Default Interview

Shauna O'Donnell: HI JEREMY, THANKS FOR TALKING WITH ME.
Jeremy: No worries, I'm sitting around waiting for the record to get sold.

Shauna O'Donnell: I WANT TO START WITH A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY ON THE BAND. I READ YOU WERE DISCOVERED BY CHAD KROEGER OF NICKELBACK. I WANT TO HEAR THE STORY.
Jeremy: Our drummer and I have been playing together for about fifteen years now. Two or three years before Default was formed we were in another band that opened for Nickelback in local clubs here. When we left that project and formed this new one we already knew him and his buddy Joey Moi. I was keeping in contact with Joey Moi actually, who is Chad’s best friend and is the producer/engineer at Mountain View. I was telling him all about this new band that we started. He and Chad came over at about ten o'clock at night one night and heard us jam a few songs out. I gave an actual cassette tape to Joey; this is how long ago it was. They played the cassette tape with the demo on it, loved it and we just started working together. We put the record together that we had minus three songs and that's how it started.

Shauna O'Donnell: THAT'S SO COOL, DOES HE STILL HAVE HIS LABEL 604?
Jeremy: Oh yeah, 604 is still there, but he has other things going, he's pretty busy, so it basically runs itself. Jonathan Simpkin, his partner, is really the one that runs it.

Shauna O'Donnell: YOU GUYS JUST RELEASED A NEW ALBUM TITLED COMES AND GOES.
Jeremy: It came out on October 25th. Amazon had a big ad for it.

Shauna O'Donnell: DID YOU RELEASE THIS ALBUM OVER A YEAR AGO IN CANADA?
Jeremy: Yes

Shauna O'Donnell: WHY DID YOU WAIT SO LONG TO RELEASE IT HERE IN THE STATES?
Jeremy: Well we couldn't because we didn’t have a deal set up in the States yet. We signed licensing with EMI Canada and I guess with EMI U.S. it didn’t fit their bill at the time or the timing wasn’t right. We had to wait a year to get all the right wheels in motion for that. Now it distributes through Fontana/Universal.

Shauna O'Donnell: THEY SENT OVER THE ALBUM FOR ME TO LISTEN TO AND I LOVE EVERY SONG. I WOULD DEFINITELY BUY THE ALBUM, I WAS IMPRESSED.
Jeremy: That is the greatest compliment. It was technically written five years ago. It’s so old for us because it’s already pretty much done in Canada. Timing is so key in this industry. We have had a great start, we had a really, really good first two days of downloads. The single is doing well in the States, it has cracked top 50 in both mainstream and active rock. It keeps going up and we are happy about that.

Shauna O'Donnell: I READ THAT YOU THOUGHT THIS ALBUM WAS THE BEST ONE YOU HAVE DONE SO FAR.
Jeremy: Yeah and now it is five years old and I think we can write better ones than that. Our next one might be a little more on the rock side of things I think. When you write a record you give it everything you’ve got and when it comes out better than you thought, it’s always a bonus.

Shauna O'Donnell: ARE YOU WRITING NEW MUSIC FOR THE NEXT ALBUM?
Jeremy: We haven't put anything together fully, but I'm starting to log a bunch of guitar riffs that we can all beat the crap out of. That is one of the ways that we have generally written music, we start with a riff and just go off of that. The other guys have written riffs as well.

Shauna O'Donnell: I NOTICED A LOT OF BANDS ARE STARTING TO FILM THEIR TIME IN THE STUDIO AND PLACE THE FOOTAGE ON YOUTUBE. DO YOU GUYS DO THAT?
Jeremy: We will probably do it for our next record. We didn’t do it too much for this one. All the good B role stuff from a few years back while we were on the road and had the cameras rolling would be a little more entertaining. We have some gold material that we need to go through one day and come up with something.

Shauna O'Donnell: ARE YOU THE MAIN SONGWRITER OF THE BAND OR IS IT MORE OF A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT?
Jeremy: It's a full on collaborative effort. I’m starting to do stuff on my own, but that’s beside the point. Everyone else has their own stuff to do and practice makes perfect right?

Shauna O'Donnell: RIGHT, ONE OF THE SONGS "CAUGHT IN THE MOMENT" IS WRITTEN ABOUT DALLAS'S SON. WERE THE LYRICS ON THIS ALBUM MORE PERSONAL THIS TIME ALL THE WAY AROUND?
Jeremy: I think just that one song was personal. There are a couple other songs on there, but I guess you probably better ask Dallas if they are a little more personal because he and Marty pretty much wrote most of them. We also wrote with Zac Maloy. I wrote a couple lyrics as well, but I’m only good for a line or two a song maybe.

Shauna O'Donnell: MY FAVORITE SONG IS “LITTLE TOO LATE.”
Jeremy: Yeah? That one did turn out really well. We thought it would do better here in Canada.

Shauna O'Donnell: I THINK IT WILL DO WELL HERE IN THE STATES. WHICH ONE IS YOUR PERSONAL FAVORITE?
Jeremy: I still love "Turn It On" the first rock single on the record. That one is so fun to play. I like the rockers a lot.

Shauna O'Donnell: YOU WORKED WITH BOB MARLETTE ON THE ALBUM. HE IS AWESOME.
Jeremy: He is such a musical mind, which is so awesome to have. He is also seriously one of the sweetest guys you could ever meet. I guess he’s working with another one of our friend’s bands here in Vancouver I believe. We are excited for them. He has done work with Saliva quite a bit who we have toured with and used to be under the same management with. I’m sure we will work with Bob again.

Shauna O'Donnell: I WATCHED THE VIDEO FOR "ALL OVER ME." YOU GUYS LOOK PRETTY COMFORTABLE WITH THOSE BIG GUNS IN YOUR HANDS. IS ACTING SOMETHING YOU HAVE EVER CONSIDERED BECAUSE IT LOOKED REALLY GOOD?
Jeremy: That was seriously the most fun we have ever had shooting a video. We shot the one for "Little Too Late" as well after, during the same thing, because it's a To Be Continued set. “Little Too Late” didn't turn out nearly as fun and cool as "All Over Me." I think people want to see crap being blown up; shit should blow up in a video.

Shauna O'Donnell: AND HAVE HOT GIRLS IN IT.
Jeremy: Oh absolutely, we got lucky because we were able to use a bunch of footage for that video. It was from a movie called 'Bitch Slap.' We only met the one girl, but it was kind of good because we got to use $100,000 worth of footage for our video. We've all shot guns in the past, especially at our manger's ranch in Texas. He has 1,000 acres of land, but we can fire too hard because we might hit a cow or something. We are like "Oh shit, don't aim it too high, you might hit one of the neighbors cows."

Shauna O'Donnell: ON NOVEMBER 17TH YOU WILL BE EMBARKING ON A WINTER TOUR WITH HINDER. I’M SO EXCITED ALTHOUGH YOU WILL NOT BE COMING TO THE WEST COAST.
Jeremy: No, we will be there eventually though. We are going to Portland this weekend, but that’s about it.

Shauna O'Donnell: YOU HAVE AN AMAZING FAN BASE IN CANADA, HAS IT BEEN HARD TRYING TO WIN THE HEARTS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE MUSICALLY?
Jeremy: When we did the first record we won over a million of them. It's just that we've been away and the last couple records didn't quite do as well. You’ve got to keep up with the scene sometimes. You have your diehards, but it takes a little more to win them over. We have been away for five years so we are just getting to know you guys again.

Shauna O'Donnell: SO IT’S BEEN FIVE YEARS SINCE YOU’VE TOURED HERE?
Jeremy: Yeah, maybe more, the last record was in 2004. We have a new label and I think they are pushing the record properly. That was the one thing we didn’t have in the past. Our label was just not able to do stuff properly. TVT just didn’t have it and I think it’s because times were changing. Now we have the new set up and we have our own private radio guy just for our label and management. Label and management are all under one roof now. There is just a whole new way that people do things nowadays.

Shauna O'Donnell: YOU ARE GOING OUT WITH A GREAT BAND SO I THINK THINGS WILL BE GREAT FOR YOU WHEN YOU GET HERE AND YOU WILL DO REALLY WELL. SINCE THIS IS YOUR FOURTH ALBUM, WILL YOU BE INCLUDING OLDER MATERIAL IN YOUR SET LIST OR WILL YOU KEEP IT MOSTLY NEW?
Jeremy: We will definitely keep a lot of old stuff too. It’s pretty much half old and half new. We want to bring the new Default to people as well. There is still more evolution to this band. That’s the best part of the music. In sports you get older, you’re body gives out and you can’t be at the top of your game, but with music you can keep writing songs. The older you get, I guess you can run out of fire in the belly, but that’s about it.

Shauna O'Donnell: I THINK BANDS GET BETTER WITH AGE BECAUSE YOU LEARN FROM ALL OF THE EXPERIENCES YOU GO THROUGH. YOU LEARN WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOSEN’T WORK.
Jeremy: Absolutely.

Shauna O'Donnell: WHAT ARE THE TOURING PLANS FOR 2011?
Jeremy: I would love to visit California, in the winter especially. After this tour we will see where it takes us and we will build up some momentum. We will go from there and we will have to get another bigger tour as well, like another Hinder tour. 2011 is fully open and we will be pushing in the U.S., so our main goal is to get down there.

Shauna O'Donnell: YOU HAVE TOURED WITH SOME AMAZING BANDS IN THE PAST. WHAT BAND DID YOU HAVE THE BEST TIME TOURING WITH?
Jeremy: We probably always have the best time when we tour with Nickelback because we are family. We know them so well. We did a tour in Canada with Three Days Grace a year ago and we know those guys too. The Bush tour was cool too; I was hanging in the back of the bus with Gavin just chit-chatting. We have toured with so many cool bands.

Shauna O'Donnell: I HAVEN'T REALLY MET ANY BANDS THAT WERE NOT COOL. MOST HAVE BEEN PRETTY LAID BACK AND FRIENDLY.
Jeremy: Yeah, we’ve got a good job.

Shauna O'Donnell: EVERYBODY IS ENTITLED TO A BAD DAY ONCE IN A WHILE THOUGH.
Jeremy: Oh hell yeah, absolutely. The bigger you get, the more people want to hate you. I kind of want to get people to hate me, that means I'm successful.

Shauna O'Donnell: ONCE THE HATERS COME OUT, YOU KNOW YOU’VE MADE IT.
Jeremy: People are always asking me what my favorite size of venue is to play and I say as long as it’s full. A club can be filled and sound better than an empty arena.

Shauna O'Donnell: EVERY SHOW, VENUE AND CROWD IS DIFFERENT. YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE BEST OF IT. YOU MAY HAVE TWENTY PEOPLE IN FRONT OF YOU, BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO PUT ON A GOOD SHOW FOR THOSE TWENTY PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY TOOK THE TIME AND PAID THE MONEY TO SEE YOU.
Jeremy: Even more so because those twenty people came. We played a show in Winnipeg, Canada, it was pissing rain and seventy-five people came when there could have been a thousand or more. We put on a show for these people who were sitting out in the rain. I will Facebook them after. I almost want to give anyone who came to that show free tickets to our next concert just because they sat out in the rain like true fans. They were loud too. It was a true thank you and that's why we do it.

Shauna O'Donnell: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE INTERVIEW, WOULD YOU LIKE TO ADD OR SAY ANYTHING?
Jeremy: You are very welcome. Please buy our new record everybody.

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Tags:  Default  , Jeremy Hora, interviews

Shauna O'Donnell    October 27, 2010