|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 SAM McCANDLESS of COLDFire, Philadelphia, PA 03.04.03 Cold's third release "Year Of The Spider" sold over 100,000 copies in its first week. Its previous effort, "13 Ways To Bleed On Stage," has sold just under 500,000 to date. The math isn't complicated, this band's fan base continues to grow. With heartfelt lyrics and infectious hooks that seem to get more heartfelt and infectious the more you listen, Cold's third entry is one of those albums that gets better as time goes on; its depth not immediately visible, hidden carefully behind a bigger, friendlier sound. We caught up with the band during a stint of small venue radio shows. Drummer Sam McCandless took some time with us after the show to talk about the new album. S&T: So when you got here, you found out you were playing acoustic [ed.'s note - due to the size of the stage, the band was forced to play an acoustic set that evening]? SAM: Yeah, we saw the stage and were like, "Oh no, what are we gonna do?" because it was too small for all our gear. So we just figured we'd do an acoustic thing and play the record [ed.'s note - unable to perform the entire album live, the band opted to play a mixture of both old and new songs followed by playing the actual CD in its entirety after the performance]. S&T: You've only had the one show before this, right, last night? SAM: Right, and we just played the album straight through. S&T: Any old stuff? SAM: We did "Just Got Wicked" and "No One" and "Gone Away." S&T: How was the response last night? SAM: Good. It was cool. "No One" and "Just Got Wicked" got really good response, and on "Gone Away," really good response. Then when we played all our new stuff, because they didn't know the songs, Scooter kind of became a storyteller, telling the crowd what the songs were about. And when we played everyone was just quiet, standing still and just listening to the music. It was really cool. S&T: Yeah, it felt like that tonight, almost recital-like, which I like. There's something a lot more intimate about it. It's like sitting in your living room. SAM: Or around a camp fire. S&T: Right. So this tour you're playing all small venues? SAM: Yeah, this radio thing is just doing a few shows before we go out, like, super heavy. We're doing twelve shows and then we're doing AOL.com. S&T: An online concert? SAM: Yeah, in New York. And then we're doing RollingStone.com and then we're going home for a little bit. Then we're going to be coming out and headlining and doing radio shows and what's tentative is Lollapalooza, Marilyn Manson... S&T: The first time I saw you guys was at the Hammerstein Ballroom [in New York City] you were out with [Marilyn Manson], two years ago or something. SAM: Mm hmm, that's right. And then Godsmack is another tour we're probably gonna do. And then Staind, we'll do a few shows with Staind, we're buddies. S&T: Right, [laughing] the second time I saw you guys was with Staind, where the hell was that? Convention Hall [Asbury Park, NJ] and it was like 120 degrees inside. Do you remember that show? SAM: Yeah, I think so, on the boardwalk. S&T: That was a bit much. SAM: Well, I'm glad you like the new stuff [ed.'s note - Sam is referring to a conversation that took place prior to the interview]. S&T: I really like "Stupid Girl." SAM: "Stupid Girl" is awesome! It's such a great song. When we wrote it in the practice room before we went to L.A. to record it, there wasn't any vocals on it. But we knew it was going to be something, you know, as soon as Terry starts the guitar and the build-up and the rhythm and everything? We knew that it was gonna be a good song, we just didn't know what we were going to do with it, and the whole time we were saying that it had, like, a Weezer vibe. We just did the tour with Weezer, and Rivers [Cuomo, Weezer's singer] is a fan of the band, so we were like, "OK, maybe Rivers' a guest on this song." And he was stoked on the idea. S&T: He's on the studio version of it? SAM: On the recording, yeah. He's in the background doing back-up, singing, like, the "whoas" and stuff like that. He wrote the verses and Scooter wrote the chorus, and all the music is Cold, so it really worked out. We didn't even know that song was going to be such a really great song until it was done. And when y'all do hear the record, we have tons of songs that could be singles, but that song was just the most fun, and we said let's put it out because it's just a great song. S&T: So did someone hear it and say, "that sounds like Weezer?" How'd it get a Weezer sound to it? SAM: When we wrote it, it always had a Weezer sound to it. In the practice room, the title of the song was "Weezer Song." We knew we wanted to do a song with Rivers, so that was the song. And Scooter had the chorus, but the verses we let Rivers come up with, and what he came up with was pretty cool. S&T: How about the rest of the structure of the song, how was that put together? SAM: The song is pretty much originally how we wrote it. The music is just like the same, the same vibe, and then he came in and it was like the song was written for him, you know? We gave him a great song to write lyrics to. S&T: Now is that typical? Like, take me to the beginning of a song - does it start with a riff, or someone comes in with a melody? SAM: It could start off with a drum beat, you know, inspired by a drum beat and then a couple of chords, and then it's usually a vibe thing when we're playing. It's like, we've been together so long that's why, if we do something acoustic it's just vibe, when we write we vibe, it's just like super comfortable, you know, and we just sit down and write. When we were out on the road for eighteen months and we came home and had a break to be with our families, we just went back into the practice room and starting writing. And all these great songs, well I'm biased but all these great songs just came out of us in six months, one after another, and we just knew we were writing the best record we'd ever written. S&T: Now typically if that third album's successful, you're more likely to have some kind of longevity. Are you guys feeling any kind of pressure? SAM: No, I'm not pressured because we've just been working our way up. We've just been climbing up the ladder a little bit and definitely with this record. In terms of musicianship, we've all become better songwriters, better musicians from all the touring and everything. So this record is a better record, and maybe the next record'll be even better than that. S&T: Based on one listen, it sounds really well produced. SAM: Oh, it's recorded really well. I mean, Howard Benson and our engineer Mike [Plotnikoff], he's done great work with the Scorpions and all these great bands. The sound of the record is like... when we wrote all the songs and it was just conceptual, the record sounds exactly like how I imagined it would sound. Howard Benson and his team just did a great job of getting the drum sound super thick. I think the drums sound like a dump truck falling from the sky or something, you know, just BIG. And the guitar tones are awesome, they had something like thirty different heads or something in the room and it was just recorded really well. And Howard was super impressed. I mean, he's worked with some really good bands, but he was just so happy with this album. He was like, "Man, y'all have to do your next record with me as well." And I don't think we'd deal with anyone else at this point, because I think the album's just flawless. It really sounds awesome. Now they're working on the cover art and stuff. S&T: Did you guys have any involvement with that at all? SAM: Well, the spider logo, that's my idea. When the first release came out, we had a "Space Oddity" EP, and the album cover was my wife's doll, Hortense, and the tarantula on its face was our tarantula, Wednesday. Wednesday's not with us any more, passed away, but that was just a cool image of the spider and I thought that could be our logo. And it's cold, you know, it's almost even snow-shaped, like a snowflake. The album cover is pretty much just the spider and then we put in the kanji symbol for "cold" to give it a sci-fi, Japanese cyberpunk kind of style. S&T: Have you seen the finished one yet? SAM: The finished one is actually the poster that you saw. That'll be the album cover, and then the inside is going to be a collage of us working in the studio and then a collage of all our fans and the tattoos they've gotten. S&T: Right, right. I remember when they did that because we got e-mails when we did the Project Cold site, and in fact on the Cold Army site like a hundred kids sent in pictures of their tattoos. Some of your artwork's up there too. SAM: Oh, rad. I need to get some new artwork up there, it's probably really old stuff. S&T: Send it over, man. You guys were working on this album for a while. Why so long? SAM: Well, first we took a break because we needed a break to be home with our families and stuff. S&T: And you must get sick of each other. SAM: No, I mean, we're brothers 'til the end, you know? It's just, after eighteen months of touring I miss my wife more than anything, she's my best friend in the whole world. And just being home with her made me so happy that going back and writing this record was a really good experience because that's the best part about Cold, is that we all get together and write these songs, and that's what music's about, writing songs. What effects people is the songs. Playing live is awesome, but writing songs is just the best feeling. S&T: How do you keep that up? We were interviewing the drummer from [another band], and in talking about his band he kept saying, "He did that," and "He does this" talking about how the singer pretty much did everything. It was all these other guys doing stuff, but it's his band, you know what I mean? [ed.'s note - I doubt he knew what I meant... I'm reading it now and I have no idea what I meant...] SAM: We've just been together for so long, like Jeremy and I as a rhythm section, we just all have a style that's Cold. So it's just magic when we play. We're a band. Scooter writes a lot of great songs, like "Ugly," but our band is a group effort because we all vibe off each other really hard, you know. It's a brotherhood band. S&T: What's the participation like when you guys are actually filling in the music for a song? Like, what's Scooter doing? SAM: Sometimes Scooter's just like humming the melody along and he doesn't have any lyrics yet, but just has a direction where the song's gonna go. And he'll have some really catchy melody and hook some words onto it and that's how songs happen. S&T: Very cool. Thanks for your time, Sam, it was good to see you. SAM: Good to see you too, man. S&T: We'll see you again. And again and again... interview by scott sisti |