Show & Tell - an interview with Eric Weaver of 12 Stones

ERIC WEAVER of 12 STONES
06.28.02

There were 12 stones in the Stenness Ring, 12 stones set around the golden idol Crom Cruagh during Samhain, 12 stones in the foundation of the New Temple of Jerusalem and 12 stones set up at the spot where the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant stood...

I didn’t interview any of those 12 stones.

I did, however, get to talk to Eric Weaver, guitarist of rock and roll quartet 12 Stones.

Together just months [between 7 and 15 depending on who you’re asking] before signing their first record deal [with Wind-Up Records], 12 Stones has all the makings of a cinderella story. Typical reviews lead off with phrases like "boy-band looks" and "hard rock grooves." Think Creed without being contrived.

With a faint undercurrent of faith in God running throughout their self-titled debut, 12 Stones puts a much-needed spin on teen crisis; preferring to offer up positive attitudes in times of worry, anger or sadness. Not ones to wallow in self-pity or wear their angst on their sleeves, the four young men from Louisiana would prefer you get up off the depression couch and do something.

I spoke with Eric as the band prepared to take the road with Creed.

Show & Tell: Hi Eric, how’s it going?

Eric: It’s going pretty good. It’s been a busy morning and afternoon, we have a show in Baton Rouge tonight and I’m trying to get on the road – running late for that too, so…

S&T: Where are you guys now?

E: Well, I’m actually by myself. We’re close to home, so I just [went home] last night and slept in my own bed and I’m driving back out to Baton Rouge right now.

S&T: Where in Baton Rouge are you guys playing?

E: We’re playing at the Varsity Theater.

S&T: That’s by the college [LSU]?

E: Yeah, right on the edge of campus.

S&T: Yeah, I know that place. Years ago I saw Squeeze there – do you know them?

E: Oh yeah.

S&T: I saw them play and the power went out. It was so hot down there – it was during the summer – the power went out, and they’d only gotten two or three songs in, and everybody was so upset that they were like… "Why don’t you guys follow us, we’re going to go outside and play an acoustic set." There was a full moon out – I remember this, this is awesome – so the club emptied out into the parking lot; there were people sitting on cars, sitting on the dumpster, on top of the building, and they just jammed this acoustic set. It was actually a year before they did the first"Unplugged." Man, I’ll never forget that.

E: Wow, that is cool. Yeah, I had a pretty cool experience last night. We played at the Grand Street Dance Hall in Lafayette [Lousiana] and Stevie Ray Vaughan had played there and he signed the wall. I saw where he signed it, so that was really cool for me ‘cause he’s one of my big heroes.

S&T: That is pretty cool. Right, him and, who else did I read…?

E: You probably read Jimi Hendrix.

S&T: Yeah, that was I read, Hendrix and Stevie Ray.

E: Stevie Ray Vaughan, Alvin Lee, Albert King…and my dad – he’s probably one of my biggest [musical influences].

S&T: Is your dad somebody anybody would know, or…

E: No, but he should’ve been! [laughs] He’s just a phenomenal guitar player. He always tells me it’s in our blood. I don’t know what that means, but neither of us ever took any formal lessons or anything. He, just like I did, kind of picked things out from listening to music and trying to play it, you know?

S&T: Do you guys ever jam together?

E: Actually, they [my parents] have been living in the Middle East for the past three years. Before that we were in a blues band together – he played guitar and I played bass – and that was a lot fun but we didn’t get to play guitar together. But then, I probably wouldn’t have played guitar with him. It’s a few years later now and I’ve been playing non-stop so I can hold my own a little bit better around him. But still, he’s the man.

S&T: That’s funny. Most fathers are like, "You know, I can still whoop you!" but your dad would be like, "I can still outplay you!" That’s cool. Where do they live in the Middle East?

E: They were over in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. I actually just saw them for the first time this morning.

S&T: In how long?

E: Since I’ve seen my parents? It’s been… they came in for a show in April. They came for the first Creed date that got canceled [due to singer Scott Stapp’s car accident]. I hadn’t seen my siblings, though, in probably a little bit over a year. I haven’t seen my brother yet – he’s over having a little European vacation deal with his friends from his senior class that he just graduated high school with. We [Eric and his father] jam as much as we can, but we haven’t really been able to yet since he just got back. I imagine we will in the next couple of days.

S&T: That’s great to have something like that with your father, and I think it’s extraordinary that you cite him as one of your heroes. That’s pretty spectacular.

So, can we just talk about something that you’re probably sick of talking about, but I have a take on? [12 Stones has been referred to repeatedly in press as a Christian band] You never hear anybody say, "Hey, they’re a Protestant band" or "Hey, isn’t that a Jewish band?" You only ever hear it when it’s, "Hey, they’re a Christian band." And I think that people don’t ever make a distinction between a Christian band and a band that’s Christian.

E: Right, which is really sad. I have quite a bit of resentment and just bewilderment, almost, in the quote-unquote, so-called Christian media community. For instance, an example – P.O.D. They’re, you know, blatantly Christian guys, blatantly singing about God and everything, and it’s obvious that what they’re doing is sending that message out and trying to get people to listen. And you have these people, for instance, a guy from a Christian A.M. radio station called and we were doing an interview with him, and he says, "Are you going to be like P.O.D. and go out and play with all these Devil bands?" and really downplaying us. It’s like, who’s really doing the biggest service here, the people that are having altar calls at churches, or the people going out? I mean, Jesus himself hung out with prostitutes and…

S&T: Right, right.

E: You know? I mean, these people are just…there is so much these days that I have a problem with personally - with religion as an establishment, and not religion as an idea, but religion as it pertains to men, to mankind. I think a lot of things have been lost, based on people’s idea of what should be right, of people’s idea of what man has written, you know? My personal belief is to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and that’s it. I mean, whatever you do, you do to the best of your ability, but it [the Bible] says nothing about preaching to everybody. I don’t feel that I’m called to be any kind of a preacher or minister or anything, you know? I’m trying to play good music in a rock band, and I hope people understand that.

You can be a Christian dentist or a Christian mechanic, and you go to the dentist or you go to get your car worked on, and they don’t preach at you. Well, nobody’s going to sit there and bash them. But as soon as you want to make music and you call yourself a Christian, then if you don’t do it all that can be played on Christian radio stations, well then you’re evil or blasphemous or blah blah blah. And I think that’s terrible. I think it’s a horrible, horrible thing and I think it’s doing way more harm than good, these people being on their high horses. They’re hypocrites, bottom line, it’s hypocritical. There’s a name for that in the Bible, and it’s called Pharisees. It’s the same kind of thing, and it’s unbelievable to me how blind these people are. It’s pretty sad.

S&T: If it was a case where it was important to us to categorize everybody by religion, it wouldn’t bother me but that’s not what’s going on here. [laughs] And understand that while I’m an extremely spiritual person, I’m extremely anti-organized religion, that I have a lot of problems with…

E: So you know where I’m coming from.

S&T: Yeah. And I think that if organized religion doesn’t learn to adapt to how smart we’ve become as people, then God loses. So I’m always a little offended when I read or hear someone say, "Oh, they’re a Christian band," because it’s almost a negative connotation, like that means you can’t play good music, or you can’t play rock-n-roll. I don’t know, is it because rock-n-roll’s still the Devil’s music?

E: Yeah, I mean, it’s sad. It’s just really sad and embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to be pulled into the same league with these people, to be under the same label. But I don’t know, you know? What are you going to do? [laughs] We’re definitely not going to try to make anybody stumble or anything like that, you know? We’re about being positive, about their looking up to a higher power and everything in our music, and there’s nothing in our music that should be offensive to anybody – it can be taken in so many different ways and made to fit your personal experience, regardless of who your God is, or who the person that influences you is. That’s quite inconsequential as far as what we’re doing. The extent of our preaching is just, "Stay positive. There’s better things out there in the world, it isn’t as bad as everybody says it is, and you have just as good a chance as anybody else. Hold your head up high and take it one day at a time." You know, that kind of stuff. And in fact, people won’t let us say it!

S&T: Yeah, I know, I understand. I actually feel a little bad for you. That’s why I wanted to hit it first, to try and get, you know, what it’s doing.

E: And you know, I don’t mind that question at all. Like you said, I’m probably sick of talking about it. It’s the question, "So are y’all a Christian band?" It’s like, so what if we are? Or so what if we’re not? If you like the music, then listen to it. If you don’t, then don’t. [laughs] It’s frustrating at times, especially when you come under attack. It’s so frustrating, just the ignorance of people.

S&T: Yeah, I would imagine that it would be. If you’re just out there playing, and you happen to have a certain message that maybe somebody gets, or you happen to have a certain belief that maybe nobody gets, the label still doesn’t make any sense. And you don’t actually hear people walking around saying that P.O.D. is a Christian rock band. I mean, maybe just when they first came out, but some people were surprised, because it’s not like – who was it? - Stryper.

You know, sometimes they use metaphors, or stuff’s inferred, or sometimes there’s a song that has nothing to do with anything. And I think the connotation with "Christian rock band" is that it’s gospel with electric guitars, and I don’t think that’s what you guys are playing. So on behalf of everybody that feels like I do, I apologize for the people that don’t. [laughter] Regarding characterizing and stuff, I haven’t really had the chance to listen to your record except for the last few days, but there was some stuff in there that was actually a lot heavier than I expected. For somebody who hasn’t heard your music at all, how would you describe it?

E: Well, it’s a mixture really. I come from a straight classic rock, Southern rock, blues background, whereas Paul and Kevin come from more alternative and um… Paul really likes the screaming, real heavy stuff. Kevin likes the alternative stuff, like Nirvana and he gets into some weird stuff, and I plug my flavor into it and it’s a really good blend, I think, of a few different styles of music. I would say it’s kind of like modern Southern rock, I guess. I don’t know, it’s hard to do that.

S&T: I know, that’s usually why I ask.

E: Yeah, it’s tough to do. I would describe it as…if someone’s going to come to a show, and ask "What kind of music do you play?" I’d say, "Well, it’s rock music."

S&T: Yeah, well, there seems to be a movement lately towards more traditional, old-school rock-n-roll. You know, less sampling, more guitar.

E: Thank God. [laughs]

S&T: And I definitely would put you guys in that same sort of category. But I think when you would say to somebody that you play rock-n-roll, I think that’s lost a little bit of its meaning. A long time ago, you knew exactly what that meant but now you’re really not so sure, but I think now we’re starting to move towards that again, where it’s actually starting to mean something.

E: And I think 12 Stones is definitely on that boat in the sense that we can call our music rock-n-roll in more of the church spirit of what it was originally, rather than other bands saying that they’re rock-n-roll when it’s all synthesizers – it’s derived from pop, it’s not derived from rock at all. Our music is derived from rock, ‘cause that’s what we grew up listening to. I hope that maybe there’s some circle that can get people’s minds back on guitar-driven music and just rock-n-roll, you know, rather than stuff you can sample and re-mix and play in a club or whatever else, because I don’t know if we have a song you can do that with.

S&T: Right. So now, what did the other guys grow up on, musically?

E: Well, Kevin kind of grew up in the sticks, so growing up with his grandma he listened to a lot of Hank Williams, Jr. and Johnny Cash and stuff. But as a band we listen to 311 a lot. We try to learn from them, because they’re my favorite modern band by far, you know, post-1998. We try to take a lot from them. And it’s weird, but Kevin didn’t really get into music so much until we all got in a band. He was always playing in bands, but he didn’t really get into music to the point where he could say where his influences were from. So I would say he was listening to Nirvana and he listens to a lot of Pink Floyd, so he’s got his own little niche, I guess. And Paul comes from Deftones, you know, a little harder, edgier, darker stuff like that. And like I said, I come from blues and classic rock and stuff like that.

S&T: The reason I ask is not so much as a general question, you know, like "What are your influences?" but because your record is such an eclectic hodge-podge of different things. Like I try to nail things down, but I’ll hear something and be like, "Where did that come from?" And now that you say it, I can hear it – like, "that came from the Deftones, that’s where that came from." You surprised me a bunch of times. You got me used to something and then all of a sudden come out with something else, and I’ll be like, "Wow, that was a complete spin."

E: Right.

S&T: So now you’re going back out on the road with Creed?

E: Yeah, July eleventh’s our first show with them, in Virginia Beach.

S&T: And then you pick up where you left off?

E: Well, we never got to play with them. We were on our way to the first show in Fargo, North Dakota, and we got the call that it was canceled. So that was a pretty dark day.

S&T: Yeah, it’s a great bill to be on, so obviously you get all pumped up for it and then – boom – they pull the rug out from under you. What date was that?

E: Our first show was going to be April twenty-ninth, and then he [Creed singer Scott Stapp] got in a car wreck or whatever, so we went out with Gravity Kills, but then they pulled out for whatever their reasons were. We’ve endured a lot of crap. A lot of not knowing where you’re going to be the next day, not knowing where you’re going, how long you’re staying, not knowing when your next show’s going to be and all this kind of stuff makes for very hard times on the road. Whereas when we first came out, before Creed was going to happen and everything, everything was going really well – we knew where we were supposed to be and when months in advance, and it was a lot less stressful, a lot easier. But hopefully we’ll get some of that back with this Creed thing. Plus five-, ten-, fifteen-, however many thousand people that’ll see us every night, and that helps too. It makes you feel a little bit better being out here doing what you’re doing.

S&T: Now, Gravity Kills was headlining that tour? And it was just the two of you?

E: Yeah. Well, they were also doing some festivals and stuff on their own, same as us – we were doing some radio stuff in between – and it was supposed to be a couple of local bands, then us, then Gravity Kills, but we actually only played two shows with them.

S&T: I’ve only seen them live once and they were horrible. I’m hoping it was just an off night.

E: Yeah, well, they pulled out. I’m really not into them too much anymore. It’s so hard after having Creed yanked out from under you, it’s hard to go find another tour, it’s a scramble and not to mention a little disheartening, ‘cause it’s hard to promote an album not touring. It’s hard to let people see the band and see us live and everything, not being on a big tour. But we’re doing OK – we just made it to 53,000 [aggregate record sales] this week, and for not having a big radio hit and for not being on any tours, that’s pretty respectable.

S&T: Yeah, that’s very cool.

E: And hopefully with this Creed thing, it’ll edge that up a bit.

S&T: I’m sure it will, that’s some great exposure.

E: Yeah, it’s gonna be wonderful.

S&T: So I was going to ask, ‘cause I thought you were out there with Creed, how you’re being received with that crowd, ‘cause it seems like [the Creed crowd is] a crowd that’s going to really like what you’re doing.

E: We spend a lot of time on the bulletin board on our website, just reading and posting messages, and a lot of people on there are Creed fans that are big 12 Stones fans, so we have a good chance with that crowd, and not to sound high-and-mighty, but our live show is to the point where people will come in and they won’t know 12 Stones, they’ll say, "Who are these guys?" and I really think we’re going to blow them away. Just from my own experience, I’ve seen a ton of concerts and I’ve seen a ton of people play, and a lot of bands lack the stage presence, but I like just pure energy coming off the stage. Maybe that’s something that, like we were talking about earlier, that was lost with rock-n-roll in the true sense of the word, and maybe that’s something that’s coming back. We don’t walk around and act all emotional and such on stage – we throw down and jump around and with any luck we’ll play hard enough to where we’ll pass out as soon as we get off-stage. You know, if we get off stage and aren’t tired, aren’t building up a sweat, then we didn’t really put on a good show. People come out to see you and they expect a good show. We sit and talk about that before every show. But with Creed, I think we’re gonna blow some people’s minds I think.

S&T: Sounds like a good plan. Best of luck with the tour, Eric. I appreciate your time. Hopefully if you get around this area we can come check you guys out.

E: Cool, man.

S&T: Drive safe and have a good one.

E: All right, thanks, dude. Talk to you later.

interview by Scott Sisti