April 3rd, 2009 at 8:36am by Stephanie Stevens
As bands tend to crowd in on the radio waves a lot of us tend to back away from the commercial aspect. We think they are just a band that can write a commercial song and sell records? So we search in the “underground” to find that band with a unique sense and are not all over the radio! Well my friends if you have heard and looked over Knoxville, TN’s very own 10 YEARS then you passed up something very special.
These guys might bring radio singles to the table but if you looked beyond that and look deeper and get into the soul of who 10 YEARS is then you will find music with truth, depth and strength. To be honest the songs that have been released on radio are stale in comparison of what these guys really bring to the table, as you can see if you sit down with THE AUTUMN EFFECT or the bands newest disc DIVISION.
Open minds are so important in music. Just because a band is portrayed as a “radio friendly” doesn’t mean the guys don’t have talent!! So next time you hear that song on the radio and want to wipe away the band just because you think they are a “Commerical” think again!!……this is 10 YEARS they are what I would call the hidden gem in the rock world.
10 YEARS has a unique and very special way of making music. You feel it from the inside out as soon as you put on a song. You might know the band well for their amazing first single that put them on the map back in 2005 WASTELAND. A song that was mesmerizing, captured emotion, passion to be exact that gave the music public something to sing loud and proud. Now the band released DIVISION in 2008 and the singles BEAUTIFUL, SO LONG, GOODBYE has gotten the guys back on the charts and back on the road they call home.
So with DIVISION out and a third single ACTIONS & MOTIVES just being released, I was able to see the band play live for my first time in Boston at the new House of Blues along with getting the chance to chat with the founding member and the drummer/guitarist/songwriter, Brian Vodinh. It was a really down to earth easy chat with him and I got find out a bit about possible new music in the near future. The writing process between him and Jesse (vocals) and his love for every instrument he works with.
HOW IS THE TOUR GOING?
We just got done doing a headlining tour, which was fun but this is the 2nd show with Shinedown. We have actually known their singer Brent forever. He used to live in Knoxville where we are from so he was born and raised there so it wasn’t till much later on when Shinedown formed that he kind of went and transplanted himself in Fl. But this tour is cool because it’s the first time we are actually touring with him after knowing him for so long. It’s long overdue and very cool and we are a fan of their band and I think the feeling is mutual.
WELL ITS GOOD YOU GUYS VIBE MUSICALLY TOGETHER TO BECAUSE PAST TOURS SEEMS YOU WERE PUT TOGETHER WITH SOME DIVERSE MUSICAL ACTS!
You’re telling me (laughing)
I JUST THOUGHT MAYBE YOU GUYS THROW DOWN DIFFERENTLY ONSTAGE VS RECORD SINCE THIS IS MY FIRST TIME SEEING YOU
To be honest the live show is a little bit more intense then the album. We bring a lot of energy and the guitars are a bit crunchier and everyone throws down like you said a little more but yea for some reason we are always grouped with these metal bands. Like even doing Europe with a band like Devildriver, I mean those are great dudes but 10 YEARS and Devildriver in EUROPE!!!! No way!!! You want to talk about fearing for my own life. I was afraid I was going to get beat up half the time. So yea this is a great tour for us right now we are so happy to be here.
SO THE CROWDS WERE THEY AT LEAST OPEN TO YOU GUYS?
Well its funny cause the end of last year we toured with Mudvayne and that was the third time touring with them and this last time was the worst one of all. The first couple of times it wasn’t bad but this time well I think a lot of it had to do with the first single BEAUTIFUL which is far from a heavy track as you can get and then the 2nd single was the acoustic song SO LONG, GOODBYE. Ok, so we have an acoustic single on radio and we are on tour with Mudvayne (laughing) so we basically hung ourselves on that one, it was tough. We did win over some people though. I’d meet people at the merch table after and obviously there is some rude people out there but there was a handful of people that were like wow we didn’t know much about you but we love you and now that we saw you, Mudvayne seems too heavy. They liked the melody so there is a lot of people out there that like that stuff. Melody reaches into your soul and sometimes people shut them selves off from that or if they hear it on the radio they are like whatever but then they see it live and see how we really mean it then sometimes we can win them over OR sometimes we don’t
HOW LONG IS THIS YOU’RE GOING WITH SHINEDOWN?
We have 7 shows left counting tonight so not very long. Then we go home for like two days. We did have a week break and of course it didn’t end up that way cause then after the two days off we fly to Phoenix for a show then fly home then two days later the bus comes and away we go again
SO THE FIRST PART OF THIS YEAR DID YOU GUYS DEMO OUT NEW SONGS FOR A NEW RECORD?
We have been writing a lot. Its funny we talked about the whole heavy thing because the next record we have some pretty brutal shit!! The funny thing is at the core of 10 YEARS, when we started in my bedroom when I was 17 years old we sat there and tried to see who could come up with. The coolest riffs that would make you want to get up and move and stuff that felt really good so that is how we started. I think when Jesse came into the band cause he came in a bit later we had another singer before him. When he came in we were so astonished in the fact this guy could actually sing because our original singer wasn’t very much of a singer he was more in tuned with the Mudvayne crowd, more aggressive. Since Jesse can sing so well we started writing more open and not focusing a lot on riffs and more catering to Jesse.
Honestly though at the very core of 10 YEARS we are very passionate about writing music that moves people and moves us and has just really good groove and slamming riffs and we kind of abandoned that a little bit. Just as people in general as the year’s progress people are always changing, your thoughts, your attitude changes and songwriting styles change. So we are a band that is always going to make a different sounding record then the last but it just so happen on this one that is going to be our third record, its us going back to our roots even before AUTUMN EFFECT. Like going back into the early days, we still have riffs still hanging around that are like 16 years old that still kick ass but we just never used. We want to get raw on this new one, so dirty and raw and do something special.
DO YOU EVER WRITE A SONG AROUND A VOCAL MELODY?
It usually starts with me on an acoustic guitar. Every song we ever have written usually starts that way. We kind of kicked around and tried to write off of solely a melody idea but the only one I can think of that we did that with was BEAUTIFUL. The chorus from that song I came up with when I was watching TV. My wife had the control and she is addicted to those reality TV shows. So she put it on one and I was like ok we can watch it because there was hot girls running around in bikinis but as we were watching it the stuff they were talking about and the way they were acting, they were all drunk
WERE YOU WATCHING ROCK OF LOVE (LAUGHING)
I WASN’T!!! I think it was that Bad girls club (laughing) it was something awful but we are watching this and these chics were so hot but they were soooooo dumb. It was embarrassing and I swear to you by just watching that program for like a minute or two I instantly and I don’t know how but the words just came to me and the melody I just sang it. Then I called Jesse and I was like I’m going to sing you something what do you think about this and at first he was like ahh it’s alright. So then I just sat down and said I’m going to finish it and I wrote the music, the melody and I saved the verses for Jesse to write. That was the first song we started writing for DIVISION but the last song we ever finished and it almost didn’t make the record cause we kind of just didn’t like it. It was a cool song but we just didn’t feel it, but everyone at the label, management was like you have to finish this. So now I’m happy with the finish product but this song was like the only one that we really wrote in that way
WITH YOU AND JESSE WRITING IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCES IN YOUR WRITING APPROACHES?
OH MY GOD!! The albums named DIVISION for a reason (laughing) don’t let it fool you!!! But this is the beauty of what we do, when we write and in that capacity and we are off the road and away from all this. When he and I jump on a plane and go out somewhere together to get away from all the distractions. I mean we love our families but when it’s time to work we have to detach ourselves from that reality and go into the writing mentality and we hate each other when we do that. Jesse and I literally butt heads more then I ever butted heads with any other human being on the planet.
The reason for that is I have a particular way I write. I write very quickly, very feeling based and instinctual. He is strategic in his writing. He likes to take a long time he likes to get an idea he likes to sleep on it…for a month (laughing) kidding. But he does like to take the time and make sure every single word he is going to commit to is right, where as I will literally write a song in 20 minutes music and vocals and I won’t look back. I say ok this gets my feeling across and I’m done. So when we write together it makes for an interesting dynamic because his lyrics are more poetic then mine. My lyrics are very instinctual,
I’m more black n white, he is very grey which is cool because the stuff he comes up with I 100% admire, I think he is genius with what he comes up with it’s just not the way I do it. There are songs like JUST CANT WIN and literally if you go through the lyrics we didn’t mean to do this but every other line is mine and the others his, the whole song is that way and we didn’t plan on it. It’s fun once we can agree on what we want the song to be about he will go into another room and write 5 pages of lyrics or ideas and I do the same then we come together (laughing) then we are like how we going to put this together (laughing) and eventually we work it out and as much as the pulling teeth process is I love working with the guy. Maybe we are masochists but I admire his genius and respect him so much and what we do works.
SO ON AUTUMN EFFECT WAS THAT THE SAME WRITING PROCESS CAUSE ON THAT ALBUM I WAS A BIT LOST!!
Yea that was more Jesse lyrically. The big difference on AUTUMN EFFECT and DIVISION, on DIVISION we decided it was time to start sharing feelings a little bit more and on AUTUMN EFFECT that’s drenched in a lot of metaphors and the reason Jesse did that was because he didn’t really want to talk about his feelings. He didn’t want to express on how he was feeling. So in order for him to still release something he wrote that way. That was one thing after that album as a band but again respecting and admiring what he did we were like why don’t we really try and open up a little more on DIVISION. The songs on AUTUMN EFFECT like WAKING UP and SEASONS TO CYCLES those were songs where I wrote the lyrics and those are a bit more straight forward but songs like the AUTUMN EFFECT and some others is Jesse doing his thing. Plus another reason we decided to be more straight on DIVISION there was a magazine article when WASTELAND was number one on both rock charts and we were at the peak of our success and the headline of this article said “10 years: wasteland the biggest song no one will ever understand”. So we were like WHAT!! Well I get it but then we stopped and thought about it and yea kids still come up to us and ask man what’s WASTELAND about, I love that song!!!
SEE MY FAVORITE OFF THAT ALBUM IS THE RECIPE.
AHHH very cool!
BUT I ALSO THINK THAT ON DIVISION AND NOT TO DOWN ANY OF THE SINGLES YOU GUYS RELEASED BUT I THINK THERE ARE WAY STRONGER BETTER SONGS THEN THOSE
You’re preaching to the choir on that one!!!
SO HOW DOES A SINGLE IN YOUR CAMP GET RELEASED?
You want to talk about fighting an uphill battle! To make a long story as short as I can. When DIVISION was made and its time to pick the single we kind of, well we recently changed management but the management we had prior didn’t have so much clout with the label and the record label they kind of have their way of doing things like picking singles. A lot of times they listen with their eyes instead of their ears meaning that they are looking at charts and papers and research appose to just sitting down and putting a disc on listening and going that song right there is what we need. So they were looking at things that to us make no sense or really don’t matter but anyway we kind of were forced into the BEAUTIFUL and SO LONG thing. We are a rock band first and foremost even though we are not the aggressive heavy rock band we at least want to represent ourselves right. Like on the newest single we just released ACTIONS & MOTIVES. Ok it’s up tempo it’s a rock song but to release the other two wasn’t our choice and if we had sole control we would of went a different direction but it is what it is and now while on tour we try to prove to everyone we are a rock band
HOW BIG WAS BEAUTIFUL WHEN IT CAME OUT CAUSE I KNEW OF WASTELAND BUT THEN I DIDN’T REALLY HEAR ABOUT YOU AGAIN TILL I HEARD SO LONG?
BEAUTIFUL did fairly well; I think it got to number 4 on the rock charts
I TOTALLY GET WHY THEY RELEASED BEAUTIFUL BUT AFTER HEARING THE REST OF THE ALBUM IT’S STALE IN COMPARISION. LIKE DRUG OF CHOICE IS MY FAV.
Well we are playing it for you tonight!!!
AND ALABAMA LOVE THAT SONG!!
Funny thing about that is that is my favorite song to play live its just so much fun and today we wrote a new set list and for some reason we forgot to put it in.
SO YOU PLAY GUITAR, YOU’RE A SONGWRITER AND YOU ARE A DRUMMER; WHAT CAME FIRST?
Guitar playing; I started early like maybe 10 or 11 but growing up I had a little kid drum set and guitar so I was making noise or anything I could when I was young but once I started learning a few chords on the guitar I automatically wanted to start writing my own songs. So I wrote a bunch of crap songs and finally I started getting serious about it and thinking I might be really able to do this. So I met the other guys in the band and we have known each other since middle school or high school except for Jesse. So we all started playing together but we were all guitar players!! So we were like we need a drummer or we are going to have a band with 80 guitarists (laughing) so really even though we were going to have three guitar players in the beginning we had to find a drummer, well everyone we knew were awful. So we got a drum set and was so sick of not having one we decided that each of us were going to take a turn on it and whoever could keep the beat the best was going to be the drummer. None of us had really played drums and I sat down and could pretty much play. So that was in 1998 or 99 so 10, 11 years later here I am talking to you playing drums.
WHICH MUSICALLY HAS BROUGHT OUT THE BEST IN YOU?
Well the songwriting actually is the most rewarding. Each one of those things have such a different life to it; Playing guitar because like on the acoustic SO LONG, GOODBYE I play the acoustic with Jesse. It’s so much fun to be up there on that stage with the acoustic and play this song that means so much to us. The drums like tonight if you are watching me onstage most likely I will have the biggest stupidest smile on my face and I’ll be throwing drum sticks to my tech and just do stupid stuff and I’ll have a good time. It fulfills a totally different thing for me. Also guitar if you’re playing whatever song it’s comprised of this chord this chord and that chord and if you change those you are playing a completely different song. On drums I have never played the same song twice I constantly change different fills and that’s just a part of trying to be creative on the drums and breaking up the monotony especially being on the road when you are playing 5 or 6 nights a week. So drums are the little kid fun thing, guitar is I don’t even know how to explain it, it just feels so good and on an acoustic so many different ways to play it sometimes I play it really hard and almost like a angry vibe other nights it’s sweet n passionate but still songwriting is one of those things that when you sit down you have no idea what is going to happen and a hour later you might have a complete song and you just expressed such a emotion it’s indescribable.
AND YOU’RE A HARMONY GUY!
Yea I am (with a big smile) my father played first chair violin in a symphony orchestra and his whole family is very into music and the classical side. I used to study classical guitar so I love harmonies and all that stuff.
NOW I HAVE A FAN QUESTION. DOES JESSE USE A CERTAIN MICROPHONE?
He doesn’t have one that he is in love with we use a just a Shure sm58. But that is a standard rock n roll microphone.
I GUESS THE QUESTION WAS BASED ON HE SAW YOU GUYS LIVE AND THE CHORD TO THE MIC WAS A VERY THICK ONE SO HE THOUGHT A PARTICULAR MIC!
NO. He did have a chord that was completely wrapped four times over in gaff tape or something so I don’t know that was probably what he saw
SO REST OF THE YEAR JUST TOURING OR DO YOU THINK YOU WILL BE IN THE STUDIO?
I don’t know, I know we will be touring a lot. Studio might happen, we are talking about it but it depends on how touring goes. Right now we are at the stage where ACTIONS & MOTIVES just released as a single so if that flies then we are going to push for a song called RUSSIAN ROULETTE to be the next single. Then if that flies then we keep going.
DON’T YOU GET TO A POINT WHERE THE ALBUM SHOULD BE RETIRED!
If it’s still doing well HELL NO!!! (LAUGHING)
SO THE STUFF YOU HAVE WRITTEN NOW COULD BE THROWN OUT IF IT GETS TOO OLD AND YOU’RE NOT IN THE STUDIO!
True and when we go into really serious writing mode we will have 40 songs in no time
IS THAT YOUR BASE USUALLY?
Yea we like to have a lot more then what we are going to need just for options and even if we didn’t think that way just the way that we write it would end up that way because we are always coming up with new ideas. Usually go into the studio with 20 or 30 songs then cut it down until we have what we need.
ARE YOU DOING ANY FESTIVAL STUFF THIS SUMMER?
Just a bunch of radio stuff like in Texas and then we might go to Europe and do some festival stuff
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU NEED MORE VIDEO OR RADIO?
We need radio that is where this band lives. That is our lifeline!!
SO ANY LAST COMMENTS? I KNOW BANDS HATE THIS QUESTION!!
I just never know what to say.
SEE THIS IS THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO THINK ABOUT FOR THE FUTURE (LAUGHING)
I should….well then my last comment will be I will get your email address and e mail you when I think of one (laughing)
OK (LAUGHING) 2010 WE WILL GET TO THE END OF THE INTERVIEW. (LAUGHING)
