Chevelle Interview

The Gauntlet: Tell us about how the tour is going thus far...

Joe Loeffler: Well, the tour is going very well. This is the fifteenth show that has sold out. I plan on the rest selling out, which is really good for us, you know? Helmet's awesome to see everyday, you know, 'cause we're fans of them. It's really great to have them open up for us. So you know, it's going very well.


TG: Helmet is somewhat of a supergroup with this lineup...

JL: Yeah, they are they're really cool guys too.


TG: For Chevelle, this has been a slow steady rise to success. Do you feel that it has been good for the group to be developed in this manner?

JL: Yeah, its been a long time. That's definately been good for us, yes. If you can just hit that high level and stay there, that's good also. But it's been ten years for us, we have been crusing along pretty good.


TG: Do you feel that having the backing of tour supporters like MTV2 is really helping this tour along?

JL: I feel pretty good about it, we like to hook up with different sponsors. We'll see how this tour ends out, and then we're going right back out again.


TG: Will you be headlining again?

JL: Yeah, we're doing a bunch NASCAR shows, some really big shows and then we'll be heading back out on our own.


TG: So you guys are gonna hit some festivals this summer?

JL: Yeah, it will be a festival tour that we're headlining in the summer. Everything's not positive yet, but it's called Family Picnic and it's going to be a big tour that we're headlining.


TG: So lets talk a bit about the album...

JL: It's awesome, I like it a lot.


TG: Chevelle has a very heavy sound that still manages to retain a degree of commercial appeal. Many groups get more mellow over time, but Chevelle seems to get heavier with each successive release. Is this a trend that we can expect to continue on future albums?

JL: I hope so, that's what I like!


TG: Which songs are the most fun for you to perform in concert?

JL: Heavy music, obviously. I dont envy anybody that plays soft music for people, there's no reaction, you know? We like playing heavy music live and we don't play the soft stuff, we don't have a lot of soft stuff, but what we do have we don't play live. It just doesn't work.


TG: So how have crowd responses been, are the fans really getting into the performance?

JL: Oh, it's been crazy, you know? When we played in Milwaukee it was probably the loudest crowd I've ever heard. My friend was at that show 'cause we live in Chicago and he said that he could not hear us. We're loud. But you could not hear us because the crowd was singing along so loudly. So, I mean, this is probably the best response we've had from, like, any crowds.


TG: Chevelle seems to be bringing in a really large share of the younger audience. Sno Core is definately an event that is marketed toward a younger crowd. Do you think that having the kids out there contributes a lot to the energy at the shows?

JL: Yeah, for sure. Kids are crazy, you know? I feel like we've got a very broad range of age groups at the show. I see a lot of people that I wouldn't expect to meet. We just did a meet and greet and it was like most people there were over 40. Most of these people were older, so...


TG: So you feel like you're bringing in a really good cross section across the spectrum of fans?

JL: We do, you're probably right, it is more kids. But it's a pretty wide spectrum, yeah.


TG: So what has been your personal highlight of the tour thus far?

JL: For me personally, I just like hanging out with the guys in Helmet. You know frank and John and Chris and Page are just the coolest guys. I really enjoy that. That's when a tour can be really fun, when you can hang out with these people that you've become friends with in a band you really like. So for me that's a highlight. But I mean this place, we played here a couple of years ago with Disturbed we didn't have any response at all, the crowd just stared at us and tonight we sold it out, so three thousand people, that's pretty serious to come to a place like Detroit and sell it out. So this, for me, has been a real highlight of this tour.


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Tags:  Chevelle  , Joe Loeffler, interviews

EF    February 25, 2005