Were there any specific experiences that people in the group had, that gave birth to the non-violent philosophy?
Just logic, really. Even if you win a fight, physically, everybody I'm friends with feels like shit after it happens. We learned that a long time ago. The best way is communication, and we just don't agree with violence.
Was anybody involved in gangs in their youth?
Nope. No gangs. Just your normal high school and college fights. Violence isn't fun. It brings everybody down, and that's not a good thing.
Your lyrics contain various drug references, mostly against cocaine. That's why I thought there might have been some background of violence, and then maybe somebody saw the light and turned around. I get the feeling that someone in the band had that kind of experience with drugs.
Yeah, I guess I can say that some... I'll just say "some of us"... did go through a little bitty cocaine phase, and we learned from that. We all agree that with cocaine and crystal meth and all that shit, you start using it over a long period of time, and then you start lying, and your personality starts to change. We all learned that a long time ago, so we're trying to pass on the information to people who maybe haven't learned it. We really think there are bad drugs and good drugs. Cocaine would definitely be among the bad ones.
What do you classify as, say, "good drugs"? I notice some psychedelic references in your lyrics. Are the "creative drugs" considered acceptable?
Basically, the two drugs we agree with that are illegal are marijuana and mushrooms. Those are what we call the "good drugs" that are illegal.
Is there any particular reason for that?
Just because heroin will fuck your shit up, and cocaine will fuck your shit up. We're into what's best for us, and we just kind of tell it on record. We're not saying, "Hey, nobody should go out there and do cocaine," and we're not saying, "Hey, everybody should go out there and do mushrooms and smoke pot." We're saying... we're just that way. We find that way works best for us. We're not going to preach or put anybody down who's doing as much heroin as they want; it's their life. But we're stating our experiences, and stating how we feel about certain issues. It's just our opinion, basically.
Do you have any plans to use a certain type of producer in the future? I know you guys are really happy with Ron St. Germain.
Yeah, we're really happy, because he is a kick-ass producer. However, we might want to do this next album on our own. We've done three albums with different producers, and worked with all different people. Now, on this fourth one, I think it's time for us and our sound engineer, Scott Ralston, to dothe album. It will be pretty much self-produced, with the help of Scott, who's worked on all three albums, and who does our live sound during the tour. He's always with us. He already has a grasp on our sound.
Scott is integral to the sound?
Definitely, man. He is the shit. He had so much to do with the recording of the last album; great, great ideas. Not only did he help with mixing and EQ'ing of sounds, but he came up with actual parts that should be in the music. He's a sixth member of the band; I would go so far as to say that, because he makes our sound so tight. I would be scared to hear somebody else do our sound at this point, because it takes at least two months to just get it really tight and understand what we're about. He's a great asset, so it will probably be just us and him on the next album.
So, to lose him would be like amputating a limb, practically.
311: It would crush me. Yeah, we could recover. There's always another great sound man. I guess it's just building up the relationship and building up the sound. There may be so many sound men that don't think like you do on various things. We're just lucky that Scott is right along our lines, in terms of living and music.
A large portion of your audience is comprised of the skate/snowboarder crowd, which tends to gravitate toward music from the Long Beach/Orange County area. I know you guys came from Omaha, which is a long way from the digs of Sublime and No Doubt. It seems kind of odd that you managed to develop a sound like yours independently, unlike bands in certain regions, who tend to influence each other. Were there other bands like you out there in Omaha, or was it you guys forging it all on your own?
We definitely forged it on our own, without a doubt. The thing is, different styles of music exist everywhere. We could buy the same kind of albums that they could buy in LA and New York, give or take a few really hard-to-find imports and reggae albums. Omaha has MTV and radio stations, of course, so we were just influenced by the music; not really by live bands, but by record albums. I know Nick and myself have always been interested in music. My parents are musicians, so music has always been there for me. I guess, in one way, it shouldn't freak people out that we come from Omaha, because music is such a universal thing. You get influenced by the same record albums and MTV everywhere. But, I agree with you -- there's not really any bands coming out of Omaha or hardly anywhere else, except for, I guess, Seattle, Athens, L.A., New York... It's a big surprise to people -- I know that -- because it seems like we came out of a farm place, but Omaha is actually a big city of maybe about 700,000 people. We just love music as well as anyone else does. We were just like, "why can't we do this?". It's amazing to have so many people try to tell us, "No, you can't do that," and a lot of people doubting us.
What kinds of people doubted you?
Just lots of people. We had our fair share of backstabbing and people just saying shit about us all the time. That's pretty much in the past now, or I hope it is, but it's amazing. I think it's somewhat natural for people to be jealous, or maybe a bit bugged, that you're doing something that you're happy doing. I don't really have an answer as to why some people were so against us doing it. I don't know why people wouldn't say, "Yeah, go for it, man," instead of saying, "Oh, really," shit like that. But we came from Omaha, and all I have to say is we, fuckin', just kept believing it, put everybody to the side that said we wouldn't do it. In actuality, maybe all those people gave us more power to prove our point -- that we knew we were as good musicians as 750f the bands out there. We were willing to fuckin' risk our lives and fuckin' drop out of college and fuckin' just pick up and leave. It was pretty brave, man, and people still don't really respect it. You just can't please everybody. You pick up and move to L.A., and some of the Omaha people will say, "Oh, they sold out." It's as lame as that. We have a lot of people on our side, also. I guess it is just a little bit more difficult coming out of Omaha than out of L.A. or New York or whatever. But we did it, and we're stoked that we did it.
It's kind of hard for me to believe that you wouldn't get virtually everyone supporting an idea like that.
Yeah, I know. It's just that everybody doesn't really believe in positive mental attitudes. It's a proven fact that if you just keep thinking positive about things, better things are going to happen in your life. If you're always doubting yourself, you're going to end up with not as good a career. We believe there's always a force you can't see -- your attitude affects your life. You control your life. If you want to be happy, you just think about the good things in your life and try to improve upon them. Luckily, it's worked out. Our philosophy is proven to us, because we've had that philosophy since 1988. We know there's another force out there that you can't see, that really does make a difference; it really does change, depending on your attitude toward life.