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ON THE COUCH WITH: The Used

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: Your last album 'In Love and Death' was certainly an eye opener and the album that broke The Used in Australia to a whole new level. Are you excited with the prospect of much bigger things with this new album?
Jepha - The Used: Im excited for the future, i think this record was a door way into new worlds where we havent even had time to explore yet. Our new drummer dan has opened up a whole new path for our band.

Access All Areas.net.au: What was the concept of the video that you were trying to portray with the new single 'Bird And The Worm' and how did it come about?
Jepha - The Used: You cant run away from fear because its inside of you, you have to face it or it will take over, and dont eat badgermilk it give you heartburn for a long time.

Access All Areas.net.au: Your album title looks almost like something of a freak show - what was the idea behind that?
Jepha - The Used: I dont think chadam would like being called a freak so im not gonna tell him you said that. He would take that as a threat and prob end up coming over to your house to settle things.

Access All Areas.net.au: You're also a headlining act for the recently announced Taste Of Chaos Australian leg of the tour, the tour which recently wrapped up in America. How did the American leg of the tour go?
Jepha - The Used: Fucking great, we were playing new songs and kids faces were being melted off from the rock haha

Access All Areas.net.au: Are you excited to be once again heading back to Australia to play even more shows?
Jepha - The Used: Yea of course sydney, brisbane, melbourne, adelaide are some of our favorite places to play in the world.

Access All Areas.net.au: Touring is a big part of The Used, and no doubt there have been many stories from the road, is there a particular story that comes to mind that you can share with us from touring over the years?
Jepha - The Used: Just bert and i went on a press run to germany, we flew from utah to california then from there to london then from there to germany, landed then got on a train drove for two hours then arrived at warner brothers germany, from there we went straight to press. i dont know why i just told you that haha but anyway the hotel we were staying at was a wellness hotel that was all about health and wellness. later on that night we were at a bar and bert smashed a mirror and cut his hand up pretty bad (on accident) we got back to the hotel and he was bleeding all over the place writing shit on the walls with blood. he got in his room and wrote KILL really big on the wall then fell asleep. the next day the maid came in his room and freaked out and called the police. a bunch of big german cops showed up and investigated the blood. in the end of it the hotel was pissed and charged him a shit load of cash to clean up everything haha

Access All Areas.net.au: Your myspace profile has had over 7 million views, how have you found the use of myspace and the Internet in general to help further the band's career?
Jepha - The Used: We took over our myspace and were emailing kids and adding people. plus chadam has his own myspace too, which has a story of his begining. we use youtube alot more than myspace, we have shit load of videos that we just make for the fuck of it, its really worth checking out. youtube.com/theusedchannel

Access All Areas.net.au: What's ahead for The Used?
Jepha - The Used: We are going to put out a ep later on this year with a bunch of great songs that didnt make the record, and its not that they werent good enough to make the record its just that we wanted to save some awesome shit for later on.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

The Used thrives on friction. You can hear it on the band's combustible self-titled debut. You can hear it on the tension-filled follow-up, In Love And Death. It's what makes a Used album or performance such an exhilarating ride. Throughout In Love And Death, you can make out a faint ticking sound, but you never know until the very last second whether it's attached to an alarm clock or a time bomb.

Both options are just as likely. The Orem, Utah-based quartet is made up of four distinct personalities, each with individual musical tastes that don't always overlap and strong ideals that are often diametrically opposed. The chemistry might have combusted a lesser band before it even started, but the equally passionate friendships and shared hardships that make up The Used have held it together.

"There was pretty much some drama going on during the whole making of the new album," drummer Branden Steineckert says with a laugh. "There's no such thing as a perfect working environment, and I think the music is better because it didn't come easy."

And what friction the band doesn't create within its own ranks, the members can easily find in the world surrounding them. To an outsider, the church-based culture of Orem might seem like the perfect incubator for a new rock revolution. But ask singer Bert McCracken what he's rebelling against, and in time-honored tradition he'll respond, "whattaya got?"

"I've rebelled against all types of conformity throughout my life, not just Utah's conservative culture," he says. "I rebelled against the Mormon Church by going to other churches. I rebelled against my parents by not eating meat. I rebelled against my friends and myself by doing drugs. And I rebelled against everything that was holding me down by playing music with these guys."

"That was my way of rebelling, too," says guitarist Quinn Allman. "Believing in something real and powerful like music. God is just a concept, but music is tangible."

The band's faith in music ultimately provided an escape from their sleepy hometown, as well as an escape from a combined band history that included poverty, homelessness and, for Bert, drug addiction. The Used documented its own history with surprising candor on the Maybe Memories CD-plus-DVD title, presciently capturing its rise from bedroom to enormodome on digital video.

The band's faith in music ultimately provided an escape from their sleepy hometown, as well as an escape from a combined band history that included poverty, homelessness and, for Bert, drug addiction. The Used documented its own history with surprising candor on the Maybe Memories CD-plus-DVD title, presciently capturing its rise from bedroom to enormodome on digital video.

"If you hear a rumor that there's a big party on the other side of the fence, you just want to peek over so bad," Quinn says of the band's desire to flee Orem, to which they've since returned following their success. "We just kept repeating to ourselves, 'We can get out of here. We can do this.'"

"In our minds, it wasn't an option to fail," says bassist Jeph Howard. "We didn't have anything to fall back on."

In many ways, The Used is a completely different band than the one that recorded its debut (the disc has since sold in excess of a million copies). Prior to the release of that album in June 2002, the band had only performed twenty shows in and around Orem. Since then, they've logged a superhuman 600 dates around the world, including successful stints on Ozzfest, Vans Warped Tour and, most recently, Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution tour. Not surprisingly, In Love And Death reflects that accelerated growth cycle.

"I don't think we could have written the first album again because we're all such different people now," says Branden. "Before, we were just writing alone in our house and we were hungry and we were trying to work jobs and we couldn't afford drum sticks and strings. Those things were easier to come by this time, but we had new challenges and new pressures weighing upon us."

The band worked once again with producer John Feldmann. As with the first album, Feldmann enthusiastically facilitated the band's experimental flights and fought alongside--and occasionally with (that friction again)--the band to make the best possible album, one built to weather fickle trends.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Branden says of the in-studio chemistry. "We enjoyed working with Feldmann so much the first time, plus he knows each of us so well as people. He watched us grow from being kids from nowhere who knew nothing to the musicians we are today. It seemed very necessary to do the album with him again. He complements us really well."

"We all knew that the final product we created together last time was totally sick," says Jeph. "And we were confident this time that none of us would stop until we were all happy with the results. We all got what we wanted and I think we impressed each other even though we'd butt heads. Everyone was really pushing themselves and trying new things."

As such, the album has incredible range. On one extreme, there's "Listening," a bullet-shaped juggernaut of syncopated guitar-bass-drums over which Bert alternately caterwauls and croons, simultaneously singing about and approximating a communication breakdown. On the other extreme, there's "Lunacy Fringe," a jaunty, Bacharach-esque pop number arranged for brushed snare, stand-up bass and pizzicato strings.

With a long-term career beckoning, you have to wonder if Bert has decided to rein in the pace and run this heat more like a marathon than a sprint. "That's a good question," he says. "Sometimes things just seem out of my control, but they really never are. That's what 'Take It Away' is about. I just need to take small steps every day."

www.theused.net

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