soon as it comes out on the 12th." You have to have the cover art and the actual CD with the cover art.
Shoutweb: What a great segue. So, what's up with the cover art?
Jeremy: The spider is the band's logo. Our music's got kind of a creepy vibe on a lot of the songs. Some of the songs seem to move like a spider. If you kill a spider, it's bad luck.
Terry: I got bit by a spider.
Jeremy: We started getting our band logo tattoo'ed on us and as soon as we did everybody started getting bit by spiders. He got bit (pointing at Terry). Kelly got bit *on* his spider tattoo by a spider.
Shoutweb: Hey! That sounds like an urban legend or something!
Jeremy: Yeah, it's crazy. There's weirdness around our band logo.
Terry: My arm got all swelled up.
Shoutweb: You can get blood poisoning from that.
Terry: I know!
Shoutweb: Is thirteen in the title just because of the number of tracks?
Jeremy: It's usually a bad luck number but we're turning it around. Ever since we came up with the title for the record the umber thirteen has been popping up everywhere.
Terry: Cab fare today was like thirteen bucks by the way.
Jeremy: When we go through a toll booth it's like thirteen dollars.
Shoutweb: Twenty-two is my number so I know what you mean.
Jeremy: Thirteen seems to be popping up everywhere we go. I should start playing Lotto.
Shoutweb: You guys should superstitious.
Terry: Oh, and another thing... if you look on the album, they have the fake ticket stub.
Jeremy: It's October 13th but we didn't realize is was Friday, October 13th when we made the album.
Shoutweb: Now, what is going to happen on that day?
Jeremy: We don't know.
Terry: We don't know yet.
Shoutweb: Are guys going to have a free show? Then the CD booklet can be the kids ticket to get in to the show.
Jeremy: Hey! (thinking) Good idea. If they buy the record then they deserve to come to the show.
Shoutweb: There you go.
Jeremy: We might introduce that idea and see what happens. Don't worry. We'll give you credit! (laughter)
Shoutweb: Seriously, it says "coldonline.com" on that ticket so maybe you can have a free webcast.
Jeremy: Look at that scary drummer guy walking around.
Terry: ... with that blue hair.
Shoutweb: Oh, good. One more of the five (Sam sits down to join in the interview).
Shoutweb: Were you guys involved with the artwork decisions?
Sam: Yes, very hands on. I did all the drawings.
Shoutweb: Really? I love the little characters. Did you draw the knife?
Sam: No, all the little drawings of the people I did.
Jeremy: (flipping through the CD booklet) This is Sam and this is Sam.
Sam: (pointing) This. This. This.
Shoutweb: Okay, you have to say it with words because no one reading this can see what you're pointing at!
Jeremy: (speaks into the recorder) Ladies and gentlemen, all of the pictures of the creepy little clowns and band members... are Sam's. That one is a picture of each one of us. Kick ass, eh?
Shoutweb: Is this one for "Send In The Clowns"? Are you guys calling yourselves clowns?
Sam: We are clowns! Look at us!
Shoutweb: Maybe you should tour with ICP!
Terry: I kept trying to get that Clown guy in Slipknot to come out during our set but he wasn't having any. (laughter)
All: (laughter)
Jeremy: It's kind of like a scrapbook of something that a kid would put together about a band that he loves. Blood and knives. They go together, right?
All: (laughter)
Shoutweb: I'd say so. I love that little picture of the little girl with the big eyes. She's so cute! It reminds me of that movie "The Nightmare Before Christmas" by Tim Burton.
Jeremy: Tim Burton rules. We all love that movie.
Sam: She's crying a puddle.
Shoutweb: She's crying a puddle?
Sam: See the puddle around her feet?
Shoutweb: Oh, yeah, look at that!
Shoutweb: Jeremy, I have to ask about your goatee.
Jeremy: It's been growing for about two and a half years. It's about fourteen inches long or so.
Shoutweb: Is this from whence you draw your strength?
Jeremy: Actually, I used to have long hair too. Then I cut that because I got sick of it. I don't know how long the beard has left but we'll see. If it stops growing, it's gone.
Shoutweb: You seem to have this superstition thing going on so I wondered if the beard was along those same lines.
Jeremy: No, nothing like that. It's not superstition. It's more like... let me see how long I can let my beard grow. (laughter)
All: (laughter)
Shoutweb: Tell me about the video for "Just Got Wicked".
Jeremy: It revolves around a live performance. It kind of puts us on an altar with all the kids around us. We just wanted to give it a real live vibe. The kids are all going crazy.
Terry: Something simply. No story lines or anything.
Jeremy: Just a straight out hard rock video that rocks. Mark Web is an excellent director. We're real happy with the outcome of it.
Sam: It's a good name.
Jeremy: Yeah, his last name is Web so there you go with the whole spider theme again.
Shoutweb: Wow! And this is ShoutWEB!
Jeremy: Hey!
Sam: (pulls the sleeve of his shirt down to show me his shoulder - revealing web tattoos covering his shoulders)
Shoutweb: Whoa.
Jeremy: Yeah, Sam is webby.
Shoutweb: "Send In The Clowns" I expected to be a cover song.
Jeremy: A lot of people do.
Shoutweb: Okay, so I'm just as stupid as everybody else then!
Sam: We've been working on that song forever and the title of the song was always "Send In The Clowns" so when it came time to name the song we were like, "I guess it's 'Send In The Clowns'." That was the working title.
Shoutweb: Are you each partial to playing a certain song live because you each play different instruments?
Jeremy: I think that is the case but I think we all also know after the show which songs came off the best. As a whole band, it's different all the time.
Terry: I like the song "Witch" always.
Shoutweb: I LOVE that song!
Jeremy: We always have a good time on that one.
Terry: There's always an eerie vibe. The crowd always goes off on it.
Sam: I don't think we're playing that one tonight.
Shoutweb: You're not?!
Terry: We're playing that fuckin' song.
All: (laughter)
Shoutweb: You HAVE to play it.
Terry: Well, Scooter's kind of sick right now.
Sam: The chorus is really hard.
Shoutweb: I love the guitar parts on the very beginning and then that whole thing at the end. What is that?
Terry: I can't tell my secrets. (laughter)
Shoutweb: Is this going to remain a mystery?
Jeremy: If you come see us live you'll be able to see how it's done.
Shoutweb: I *did* see you live and I even photo'ed you live and I *still* don't know how you do it!
Jeremy: Watch Terry. Everybody watch Terry.
Jeremy: It's in the video.
Terry: It's very easy to figure out.
Shoutweb: Okay, then that ruins the idea of having a contest to determine "who can figure out what Terry is doing"!
All: (laughter)
Shoutweb: So let's get the Fred Durst thing out of the way. I know it's probably the most common question you get asked.
All: Yeah.
Shoutweb: I don't want to ask if it's helped or hurt you because you obviously can't say that it's hurt you.
Jeremy: It's done nothing but help us.
Terry: We kind of want to stand out on our own now.
Jeremy: We have plenty to thank Fred for getting us started in the industry. But we want to take off on our own if we can.
Terry: We don't want to be known as a band that made it big because of Fred Durst. Nothing against Fred.
Jeremy: We love the guy.
Jeremy: (to Terry) That might become a trivia section some day.
Terry: Right.
Shoutweb: I saw in one of the bios there was a mention of you guys describing yourselves as "Southern rockers" and something about "fixin' to do" something.
Jeremy: Fixin' to done do it.
Terry: We can't deny our roots.
Shoutweb: Has that helped you at all?
Jeremy: Lynyrd Skynryd and Molly Hatchet and all those bands... that was so long ago that it doesn't really pertain to the new music coming out.
Terry: People are always saying, "Ya'll are from Jacksonville? Play 'Free Bird', man!"
Jeremy: Musicians and people in the industry know.
Terry: "Ya'll are from Jacksonville and you can't play 'Free Bird'?"
All: (laughter)
Shoutweb: The best reply I have ever seen was from Shawn Mullins. People were yelling 'Free Bird' when he was asking for requests from the audience and he gave them the middle finger and said, "See that? That a free bird."
All: (laughter)
Jeremy: We're going to have to start doing that.
Shoutweb: Okay, so far I get credit for the idea to have a free show on October 13th and the "Free Bird" idea.
All: (laughter)
Shoutweb: Are you guys thinking that the future is going to be big for you?
Terry: I can feel the buzz in the air. Something's coming.
Jeremy: A lot of people tell us that and it's exciting. It's a good feeling. There's nothing negative about it at all.
Sam: With our first record, musicians were always coming up to us and saying, "Yo dude, your first record was rad." Because of the timing and everything I don't really think the kids didn't get a chance to hear that record. This one hopefully pushes that one out and kids get to know what Cold's about.
Shoutweb: And it's for sale on your web site too! (http://www.coldonline.com) The title is "Cold"?
Jeremy: Yes, it's self-titled.
Sam: There's an EP coming out "Level 13" that's going to have re-mixed songs by Chris Vrenner on "Just Got Wicked" and two acoustic songs "No One" and "End Of The World".
Shoutweb: "Bleed" is the only acoustic on this record, right?
Sam: Have you heard the first record?
Shoutweb: No.
Sam: "Ugly" and "Strip Her Down"are on that one and they're acoustic as well. We're going to do an unplugged some time.
Shoutweb: When you play at these radio stations, you have to.
Terry: We've been doing that a lot.
Shoutweb: There are a lot of bands that say, "We refuse to play this song acoustically."
Jeremy: You have to be able to break your music down, you know? It's got to have a foundation that can be played acoustically.
Terry: We've been doing that a lot actually.
Shoutweb: That's the difference between good songs writing and just loud music. You don't have to turn it up to 11 to get it. I love "No One". It's like an anthem.
Terry: That's great. That song was written in like ten minutes.
Jeremy: I think it was our quickest song. I think it was written in like ten or fifteen minutes. We walked into rehearsal one day and someone just started playing the riff. The next thing you know the entire band and was playing it. We did change anything from there.
Shoutweb: This is before you were going to record?
Jeremy: We were going to write.
Terry: We walked in and just wrote the whole song right then without even thinking or looking at each other.
Shoutweb: When you were done were you saying, "Did somebody record that?"
Sam: We said, "There's another hit."
Jeremy: Okay, put it in the pile.
All: (laughter)
Shoutweb: I like it when I see bands that are not taking anything from their first record to put it on their major label debut record.
Jeremy: We'd like to keep progressing. We're not interested in re-recording anything.
Terry: We've got some cool songs for the third record already.
Shoutweb: Anything you guys might play live yet?
Terry: No, just the music.
Sam: We have material from seven years ago when we were recording in Atlanta that we could always bring back.
Jeremy: We've been writing for twelve years.
Sam: We've been a band for so long that we have songs in the vault, you know? Once the fans latch on to our music then we'll be able to just give them everything that we've made which would be cool.
Shoutweb: Are there songs that you recorded that may be hard to produce live?
Jeremy: We write everything live so it's easy to play everything live. We rarely write in the studio. Most of the time we go into the studio pretty much prepared. We'll write the songs and at least get a basic structure down.
Terry: Yeah, basic structure and then we'll add on.
Jeremy: All in all we try to remain as live as possible to where our live show never suffers because of our recording. For some people, it's hard to live up to their album but I think we do a pretty good job.
Shoutweb: Do you guys usually get time to do sound checks before shows?
Jeremy: On the Cypress Hill/Bizkit tour we did. For Tattoo The Earth we had like ten minutes to get everything on the stage and sound check. We got to play four or five songs depending on how long they gave us each day. It was fifteen to twenty minutes.
Shoutweb: Did you play the same songs every day for that tour?
Jeremy: Pretty much we'd stick to the same four or five songs but every once in a while we'd switch them.
Terry: We chose the heavier songs being that the tour we were on. If there are heavy bands playing, you don't want to play softer songs.
Shoutweb: Fans can check the web site for your tour information but can you tell me what the future holds for Cold?
Jeremy: We're hoping to go to Europe in January I think or maybe the Spring.
Terry: It will also depend upon on the album is doing over here.
Jeremy: We don't want to leave here if the album is starting to blow up here.
Sam: We were in Europe for the last record. We were over there for a while. We didn't get to concentrate in the U.S. as much as we wanted to.
Shoutweb: You guys have a lot of UK fans.
Sam: Which is very good. We'll go back and it will be great but we want to concentrate here.
Shoutweb: Who did you play with in Europe?
Sam: We played with Soulfly and Limp Bizkit and we played the Dynamo and stuff.
Shoutweb: I think you're web site is great. It loads really quickly.
Jeremy: It's great. It loads quickly and it's very easy to understand. Once you're there you know exactly where to go. The last web site we had, you wouldn't know where to put the cursor and it was a little confusing.
Shoutweb: Are all of you computer literate?
Jeremy: We have three laptops on the bus but of course you can't get on-line on the bus. At home, myself and Scooter get on quite a bit.
Terry: I am so computer illiterate.
Jeremy: He's just going to be a rocker forever.
Terry: Fuck technology.
Jeremy: (imitating Terry) Technology sucks... except for this new guitar...
Shoutweb: Having a laptop is good.
Jeremy: They have DVD players in them and we play video games on them. They work good as VCRs!
Shoutweb: So I hear you may be on Family Values?
Jeremy: We're hoping to get on Family Values. We're waiting to find out who the headliner is. If it happens then we'll be there. Nothing is confirmed. So what are you guys listening to on the bus?
Jeremy: Slipknot, A Perfect Circle, Deftones' "White Pony". Those are three off the top of my head.
Terry: Full Devil Jacket.
Jeremy: The new (hed)p.e. is really good. We played with them and Papa Roach in Virginia Beach which was cool.
Shoutweb: Okay, thanks guys for taking the time to visit with Shoutweb.
Check out coldonline.com
Cold
Cold, have posted a full length stream of their new song "Send
In The Clowns" featuring Aaron Lewis of Staind. The track can be found
on their official web site ColdOnline.com.
8.1.00
Cold
Cold have officially dropped off the Tattoo The Earth Tour and will now
join the Back To Basics Tour featuring Limp Bizkit, Cypress Hill/SX-10
and Capitol Eye.
7.31.00
Guys
.... Meet Terry....
Sorry i am a little slow on this one but Cold has a new member.
His name is Terry and he plays guitar.
Soon i will have some pics up of him and new 1's of the band from coldonline.com
..... if u havent been there u gotta check it out. Best Cold page out
there .... next 2 mine ... ha ha!!
7.19.00
Cold
CD Info
Cold
have set the tracklisting for "13 Ways To Bleed On Stage" which
is out September 12th. The tracklisting is as follows:
01 - "Just Got Wicked"
02 - "She Said"
03 - "No One"
04 - "End Of The World"
05 - "Confession"
06 - "It's All Good"
07 - "Send In The Clowns" (Feat. Aaron Lewis of Staind)
08 - "Same Drug"
09 - "Anti-Love Song"
10 - "Witch"
11 - "Sick Of Man"
12 - "Outer Space"
13 - "Bleed"
Aimee Echo of theSTART is also expected on the album. A
video was recently shot for the first single "Just Got Wicked"
in Los Angeles and is expected to begin airing in mid to late August.
The band has re-launched their official website www.coldonline.com
with a brand new look and design. There isnt' a lot up right now but they
will add more soon.
7.18.00
Cold
CD Info
Cold will be shoot the video for the song "Just Got Wicked" off of their
upcoming sophomore effort "13 Ways To Bleed On Stage" ( out September
12th). The shoot will take place in Los Angeles and the video is expected
to hit stations in mid to late August.
New
Cold MP3!!!
http://www.streetteam.net
have posted an mp3 of the brand new Cold track "Just Got Wicked",
the song is expected to be the first single off the bands new album which
currently has a working title of "13 Ways To Bleed On Stage" and is planned
for an August 29th release through Flip/Geffen. The album features production
from former Nine Inch Nails member Chris Vrenna and Adam Kasper and is
set to feature guest appearances from both Aimee Echo of theSTART and
Aaron Lewis of Staind.
(6/26)
Tattoo
The Earth Additions
The official Tattoo The Earth website has now confirmed
the following bands for the tour in addition to those previously announced:
U.P.O., One Minute Silence, Cold, Amen, Esham, and Systematic.
(6/26)
Cold
on Tattoo The Earth Tour?
Cold have now officially
been confirmed by their management for this years Tattoo The Earth
Tour, the group plans to release their sophomore album which now has
a working title of "13 Ways To Bleed On Stage" on August 29th. The album
features production from former Nine Inch Nails member Chris Vrenna and
Adam Kasper and is set to feature guest appearances from both Aimee Echo
of theSTART and Aaron Lewis of Staind. The track "Just Got Wicked" is
being eyed as the first single off the album and a video is set to be
shot for it in the near future. (6/21)
Cold
have set the track "Just Got Wicked" as the first single from their upcoming
new album due out in September. The single will hit radio airwaves in
August, but is already being previewed on Shoutweb Radio and Loudside.
The album title was announced as "Something Wicked This Way Comes", but
will now likely have a new title. It has been confirmed by Cold that Fred
Durst of Limp Bizkit will not be appearing on the album. Durst, who was
the A&R behind the last record, likely has a role on the album. Aaron
Lewis from Staind has confirmed that he recorded vocals for a few tracks
on the Cold album.
Cold is a post-alternative metal band based in Jacksonville, Florida. The group shares a similar aesthetic to Limp Bizkit, another Jacksonville-based band. Both group's favor technically complex, bleak and brutal metal, merging Jane's Addiction, Metallica and Tool into a raw, grimy signature sound. Limp Bizkit discovered Cold playing in the Jacksonville area and helped tehm sign to the A&M subsidiary Flip. Cold's eponymous debut album was released in the summer of 1998. Through constant touring, the band earned a modest, but devoted audience prior to the release of Cold
After
the dawn of Alternative Rock, dozens of bands began focusing their negative
energy to create spiteful songs with crashing guitars and howling, pain-stricken
vocals. Depression and frustration became the emotional conditions of
the hour, and the music scene became glutted with groups that either feigned
despair, or were so bleak they became inextricably tangled in their own
gloom.
Today, in an era where angst and volume have become passé, there are still
a handful of bands that choose to internalize anguish and regurgitate
it as a visceral, deeply moving melody. One of those is Jacksonville,
Florida's COLD, but COLD aren't your average self-immolating neo-grunge
outfit. While numerous heavy riffing alternative bands wallow in their
pain, COLD revel in the dark, celebrating its tense, inviting grip and
embracing its all-consuming energy. "I'm happy with the darkness,"
says front man Scoot Ward. "I’ve had a negative outlook for so long.
And the way I see stuff has always been bleak, so I've learned to make
that good. I just like to write songs that express how I feel."
Cold’s self-titled album voices the band's nihilistic outlook with lumbering
beats, twisting guitar lines, surging rhythms and rough, raspy vocals.
But while the group is certainly in touch with its inner hostility, the
members are also aware that beauty and ugliness need to co-exist in order
to present a balance equation. "We're influenced by lots of different
stuff, not just heavy music," says Ward. "We like Tool and Black
Sabbath, but we also love Radiohead and even Sarah McLachlan. I was really
into the Cure and Depeche Mode when I was growing up, and Sam was really
into Kiss and Sabbath. Our Stuff is just a mixture of all the things we
like. There's nothing wrong with melody as long as it's still got emotion
in it."
You can accuse COLD of being cynical or negative, but now one could possibly
call them shallow or unfeeling. Their debut disc shudders with emotional
revelations as cathartic as primal scream therapy. From the disoriented
fury of Kelly Hayes' guitar lines to the heartfelt hopelessness of Ward's
ravaged howls, COLD is a band that's not afraid to expose its true voice.
The first single "GO AWAY," which builds from a deep, bopping
groove to a churning wall of despondency, is a rant against the selfish
and ungrateful. "You look back, and can't imagine how people can
be like that. Soon after, he met Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst, who had been
a Gundig fan, and the two became fast friends. Durst liked the tunes Ward
was toying with, and offered to use his home studio to produce Ward's
demo. Durst played producer Ross Robinson the tape, and he immediately
offered to produce a full album. "That turned everything around for
me," says Ward. "We started playing this music, and I knew things
were fixing to happen. Within three months, it all clicked."
With a debut album that has already been well received across the U.K.
and Europe, and a second tour over seas planned for May with Max Cavalera,
COLD is well on its way. Q Magazine exclaimed a 4 star review, "they
display guile and genuine inspiration too often to be ignored," while
Kerrang offered a 5K/5K review which noted, "There's nothing better
than slapping a debut album on the deck and finding yourself swamped by
an exciting alien new sound...COLD songs are evil. They crawl under your
scalp and build a nest. Before you know it, you're over-run...
Fred
Durst is one of your biggest fans, and he wants you and your band to make
a record with Ross Robinson, a guy that after hearing you playing literally
"freaked out". Is that a dream come true? No, it's simply Cold's
reality. The band comes from the LB town (Jacksonville, FL), and despite
their friendship with Limp Bizkit and Korn, their sound is 1000 miles
away from them. Cold are definitely closer to bands like Pearl Jam, Bush,
or STP, than to Faith No More or the Deftones, but they still have that
sort of heavyness and darkness that made Korn & friends so popular.
Their debut album shows how much ground the band can cover, from the Korn-ish
intro of "Go Away" to the ballad "Strip Her Down".
They have just completed a successful European tour with Soulfly and Limp
Bizkit (selected dates only), and we met singer Scooter Ward a few hours
before joining the stage in Milan, Italy for one of the last dates of
the tour.
Interviewed
by Matteo Cipolla
Fred Durst is one of your biggest fans, and he wants you and your band
to make a record with Ross Robinson, a guy that after hearing you playing
literally "freaked out". Is that a dream come true? No, it's simply Cold's
reality. The band comes from the LB town (Jacksonville, FL), and despite
their friendship with Limp Bizkit and Korn, their sound is 1000 miles
away from them. Cold are definitely closer to bands like Pearl Jam, Bush,
or STP, than to Faith No More or the Deftones, but they still have that
sort of heavyness and darkness that made Korn & friends so popular. Their
debut album shows how much ground the band can cover, from the Korn-ish
intro of "Go Away" to the ballad "Strip Her Down". They have just completed
a successful European tour with Soulfly and Limp Bizkit (selected dates
only), and we met singer Scooter Ward a few hours before joining the stage
in Milan, Italy for one of the last dates of the tour.
How's the tour goin'??
Scooter: Very well...we'll get back in the States next week and
start a tour with Limp Bizkit and Incubus, before they start the Ozzfest.Then
we are taking a couple of weeks off and we'll start another tour.
You
are the latest band to join "the family" of Korn ,Limp Bizkit
,Orgy etc ,and it seems like the next stop is gunna be the "Family
Values Tour"....any chance of playing there?
Scooter:
We might play a couple of dates on that tour as well....but at the same
time we'll be touring with Creed ,so I don't think we may be able to do
the whole tour.Some dates would be cool though...
Fred
Durst promoted you guys a lot, right?
Scooter: We all basically grew up together ,and we are from comin'
from the same area as well....so ,when LB were recording with Ross Robinson
I was there as well to record a couple of songs....Ross freaked out and
he was like "Oh my God ,I gotta do this record!".Then he came
to my house ,we had dinner and we decided that we were gonna do a record
together.
How
long did it take for the recording process?
Scooter: Three months..
You'
ve just released a video for the song "Give" in which guests
also J.Davis from Korn....
Scooter: That's right.I wanted Fred to be on it....and we shooted
it in L.A...so Fred said he wanted to go and pick up Jonathan to the video
shot.
I
haven't seen it yet though...
Scooter: It's on the internet.I don't like the video...I like what
Fred and Jonathan did with it..but I don't really like it.The video we
did for "Go Away" is more wicked.....that is a bad ass video!
Cold....where
does the name come from?
Scooter: Ask Limp Bizkit....Wes from LB....we were throwing around
a million names ,and then he came up with that one which sounded perfect.
Still
talkin' about names....you are wearing a Serial Killer cap...any conncetion
with the song itself?
Scooter: In the U.S. Serial Killer is a skateboard company.It makes
skate stuff and clothes...it's just ironic that after we recorded that
song ,Serial Killer made clothes and stuff...pretty funny.So we said "Oh!Excellent!"
,and they sponsor us too.
Reading
the lyrics for "Strip her Down", it seems like you are talkin'
about a bad relationship ,about suffering and pain... does that come from
a personal experience?
Scooter: "Strip her Down" is about one of my band members
that had problems with his girlfriend... and that got me pissed off because
when people around me get hurt i get depressed as well. I was really upset,
and I just went crazy. Nothin' that happened to me.. but it happens to
everyone, at least one time you have some bad shit goin' down with some
crazy bitch...It happens to everybody ;it happens to girls too with guys.It's
just a song about being fucked over by some person.
You
are touring with Soulfly right now.Are you goin' along pretty well?
Scooter: I love the Soulfly boys...Max..great people. An excellent
tour...
Maybe
Max may guest on Cold next album...
Scooter: (laughing) Yeah!That would be cool...very different.You
never know...
Which
are the cds you are listening on the road?
Scooter: I am listening to the Cure right now.Deftones ,Limp Bizkit
,The Cure..and Public Enemy.That's the soundtrack of the tour. I like
all kinds of music..and you can feel it from the album itself.I was influenced
by The Cure ,Black Sabbath ,some grunge bands like Soundgarden and Alice
in Chains.
And
what about new bands...
Scooter: A band called Stain ,Fred just found them.They should
do a record with Terry Date ,they are bad ass.Another band called Failure
,which is awesome.They are a very cool band.
You
are a promoter....and you can make you own festival. Choose the bill...
Scooter: Deftones, Korn, Limp Bizkit ,Cold.
Think of Jacksonville, Florida, and you'll undoubtedly be awash in images
of good ol' Southern boys with long hair and even longer beards grooving
to the sounds of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, .38 special, and Cold.
. . Cold! "I guess we're part of the new breed of Southern rockers," says
guitarist Kelley Hayes, whose band's self-titled debut (A&M), is fixing
to change the way people think about the Sunshine State.
Cold's dense, primal grind is propelled by the rhythm section of drummer
Sam McCandless and bassist Jeremy Marshall, who provide a foundation over
which Hayes weaves his otherworldly guitar lines. "I love to listen to
old space movies and then see if I can duplicate the ound effects with
my guitar," says Hayes, who runs his '77 Les Paul Custom through an arsenal
of old-school effects pedals. The band's sound is topped off by the visceral,
often-times downright frightening howls of vocalist Scooter Ward. Cold's
roots reach back to the late Eighties, when they began gigging extensively
around Florida and Georgia as Grundig. Ward, dissatisfied with the group's
relatively traditional metal sound, jumped ship and moved back to Jacksonville
to begin writing songs on his own. Fate then entered in the form of Limp
Bizkit frontman Fred Durst, a hometown friend and fan of Grundig, who
liked the acoustic material that Ward was writing. According to Hayes,
"Limp Bizkit was in pre-production for their album with [producer] Ross
Robinson, and Fred was playing a tape of Scooter's acoustic demo. Ross
just fell in love with it and offered to produce a full album." Ward then
reunited with his old bandmates, who rechristened themselves Cold and
hit the studio to record their debut album.
The end result successfully preserves the metallic fury of Grundig while
combining it with lighter acoustic tendencies of Ward's solo work. So
is the band happy with the finished product? According to Hayes, "Everything
on the album is something that we've experienced. It's not all about love
and it's not all about hate; it's everything that you could ever possibly
feel, all rolled up into one." From Guitar World.
Thursday, February
12, 1998
Story last updated at 6:20 p.m. on Wednesday, February 11, 1998
The struggle to get signed
As the Jacksonville and Cold discovered, there's no straight and narrow
road to landing a coveted contract with a major record label
National contract boosts chances for local airplay.
By Tony Green
Times-Union music writer
Getting signed to a recording deal is every band's dream. No matter what,
where or who they are, any group that has ever recorded or played an original
tune, or heard the applause of local fans, has mused ''Man, if we could
just get signed.''
From the outside, getting signed to a major label may look like a snap
for ear-catching newcomers: Just record some tunes, exhibit a little bit
of talent, and eventually someone in the music business - which leaves
no stone unturned in its search for talented and deserving artists (not!)
- will discover you.
Well, that's not quite how it goes. The road to getting signed is almost
always long, hard and fraught with pitfalls, as the following story demonstrates.
Jacksonville area band Cold (formerly Grundig) recently recorded its debut
album for Flip/A&M records. The CD is already on the shelves overseas
and is scheduled to hit stores stateside in the late spring. The band
is cruising now, with positive press in magazines like Kerrang! and Guitar
World. But getting to where they are . . . well, here's their saga:
Incubation:
Cold traces its origins back 12 years, when singer-guitarist Scooter Ward,
drummer Sam McCandless, lead guitarist Matt Laughran and bassist Jeremy
Marshall started playing together as students at Fletcher High School.
They came up with the original band name, Grundig, from a German audio
company. They played their first gig in 1990 at a Jacksonville Beach club
called The Spray. The response solidified the band's emerging rep.
''We had friends and girlfriends, and everybody in the crowd was just
going off,'' said Ward. ''The people at the Spray had never seen any band
go off like we did, and the crowd was really responsive to what we were
doing.''
The creative phase: Grundig started recording almost as soon as it started
playing dates. ''We've been writing and recording in the studio from the
beginning,'' said drummer Sam McCandless, ''though we've had a bad habit
of procrastinating and not getting anything out there.''
After about two years of playing in clubs and other locales, the band
decided to put something on tape. It took about a month of heading in
and out of the studio (at roughly $50 an hour) to complete their first
recorded product, an eight-song tape.
The sell: In 1992, the group released that eight-song tape called Into
Everything. They sold more than 1,000 copies of the tape, netting between
$4,000 and $5,000. Then came the deductions, including studio time and
tape duplication. Making their own promo packages (which turned out to
be a windfall for the local Kinko's) and mailing them out to more than
30 different labels added to their costs. All told, the band spent about
$5,000.
The grindstone: The band had already established an extensive tour area
- from Jacksonville to Georgia to Alabama. They continued to tour, doing
anywhere from 70 to 100 dates a year, while working various day jobs.
McCandless and Ward were working as landscapers for Plantation Country
Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, for example. ''We never did the East Coast/West
Coast tour thing'' Ward said.
The thing was, a lot of the money they made got eaten up in travel expenses
and equipment. Their vehicles - they used their own cars and vans for
touring - needed to be serviced for the long hauls. And their musical
equipment needed periodic repair and replacement. Amplifiers especially
tend to go bad under the pounding of travel and regular high-intensity
use.
''We had already put all of the money we got from playing shows into the
tape,'' McCandless said. ''So all the profits we had [from touring] went
back into the band.''
The big gamble: Sometimes, when touring and recording isn't enough, a
band has to take an unusual step. In Grundig's case, it was a move to
Atlanta late in 1992.
''After a year of playing around Jacksonville, we decided we'd played
this town out,'' McCandless said. Bassist Jeremy Marshall's father had
a house in Atlanta, and he let them stay there for three years, with the
band paying phone, water and other utilities.
Marshall and McCandless fell into good fortune when they found out that
the owner of the Jolly Fisherman, the Atlanta restaurant they worked in
between dates, owned a 16-track recording studio right down the road from
their house. He let them use it for free to lay down some new songs.
The hard times: The band hit a crisis point when Laughran decided to move
back to Jacksonville, leaving them without one of their two guitarists.
A series of ads turned up Kelly Hayes, which allowed them to keep playing
dates. But money was tight. Gigs weren't as plentiful as they were in
Florida, and that strained the band's resources.
''We lived there for 3 1/2 years,'' Ward said. ''And we found out how
cliquish Atlanta is. Everybody is into their own little trends and trying
to be cool. They didn't accept us too well, they were more college-oriented,
and our music was heavier than what they were used to.''
One day, frustrated with the scene, Ward walked off the stage during a
gig at the Masquerade club. ''I hate Atlanta,'' he said. ''I have a serious
hole in my stomach for that place.''
In 1995, they moved back to Jacksonville.
The big break: In 1996, Ward, McCandless, bassist Pat Lally and guitarist
Kelly Hayes formed a new band called Diablo that lasted about three months.
While they were playing the scene, Fred Durst, lead vocalist for Limp
Bizkit, decided to lend the band a helping hand. He and his band, also
from Jacksonville, had their own deal with Flip Records. Flip, in turn,
had inked a distribution deal through industry heavyweight Interscope
which is known for releases by Marilyn Manson, Bush, Snoop Doggy Dogg
and 2Pac. Durst knew of Grundig from the local scene, but didn't know
that Ward and McCandless were still in a band until he requested permission
to record a version of a Grundig song called Little Bees.
''I called him up and asked him if they were going to [record the song],''
said Ward. ''So while we were talking, he asked me what I was doing. I
said nothing, so he said, 'Why don't you come over and lay down some tracks
tonight?' ''
Ward recorded two songs that night, Please and Ugly, the latter of which
made the final cut for the Cold album. The next day McCandless got a call
from Durst.
''When he [Durst] told us we could get signed, it was like 'Yeah, right,'
'' McCandless said. ''Then a couple of days later we got a call from him,
saying that Ross Robinson [who produced Limp Bizkit's debut, Three Dollar
Bill Yall$] had heard the tape and gotten goose bumps. He said that he
wanted to record the album as soon as possible.''
The final push: Last summer, Flip paid for the group, reassembled as Grundig,
to go to California for four months to record. ''Once we got the album
recorded, they started shopping us to majors [for a distribution deal],''
McCandless said. ''We wound up getting interest from both A&M and Interscope,
but A&M gave us a better deal.'' The A&M deal is for six albums, though
band members, like most music biz people, are loathe to speak about contract
details.
There was the problem, however, of the band's name. The German audio company,
Grundig, refused to give A&M permission to use it. Ward and producer Robinson
came up with the name Cold, and everything was set. The album was released
Jan. 29 in Europe, and the band is tentatively set to tour with the Deftones
this summer.
''The only advice I can give for bands looking to get signed,'' said McCandless,
''is 'Don't quit'.''
Makin'
nice isn't a high priority on Cold's agenda. The Jacksonville, Florida,
quartet make that perfectly obvious with their self-titled Flip/A&M debut.
What comes out of the speakers is a gray, firmly delivered stir of guitars,
melodic vocal savagery and throbbing rhythms, with unexpected beams of
poppiness and trippiness penetrating the cloud cover. But singer/guitarist
Scoot Ward has no aesthetic master plan—he's a working musician strickly
by default.
"Music is the only thing I can do," he says. "When I write a song, the
lyrics come out when I'm playing it, like they were supposed to be there.
As soon as I get a melody, it's all over."
And damn are these lyrics depressing. "Suffocate with me/I haven't become
anything/Suffer," Ward suggests in "Ugly." In "Insane" he reveals, "I
have gone insane, and I'm the one to blame." And on another track he consels
simply, "Everyone dies, my friend." Had it not been for fellow Floridian
and Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst, Ward and his bandmates—guitarist Kelley
Hayes, bassist Jeremy Marshall and drummer Sam McCandless—might have spent
the rest of their days in Jacksonville. But Durst got Cold's demo into
the hands of producer Ross Robinson, who moved quickly to get the band
a record deal. One question remains, though: why gloom champs such as
themselves and Marilyn Manson are emerging en masse from cheery Florida.
"I was just wondering that myself," says Ward. "I think it's the sunshine—it
freaks everbody out."
Links
www.coldonline.com
 |
is the first brilliant
band of the year." The U.S. market is sure to follow these sentiments.